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I've met many of you, but I'm new to the Austin scene. I'm Eric Wall, and I'm new here to Austin, and I only say that because I've been hearing about Midwinters now for a month, and the energy has been great, and the lectures have been worth all the energy and the prep, so I hope you're enjoying them as much as I am. When I talk about hymn singing and song leading to people, whether it's playing the organ or the piano, or even doing it without any of those things.

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One of the things I say is that my favorite thing about song leading in any form, in the case of the organ, is not choosing the sounds of the organ, as wonderful as they are, or the beauty of the piano, as wonderful as it is, or anything else. In a strange way, my favorite moment about playing or accompanying singing is the breathing space. It's a trick if you are a hymn player as an organist, for example, that breathing space between phrases or especially between stanzas. And it's my favorite part.

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It's absolutely my favorite part every time. I'm never weary of that little moment because in that little moment, you have to trust the room and lean into all the people and listen for or imagine that breath that will happen and trust that breath. And if you trust the breath, you will never, ever come in at the wrong time on the next stanza because it's something that everybody does together.

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It's my favorite moment in singing that's breathing space. And that breathing space is the origin of the name of the choir, whose conductor is our lecturer now, Conspirare, the Latin of breathing together. Their conductor, Craig Heller-Johnson, is here today. I've only been introduced to him here at the Midwinters, but his reputation and recordings are both mighty and they have preceded him.

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And so we look forward to what he'll do for us. Kant's Ferrari is a professional choir based here in Austin, Grammy award-winning, and continuing to be Grammy-nominated. Their album last year of Russian sacred choral music won the choral performance Grammy. prior or at least in addition to these things at various times in Craig's career.

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He is also the music director of the Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble, emeritus conductor of the Victoria Bach Festival, was artistic director of Chanticleer, the San Francisco-based chorus, Chanticleer, which many of you may know as well, was director of choral activities at the University of Texas here in Austin, has been an artist in residence at the Texas University School of Music. He is a composer and a published composer and arranger. And his arranging, of course, is not merely something that's published on paper, but is a particular feature of the Conspirari recordings and concert experiences, which are these magical and wondrous weavings and interplays of things that might

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seem unlikely and fall together rather beautifully and remarkably. In, I've learned this, in April 2013, he was designated the official Texas State musician for 2013, the second time that a classical musician has had that distinction. His pedigree of school alone is a bit staggering and wonderful. He went to St.

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Louis College And if any of you know St. Olaf College, I suppose what Texas is to brisket, St. Olaf is to organ and choral and church music.

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It's as magical a place for that stuff as I know. And I'm sure that was his feeling while there as well. But beyond St. Olaf, Craig went to the Juilliard School, University of Illinois, and did his doctorate at Yale.

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all places with exceptional music histories and programs. And I said a minute ago that I was just introduced to Craig for these midwinters, but in another way, I was introduced to him in a powerful way just last week. I had an extraordinarily wonderful privilege to sit with a former musician in a memory care unit along with her spouse and life partner and a medical caregiver.

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And I was invited and honored to be invited to share a daily ritual, which is 15 to 20 minutes of listening to choral music, primarily, maybe even exclusively, Conspirari music. And I was thinking about this as we heard the other lectures this morning and as we come into this, about this extraordinary power of music And as we sat in this memory care unit, much was flowing in the room, this amazingly beautiful music. I don't even remember the album, the title of the album.

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And I was glimpsing pictures of this couple from many years ago, dancing. So there was a much, there were different layers of memory care happening in this room. And as I watched this former musician, with the words of this music following, in her face was joy and concentration and clarity and playfulness and focus and nothing was blurred.

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The only thing that was blurred was the rest of our eyesight from the tears in our eyes. That is some of the extraordinary depth of music and some of the extraordinary gifts. And it's not that music is the only thing with extraordinary gifts, but it does have particular ones. And often they're particularly musicians who bring out those particular gifts.

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And so one of those particular musicians is our lecturer, Craig Heller-Johnson. Thank you. I want to check and see. I'm all set to go here.

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Great, you can hear me? Good. I will just avoid the lectern then altogether. Wonderful to be here with you.

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Thank you so much, Eric. It was a joy to just get to meet him and say welcome to Austin, to have another special colleague here and for that beautiful context for the power of music in so many places. So I am truly honored and delighted to be here.

