Ever Now

The Composer’s Notes

Back in 2020, during the imposed lockdown due to the Coronavirus, I was consumed by an overwhelming sense of fear and anxiety. As a single professional musician living and working in New York City, I felt I was staring into the abyss of sickness, disease, and death, and facing the very real question of whether I'd be able to survive a complete cease of income, and for how long.

My best friend recommended that, for relief, I look into the practice of Transcendental Meditation (TM). Another dear friend offered me the opportunity to leave NYC for North Carolina, where I lived for four months. I was able to take one TM class in person-15 feet apart, shielded, and fully masked. Usually, to learn the TM technique, classes consist of four consecutive and intimate days in person. My TM instructor is a compassionate and experienced teacher of 50+ years, who trusted me in a time when there was little trust to go around. I was able t o complete the instruction through the TM app, which had just been released in beta by TM.org.

Looking back, I am so grateful that I was able to learn the TM technique during that precarious time. I committed to the twice-daily practice, and began the exploration of the eight limbs of yoga, prahana breathing, and meditation. Since those days without any visible horizon, Transcendental Meditation has become a grounding and transformative experience for me. Though very challenging at first, after a few weeks, then months, I began to settle into a deeper sense of calm, which had the added benefit of improving my sleep, reducing the tremendous anxiety I had, and activating my imagination in ways that have opened doors to the unbounded ocean of consciousness, better known as enlightenment.

I experience extraordinary creative inspiration as a result of allowing myself time to process my thoughts and feelings in an objective way-to bear witness to the mind's perceived sense of reality, and to let those notions move on by like passing clouds. Rather than focusing on a particular thought, through practicing TM, I learned to allow thoughts to just be thoughts, without attachment to them, or defining them as positive or negative. It is liberating to free my mind to dream up new, and ever more charming, ideas. The mind desires two things: Novelty and stability. Too much of either can cause an imbalance.

I've spent my life and career studying and performing the inspired creations of many great artists whose works span the centuries. Music that moves me transcends mere notes and rhythms on a page, reaches into the core of my being, and reveals to me the true nature of life, love, and loss, exploding with color and nuance and life-force. Here, I reach for moments which inspire me to express those experiences through my own musical explorations.

~ Kate Dillingham