We’ve been asleep for way too long

Our muscles are stiff, our vision blurry

Time to rise, sleepy one

It’s not your fault that you fell asleep so quickly, so deeply

The world has become a scary place

But it’s about to change

We are about to change

It’s changing

And we need you and all of us to be

Completely awake

If the major tectonic shifts did not inspire significant shifts in our understanding and consciousness, if the tens of thousands of people killed and are being killed in war-related brutality does not awaken in us the desire to stop this insanity, then perhaps we are really not well suited for our job as custodians of this paradise, called Earth.

As spring officially arrived in Colorado and brought with it the birds, the bees, the sunshine, more moisture, and hellacious winds, we also witnessed in the last 72 hours the four seasons replayed in time-lapse fashion in the Front Range. As the sunny 80-degree temperature plummeted overnight to freezing snow and overcast skies, I was once again reminded of the fullness and the infinite potentiality that each moment holds.

The wind was undoubtedly the centerpiece of this entire meteorological drama, directing all the scene and set changes while letting its presence felt as 60mph gusts, moving clouds, stirring up dirt and emotions and taunting the fire to devour acres after acres of forested hills. The wind unsettles, the wind delivers, the wind cleanses, the wind moves, the wind is the breath of Mother Nature.

Sometimes I wish that a wind would just come and blow everything away. Everything. Including and especially our narrow-minded, tunnel vision perspective of our Universe, our prejudice against people and ideas that are different from us and ours, our codependency on material well-being, our fears and our blindness to see our Oneness. It would be like pushing the “reset” button to revert Life back to its “factory settings”, to a blank slate, to an empty canvas.

Anyway, that’s just one of my fantasies. Though we can still make the decision of painting each day and each moment henceforth with our favorite colors—colors that we want to see everyday when we wake up in the morning, colors we want our children to play and grow up in.

I will be painting my April with lots of colors of love, hope and compassion accompanied by bold strokes of gratitude and acceptance. Through music, I will also be painting a sonic mural of a global village where we all hold hands and dance to the rhythm of peace, joy and diversity.

Today
I will continue to carry you in my heart
Continue to love you like you are
Right here next to me

I will take you along in my shirt pocket
Show you around the streets of Singapore
On a rickety trishaw
Can you feel the bumps in the road

The intoxicating sweet scent of tropical blooms
Mixed in with the salt in the air
Be sprinkled with fairy dust of exotic spices (in Little India)
Get drenched in an unpretentious and passionate
Afternoon thunderstorm

No chance of drying up before
The next sunrise
No chance of feeling unloved when
I am around
As I learned how to love from
Watching the monsoon and the rainforest

–Kai Lin 12.9.10

Fall has definitely descended upon Colorado with the inevitability and resolution of winter. Last week we had a couple of days of persistent 60mph gale that blew off half of the sun-plated, autumn-soaked leaves from their parent trees, sending them swirling and twirling in a tornado of golden-yellow blizzard, a breath-taking aerial competition to see who can stay airborne the longest.

There’s certainly no looking back now at the glorious summer “when the livin’ is easy”. In fact, the gentle, benevolent autumn is slowly but surely being coaxed into leaving the Rockies to allow for a complete and thorough winter makeover.

I too, will be leaving before the wintry Ship Of December drops its anchor in the Front Range.

It’s been a couple of months since I bought my one-way ticket to Singapore. But it wasn’t till the last couple of days that I started feeling more certain that I indeed will be getting on a plane in a few weeks that will take me back to the equatorial island cradle of my childhood and youth.

It’s been 16 years since I left Singapore and I ought to feel excited and emotional about going home. The fact is, I do miss my family very much, and it’s been almost three years since I last saw my folks, but I don’t really feel like this is a huge milestone or any kind of a pivotal or dramatic sign that things have come “full circle” or that I am “closing a chapter of my life”. In fact, I feel more strongly that it’s a continuation of my life path, another stop on my wondrous journey to meet new people, reconnect with old friends, immerse myself in a new environment, learn new lessons and receive new blessings from the land that I left behind to pursue my musical calling.

