Music of John Dowland played by the artist. (Music sets the mind and heart in motion for new or renewed thinking.)

My heart rouses
                        thinking to bring you news
                                                                      of something
that concerns you
                                     and concerns many men. Look at
                                                             what passes for the new,
You will not find it there but in
                         despised poems.
                                                It is difficult
to get the news from poems
                                    yet many men die miserably everyday
                                                           for lack
of what is found there.

What is it that rouses us? At the heart of who we are, artists and safekeepers of the treasures of both human hearts and human knowledge, is passion. We know that what separates the good from the great and magical is passion. Are we not passionate to bring the news? Our news? Not of the black and white of the newspaper page or even the musical score, but beyond the obvious of the black and white. The 'what is it really?'  The poetry.

Science is not only about facts, that is the black and white news. Science is about the joy of finding things out....that's the poetry. And history is people, alive like you and me, who composed their lives and who have something to teach us about writing our own stories. And art.....if it means...putting  together*, then yes, putting together who we are, what we dream and for what we hope, with the world around us. About this we are passionate. We must be equally passionate about bringing the news. It is not an option to feel they, our communities should and will just choose to come to us. It is not we and they. It is us.


Once again, music of John Dowland.  (The arts deepen our relationship to what it is we hear, to our learning; they do this by engaging more of our senses, thus more of who we are.)

From Notes of An Alchemist, words of the great scientist Loren Eisely:

Crystals grow
                      under fantastic pressures in the deep
                                                                              crevices and confines of
the earth.
                       They grow by fires,
                                                          by water trickling slowly
in strange solutions
                                     from the walls of caverns.
They form
                                     in cubes, rectangles,
                                     tetrahedrons,
                                                                                             they may have
their own peculiar axes and
                                 molecular arrangements
                                                                            but they,
         like life,
                                  like men,
                                                                             are twisted by
the places into which
                       they come.


It is to us we would have them, our communities, come. Into the places in which we create meaning and provide insight. And entertain. Oh, I do not believe we are entertainment. Entertainment simply affirms who we are. The art, the putting together, the poetry of our museums.....of my music....must stretch who we are, how we see the world, and what we believe is possible.

I do not protend to know exactly the world of museum director, however, I believe we share much, our vision, our passion, that we have committed our lives to 'the beyond the obvious'.....the poetry, and that we can learn from one another other.

Simple gifts: Many of you are familiar with this music that comes to us from the shakers. You may recall that the Shakers were orginally Quakers who, when the spirit so moved them, would shake themselves up. They were known as shaking Quakers. Eventually, they shook themselves across the Atlantic Ocean and settled in America and were called simply, Shakers. Tis a gift to be simple, Tis a gift to be free. Tis a gift to come down where you ought to be....and when you find yourself in the place just right....Part of our mission is education, is not a primary goal of education to provide a means by which all people can find that place 'where they ought to be,' the place just right'? The growth of a child, of people, is not about facts. It is poetry. Sister Ann Lee, founders of the Shakers in America, is reputed to have said, 'Every force evolves a form'. If we believe we are essential in the world, not elite, but co-creators of a central place in which people can come together, a place in which people can turn to one another, that force evolves the form of the perception we have of ourselves, and the perception our community has of who we are and what we have to offer. In the end this, I believe will determine our future success.