Time

I looked at the calendar yesterday and realized that I have four weeks until the Zion Native American Flute festival. And, I am working on a new group of Native American style flutes. They are a long way from being finished and the tendency is to speed up to meet this self imposed deadline. If I let that mentality take over then I'm rushing my work and the flutes will suffer. So, I'll just concentrate on a small number of flutes and try and control the time pressure that way. As well as maintaining a vigilance over my inner space to control my 'hurry up' program. I know that when I allow myself to get rushed then the quality suffers - I make more errors and excessive overtones may be the result.
Something that Geoffrey Ellis said has serverd as a guide for me. He said that the flute maker follows his ear. My ear will know if I am not on game. But by then the sound is emerging and some mistakes are not completely correctable by going back and making adjustments. So every step is equally importand - even those (especially those) that are made while the flute is still a rough block. Then, there's the element of chance. Thats what makes a hand made flute different than one made by machine. The hand crafting process allows for more variation than machine milling does. The very small differences in configuration of each element of the total flute each allow for the introduction of subtle differences in final tone. Some of these are experienced as 'over tones'. Overtones are deviations from a pure sign wave. Each deviation adds character but taken in total may muddy the tone of the flute too much. What I am talking about is not the same thing as being breathy or airy. These are due to -in my experience- design elements that are integral to the crafting of the flute.
This morning I went out into the desert at 330 AM. Almost full moon. Moon low on the horizon casting shadows over an already obscure landscape. Power walking over broken ground. Actually unbroken, pristine Mojave desert ground - but no trails. I wear my Kaibab foot gear because they are the only thing that will let me feel the uneven ground beneath my feet. And, maintain my balance as I walk and climb through the rocks. Just before dawn I could feel the little streams of cooling heavy air moving downhill along the ground. They were falling out of the canyon only inches deep. This is the first full moon where it was warm enough to get naked. But cold enough so that I had to keep moving to stay warm. That was OK because walking is my preferred relation to the desert. The first blush of sunlight came into a pure cloudless sky. Not the slightest of breezes only the thermal flow. Playing the flute on the site of what was once an Indian campground. Completely quiet - not even birds up yet. Not far from the spring that supports a nice desert oasis. The perfume from the blossoming native plumb trees was so strong It almost knocked me to my knees. In fact I was on my knees at one point near a beautiful old tree just sucking in its fragrance. The flute was singing my soul into sounds that were heard only by those powers that fill the voids of space. And I danced my dance of oneness with all life once more as the moon disappeared behing the hills. How many more full moons have I left to enjoy on this lovely, fragil little planet.