The days leading up to my departure will be filled with a myriad of musical offerings and I would love to see some of your beautiful faces at a music meditation or a peace project concert or one of the many guest appearances that I will be involved in before I go into winter hibernation in the tropics. (See below for dates and info)

Some November highlights include a short southern Colorado tour with my dear friend, phenomenal world vocalist/composer, Beth Quist (www.bethquist.com) through Crestone, Salida and La Veta this weekend; a collaboration with Round Mountain, a powerhouse multi-instrumental world fusion duo from New Mexico; guest appearances with L’il Sum’n Sum’n and Christine Tulis (www.christinetuli.com) for their respective CD release concerts next weekend.

I will also be sharing my vibrations at the Boulder Theater to celebrate the release of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche’s new book, Rebel Buddha: On The Road To Freedom.

And on the 28^th, I will be premiering my “Suite For The Merriment Of Mankind for Violin and Chamber Orchestra” with the UCAM ensemble at the 2^nd Olga Wolosyn Memorial Concert in Englewood, CO.

I am currently writing these words at Immersive Studios as we wrap up our second full day of tracking for the Peace Project’s new record. As I listened back to the final take of “Youth & Audacity”, I am once again filled with gratitude and wonderment as I reflected on the journey that I’ve been on for the last sixteen years. It seems to just keep getting better as I strive for more and more honesty and simplicity in my life.

From Singapore to Japan, then from Europe to the US, the external landscape kept changing like the view out the window of a moving train. But internally, I feel profoundly that this is still the same path that I was on since the day I received the gift of music as a little kid.

I will continue to stay in touch through my newsletters as my journey brings me back to Asia in December. I have no idea what lies before me. We never know. What I do know is that when the sun sets in Singapore, the same sun will rise in Colorado to send you all my love and best wishes. We are One. Don’t forget.

If I have to use one sentence to sum up what September felt like, I would say: the wheel is turning. And mind you, we are not talking the little itty-bitty wheels on the little red tricycle that I used to tear through our 30 sq ft living room on as a three-year-old defying centrifugal force nor are we referring to the 10-foot tall giant rubbers of commercial farming tractors that make the corn and the barley cower in terror in their shadows. What we speak of here is the Mac Daddy of All Wheels-The Wheel Of Life

I went up to the mountains during Labor Day weekend to try to make sense of the heaviness that I’ve been carrying in my heart for weeks. Every night for three consecutive nights, I asked the stars for answers. I wanted some clarity, some directions. But for three nights, the stars just grinned and twinkled at me while I sat in front of the campfire watching the flames make love to the evening breeze.

Then a message came for me on the fourth day. On the morning of September 6, I was awaken from my slumber by violent gusts of wind that rocked the cabin I was in, making the single-paned windows and loose wooden panels shake and rattle as if in an earthquake. I looked outside and the clouds seem to be on time lapse the way they scurried hurriedly across the light blue sky like war refugees running for their lives amidst bombs and crossfire. The strong gale blew up leaves and dirt and ashes from the campfire the night before and brought with it the message that I needed to leave right away.

I stumbled dazed and muddy-thought through and around the cabin to gather up all my stuff, packed my car and made my way down Coal Creek Canyon as fast as I could. There was such an urgency and authority in the voice I heard in the wind that I did not once stop to ask questions.

When I was about 5 miles outside of Boulder on Hwy 93, I was greeted by this giant reddish gray mushroom cloud looming over the foothills just outside of town. That was the beginning of the devastating Fourmile Canyon fire that would eventually destroy 170 homes, claim thousands of acres of forest and displace thousands of people on its five-day rampage through the Fourmile Canyon aided by unusually high winds and bone-dry conditions.

And what I experienced and still am experiencing the days and weeks following was at once surreal, humbling, beautifully synchronistic, heartbreaking, heart-warming, heart-opening, clarifying, life-affirming, chaotic and often mystifying.

I joined the community in reaching out with my heart and rolling up my sleeves to help support the evacuees, many of who still couldn’t return to their homes for days after the fire was contained. And amidst all that, a dear friend passed away after fighting cancer for a year, another friend celebrated the arrival of their second child, another friend suffered a loss in her life, and yet another deals with the illness of a younger sibling.

