Orchards in Education

I am addicted to inspiration. This is a problem that I need to address it with my community because inspiration is contagious. Yes, I am a recovering singer- songwriter and guitarist who majors in igniting the Creative Spark in myself and others. If I have inspired you and that has offended you I apologize. If I have exhausted you with hope and involvement-my bad. The systematic Creative process starts with hope and moves to peace. It moves forward to love and recycles joy in making things.

Organic Education

My mother who would have been 96 next week, was a fan of organic education. She invented a system of the road trip in a 1958 pale blue and white Chevy Bellaire, with a jet as the hood ornament. Call it a joy ride a road trip, but we four kids knew it as a mystery ride. "Where are we going?" And Mom would alternate pumping the gas, like a sustain pedal on an upright piano, and singing, "It's a Mystery to me." She named her station wagon- "Betsy."

South and North Shore

We toured Long Island as a family to museums, lighthouses, forests and ferries. We collected rocks, and shells, read Whitman, Washington and crossed the Long Island Sound to New England. Sometimes my mother planned these educational journeys and other times, she was learning as she drove along. At times my mother would take us out of school and to the Long Island Railroad for a field trip to Rockefeller Center, or the Museum of Modern Art or even a Broadway Show. She and my father agreed that education should be inspirational and experienced.

Recorded Education

I am an auditory learner. My father was crippled by arthritis and what his legs and hands could not do anymore, he would talk my brothers and I through fixing or making something. My love for music was spent reading and listening to records. I memorized scores as I sang along. I learned to write, play and sing music from listening.

Curated and Cultivated

And I started drinking coffee at an early age. The best times to spend time with my parents was making breakfast for them, and sitting down and talking, drinking coffee and reading The New York Times out loud and discussing whatcwas happening in the world. The orchards of education were being cultivated and curated in my young life in those times.

Homegrown Harvest

Seeds of inspiration are continuing to be picked in these older trees. Perrenial Harvests. The songs and the influences that I have been inspired by live on through the trees planted in our Orchards.

Alliances of Apples

The orchards of education continue in my life. They did in 1978 when I moved to Denver. Inspired by The Denver Folklore Center and Harry Tuft and the short time I learned from the musicians who came through Swallow Hill and played their songs. From September to January, I booked Bob Gibson, Alex DeGrassi, Bobby Basho, and Spider John Koerner. Townes Van Zandt, Gamble Rodgers and Bryan Bowers. Orchards of Education! Good Fruit that still fills my mind and ears.

Renewable Resources

Sound Century is restoring and remastering recordings from the Harry Tuft Collection, slightly ahead of my time. I listen and my heart beats faster, hearing Memphis Blues Greats like Son House and Furry Lewis. The Good fruit left by Utah Phillips abd Rosalie Sorells, and the trees that are still growing like Taj Mahal and Tom Paxton. And Harry Tuft himself. He has been a renewable resource who inspires me through our great conversations and sharing songs and stories.

Direction Home

Direction and where we are destined. Tom Paxton sings "I can't help but wonder where I'm bound." I have been at many a crossroads, many a time when it was an educated guess. Intersections in New York, in Denver at 17th and Pearl. I have always known what I am good at. And I have not always used it properly. The orchards of education are fragile. We have a choice to inspire or discourage. I choose inspiration and edification and I hang with those who choose it too. I understand that there are programs to keep me straight and to stop inspiring people. The Kill Joy movement in Washington DC has helped many good people learn to be discouraged. I choose to stay in inspirational therapy.

Richard Arnold Beattie is serving as President of Valley Park and Recreation in the Wet Mountain Valley. He writes and produces CREATE Daily. He is the President, Founder and Curator of Sound Century Academy of Recording Arts and Broadcasting as well as President of the Leadon Family Foundation of Colorado. To find out how you can be part of his work email Richardbeattie809@gmail.com.