Lightning lit up the sky all around me – to the right, left and back. It cracked, sparking the Earth with a natural energy, and each time I saw it happen around me I felt something happen within myself.
Energy.
It sparked the Earth around us, and then sparked each moment with a special energy that can only be found on this ground. At Red Rocks National Park in Morrison, Colorado. With Trevor Hall and Nahko & Medicine for the People on stage.
What is lightning, afterall? Energy. I mean, we obviously know what it is. Lightning occurs when negative and positive charges grow large enough, a giant spark occurs within them. The electrical charges temporarily equalize themselves, causing an instant release of as much as 1 billion joules of energy.
That’s what Sunday felt like. As if the negative and positive charges in my life collided, shook each other’s hands, created a spark, and landed me here, at Red Rocks. I will never forget the moment I scanned my ticket, sprinted up the mountain and turned around to fully take in the experience I had just arrived at. Tears fall as I type this. Real, raw tears. I know now that I will never have that moment again in my life, and I did my best to take it for what it was at the time. I remember taking a deep breath and letting it go, making room for the experience before me. With it, everything fell away. The tightness in my chest over fear we were going to miss Trevor because of the 1 hour and 45-minute line softened. Trevor was here. I was here, standing on a mountain at the most legendary music venue in the country. I was where my entire life had been preparing me to be. And I closed my eyes and let the emotions flow through me, and let the tears fall.
I had thought about this moment all day. All weekend. Perhaps since the night I bought my ticket at a bar in Durham, North Carolina. But I could’ve never prepared myself for how it would feel.
I opened my eyes, and Trevor’s voice filled the Earth, his guitar playing the first chords of “Green Mountain State” – a song that has become a signature Trevor song.
“I call to the Red Rock State,” he sang, and the crowd roared. Trevor stopped singing half way through and listened to a sold-out Red Rocks crowd sing his words back to him: “There’s a way, there’s a way, there’s a way.”
It was in that moment I really started to understand the impact of Trevor’s music had on not only me, but every single person on this mountain and beyond.
I’m reading a book right now called “Long Way Gone” by Charles Martin. Fantastic book, by the way. It has taught me a lot about music and the way it feels within each of us. He says music doesn’t enter through the mind; it enters through the heart. Sunday night, I let the music fill my heart until it overflowed and trickled down my entire body. It produced an experience and energy in my body that it is hard to explain even now. Memories my from entire life flashed in my mind. Some bad and some good. Either way, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Trevor was telling me I didn’t need them anymore. To let them go. To release them. I closed my eyes again, let the music seep into a lifetime of open wounds my body was holding, and felt the music heal them from the inside out.
Trevor’s music taught me that there is no light without darkness; no darkness without light. To have one we must walk through the other. But you have to let go of the darkness at some point. It’s not meant to be held onto to. And the wounds can only heal when you let them go.
After all, the wound is where the light enters.
The book I
am reading also says music is the only activity on planet Earth that can transport
those who hear it from place A to place B in two beats. I agree
whole-heartedly.
I used to listen to Nahko a lot my junior year of college. My friend Beau showed
me “Budding Trees” in my college apartment, and it led me on a deep dive into
his music. I played “Black as Night” on repeat when I drove to the Outer Banks to
see my best friend Heather, I meditated on “I believe in the good things coming”
as I walked the greenway with my hippie friend while high on life (and others
things). Listening to Nahko’s music at home brings me back to those moments
within two beats, and almost immediately, I can see myself in my car smelling
the ocean air or on the greenway desperately in need of a shower and a hair
brush.
But Sunday night, his music didn’t bring me there. His music brought me to a place I’ve never been before.
The sun had set by the time Nahko came on. I saw the Denver skyline twinkling in the distance in between the monstrous mountains. The rain had stopped, but lightning still struck the Earth everywhere but Red Rocks. Listening to Nahko’s words with that backdrop, I was reminded of a certain kind of hope. Of holding on. Of fighting. For yourself and for others.
The lightning behind him was a symbol of all of that. It reminded me that I was alive. It showed me that there can be a dark, raging storm completely surrounding you, but you can and will weather them.
We weather a lot of storms in our lives, and sometimes, for me, music is the only thing that can silence them. So, I let Nahko silence them.
Down below me, I spotted a man off to the right. Eyes closed. Arms open to the sky. Head and palms facing up. I imagined he was feeling something to similar to what I was feeling: that he needed to release darkness to create the space for the light, for the energy we all created and shared and exchanged together in this space.
I looked at the man again and followed suit. Closed my eyes. Held my arms, palms and head open to the sky. I took another deep breath, scanned my mind and body, and felt myself shed what is heavy.
I gave something to Trevor and Nahko that night, and Trevor and Nahko gave something right back to me.
For that, I thank them.
Love Will See You Through 