Without going into details, there just was a lot going on at the same time, and this was not counting what I was personally experiencing, externally and internally. I was falling in love on a daily basis, not just with people, not just with beautiful women, but with everything and everyone around me. I felt connected. And I was feeling a lot. I felt my heart being stretched from constantly feeling the collective joy, pain, suffering, fear and love of all humanity. I could barely breathe. How does one fit the whole world into his heart without suffocating?   It also just felt like summer trying to take care of all its business before it gave up its throne to autumn.

I went up to the mountains in the beginning of the month to make sense of the heaviness in my heart. And now as we begin to see the mast of the mighty ship of October on the horizon, I am still feeling the gravity. But what’s different now is that there seems to be also a gentle wind guiding me to stay on course and whispering breeze of encouragement in my sail as I take care to align my every step with my heartbeat.

We just celebrated the equinox. And in the couple of days leading up to that and now a few days after, I have been meeting these angels in human form who have been coming to me in twos and threes and offering me little gift packages of love, light, relief, companionship, wisdom and other as yet undetermined magic items. I know it’s the Universe’s way providing and telling me that I am not alone. I am certainly profoundly grateful for these gifts. A certain calm seemed to have returned to life here in Boulder. But I know now that this is all but an illusion, as much as all the intensity and drama prior to this tranquility doesn’t hold the complete picture of life. There are still babies being born, people young and old dying of war, famine or illness, there are people who are still killing each other for their differences.

As I sat with my good friend Dexter on his front porch yesterday eating a delicious Palisade peach and enjoying each other’s company, it suddenly dawned on me that the juice that was dripping off of my chin and my fingertips was the same color as the color of the late afternoon sun as well as the splashes of gold that have started to adorn the foliage around us. And I got the sense that if we could see the color of our connection with each other and with Nature, it’s probably going to be that same glorious color. For it’s the color of abundance, the color of surrender and unconditional love, the color of complete trust and faith in the Universe to do its job of providing, nurturing, balancing, guiding and healing.

With that realization, time comes to a standstill, even as the majestic Wheel Of Life keeps on spinning, our job is to find our own rhythms with the wheel or perhaps, to find a way to be the wheel.

When I was asked recently how my summer is going, I replied: Living, breathing, feeling, exploring, creating, loving, being; repeat.

What a glorious summer it’s been! I absolutely love this time of the year. I guess I must be genetically designed to be thermal-, solar- and love-powered, for it makes me feel SO alive to feel the sun toasting on my skin and watching it gradually take on the color of the earth. I love the salt of the sweat and the feeling of the life force gushing through my veins, oozing out of every pore in my body, like a pregnant river overflowing its banks. This is the same life force that inspires all the flowers to bloom, the cherry trees to bear fruits, and all creatures to mate. Summer is the outward manifestation and expression of LOVE.

One of the highlights for me was attending the Balkan Music Camp up in Mendocino, CA at the beautiful Woodlands Campground. For an entire week, 250 of us bathed in the exotic sounds and the hypnotic rhythms of Greece, Bulgaria, Albania and Turkey watched over by the gentle ancient giants of the redwood forest. It felt a lot like the utopic global village that I envision in the tune “Rondo For The Merriment Of Mankind” where all the folks would come from different backgrounds but through mutual love and respect are able to completely get along. I would go as far as saying that this camp was a perfect model of how human beings can live peacefully with each other while coexisting in harmony with Mother Nature.

After bidding my friends farewell on the last day of camp, I made a beeline to the ocean; heart full, soul full, eager to see my old pal again, eager to tell her all my adventures since I last saw her in December, eager to show her that I am back on my feet again,

I drove south on Highway 1 for as long as I could, stopping frequently to soak in the breathtaking views of the Northern California coastline, and to watch the waves give themselves up completely to the majestic rocks and cliffs over and over again. I stood on the edge of a cliff in Sonoma country overlooking the eternal vastness of the Pacific Ocean, its blue water rife with life and mystery and I was suddenly struck by the notion that I am now positioned at a giant crossroads, This is the first time in my life that I feel like I could really go anywhere, do anything-a liberating yet daunting notion. As I stood there in this vortex of infinite possibilities, partially paralyzed by awe, overwhelmed by emotions, I realized that I needed a bird’s-eye view to understand where I am going next. I watched as my soul took off and climbed and soared to the heights of the highest clouds, where it cried from above, “I love you, I love you” over and over again.

