My sessions were finished on this Saturday night, the Missus away in Boston, my mind far too bleary and weary from the work of the week, my body an exhausted reflection of my mind.  I, who all too rarely takes any time off for just myself, decided to just do that.  Deeply in need of a little Inspirational refreshment, I settled down with two offerings from Netflix.

The first, Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart, just totally blew me away.  In it, inspired by a love of African music and an interest in tracing the roots of the banjo, American banjo great, Bela Fleck, embarks on a musical journey through Uganda, Tanzania, Gambia, and Mali, playing with the locals and discovering the beauty of the land and its people.

Besides the fact that the music performed in the video is simply fabulous, the movie gets to the heart of Africa through that music and its performers in the most precious of ways.

Béla Anton Leoš Fleck, is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s most innovative and technically proficient banjo players.  He is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Fleck was born in New York City, and is named after famous Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, Austrian composer Anton Webern, and Czech composer Leoš Janácek. He was drawn to the banjo when he first heard Earl Scruggs play the theme song for the television show Beverly Hillbillies. 

“Throw Down Your Heart” was directed by Sascha Paladino and was filmed during Fleck’s year off from touring with the Flecktones.

I laughed, I cried, I soared on the wings of this incredible music.  If in any way you’ve soured on people, here is a film to renew faith in mankind – in its innocence, its creativity, and its pure spirit.

I’ll watch it again tonight with the Missus.

The second film was the 6^th and final episode of Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. I’ve written an earlier post about this most inspirational series and again, this film series was life-changing for me.  I’m going to take a summer off in the next year so and just take a drive around the U.S. and visit the epitome of our homeland – our National Parks.

The last words of the movie nailed down the entire experience for me.  The words of John Muir, the “Father of the National Parks,” lifted me out of what final remnants of fatigue remained and simply inspired me with their beauty and restored my soul’s energies.

John Muir is my new hero.

Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States, his letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions.

His activism helped to save the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is now one of the most important conservation organizations in the United States.  One of the most well-known hiking trails in the U.S., the 211-mile John Muir Trail, was named in his honor. Other places named in his honor are Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, and Muir Glacier.

He was also a deeply spiritual thinker and inspirational writer.  I’m going to take these words and this grand idea and set them to music.  I went to bed with a song in my heart, having seen many of the better aspects of our dear world, having been inspired once again by its natural beauty, its incredible music and its great people.  I went to bed totally refreshed and woke eager to face the day.

I woke to a new morning of creation.

“One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made – that this is still the morning of creation.  This grand show is eternal.  It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising.  Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.” – John Muir

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.