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It feels like a distinguished treat for me to be a part of these very, very special days with these extraordinarily special colleagues who I've read about and known across the miles, but had the chance to meet last evening. And so I hope these are rich days for you. I feel very happy and grateful to be a part of it. That being said, I will say when good president Ted called me to invite me to consider this, and probably within the first 20 seconds, obviously he would have said, we'd like to invite you to be a part of this lecture series.

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And I heard the word lecture. Absolutely not. I'm certain I have no gifts for lecture. It's one of those bugaboo words that

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I think when I was in academia for quite a while too, would come up and I would just sort of freeze in paralysis thinking, I think that's something that other people are extremely gifted at. So we talked and he kind of talked me off that cliff. And I said a couple things. It's a very interesting time of year for me because I'm right at this time, at the sort of end of a big writing period for writing this piece, which is called Considering Matthew Shepard.

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So, first of all, I wasn't sure if the timing could work, but I said, If it could, I would really only be able to talk about Matthew right then. Is that possible? And he said, Well, we'd be very happy for you to come and talk about Matthew. And I said, And then if I could actually not lecture, that would be better.

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So I said, If we could just have a conversation. And so those are all my disclaimers. And I'm absolutely overjoyed to get to tell you about this journey. that I've been on and have it be a part of our shared journey now and always.

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By the way, I'll say also just to mention every sometimes 18 minutes or so I'm really affected by Cedar so I look like I'm going into a fit of something and I'm not really sick. I'm a bit of a germaphobe. I always like to say that so if I were sitting with you and you saw the kind of hacking that comes up I would be worried but this is Cedar in Austin so no worries at all. I'm feeling good from here down.

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So I'm really interested to ask you, before we talk about Matthew Shepard, just to consider what are your essential questions and what do you bring here today to this moment? I'd like to be in support of you for this hour, of tomorrow, during this period of having you bring to this time a reflection, a contemplation on do you have an essential question or some essential questions. It feels very much related to the work I've been doing in the walk with Matthew Shepard.

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He has brought me to a place. This has been really a journey of questions. I didn't set out for this to be a questions journey, but it is what it has become and I'll start out maybe just by mentioning too that every once in a while, a few of you here I know, but mostly I don't know, I speak a lot of about pine cone moments, these pine cone moments that have the potential to really break

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open. I know I've talked to my wonderful botanist friends and tree people, people who really know trees, and they've told me for years about these certain particular kinds of pine cones that require very, very intense heat to break open and to be able to spread and germinate. And I want I was always, I found it just remarkable, this, and it really, really intense, something like 1200 degrees for some of them.

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And as a sort of a very fiery living metaphor, I find that very powerful. You know, what are these experiences in our lives that, where something so intense is required to break us open and to shift our perspective, to completely shatter some of our preconceived ideas or some of the constructs that we've carried with us and the ideas to all of a sudden say, I'm sort of bereft of my old ideas. I have let go.

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I am suddenly in a wilderness and I'm either set with a blank slate or a set of new questions. And so I'm really interested. It's what I ended up calling this particular session today was all the things that sway and pass, listening for the essential questions. I want to read a poem for you that is central to the work of considering Matthew Shepard.

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It's by a Wyoming poet, Sue Wallace, and it's called Cattle, Horses, Sky, and Grass. I'll read it to you, you can kind of listen first, and then you'll have it to reference later if you like. Cattle, horses, sky and grass, these are the things that sway and pass. Before our eyes and through our dreams, through shiny sparkly golden gleams, within our psyche that find and know the value of this special glow that only gleams for those who bleed, their soul and heart and utter need, into the mighty throbbing earth.

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from which springs life and death and birth. These cattle, horses, grass, and sky, dance and dance and never die. They circle through the realms of air and ground and empty spaces where a human being can join the song, can circle too and not go wrong, amidst the natural pulsing forces of sky and grass and cows and horses. This chant of life, and that's really what I want us to be talking about today, this chant of life.

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It's really unnamable, but for the moment while we're in this poem, let's give it a name. This chant of life cannot be heard. It must be felt. There is no word to sing that could express the true significance of how we wind

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through all these hoops of earth and mind, through horses, cattle, sky and grass, and all these things that sway and pass. This chant of life cannot be heard. It must be felt. There is no word to sing that could express the true significance

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of how we wind, how we wind through all these hoops of earth and mind, through horses, cattle, sky, and grass, and all these things that sway and pass. So for me, two lines danced around as I set this. This became the opening movement for my piece. And there were two lines, All these things that sway and pass, of course, and then, Dance and dance and never die.