Back in Boulder, I am currently typing this letter at the Trident Café on the last day of July. My being is buzzing from remembering my experience from a month earlier, my soul yearning again to be by the ocean. I Skyped with my little sister, Ruiling couple of days ago and made plan to return to Singapore for her wedding and for an extended visit in December. But I have a hunch that I would probably be back in the embrace of the ocean before then.  In the meantime, I am back in full swing with my life here in Colorado, playing music with my wonderful group of friends, spreading positive vibrations and taking long walks in the beautiful Rocky Mountains.

My Boulder Library residency takes a hiatus in August, so I am taking this opportunity to get some writing done and put a couple of new ideas in action. One of my ideas is to start a Evening Music Meditation series in Boulder. We are going to do this on the back patio of the Trident Café for the months of August and September (see below for details). The second idea involves a Music For Peace flash mob action. More details on this later as we get organized.

I am signing off with an invitation for you to experience and enjoy with me the sun-ripened month of August. Open yourselves up to the full potentiality of its gifts, sink your teeth into its plump and succulent fruits and allow the juices to run freely down your chins. If there was a month to love recklessly, give and take (share) freely, sing and dance openly: August is the month.

Love you

Kailin

About 5 days ago, I found myself driving down I-80 through the state of Wyoming and suddenly realized that I have once again picked a solstice morning to travel. I don’t intend to read too much into this, but the synchronicity did call out to me, and I just find it incredibly beautiful and reassuring to feel the Tao at work, spinning its invisible yet purposeful and powerful web, connecting us with each other and directing us to where we need to be every moment.

It’s been a wonderful trip so far visiting old friends, making new ones, playing music and buying a car. Yes, I bought a car on this trip, for my 1989 Toyota wagon took its last breath as I pulled into Salt Lake City, just 2 miles from my friend Trilok’s house.

I had received the car as a gift from my dear friend, Mark R. a couple of years ago when he and his family were relocating to DC from Boulder. It’s been a trusty companion and it took me twice to the west coast and back even though Mark had intended for the car to be used mainly for driving around town, buying groceries and going to students’ homes. He probably did not expect me to do much cross-country road trips, much less spend the night in it last winter as I was stuck in Truckee due to a snowstorm. I wanna say a big thank you to Mark for his generosity and friendship! And R.I.P Assi (short for Asthma, because it wheezes and groans whenever it had to climb a hill and maintain a freeway-worthy speed:)!

Through my car purchasing adventure in SLC, I also had the pleasure of meeting my new friend, Alan B. And through him, I was introduced to the great sarod legend,  Aashish Khan. And who knows what flowers might bloom through this brief but warm connection. I will keep you posted:)

I am now typing these words at the dining table of my friends, Paul & Mary’s house located in the beautiful San Juan Ridge by Nevada City.  I had arrived in this beautiful part of the Sierras couple of days ago in my brand new 2006 Toyota Corolla. I had met these lovely souls last fall on Halloween day as I was playing one of my last shows with BAS and fell in love with them. On that same trip, I also fell under the spell of the Yuba River. So when I knew I was going to the Mendocino Balkan camp, I decided that I had to come spend time with the Moores and go hiking along the Yuba. And since Paul’s a renowned Contra Dance caller in his previous life, he threw together a barn dance last night and put me to work and I had buckets of fun unearthing all the fiddle tunes and jigs and rags that were gathering dust in my head.

We are now leaving to head down the hill to go see the super trio of Bela Fleck, Zakir Hussain and Edgar Meyer perform at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. I expect it to be a wonderful concert. I am signing off here and leaving you with these words written on a rugged looking ceramic plate on top of the kitchen cabinet: The purpose of your life reveals itself moment to moment. It is none of your business.

Peace
Kailin

I am writing this newsletter riding in a car with Charlie (Mertens) from Salida to La Veta, CO, still buzzing from the high from playing at the Salida Café last night. We are on a little tour with the Peace Project Quartet through southern Colorado and it’s been a fantastic trip so far.

I was onstage last night with Jesse, Brett and Charlie and halfway through the first set, I looked over and saw the smiling and beaming faces of some of my dearest friends and I became overwhelmed by a giant wave of joy-gratitude. What a beautiful life I have! I closed my eyes as Jesse delivered a breath-taking vocal taqsim (solo) in Float and said a prayer; I prayed to the Divine Mother to allow me the abundance to keep doing this, to keep spreading joy and love through the music of the Peace Project with my beloved friends until I take my last breath.

