The Journey to the Stars

Playlist Overview:

8 Songs: Runtime - 42 Minutes

I've broken this playlist into 4 parts, each with its distinct mood and background. This is more than just a playlist; but rather, it is a poetic soundtrack to the play of our imagination.

Part I: Jazz in the City

1. After the Rain – John Coltrane (4:09)

We begin this playlist in the jazzy world of John Coltrane's imagination. And in the cozy warmth of this masterful piece, you can hear the distant thunder of the passing day – of the passing stress.

Imagine, if you will, the tender playing of the symbols as passing rain falling on a tin roof. Looking out of your window, you see a world anew. The colors of all that surrounds – the trees and buildings are brightening the gray of a stormy day.

And then, with the amber tones of his saxophone, Coltrane is the golden ray of sunlight breaking through the parting clouds.

A new day, and a new beginning.

2. Blue and Green – Miles Davis (5:37)

The parting clouds that once towered over the city have broken into the blues and greens of a warming spring day. As you walk through the city streets, the cool flowing wave of free decision brings you to wherever you please — a coffee shop or your favorite bakery – a place that's home in its own way.

And as you continue on this warm afternoon, a cool breeze just soft enough to feel, blows at your back in the sounds of the muted trumpet of Miles Davis.

Calling your attention to a peaceful world and the nature that springs up around the buildings and streets. You notice all that you wish to do and all that you have forgotten to appreciate.

Bill Evans and his piano is the chirp of the birds, and John Coltrane is once again here to play you a song of the afternoon sun.

Part II: The Art of Words

3. The Sweetest Thing – Horace Bay (3:45)

As we step into the next scene, the day has passed, and the amber glow of the setting sun has taken it’s place. The sky, now a darkened cobalt is painted by the distant clouds of pinks and orange.

A voice breaks through the silence, and the soft strum of a guitar reminds you're of a simplicity you left in childhood. One that was quickly at peace and full of contentedness.

Silhouettes are highlighted with the soft voices of a golden hour – of a cheery presence that has been long forgotten. As the city's jazz fades to the background, you begin to melt into the soft laughter of equanimity.

And as a static whisper of the one you love cozies your ear, the love light in their eyes reminds you of whatever infinite creation you believe in.

And the flow that Miles Davis brought, calm and serene, slowly fades into a deepening contrast of the person in front of you. In-depth and unseen, the rising hum lifts you to the night sky and the distant mountains.

4. Words – Gregory Alan Isakov (4:01)

The stars of a night sky are twinkling at the limits of your imagination. And the evening light has faded into the pitch of night. With a serene accompaniment of acoustics, Gregory Alan Isakov sings as you drift into a world so big that it cradles you.

Now in the mountains with the city in the distance, you have stars above and stars below.

Words, now falling into the tenderness of unspoken communication, drift you into comfort so deep –

And as you look above, the depth of the sky seems to match. And the distant night lights become pathways of journeys untold, with the rumbling bass pulsating at the heart of the universe.

Part III: A Distant Call

5. Theory of the Tides – Patrick Glynn (10:34)

The subtle tides of time, once unapproachable, have risen to all that surrounds you. And as Patrick orchestrates his theory, you begin to melt into the night, lifting into these echoing vibrations.

There is no need to say more, and the voices fade away into the stillness of a calm midnight. Thoughts that once intruded have unattached themselves as they dance in the distance. The falling and the rising, the twists and the turns, now join the auroras.

The blues and the greens that decorate the night sky tell you their secrets of the protective shield that surrounds the globes. And in time, you realize that you are on a spaceship through time and space, and this spaceship is called Earth.

And as the hums fall to their silence, you sit on the emerald throne of a mountaintop night.

6. Faiths' Hymn – Beautiful Chorus (6:19)

The fading world, and the auroras that make you feel small, are only a part of the cosmic choreography. You are but a single line in a thousand verses of one-of-a-million plays throughout the universe.

And in the hum of Alexandra and her group, Beautiful Chorus, you find that you are in the middle of the two stories of humanity. And all who have become before you, and all those after, join you in the journey to the stars.

A Journey to the Stars

7. Atlas: Hearing – Sleeping at Last (4:09)

The cosmic dance must go on. And as you lay, perfectly suspended in space and time, even the tough times seem –

In this space – on your emerald throne, you are free to be and free to choose. And in the reminder of our humanity, Sleeping at Last, adds to the fullness of the night. Reinvigorating you in a way that only music can, the strings and the whispers tick with the hands of time – forward, forward, forward.

And in this peaceful resurgence, you expand endlessly into the unity of the human experience.

8. Uranus – Sleeping at Last (4:19)

Sleeping at Last deserves two parts on this list because, in some form, he captures the existence of all music with only a few chords and synthesizers. And the closer you listen to it, the more you can pull from the sounds and silences.

And with this song, he pulls everything back to the world as you know it. The discontinuity between past and future breaks once again, but this time, a single strand holds tight between the two.

And on this floating rock, this pale blue dot surging forward through the vacuum of space, the whisper of history comes through the song to tell us our path once again.

This last song calls us back to the point of singularity and tells the whisper of history.

And too, we will forge forward.

With our feet floating and our backs strong

We are minor, and we are major.

We are small, and we are immense.

We are –