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So this is part of the mystery I know of my own human journey. What is it that dances and dances and never dies? Is there indeed a living spark in me, something larger than I am a part of? that flows, a river that flows on eternally.

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What sways in path? It seems like life is just such a series of letting go. And the core question that kept arising for me within the creation of this piece was in the face, in the midst of all of this confounding reality, in the example of this story of Matt Shepherd, and his brutal murder, in the midst of even this, if we enter this, is love at the core to be found anywhere?

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Is there the flame of love, is the essence of love to be discovered anywhere in the midst of this? And this was my inquiry and my query, my ongoing exploration. Before I do anything more, I just want to make some sounds with you a little bit. I'm wondering if

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You could just take a breath in and kind of make a sound, just a humming sound that kind of reflects your body right now. Hmm. Yeah. As Eric mentioned, Consparari, our little band of singers that gathers in Austin here, to breathe with, to breathe together.

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Take a good breath in. Make an audible exhale. It's that breathing that Eric was talking about, that gorgeous, trustworthy breath. This is my first entry point to begin to explore that this breath, is this something that's actually contained within my body, or is it something that actually enters this body and exists elsewhere after it passes through?

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Take another deep breath. As you exhale, listen to each other. Now let's just sing a hum, kind of a . Yeah, just a little more, make even a little more sound.

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Let it be a gathering hum. A little stronger. Beautiful. Yeah, something of this comes from living presence in a way that I can't articulate or explain, but trust, believe it does.

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Let's just sing a little bit. If you don't know it, but I bet you do, let's just sing a little bit of We gather at the river, join me Where bright angel feet have drawn With its crystal tide forever Wonborn by the throne of God Yes, we'll gather The river, the beautiful, the beautiful river Gather with the saints at the river That flows by the throne of God Let's do another verse.

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The river, the river Washing up with silver's gray We will talk and work forever All the happy golden day Yes, we'll gather the river The beautiful, the beautiful river Thank you, gorgeous to hear you, beautiful. So we're gathered at the river for our question asking hour.

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Let me tell you a little bit about, I'm going to go up here again so I can see more of your faces too, a little bit about how this all started and I want to tell you a little bit about the creation of this piece. considering Matthew Shepard. So it goes way back, of course, to 1998. I was living in San Francisco.

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I was in a rehearsal with the singers at Chanticleer, and we hadn't quite started our rehearsal. There was one singer who was a little bit late, and as he entered, he came all the way around the room. This was on October 7th, 1998. Walked all the way around the room, tears streaming down his faces.

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The singer's name was Matt. He's a beautiful singer. who will actually be a part of this production, I'm very touched to say. And I looked at him and I said, How are you?

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What's the matter? Anything you need. And he just said to me, right in my eyes, I'll never forget, he said, his name was Matt. And I said, Maybe we can take a few minutes, you can tell me more.

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And so Matt was the first to tell me about Matthew Shepard and what he had just learned about this young 21-year-old University of Wyoming student in Laramie who had been brutally beaten and left on a fence for 18 hours, tied to a fence. Many of you, of course, remember Matthew Shepard, and I am aware that as I have traveled with this story and this piece, that many people don't fully remember or don't remember at all. Of course, there's a whole generation of folks now who don't know the name Matthew Shepard at all, and so it's one of the reasons I really wanted to create a piece around his life and his death and the aftermath also.

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So that was, for me, a breaking open moment. I remember something went in. It was more than hearing a difficult news story from a singer whom I loved and cherished. But there was something that went in in a very, very deep way.

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Of course, in the coming days, I learned more about this young man, Matthew Shepard, as so many of us did around the world. He quickly became known around the world. The media descended upon Laramie. Wyoming, for drawing attention to this very brutal hate crime.

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And at that time, right in that time in October of 1998, there was something so strong in me compelling me, just I want to respond to this in some way. There was just great grief inside, great anger. As a gay man myself, this brought a lot of things to a head and incredible volatile feeling world that sort of erupted as a volcano in me.

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And I carried this through 1998 and 1999 into 2000. Many years, all these years, I kept Matt's story kind of in a place in me. I thought maybe someday I really, I must do this. Never went away.

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I kept knocking on my heart's door. Finally, this is probably three and a half years ago now, I thought this is something that's too powerful, it's something that's claimed me, and I need to respond to this in order to be living fully and authentically from what's driving in my heart. And so I very cautiously began. I thought, well, if I were, music seems like the most natural response for me.

