musopower-NOT

racing cars and horses aside - all looking a bit grim on the musopower front in that not enough cellists have applied to the course i am supposed to be teaching on (partly because the bio they wrote from my website while i was in guadaloupe is RUBBISH and just says i am a teacher and a teacher and i run workshops and more workshops) and suddenly they 'can't afford' me for the whole week and the ha;f week they propose barely covers the travel costs i have paid myself. i think because i have a 'posh' accent (having grown up in south london i wish they could hear me aged 13) - do i ?-and live somewhere beautiful, they think i am riche and can add to their charitable gestures. they have no idea that the insulaion we have just paid for came out of the fee i should receive and that we are completely b*******ed without my bijoux income......and that after a concert at which only two people showed up andi will not be paid!
anyway house all a-trot. every day the process gets longer and the hot shower further away, but more exciting. another wall down today and ensuite beauties revealing thmselves to us in the space. it will ,it WILL (we chant) be beautiful! ONE DAY.....
meanwhile thought you might like to read what i wrote for my beloved friend (who read a rumi poem in our ceremony and did my wedding hair) sophie's hen night last week....
all love to all of you and can't wait to see you in oct. our new address and number is (during the days now but one day 4evah)
hameau les cougieux
chemin des demoiselles coiffees
84410 bedoin
tel 0(033) 4 90 12 79 40
ruthx

For Sophie On The Eve Of Her Wedding.

(As I wrote this in my garden a beautiful auburn butterfly circled around me, or perhaps she was circling around you,….)

My dear Sophie,

There is a Taoist story of an old man swimming in a turbulent river, playing in the raging water rapids, when suddenly he is swept under. Just then Confucius and his pupils see him and rush to save him. But by then the old man is standing up on the bank, vibrant and unharmed. When Confucius asks him how he was able to survive the raging river and rocks, the old man replies, “ I know how to go in with a descending vortex, and come out with an ascending one”


To me, you have always been a weaver of magic threads; an alchemist who transformed the energetic patterns of generations into gold; a poetess who stood with courage in the mysterious place between heaven and earth and drew designs never drawn before.

But when you met Ian, you became a woman.

You have braved a thousand raging currents to get to your inner wedding, and when you got there, he was waiting for you with the full and ever-expanding circle of his love, and you placed the magic cloak you have always been weaving around him.

From that moment it seemed to me that the vortex ceased and you rested at last in the natural rhythm of tides.

To be savoured and nourished at source; not to have to dilute your essence, and to be able to follow a new current at any moment without getting sucked into the vortex is something you have always craved. Ian has given you this most precious of gifts, and you him.

Now you know the great and archetypal gift of the mother; the colour which shines through all the darkness, unconditional love.

And now you are pregnant.

Sophie, Tomorrow is your wedding day. Tomorrow you will exchange rings with your beloved, rings that symbolise a life encircling and being encircled, in growing orbits of love.

Today, women encircle you, and we place a cloak woven of many friendships on your shoulders. Draw it round you if ever you feel the need to touch the feminine.

Today we hold you, dearest friend and sister, in our hearts, as you go - on the way to your wedding, and on the way to motherhood.


I live my life in growing orbits
Which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
But that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
And I have been circling for a thousand years,
And I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.

Rainer Maria Rilke