Residential Weekend

In the end we shall have had enough cyn­i­cism, skep­ti­cism and hum­bug and we shall want to live more musi­cal­ly’. So said Vin­cent Van Gogh. I think he would have loved Protest in Har­mony’s lat­est res­i­den­tial week­end at the Well Road Cen­tre in Moffat.

33 of us, includ­ing our 3 mag­nif­i­cent song lead­ers, joined togeth­er for a week­end of song, soul (and oth­er excel­lent) food and silliness.

But what is har­mo­ny at one lev­el is dis­cord at anoth­er. We were faced with sev­er­al conun­drums: lentil or mine­strone, abstain or regret lat­er, ignore the chang­ing of the clock or be rested?

It was hard to choose between the 3 fas­ci­nat­ing work­shops: Song­writ­ing, Boffins’ Blether (Where have we come from and where now?), Non-vio­lent direct action.

Fur­ther­more: How to engage the audi­ence while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly keep­ing both eyes on the song leader; how to cope with the ache of too much laugh­ter; how long before the Cut­lery Band has its world tour.

How to sing mind­ful­ly when crying.

Before head­ing home, sev­er­al went to sing out­side Dun­gav­el Deten­tion Cen­tre to give heart to peo­ple detained inside, espe­cial­ly those on hunger strike.

We shall find in our trou­bled hearts, where dis­cord reigns, two needs which seem at vari­ance, but which merge in a com­mon source: the love of the true and the love of the fab­u­lous’. (Anon) And true and fab­u­lous it was.

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