The Hammock Papers: Gratitude.

24 January 2021

Gratitude.

Ray Wylie Hubbard on gratitude ...

so someone asked me about my spiritual practice. i thought for a moment and told him, "i play an E chord without the 3rd."

i wasn't trying to be a smart ass but ever time i read some joseph campbell or listen to lightnin' hopkins or see judy meeting me at the airport or some one comes up and tells me they enjoy my songs or i come up with a cool groove and some words that fit, i get this feeling that i'm right where i'm supposed to be and i'm doing what i'm supposed to be doing and i get grateful that i'm still teachable and able to learn new things.

now for me the real quest for the grail isn't dressing up in armor and riding off from the kings castle into a dark forest to test your courage...its how do i handle myself when i get up at 4 am to make a 6 am flight..and the guy next to me didn't shower that morning and the lady right behind me has a beautiful baby but the little critter poops 3 times from la to austin and the seat belt sign is on so she can't change him right away..

if i say its karma then i got to figure out what i did to deserve this.

if i say its luck then i should never gamble again.

if i say well it's the way its supposed to be and i ain't gonna always be here to be aware of such moments and i'm still very fortunate to be able to afford to travel and gig then i can endure such aromas as i'm sure there are worse. well then i don't flair up, i breath through my mouth and remember i was a baby once who stunk up where ever i was and that i used to stay up all night and get on a plane ever now and then wearing yesterday.

it was a good flight, we all walked away, and the days that i keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, i have really good days.

Ray Wylie Hubbard

Ray's recent gig on Austin City Limits is HERE.

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL