Happy Valentines Day

     It is finished!  I spent the day Saturday sanding the guitar with 1200 grit sandpaper, which is like sanding with a rag.  It took me all day to sand and polish it.  My neighbor was putting decking boards on his new deck and finished up about the same time I did.  It is amazing how long the sanding and polishing process takes.  I bought some foam pads for my drill and used them to put on the three different polishing compounds.  I think it turned out better than what I could do by hand.
      The evenings this week were spent fitting the pickup to the finger rest and then wiring the pickup to the volume control and jack.  I always forget how to do that and it takes me longer than it should.  Yesterday I cut the hole for the jack and installed the pickup.  Today I made a volume knob and set the action.  I hope to play it tomorrow night at City Lights Cafe for their Valentines weekend dinner.  I thought that would be a good way to make sure everything is working properly and the action is set comfortably.

       Here is the prayer for the day.  Another thought by Rumi.

There is a path from me to you
that I am constantly looking for,
so I try to keep clear and still
as water does with the moon.

Finished the broken Martin

      Well I fixed the Martin and got it back to the owner today.  The pictures will show how bad it was. There were two cracks that ran from the bottom all the way to the bridge.  The top was loose from the end pin all the way to the waste on the cut away side.  One cross brace was broken in half and loose all the way past where it crosses the other brace.  I glued the top cracks in stages and pulled them tight with the mop string I use to hold the binding on the guitars when I make them.  I also had to pull the sides in to align them with the top when I re -glued it.  I had to make a clamp to hold the brace in place inside while the glue dried.  It's very tedious working on the inside of a guitar.  You can't see what you've done until you pull your hand out.  Then you have to have a good light and a mirror.  It takes a lot of patience.  When I finished all the cracks I made a bone saddle for it and strung it up.  After adjusting the saddle I got the action just right.  I plugged it in only to find that the Fishman system didn't work.  I took the strings back off and took the jack out of the bottom.  I had to re- solder the connections and that fixed it.  So, this turned out to be a nice guitar, for something that was found in the dumpster.

       The prayer for today is one that I've spent quite a bit of time with.  When I first started doing passage meditation I started with this prayer and probably spent everyday for several months on it.  It feels like a part of me now.  It's by Saint Francis of Assisi.

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.

More Prayers

   I just got back from a wonderful evening of jazz at JJ's with Tyler Kittle on sax, Joe Fowler on bass, and Michael Collings playing one of my guitars.  Check it out some time.  It is the first Friday of every month with a different jazz configuration each time.  And you can sit in with them on the second set if you like.  Tomorrow I start on a broken down Martin that I need to fix for a customer.  I'll try to post some pictures so you can see what I'm up against.  Here is the prayer for the day.  One of my favorite Bruce Cockburn tunes.  Definitely a prayer from the heart.

Heavy northern autumn sky
Mist-hung forest -- Dark spruce, bright maple --
And the great lake rolling forever to the narrow gray beach

I look west along the red road of the frail sun
Where it hovers between shelf of cloud and spiky trees, 
Receding shore;

The world is full of seasons; of anguish, of laughter
And it comes to mind to write you this:

Nothing is sure
Nothing is pure
And no matter who we think we are
Everyone gets his chance to be nothing

Love's supposed to heal, but it breaks my heart to feel
The pain in your voice --
But you know, it's all going somewhere
And I would crush my heart and throw it in the street
If I could pay for your choice

Isn't that what friends are for?
Isn't that what friends are for?

We're the insect life of paradise:
Crawl across leaf or among towering blades of grass
Glimpse only sometimes the amazing breadth of heaven

You're as loved as you were
Before the strangeness swept through
Our bodies, our houses, our streets --
When we could speak without codes
And light swirled around like
Wind-blown petals,
Our feet

I've been scraping little shavings off my ration of light
And I've formed it into a ball, and each time I pack a bit more onto it
I make a bowl of my hands and I scoop it from its secret cache
Under a loose board in the floor
And I blow across it and I send it to you
Against those moments when
The darkness blows under your door

Isn't that what friends are for?
Isn't that what friends are for?
Isn't that what friends are for? 

Prayers

       I finished the wash coats on the guitar on Monday.  Now it will hang for two weeks and I'll polish it.  It should be ready by Valentines Day.  I've been thinking a lot about prayer lately and I thought I would print some of my favorite prayers by some of my favorite saints and sinners.  I'll try to do one a day until I run out.  Some of these are from well known saints, some are from obscure singer-song writers, and others are from mystics of other cultures.  I would welcome your own favorite prayers if you would like to add them to the comment section, or send them to me in an email and I'll add them myself.   This first one is from a character, played by Jimmy Stewart, in a movie called Shenandoah.

Lord, we cleared this land.  We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it.  We cooked the harvest.  It wouldn't be here; we wouldn't be eating it if we hadn't done it all ourselves.  We worked dog bone hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you just the same anyway for the food we're about to eat.  Amen.

Clear coats are done

    I finished the build coats on the guitar yesterday.  It was still a little cold, but I heated the lacquer up, in a pot of water on the stove.  It's looking very nice.  I'll wait until maybe Wednesday and then sand it flat.  It's supposed to be nice again on Thursday, or Friday, in which case, I can give it one or two more thin coats to melt in the sandpaper scratches.  Then I'll let it hang for a few weeks and polish it.  After that, it's wiring the pickup and fixing it to the finger rest, drilling the hole for the jack, and putting it together.  Here are some pictures.  I'm sorry about the quality.  I took them in the sun with the wind blowing the guitar around.  The color looks a little more yellow than it really is.  Here is another Rumi poem, which I love.

Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?

Who finds us here circling, bewildered like atoms?

Who comes to a spring thirsty

and sees the moon reflected in it?

Who like Jacob, blind with grief and age,

smells the shirt of his lost son and can see again?
Who lets a bucket down and brings up a flowing prophet?
Or, like Moses, goes for fire and finds what burns inside the sunrise?

Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies
and opens a door to the other world.
Solomon cuts open a fish, and there is a gold ring.
Omar storms in to kill the Prophet and leaves with blessings.
Chase a deer and end up everywhere.
An oyster opens his mouth to swallow one drop.
Now there is a pearl.
A vagrant wanders empty ruins.
Suddenly he is wealthy.

But do not be satisfied with stories,
how things have gone with others.
Unfold your own myth,
without complicated explanations,
so everyone will understand the passage,
We have opened you.

Start walking toward Shams, the teacher, the sun.
Your legs will get heavy and tired.
Then comes a moment of feeling the wings you have grown,
lifting.

     A word about the character Shams in the poem.  He was Rumi's spiritual mentor and good friend.

                                                                                                                                  

Waiting

    I've spent most of this week waiting for good weather.  Last Friday I sprayed the color on.  The top is a bright sunburst of mostly fall colors.  Amber base and red/mahogany highlights.  Then I sprayed the back and sides with just a touch of amber to bring out the wood grain.  The contrast between the top, and the back and sides is very striking.  Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday I got about seven clear coats on.  Tomorrow I have to go to Asheville in the morning and pick up the case and the pickup.  When I get back I'm hoping it will be warm enough to spray several more.  When the clear coats are finished I'll have to let the guitar hang for several days and then I'll sand it flat with 320 sand paper.  Then I'll have to wait for good weather again, so I can give it a few light coats to melt in the scratches from the sanding.  After that it will have to hang for several weeks before I wet sand and polish it.  I also finished the fixtures (tail piece, bridge, and finger rest) with epoxy.  Now I just have to polish them and they'll be ready.  I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.
     For anyone who is interested and lives in the area, I'll be playing some instrumental jazz standards with Dave Molin at City Lights Cafe on Friday February 15th for a Valentines dinner.  We'll start around 7:00.  We also play every Sunday from 12:00 to 2:00 for their Sunday brunch and the first Wednesday of the month at Guadalupe Cafe at 6:30.  You can see and hear a couple of the guitars I've made.
     I found an amazing book at the used book store last week.  It's called, "The Zen of Seeing"  by Frederick Franck.  He was truly a kindred spirit.  He taught a way of seeing deeply by drawing.  It is a discipline and not a hobby and has nothing to do with whether you are a good artist, or the outcome of the drawing.  Here is a quote from the book, " I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle: the branching of a tree, the structure of a dandelion's seed puff.  "A mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels," says Walt Whitman.  I discover that among The Ten Thousand Things there is no ordinary thing.  All that is, is worthy of being seen, of being drawn."  I started the drawing process, which you do with out looking at the paper.  The drawing wasn't good, but the experience was greatly uplifting.  You never realize the details in something until you try to draw it.
      I'll leave you with another quote from the book.  I have had so many of these experiences he talks about.  Especially when I was young and had time to see and listen.
       "The first intimations of Zen, of the opening up of the eye, of the revelation of The Ten Thousand Things, come early in life.  Everyone must be able to recall revelations similar to mine.  I have no monopoly.
          On a dark afternoon - I was ten or eleven - I was walking on a country road, on my left a patch of curly kale, on my right some yellow brussels sprouts.  I felt a snowflake on my cheek, and from far away in the charcoal-gray sky I saw the slow approach of a snowstorm.  I stood still.  Some flakes were now falling around my feet.  A few melted as they hit the ground.  Others stayed intact.  Then I heard the falling of the snow, with the softest hissing sound.  I stood transfixed, listening... and knew what can never be expressed: that the natural is supernatural, and that I am the eye that hears and the ear that sees, that what is outside happens in me, that outside and inside are unseparated.
          It is the inexpressible, and the inexpressible is the only thing that is worthwhile expressing."

Hakuin  a great artist and sage of the seventeenth century wrote this poem.  "How I would like people to hear... the sound of the snow falling through the deepening night..."

       

Spraying

  What a beautiful day!  It was almost 65 today on the 10th of January.  I think God is looking out for me.  I had the day off and good weather, so I sprayed a wash coat and two build coats of lacquer on the guitar.  The wet shine makes the grain pop out and look beautiful.  Tomorrow, if the weather holds, I'll spray the color on the top.  Chris has given me the go ahead to do a sunburst on the top with natural back and sides.  I'll have to scuff sand the whole guitar first and then mask off the binding with some pin stripe tape.   Then I'll be ready to spray.  If the weather cooperates, I should be able to get all the spraying done by Monday.  Then it will have to sit for a few weeks before I sand and polish it.
    Here is an interesting quote from Coleman Barks, a poet and teacher from Athens Ga., "For this open-air sanctuary that a lot of us live in, without buildings, or doctrine, or clergy, without silsila (lineage), or hierarchy, in an experiment to live not so much without religion as in friendship with all three hundred of them, and all literatures as well.  It is a brave try for openness and fresh inspiration."