“Harmonic Resonance of a Quiet Dream of an Old Friend”

MyPicture

Joseph Molinario

The color is orange. Not like the actual color of a crayon or pastel but, the kind of orange that is produced when the sun reflects off of a wet driveway in the summer or of an old deteriorating film. And somehow, it is also the color of most of my memories as a young child. My 2nd memory as a child is in this sort of pastel memory of the wet carport where my first guru came to me in the form of a grandfather. He was washing the car in the driveway while at the same moment making sure that i didn’t run in the street due to my explorative nature. I may not have ran into the street but i was all over that fucking sidewalk running as fast as i could with some resistance from my diaper. i was 2 years old but had a perfect awareness as to what was going on and was conscious that i was thinking and i am blessed to be able to have the privilege of remembering my first guru’s entrance.

Joseph Molinario was born on September 15th 1934 and was one of two children. Growing up in an Italian American culture where Italian was spoken in the house, Joseph learned how to speak English in kindergarten. He used to tell me how he used to cry almost everyday and how afraid he was that he didn’t know what the hell everyone was talking about. “Can you imagine that?” he said.

i believe that this is the reason he became such a great teacher and had such an effect on my life because of his first hard lesson. He could teach you everything that he knew but he always started from the most fundamental and simple idea. He never made any assumption that you knew anything about what he was going to teach you so, you had to learn from the very beginning. His method was always simple in philosophical nature but was an extremely hard task to complete. This was not my first lesson though from this man.

i had in a way 2 private lessons a week (which is not very many) from this man and they were the most simple lessons ever taught. Learning to embrace awareness through experience and to love each other with complete patience and understanding.
Every Saturday morning since i was about 10 years old, i would wake up to sound of his car pulling up to my parents house. After a little more snoozing, i would wake up again to his laughter during coffee in the kitchen, then after more snoozing i would finally wake up to him at my bed side saying “joshuado? you want to help grandpa with the lawn today?” i stupidly said, “Um not today grandpa i’m tired”
He said okay then left. He kept at it for about another two weeks and i finally decided to help cause i felt bad that i was such a fuck and thought it was lame that he did all of the work himself.

Lesson One:

So every Saturday at around 7:30 am, i would wake up to his car pulling in the carport. i would meet him in the kitchen and we would hang and have coffee with my parents and just enjoy our time together. After coffee, we would head out and start the first of 4 lawns i would mow every weekend. It is easy to think i’m crazy by saying that cutting the lawn was also a lesson in meditation but, it was how i first learned to recognize the now and to think about my awareness. i used to hate it because it was so hot and i was in the beating sun for 4 hours or so in my juvenile clothing. After some time, this was how he taught me the importance of embracing these experiences because any experience in life carries a lesson but ultimately the importance is living in awareness of the experience.

Lesson Two:

Every Sunday in the afternoon, it was time to hang at my grandparents house. Without fail we walk in and you can smell love and experience through the filter of sauce, Italian meats, and alcohol. The sounds were very sharp and had brittle attacks with very dominant loud conversation in the lower frequencies. This was the sound of family and security. It was just like Saturday mornings minus the yard work and sweat.

Somehow we would always arrive an hour before it was time to eat so we would just hang and do whatever. Usually it was me interrogating the boyfriends of my aunts and creating a strange aura that i always embraced because i thought it was amusing. i’m not sure anyone else saw it this way but, those were my early experiments with social situations and observing cause and effect behavior. Joseph being a hard bodied muscular 60 year old masonry worker
would always sit at the “head” of the table but honestly he could have sat on the toilet and it would have been seen as the head of the table. Like my father, he was a natural leader but more importantly, a person who lead by example and was incorruptible by any means. i used to always be jealous of my aunts because after dinner they would always leave with their boyfriends and go have fun. This was ultimately their loss unfortunately because they were to selfish to see that there was a much more rich experience to be had at that table.

After dinner i would always sit next to my guru and just try to be like him or identify with his logic. He was so amazing to me and i just wanted to be like him. Unfortunately, i was not mature enough to understand that he was also trying to teach me to be myself. That set aside, he would let me have a little bit of wine and to me, this was the most exciting thing because it meant he trusted me and or saw me as someone who wasn’t a little child anymore. Again, my need for his acceptance was like my need for water and air. This meant the world to me.

One Sunday after dinner i said: “man when i’m older i am going to leave with my girlfriend like my aunts” he said: “don’t you ever say that because your family is here right now.”

Although he said this very kindly, i was ashamed of myself and had quickly realized his view of family importance and ultimately, love. After that day i quickly began to understand his mastery and understanding of what was important in our awareness. To be aware of life and to embrace (love) it.

Although i was learning how to maintain a yard, be an amateur carpenter, and a masonry worker, these were not the lessons he was teaching me. Those were all side affects of his mastery. I continued this work/learn from him until 1999 when he passed away in his sleep.

In fact i remember the last time i saw my gurus vehicle in which i kissed his cold hand. At that point he taught me a lesson in that very room at that very moment when i touched his hand. He “said” i am nothing but awareness that was once carried by a material illusion called my body. This was also the reason i decided not to view his body one last time with everyone else because i felt that my moment was there and that i ought to see him this last time an leave with his last important message. It was quite a privilege.

i remember when i was told that he had passed away and my first response was “but i loved him” as if it was the only thing that kept him alive but i soon realized that there was a whole new meaning to the word life. Life resonates in the infinite universe but, is recorded like a tape recorder in our memories hence the title: “Harmonic Resonance of a Quiet Dream of an Old Friend…” an electronic work that was written in 2009 in the very room that my guru slept for all of those years i was with him. i was channeling his resonance into the form of an audible vibration that was remembered in a dream the night before. One of the most powerful experiences ever by one’s lonesome.

“Harmonic Resonance…” is a piece that completely captures the way i hear an endless reverberated sound after an attack. The notes produced on the harp are all natural harmonics but, the attacks also activate a much longer resonance that allows all of the plucked notes to build the most beautiful chords ever given to me in my dreams where most of my works are secretly sung to my being.

to my first Guru,

Joseph Molinario- 1934 – infinity

-joshua carro

6:40 5/15/09

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