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I'd like to respond musically. What would that be? And so my first setting as a choral guy, I've grown up loving the passions of Johann Sebastian Bach, the St. Matthew Passion, the St.

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John Passion. These are works very special to me. Not to mention all kinds of others, but I'm a choral geek, so I won't go into schutz and shine and shite. But this is a very sort of typical way of telling the story of suffering, particularly the story of Christ's suffering, but in many other contexts as well, just outside the, not just inside the Christian tradition.

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And so I thought, well, I need to compose a passion setting for Matthew Shepherd. There are powerful symbols in his story that just sort of almost demand to be told in this way. The impact of those days between October 7th when he was beaten and October 12th when he died were significant on many, many levels. So I first set out to write a passion for Matt Shepard.

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And I'll tell you a little bit about that and where that structure came. My many questions for me in the practical were what kind of music will be appropriate? I wanted this to be something that was an American work, that could find its place here. I knew all the passions from Germany, but that wasn't going to be what this piece was.

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And I also wasn't even that active as a composer. It took me a long time to actually ever use that word with myself. I'm still kind of finding my way and loving it. But what's the structure of this going to be?

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And looked and looked and looked and landed on some incredibly powerful texts by Leslie Neumann, who wrote a book called October Morning, M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G. Some of you know her. She has a very famous book that was not included in all libraries of hers, but Heather has two mommies.

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And so, excuse my exhaling breath in the mic here. So Leslie is a gorgeous writer from New England. And out of her collection of I think about 25 poems, all related to the events around Matthew Shepard because she was in Laramie for a speaking engagement at the time. I focused especially on a series of poems about the fence that stood out to me.

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The fence is a very powerful symbol. These split rail fences, many of you know them, if you've been to that region, they're very distinctive to that region. They are made from these lodgepole pines, gorgeous sort of solitary tall trees, very much a part of Wyoming. So the symbol is powerful on a hundred levels.

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And Lesley wrote about the innocent fence the day before all of this happened, the fence before. I just opened up. Out and alone on the empty, endless, empty prairie. The moon bathes me.

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Anyway, we open with actually just a bit of a country song, just true to the region. I should mention, too, that as I started out on this musical journey to create something for Matthew Shepard, I promised myself, no matter what, that I would let this be a heart journey and not let the head committee get involved at all, except where needed for their skill sets and other things. But when it came to being an editorial board, I needed them to stay out.

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All the parts, the insecure parts of me that thought, oh, I really need to impress, so here's something I need to do in this area, or I need to make a mark, or this needs to be, anything that didn't just say this needs to be a true song from the heart had to be put aside. And so just listen for what was going to be attentive to this. She wrote a very, very powerful poem about the fence that night, the fence being this object, once a tree, a living, breathing tree that

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that saw the pickup truck as they were coming onto the scene, that witnessed the beating, and then that held him all night long. This is an aria for baritone, and I'll just sing a little bit of it. You have some of the text on page two of your text document. I held him all night long

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He was heavy as a broken heart. Tears fell from his unblinking eyes. He was dead weight, yet he kept breathing. He was as heavy

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As a broken heart His own heart wouldn't stop beating The cold wind wouldn't stop blowing His face streaked with moonlight and blood I tightened my grip and held And that aria goes on to tell the story. I was so moved by this image of the fence, this gorgeous once pine tree that now was holding this young boy's body. That was a short guy.

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He was always a bit frail. 5'2 was the tallest he ever got. A young guy with an incredible, kind of radiant spirit, wore braces from the age of 13 to 21, just trying to get those teeth to line up.

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And here was this frail body being held by this mothering fence. The image that has, not an image, the movement that wanted to speak to me through this process was a very powerful sense of creation caring for itself over and over and over again. This tree holding one of its own fellow earthlings.

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I was very grateful in the movement of this journey as I was trying to collect and form a libretto that texts would appear just at the right time. You know, you do all your digging, and many of you know this in whatever projects might relate for you. But you do all kinds of, as we say, we do our 1% and let God do her 99. And so I did a whole full bunch of active 1% researching and digging and looking.

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And then blessedly, just like snowflakes coming in sometimes, there's this beautiful text. At the moment I was reminded of this gorgeous text from Hildegard von Bingen, which is at the bottom of page one. Most noble evergreen, with your roots in the sun, you shine in the cloudless sky of a sphere no earthly eminence can grasp and fold it in the clasp of ministries divine. You blush like the dawn, you burn like a flame of the sun.

