In the Arthurian legends, the Grail knight Percival visits the Grail Castle, where he encounters a wounded King. He is shown a mystical vision of the Grail, but in the morning the marvelous castle has disappeared, and the Grail King is not healed, because Percival does not ask the correct question:

Whom does the Grail serve?

To be a Grail knight, one must learn to ask the correct questions. Only then will the wounds of the world be healed.

Here is a Grail question: Whom do You serve?

Yourself? That's an answer. But how then will the wounds of the world be healed?

At my Yoga class yesterday, the instructor finished with a quote from the Dalai Lama. To paraphrase, he said, "My worst enemies and oppressors are my greatest treasure on this earth". Of course, he was talking about the Chinese government, which has occupied his country and exiled him for decades.

What is your greatest treasure? What do you learn from it?

In the last year I've been performing a lot and have some thoughts of professionalism in performance; some do's and don'ts (mostly don'ts!) of getting onstage and playing music. They may seem obvious, but I've seen a whole lot of performers make these mistakes. I've been guilty of some of these myself in the past! I hope I'm improving. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Do Not bore your audience. Keep things moving. Limit yourself to two sentences to introduce a song, unless you have some absolutely fascinating story to tell about it. (And what's fascinating to you may not be so fascinating to your audience!)

2. Do Not insult your audience. Unless you're Eddie Murphy.

3. The "Hi Mom!" syndrome: Do Not single out your mom, boyfriend, girlfriend, Uncle Bob, or anyone else in the audience. You are alienating the rest of the audience by doing so. There are ways of acknowledging individuals in the audience so the rest of the audience does not see.

4. Be humble. Always thank your audience. Arrogance has no place on the stage. Unless you're Mick Jagger.

5. Although the stage may be the greatest bully pulpit in the world, keep your politics off of it. See 1. Unless you are playing a political rally or really know your audience, you will end up either a) boring them or b) alienating them, especially if they are not of the same mind you are. The same goes for your religion.

6. Are you an artist or an entertainer? For most of us, there's a continuum in which we fall somewhere between the two. Some gigs you may have to be more of an entertainer and sing, yet again, all those standards everyone loves to hear; at other gigs, you can show off more of your art by doing your latest originals. Many gigs can be a happy medium between the two. For me, striving towards being an artist is the most rewarding. Of course, there is some truth to that phrase, "Starving artist..."

Okay, that's it for now. Back to the day job!

Wyllow