As we move into winter, I am becoming aware of a desire not to hibernate – no! enough of that already! – but for pubs, chat and warm hearths. Of communal singing, fiddling, foot tapping, hugs, dancing, sharing of pots of soup and chamber music. For concerts! I miss physicality – the touch and vibrations of others.

And yet, if ever there has been an invitation to go inward, this has surely been it. Listening to our own feelings and sensations, nourishing our beings not because it’s time for lunch or there’s something yummy on the table, but because our body is saying ‘I’m hungry’. Playing a note not because the public is waiting for it, or the conductor’s baton has come down or the curtain up, but because the need to make sound is welling up from deep within us. We are being asked to stop looking outward for our ‘motivation’, but inwards, for the thing that moves within towards the outside. We are being turned inside-out.

“Making a U-turn from our thoughts to our feelings re-connects us to our own inner experience and creates the grounds for connecting with others in a more authentic way. It’s a movement from head to heart.” – Tara Brach

Attending and giving many classes over the past few months online, I realize I have had only my own inner landscape – somatic, emotional, intellectual, musical – as a reference. No flattering (or unflattering) mirror, no clapping, clinking of glasses or slapping on the back. Just quiet. This challenges a deeply ingrained pattern of looking outwards for confirmation of my existence, experience and worth and that is why I believe the potential of this moment, whilst accompanied by so much tragic sacrifice, has gold at its core.

I am reminded of the first time I went to India. I arrived in Delhi and, in the taxi ride from the airport, fell into a complete panic. Contrary to the simple backpacking ‘find-yourself-in-the-East’ experience I was expecting, I immediately booked into the most expensive hotel I could find and did not leave for forty-eight hours. After my room service Western dinner I went to sleep on that first night convinced that I would not wake up again. (Interestingly, the only other time I have had this fatalistic conviction was when I walked on stage for my first recital!) Slowly, over the coming weeks, I began to understand that my overwhelm was because all my usual points of reference had been turned upside-down and inside-out. My experience of ‘aubergine’, ‘hotel’, ‘restaurant’, ‘plate’ or ‘kitchen’ was not anything like what was being called ‘aubergine’, ‘hotel’, ‘restaurant’, ‘plate’ or ‘kitchen’ here. I had to learn a new language. The words were the same, but the experience was completely different. I wonder if we are going through a similar shift globally.

In my view, the pandemic has inspired two main movements – one towards connecting for a cuppa or indeed live music over the garden fence, and another, towards connecting across cultures, time zones and genres for a different kind of nourishment in the global Café Zoom. In the latter category, but with the true heart of the former, I am proud to announce that today, Tuesday December 1st, sees the first classes on our new online platform, InsideOut Musician.

I will be kicking off my Limber Up! series with a session exploring the back. (Don’t worry if you can’t make the actual times, recordings will be available for a limited time). Meanwhile, if you have always wanted to improvise but cannot find the doorway in, don’t miss the magician, Liz Dilnot Johnson with Ways Into Improvising. Sophie Renshaw is offering fresh ways of thinking and being with a viola with Stylistic Matters and Viola Explorations. You can learn Scottish fiddle and free your body and spirit through world of Interplay with Mairi Campbell or have an individually tailored course of liberating one-to ones with the incredible baroque violinist Lucy Russell.

It is a truly stellar team. However, what has bound us all together these last six months has been heart, a commitment to our own authenticity, to listening to ourselves and one-another with deep compassion. It is our profound belief that, as we continue to do the ‘u-turn’ back to ourselves, practicing these qualities in our own individual lives and as a team, we will be there in the best possible way we are able for anyone and everyone who swings by. I do hope you will join us for our classes, discussions, and our very own pub/garden fence/global mix community of monthly ceildhs that start on December 17th.