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Could we just say that together once? Just I'll start us, let's go. Most noble evergreen, with your roots in the sun, You shine in the cloudless sky of a sphere no earthly eminence can grasp, and fold in the clasp of ministries divine.

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You blush like the dawn, you burn like a flame of the sun. Yeah, this idea of this incredibly noble, tall, royal tree, sort of queen of creation, coming to serve in this role and to remind me again in all kinds of ways. I want to remind you of my initial question.

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Is love present? Is the flame of the essence of love present somewhere in the midst of these most confounding realities? There were pointers, there were signs, gorgeous signs. Leslie had other tree poems.

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If we have time, we'll share a few more down the road just a bit, either today or tomorrow. But I love that this could form a thread through and kind of form the structure of this passion setting. I decided to include some of the most difficult texts, one in particular. On the page two, you know, a reality at Matt's funeral were some of the many protesters, and it wasn't just Fred Phelps and his Westboro bunch, but it was all kinds of people who

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gathered to sort of like the boil of this hatred had been lanced somehow and they came in and shared this hateful, venomous spirit, words, shoutings. And maybe we'll listen to just an audio. During the workshop performance we recorded a little bit of this. For those of you who might be of interest too, there's just a bit of a reference to Benjamin Britten's

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in the ceremony of Carol, this little boy, if some of you know that. Some of these little gestures, this little boy, so few days old, has come to rival Satan's fold. I was just grabbing through this. To live with this story day in, day out, day in, day out was just very emotionally challenging.

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And I was just grabbing for anything I could just to hang on to, sort of hang to a thread of this early question of mine. So maybe, Anne, we could just listen to a little bit. This is very short, The Protester. A boy who potates, a boy who'll bend.

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He's a price to bite up from that's not all bite. He has four issues on that light. The fires of ever burned hot and bread. The only good bag is a bag that's dead.

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Come on, kitty, time for bed Sing your friends, kissed dad goodnight A boy who takes a boy to bed The times of hell burn hot and breath Crucis and Crucifine, no line Crucis and Crucifine, no line It's hard to hear, and you can imagine really one of the more painful things I've done in a rehearsal setting is to hand out music to this to a row of, two rows of singers. perhaps a row of tenors and basses, maybe half of whom were gay, and to say, Can we sing this together? But it was my invitation to them to say, Can we enter this together?

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Can we face this with inquiry as we tell the story? One of the things, as I've mentioned, of course, the passions of Bach. He's our great master, our great teacher. One of the things he did so beautifully and skillfully in his passion settings was to, at certain moments throughout, give all of us as listeners a place to reflect or comfort to hold us when something was too difficult, too painful.

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And so I took my cue from him in my own small realm here with this piece, but I thought, There have got to be moments throughout this where we connect with each other and to say, Here's what I'm feeling. We can't just sort of tell this story bald and cold only. At this moment in the piece, one of our mezzos walks away from all of this, doesn't want to see it, sings a little bit.

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Don't want to look on this Never get near Flames too raw for me Grief deep Keep it away from me Stay out of my heart Some son, somebody's pain Some child gone, child, never mind Born to this trouble be born to this world, world where sometimes, yes, world where mostly no love. Smoke round my throat, rain down my soul, no heaven lies keeping them gone.

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Keep them never, keep them never Keep them away from me Keep them away, stay out of my heart Stay out of my hope Don't try any old story on me No wing, no song, no cry, no calm for ye No wound, never mine close up the gates of night Keep it away from me Keep it away from me So that's how I felt a lot of days. That's how you might be feeling a little now, even hearing this story.

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And it's all right. I wanted to have a real journey with each other. So Laura sings to that. Yeah, while we're there at page four, I'll tell you this thing, Fire of the Ancient Heart, was something that came later in my verse, but since the very beginning, I felt there has to be a place, a center core, a ritual place where we build a fire and bring it, not just our despair at hearing this, could this have happened?

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And all of the sort of out there senses, this makes me just completely sad or angry or enraged or you know, comatose, numb. So we bring all of that to the fire. But is there a place we can also bring a communal sense of the painful things that it can point to also of having to look at our own natures?

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In what way do I participate in this betrayal of the ancient heart? This betrayal that even in some small everyday kind of ways, where I forget the essence of who I am. I forget that I'm not separate than you.

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I somehow have started to believe the story that I am separate from you and that I have to protect walls and boundaries. I have to develop constructs that will keep me and you separate. So, brought a big ritual dance And my wonderful production colleagues were terrified at first because I said, I think all the singers need drums and we just need to pound on things and scream this out.

