Trance.....

Have you ever stood transfixed - not wanting to move....

You've been listening to your favourite music and the next song begins - The familiar strains of a thousand nights, inexplicably and magically transports you to a place , today , that it does not seem to have taken you to before...

You stop what you are doing and drink in a sound that is so so so very rich.... The present moment is everything suddenly-and you want to lose yourself in that slow plucking of the guitar -

The sublime strumming - You smile - the comfort it seems to bring - Deceptive. You have no inkling of the storm that it is only just beginning to stir up in you - Then the voice begins and you close your eyes - shut them tight . You ache to drown out everything else- including the memories that might be flooding back...

The lyrics you always loved suddenly acquire new meaning - you feel the song is yours. No.You know that it's yours -no one can understand it like you do now - It was written for you , for this very moment . And the music , Oh the music - it is so beautiful it almost hurts... You reach over to increase the volume - the loudest you can manage it , not even opening your eyes to do that, if you can help it - you think to yourself that you are going to play the song over and over and over again - maybe until the day ends and you drop from exhaustion despite wanting to keep awake - Upon which, You kick yourself for missing that one note because you spent that microsecond thinking that thought instead of just listening... And drowning...

Every pore of your skin now seems to breathe the rhythm... And you feel more alive than you have ever been... You rise and fall with each note... You ride the wave - And let the music carry you - But as the intensity increases , you feel you need to hold on to something - yourself even - The angst in the voice has touched its crest and the chords it strikes in you are too many to be fully conscious of at once . But you want to be - you want both song and time to dilate...

The words continue to spin in your head - their profundity , simplicity , beauty , love and harmony hit you so deep , all at once you discover depths of feeling you did not know existed .

Intuitively , you know that this piece had to have been written in those rare moments when the musician IS his music and there is no ego .....

For those minutes, you are the response - The response that the inspired musician spends his life trying to evoke...

Humility descends upon you in those moments and you realise how truly fragile you must be for the music to be able to rock the safely harboured ship of your consciousness enough to un-anchor it .... But perhaps it is the music that is just so powerful.