A week earlier, I was in Atlanta to attend the memorial service of Chiquita Berry, the mother of my ex-wife. Chiquita passed away peacefully in the early morning hours on April 19 2010, after having lived a full life of 74 years where she passionately and tirelessly served the community through the Twelve Stone Farm in Talking Rock, GA in the last twenty. She’s been a mentor and a great source of wisdom and inspiration since I met her 8 years ago.400 people attended the memorial despite the stormy weather, and those who came up to share stories about Chiquita, all spoke of how their lives had been touched and transformed by her big-hearted love and generosity and acceptance of all beings.

We all cried and laughed and watched the sky did the same…

We miss you, Chiquita…

Filled with the poignancy and nostalgia of Chiquita’s unexpected passing and experiencing intimately how I have been able to make a difference in people’s lives through my own music and my reaching out to those around me, the last two weeks had been incredibly heart and soul-nourishing. I am now reading Chiquita’s copy of Andrew Harvey’s The Hope and every word that I have been reading strikes a deep chord in me and further reinforces my belief in what we can do to help the world be a better place if we allow ourselves to open up and reach out to our fellow humans and all living beings with all our love and compassion.

You descended upon the Appalachian hills

Like a shooting star

Setting everything ablaze

With your fire

Of love

Passion

And Compassion

You burn and burn

Through countless

Springs

Summers

Winters

And autumns

Through droughts

And floods

Through many births

And deaths

The spirits in the foothills

All come to life

From your sparks and your flames

What’s four-legged or two

What’s winged or spotted

What purrs and chirps and neighs

All glow

Like fireflies

Lighting the way for weary travelers in the deep of the night

So we can see our hearts

As we stumble and trip through the frosty winter nights

But nothing can really prepare us for the craziness that March had brought: I think we can aptly described the weather as no less than schizophrenic, as it freely fluctuated between warmer, almost spring like conditions, and severe winter storms that would unload a couple of feet of snow on us within a matter of hours and completely immobilizing the front range. Then there was also the rockslide that shut down I-70 for weeks.

But let’s be honest here, it wasn’t really the weather that was dogging me, but more the inner turbulence I was feeling and the emotional coaster ride that I was on that made me feel a little melodramatic about my circumstance. In other words, I struggled with climbing out of the “overly crowded room of my head”, and certainly failed at the attempt to “plunge into the vast ocean of my heart”.

I definitely felt that push and pull from the forces of nature, as it tried to decide if it was time yet for Spring or if it might prefer to wallow just a little bit longer in Winter Wonderland (I now understand why it’s called Wonderland, for it makes some of us wonder when Spring is finally going to be hereJ) But mainly, I just felt imprisoned in my own head, for all I could do all day all night was focus on that one lousy fingerprint on my otherwise flawless, pristine and beautiful mirror of life. I was toggling helplessly between feeling immensely grateful for all the wonderful things and people in my life, and rushing back to check every 5 minutes to see if that darn fingerprint was still there. I basically drove myself crazy.

Looking back at the month of March on my calendar, all I see is ABUNDANCE, ABUNDANCE, LOVE, JOY, MORE ABUNDANCE, MORE LOVE, FROM ALL DIRECTIONS! I had the best birthday ever, period. The Peace Project played a concert on my birthday at the Boulder Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship to a sold-out crowd and we all sang and danced and clapped and celebrated as if Spring really did arrive earlyJ. What more could I ask? I had some of my favorite people playing music with me and I also had all of my Boulder extended family and friends celebrate with me post-concert, not to mention the tidal wave of birthday greetings I was getting from all over the world on FacebookJ. I was obviously loved. But I was obviously not having any of it, but more choosing to focus on the one little nagging scab that I couldn’t really do much about, which finally came to a resolution a few days ago, and all I had to do was take a deep breath and allow that feeling of hurt to completely course through my entire being, through my heart, through my veins, and watched it dissipate and melt away like the last snowflakes of winter.