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And it's come down, I think we're to about seven or eight drums and they're all relieved. And by the way, I'll probably forget to say this, but for those of you in the area, I sure hope you can come on February 20 and 21. I'd love to kind of finish this story with you.

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That is to say finish this part of the journey of these two days. So if you're around, I hope you can join us for this. It feels like it would be incredibly special. And if you're not around, come back.

00:41:52.920 - 00:42:04.920

We would love that. So we brought a sort of a liturgical sense almost to this Fire of the Ancient Heart. It's very exciting, very rhythmically driven.

00:42:06.280 - 00:42:42.280

And I'll let you hear it when we get, when we sing it, if you're able to, and if not, we'll share the recording of it later. But one thing I think might be kind of nice, look down on that first column on page four, just under the boldface where you see fire howl, fire broken, fire burst, fire rage. Well, right under that, you see, we all betray the ancient heart, every one of us, all of us, his heart, my heart, your heart, one heart. You could actually be my first group to rehearse here.

00:42:44.520 - 00:42:50.200

You need no musical gift whatsoever outside. Just repeat after me. Say once. Here's the beat.

00:42:51.680 - 00:43:00.200

We all betray the ancient heart. We all betray the ancient heart. We all betray the ancient heart. We all betray the ancient heart.

00:43:00.600 - 00:43:06.440

We all betray the... Good. Okay, so one group starts that. So how about let's call that you guys.

00:43:06.440 - 00:43:15.240

You won't have to rehearse the second part. Okay? This rhythm is, Every one of us, all of us, go. Every one of us, all of us.

00:43:16.000 - 00:43:26.680

Every one of us, all of us. Every one of us. Okay, we have about five of these that we'll put together. We'll just do two together, but it's nice to hear you because it's never been heard before except on my computer.

00:43:27.160 - 00:43:37.880

So this is group... Oh yeah, and across the way. You'll have to split over in the other room, you guys. So I would just say find a dividing line and speak your favorite part.

00:43:39.000 - 00:43:52.280

Do you want to be about betrayal or the confirmation that it includes all of us? Okay, so this half of the room and you guys too, we all to go. We all betray the ancient heart. We all betray the ancient heart.

00:43:52.600 - 00:43:55.800

We all keep going. Here we go. Every one of us. Every one of us.

00:43:55.880 - 00:44:00.680

All of us. Every one of us. All of us. Keep going.

00:44:01.560 - 00:44:07.680

I'll join with another one. Keep going. In each moment, the fire rages. It will burn away a hundred veils.

00:44:07.680 - 00:44:13.720

Keep going in each moment. The fire rages, it will burn away a hundred veils. All right. Okay, you're beautiful.

00:44:13.960 - 00:44:29.960

All right. Very fine. We'll take it on the road. So this is going to build it, and then at the very end of the climax, our wonderful cantor will come out and just speak the words from Rumi, In each moment the fire rages, it will burn away a hundred veils.

00:44:31.080 - 00:44:48.200

This is a point in the piece I really want it to become a cathartic possibility for us, a moment of potential transformation. It was really difficult. As I spent time with Matthew Shepard, this story

00:44:49.080 - 00:45:30.840

and growing through it myself, how much we want to keep it as a story out there, and how much it has incredible potential to open us, heal us, bind us. Incredibly beautiful potential, which has been my discovery, which is so often the case if we're willing to sit and be with something deeply enough. This was true, and I'm going to say a little bit more about this tomorrow, but One of the things I felt missing again and again in the sort of literature, in the news clippings, everything, it was very difficult to find a lot about the perpetrators, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney.

00:45:31.720 - 00:46:00.760

Their names were there, the basic facts, but I, for the life of me, just could not find anyone who had really spoken about them. it bothered me in the telling of this story that there was so little and that we really want to shut them. They're off in prison for life without parole, and we'd like to just keep it there in our minds as well. But one of the things that kept knocking on the door of my heart was how can we include them in some way?

00:46:01.080 - 00:46:20.120

How can they be present? Not that I was really, that I had happy thoughts about them, but that this was an essential part of of this storytelling. And so I wrote a little quartet for solo voices called I Am Like You, which was just again asking a question.

00:46:20.720 - 00:46:37.720

I wrote it called I Am Like You, but the question is really, am I like you? I am like you, Aaron and Russell. When I think of you, and honestly I don't like to think about you, but sometimes I do. I am so horrified and just so angry and confused and scared.

