Phish's Nature of Being

Here's the scene: It's the morning after Thanksgiving. I just dropped my girlfriend off with some friends in Santa Cruz. I had to get back to work in the bay by the afternoon. It is raining lightly but surely. Facing the reality of having to drive over the gnarly 17 in the rain, I knew I would need some music to bring me into a deep meditation. I pulled 4/3/98 (Nassau) up from the iPod archives. I went with Set 1, w/ some typical first set 3-4 minute songs omitted. I hit play. Mike's Song begins and I am off on my journey home. Andy had just told me about this blog the day before. Maybe subconsciously I knew I needed to connect and reflect.

It wasn't long till Mike's Song was brewing with some left over 97 phunk. It reminded me of Hampton 11/21/97. I was in the zone, swiftly moving with each 50 mph curve on the 17 with a soundtrack of pure power and the ability to change perceptions of time and space in mere minutes. It slowly faded into My Old Homeplace, a song that always reminds me of leaving the familiar territory I had known to go on tour with our band. After a few moments of feeling Phish's endearing nature, a little sentiment segued into a BIG Weekapaug. It was during Weekapaug that everything began to shift a bit deeper. I excitedly noticed what looked like a sun dog in the sky. As I continued, I found myself driving underneath a full rainbow, a rainbow that seemed to frame my experience, like the stage of our favorite arenas. My trip was morphing into a spontaneous experience of healing, relfection, and a deep affirmation of "rightness". To me, the essence of "rightness" is feeling your place in a given moment and understanding it to be the right experience at the right moment, an evocation of that place in our hearts and minds we unconsciously yearned for. It only takes a moment to feel this feeling. It was Phish who taught it to me and taught it well. As Phish grew, we shared this rightness together as a community. It wasn't always there. But when it was, it was as palpable and unspoken as anything I have known.

Silence segued into Billy Breathes. The rainbow I thought had passed continued to form and dissolve as I drove further up the 85 and 280. Billy gave me that heart opening that only the truth as I know it can give. Softly singing sweet songs, I felt connected to the present, the past, the future, and the big universe all time plays out in. The rainbows framed my personal story. This relflection is what Phish also provided to me and to us. The ability to mirror each other, to validate what we felt, what we thought, and how we acted, for better or for worse. Sometimes through the mirror of Phish's music, we saw what we knew was there. And other times it surprised us or even kicked our ass. Even in digital recordings, the mirror still reflects onward.

I didn't know what would come next. I was already feeling rightness, validation, and the pure bliss of reflection. And then Reba dropped her ladle in my Honda Accord. And we were off together to do the thing we always did best. Enjoy every single moment with deep gratitude. The rainbows continued to come and go, sometimes faint, sometimes looking, well, simply heavenly. And Reba was heaven's soundtrack for the moment. If Phish did nothing, they helped us all feel a sense of gratitude. Gratitude for who we are, where we were, who we were with, for the music, the community, the visions, and the powerful experiences that would shape us and carry our karma onward into the communities, where we could touch people in the same way we had been touched.

As I arrived into SF, the rainbows ended and the music did too, until the Roses Are Free came on, but I knew that the sacred time had resolved itself. Phish gave us their sacred time and have now moved on to an unknown future. That sacred time is always available to us and sometimes only a rainbow or reba away.

Hope you enjoyed my little tale. Thanks Andy for your continued passion for the community. And thanks to the many legends who made it all possible.
Trapped in time,
JP