So what I learned from that was: you can’t force winter to be done if it hasn’t run its course, neither can you be done with feelings of hurt or disappointment until you can allow yourself to completely “feel the feelings”, and even then, it might still take a while for the storm to pass. The funny thing was that, I started writing all these tunes to welcome Spring in the beginning of March, inspired by the warmer temperatures, right after I was recovering from the nasty bug that I caught in mid-February, but I simply couldn’t get past the first couple of verses; for I was ready for Spring, but Spring wasn’t quite ready for me. So I had to wait and finally got one of the instrumentals done a couple of days before the equinox. The tune is called Spring Steps and I am going to premiere this in a few days with the Peace Project Trio in Lawrence KS (see below for info). Oh, did I mention that the Peace Project is finally getting a chance to get out of state to spread its message of love, peace and friendship. We’re gonna do a short run of Lawrence & Omaha and back and playing two really great house concerts.

Similar to the last few months, April promises to be a potpourri (did you know that the word actually means “rotten pot” in old French) of beautiful and sweet musical blossoms. They are all equally wonderful but I feel like I should at least highlight a few that are not frequent occurrences. The Peace Project Trio and Quartet obviously are not a common happenstance, so be sure to check out the more intimate and personal sounds of the mini peace projects if you are in Lawrence and Omaha, and later in the month in Southern Colorado. On April 10, the Boulder Library presents an afternoon of some of the most talented and prolific songwriters here in the front range. I will be playing host to Melissa Axel, John Common and Megan Burtt as these amazing artists share with us their wisdom of how each one of them crafts their songs in a workshop, followed by a concert. All budding songwriters are encouraged to bring in a tune of theirs to share and to open up for discussion during the workshop.

Still on the topic of songwriting, I am invited to read one of my poems, which I set to music on my album “Bowing With The Flow” in its original Mandarin at a poetry-focused event at the Broomfield Library on the 15^th. And on the 16^th, I am going to be a guest with the fun and creative Curious Theatre Company for a pre-show discussion series in which I will be talking and fiddling about my history with the whole violin to fiddle crossover experience.

I really could go on and on about all the exciting and fun stuff that I am involved with this month, but I am just going to mention one more thing: on the 20^th, I will have the pleasure of working with Mary Wohl Haan, who is a well-respected dancer/choreographer/teacher here in Boulder. We will be presenting a lunchtime program at the Boulder Library called “Feet & Fiddle” which is going to feature Mary’s beautiful, adventurous and quirky choreography set to some of my compositions.

Now that I have completely talked your ear off, I hope to see each one of you in person soon and connect as spirits and most of all, to celebrate the arrival of Spring as one big global family (except for those of you in the southern hemisphereJ)

Peace & Love

Kailin

And I AM doing ok, in fact, I am doing GREAT!

It’s been 3 months since my external world experienced a major makeover. After a trip to the West Coast then the East, I am now back in the familiar foothills of Boulder, back in the warm loving embrace of all my friends and lovers, new and old. I still feel mostly myself. But something definitely shifted deep down inside.

About 2 weeks ago, when I was rehearsing with Ryan and Sandra for the Nordic Fiddle concert at Sandra’s house, I became aware of this lightness in my spirit that I have never felt before. It suddenly dawned on me that all the heartbreak, disappointment, and frustration I had to endure over the last couple of years really served one big purpose: to expand my heart. No wonder I have been laughing and crying so much more, and in general have been able to express more of my true authentic self. Somehow the edge and resistance is gone. It’s no longer about “Why can’t you love and accept me for who I am?!!?” but more about “I can laugh and cry, love and hate, rejoice and despair…can you:)?”  I still get upset, I still get frustrated when things don’t work out. I still feel pangs of hurt when I think back on those dark times, but these feelings now are just as natural and free flowing as falling in love or being happy. I am able to become more of an observer of these emotions as they come and go like clouds floating by in the sky. The gnaw of doubt and guilt is now replaced by a deep hum of trust and joy and acceptance.

I had some of the most magical and breath-taking musical experiences in January, which is probably why I am not feeling as much the harshness of winter. In the past few years, this is typically the time when I start to feel a little depressed and my health usually takes a pretty drastic downturn. But so far, I am feeling pretty great (knock on wood)! And looking ahead at all the fun stuff I am getting to do this month, it sure feels like Spring!

Like January, February looks like a happy kaleidoscope of musical rainbow (see Tour page for Feb schedule)