00:46:38.440 - 00:46:54.760

that you could do things to another boy that were so cruel, so undeserved, so dark and hard and full of... I don't know. Late one night I had a glimpse of something I recognized, just a tiny glimpse. I don't even like to say this out loud.

00:46:55.160 - 00:47:08.920

It isn't even all that true, but I wondered for a moment, Am I like you in any way? I pray the answer is No. Am I like you? I bet you once had hopes and dreams too.

00:47:09.720 - 00:47:25.480

Some things we love get lost along the way. That's just like me, get lost along the way. I am like you. I get confused and I'm afraid and I've been reckless, I've been restless, bored, unthinking, listless, intoxicated.

00:47:26.000 - 00:47:39.840

I've come unhinged and made mistakes and hurt people very much. Sometimes I feel in springtime and early afternoon, the sunshine warm on my face. You feel this too, don't you?

00:47:40.600 - 00:47:47.880

The sunshine warm on your face. I am like you. This troubles me. I am like you.

00:47:47.880 - 00:48:11.800

Just needed to say this. Some things we love get lost along the way. It was a question, a question I needed to ask, and right around this time, The beautiful words of Tagore, the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, surfaced in my life, in my sphere again.

00:48:13.480 - 00:48:36.120

And back on page four, under the heading that you see at the bottom, We Are All Suns, that's a Tagore text. I'll read it. Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.

00:48:37.720 - 00:49:01.400

Once we dreamt that we were strangers. We wake up to find that we were dear to each other. So in my little studio where I was working that day, I had such a beautiful moment of a vision, and I saw Matt And I saw Russell, and I saw Aaron.

00:49:01.680 - 00:49:13.080

And I don't mean to say I couldn't go too deeply into sort of analysis. And what about this? But it wasn't about opinions. It was just a heart vision of these three boys.

00:49:13.160 - 00:49:28.600

I heard about all of them after I dug around. And when I went to Laramie, I met friends of Russell and Aaron, and I heard lots about Russell. mom in the trailer park, and who was a scoundrel at school, but just always kind of getting picked on and bullied. He was a little guy too, like Matt.

00:49:29.960 - 00:49:45.960

And I heard about Aaron, and I heard about Matt, of course, a whole lot. I thought these three young boys, what if? And then they, for me, were these stray birds that Tagore spoke of. And I thought if we can just, if I, for a moment, hold them in that.

00:49:47.480 - 00:50:17.840

Stray birds of sorrow. Come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and folder with a sigh. Once we dreamt that we were strangers.

00:50:20.960 - 00:50:38.840

We wake up to find that we were dear to each other. Dear to each other. Dear to each other. Dear to each other.

00:50:41.840 - 00:50:57.840

We are all sons of fathers and mothers. We are all sons. We are all rivers, the roar of waters. We are all sons.

00:50:58.680 - 00:51:19.640

On page six, I finish this beautiful text of Michael Dennis Brown. Sometimes no home for us here on the earth. No place to lay our heads.

00:51:20.040 - 00:51:44.200

We are all sons of fathers and mothers. We are all sons. If you could know for one moment how it is to live in our bodies within the world. If you could know

00:51:46.200 - 00:52:10.280

You ask too much of us, you ask too little. All I'm wanting to do here is ask questions, really. I don't have an opinion, I don't have a perspective, I'm sure I have a heart perspective, but my purpose was to keep asking questions. And I love these questions that get raised.

00:52:11.000 - 00:52:54.920

us, a reminder of even in our separateness with Russell and Aaron in prison and Matt now gone physically, all of us here with all of our own sense of separation, you know, a vision. Can we get called back to that place where we remember this truth of who we are somehow? Yeah, one of my awarenesses, and I've mentioned already a little bit, is, you know, with this piece is just that kind of quality of, oh, you know, even maybe before you were here at 1:30 thought, it's a reminder of all this.

00:52:54.920 - 00:53:18.000

It's a very heavy, heavy holding and yet I'm so drawn to its speaking power. I want to sing a little song and then I'll close and I want to just see if there's anything you might want to share. And I thought we needed a little place. What I kept feeling, too, was the word innocence kept coming up.

00:53:18.000 - 00:53:55.560

It's not a perfect word, and I worked with my librettist colleague very much, and there just wasn't a more right word, and I kept it, and now I'm kind of glad I did. You don't have, I don't think you have this text, but maybe you do, but I'll just sing it to you. I thought, what is it? Matt used to talk about when he lived in Switzerland, he was at an American school in Switzerland when his parents were in Saudi Arabia working and had many travels, which in Morocco, all over the place, always had a sense of wanting to come home.

00:53:56.000 - 00:54:14.840

Ironically, when he came back to Wyoming where he had grown up and became a student at the universe, he said, Oh, I feel like I'm home now, I finally feel safe. And he said that two weeks later, he was killed. And I thought, what is this yearning to go back home that we all feel in one way or another? And what is that truly?

00:54:15.320 - 00:55:01.560

And it has to do with that original question for me of this flame of love. Anyway, I'll sing it to you. When I think of all the times the world was ours for dreaming When I think of all the times the earth seemed like our home Every heart alive with its own longing Every future we could ever hope to hold All the times our laughter rang in summer All the times the rivers sang our tune

00:55:09.640 - 00:55:33.560

Some stormy story waiting to be told. Where, oh, where has the innocence gone? Where, oh, where has it gone? Rains rolling down wash away my memory.

00:55:35.040 - 00:56:15.880

Where, oh, where has it gone When I think of all the joys, the times that we remember All the treasures we'd believe we'd never ever lose Too many days gone by without their meaning Too many darkened hours without their peace Where, oh, where has the innocence gone? Where, oh, where has it gone?

00:56:19.160 - 00:57:05.560

Vows we once swore, now it's just this letting go Where, oh, where has it gone? So, I hope that my sharing conversationally with you today about this journey with Matthew Shepard can just be a support to you with your questions, what essential questions bring. I want to explore this some more tomorrow. We did the passion part of this, the suffering part of it today, and one of the

00:57:05.600 - 00:57:18.520

things I want to talk about tomorrow. I've spoken a lot about Matthew Shepard today, and I've referenced Matt. You've probably heard me go back and forth between Matthew and Matt, and it's very important. It's important to me, it's important to the family.

00:57:18.920 - 00:57:51.960

Judy and Dennis, who are just extraordinary people, and some of you may have encountered them either in a public setting or personally. They're just amazing souls, angels on this planet, continuing this work, this work of opening us all to a true sense of remembrance of love and, you know, to remove hatred with love's presence. But one of the things when I was visiting with Judy too, and it's in her book as well, and you hear her say this a lot.

00:57:53.720 - 00:58:17.880

The first time I sat with her, my jaw was sort of on the floor, on the table, sort of just, here's this woman who lost her dear beloved son. And here she is going all over the world, just the largeness of this was too much for me to take in, just so huge, and how do you do this? And I think she gets the question like every day from people. And she said, You know, that's Matthew, you're talking about Matthew now.

00:58:18.120 - 00:58:31.880

She said, To us, he was Matthew as our son. And she said, We have a relationship with Matthew. This work is about Matthew, which is something very different, much larger. Of course, they're related to it, but the personal for them is their son.

00:58:31.880 - 00:58:48.680

And So tomorrow, I really want to talk about Matt. I have to say, I really, I've never met Matt Shepherd, but I feel like I've gotten to know him. And when I think about living, breathing, presence, it's just been incredible.

00:58:50.680 - 00:59:19.320

He feels like a friend. And I want to tell you about my experience with that, because it's a really brighter part of the story, too. And also, I felt after we did the workshop in 2014, which was most of the passion music, some of which you've heard today, I just felt overwhelmingly Matt's knocking at my door saying, Don't leave me at the fence. You've got to bring the light.

00:59:20.600 - 00:59:29.760

And I thought, well, I'm not going to fabricate any light. I'm just listening to the story. And I just kept hearing him speak to me. Bring the light, bring the light.

00:59:29.760 - 00:59:43.720

Don't leave me at the fence. So I want to tell you about my journey with trying to integrate that, trying to be true. I mean, I really wanted to hear and respond. And so it's been extraordinarily beautiful.

00:59:44.200 - 01:00:09.160

There is so much light and you see around the world too with the work of the Matthew Shepard Foundation and just the mention of his name, there's this expanding heart. 30, so it's time for me to stop. Yeah, so there's just a lot of good news in tomorrow's session. And I'm excited to tell you about that part of

01:00:09.440 - 01:00:40.360

journey too. I feel really grateful for all of you just for holding this together today with me. It's it's not easy stuff at all and but it's also extraordinarily beautiful and it's a gift to be able to share it and yeah and I'm sorry we don't have any time for back and forth but I think we can talk at the four o'clock session so thanks you guys. Thank you so