Music in Process is a cohort of the Cobb Institute to promote well-being by sharing and listening to music. The cohort consists of individuals of all ages who help create just and compassionate communities by supporting one another's musical journeys. Examples of this support include sharing and discussing our favorite music, learning together about the power of music to connect, uplift, and inspire, and contributing our talents by sharing the joy of music in our local communities.
Who We Are
We are people who love music and its potential to co-create beauty, cultivate compassion, and celebrate life. We have been uplifted and transformed by music ourselves, and enjoy sharing that experience with others. Some of us are young; some of us are of a certain age. Some of us play music in public spaces; some just love to listen. Wherever we are on our musical journeys, we acknowledge the importance of supportive companionship along the way. We feel better when music fills the air, whether in our earbuds, our homes, online spaces, community venues, concert halls, or stadiums.
As process thinkers, we recognize that our destinies are inextricably entangled. We know that music builds bridges, brings people together, and creates positive change in the world. We're grateful for the healing that comes with breath, vibration, rhythm and motion. We enjoy the musical contrasts expressed in all styles of music, across all generations and cultures. We seek the novelty that amazes us when we first encounter unfamiliar composers and their compositions. We love the old favorites, too, because the practice of love reinforces love.
Ready to share the rhythm?
Already a member?
Our Philosophy of Music
We believe that, like poetry, music relies upon a vast matrix of relationships: performer and listener, intellect and emotion, melody and harmony, meter and rhythm, the interplay of ideas old and new. Like all art, music has power to heal a fragmented, polarized world of separation and conflict, and light the way toward a more compassionate, interconnected story of the world and our place in it. Music has a vitally important role to play in building community, transforming spirit into substance, and quickening our ears to hear the world around us more attentively. This is what artists do in their roles as entertainers, poets, prophets, and sages. Artists show us how to live. They remind us to be part of a reciprocal flow — to embody the idea that we're all in this together.
To make music is to set an example of how human beings can agree on many things. To experience harmony and resonance is to foster solidarity and reverence. To recover our shared common humanity is to be actors as well as spectators. Music is much more than adulation of commercialized celebrity and spectacle. With our participation and support, local music may thrive again in restored communities — tapping into motivating energies of volunteerism that revitalize the commons, education, health, and well-being. Music is a happiness economy; music is transcendent; music co-creates a human future worth living in.
Our Aspirations
1. Create a Vibrant Community
Our intent is to create a group that can grow together in a process-relational mode, in which anyone of goodwill is welcome to contribute their ideas, share their talent, and participate in consensus-building.
2. Build a Musical Network
We desire to build a network of musicians, music lovers, and resources to support one another in improving the quality of our own lives, while creating more just and resilient communities of health, happiness, and well-being.
3. Promote Spiritual Growth
We seek to promote spiritual growth through music, whether it be sharing musical selections, teaching and learning new skills, providing supportive companionship, or exploring the power of music to entertain, strengthen, enlighten, heal, and transform.
Meets on the third Saturday of each month at 9:00AM Pacific.
Cohort Coordinator
Kathleen Reeves is the community relations specialist at the Cobb Institute, helps guide the Institute's efforts in spiritual exploration and the arts, and assists with a fundraising and social media. She's a writer, artist and published poet. She holds a Master of Divinity in interfaith theology, and is an ordained interfaith minister. She has been active in interfaith peace, and is a member of the Inland Valley Interfaith Working Group for Middle East Peace. She is the President of the Upland Interfaith Council, and has held leadership positions in Unitarian Universalists congregations.
Her community interfaith ministry led her to volunteer with Syrian refugees as they settled into their new country. Her deep connection with one special family is captured in her series of stories she wrote for the Huffington Post. She is a student of Japanese tea ceremony through the international Chado Urasenke Tankokai associations of the Urasenke school in Kyoto, Japan. Kathleen has also trained in Restorative Practice, and she follows an earth-based religion and belongs to The Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids. She is continually working on ways to build a process-relational community through small group ministry.
Assistant Coordinator
Thomas Atwood is a retired technical writer and lifelong fool who resides in Palo Alto, California with his wife, Debbie Mytels. He graduated from Boston University in 1976 (BA, Music Education and Voice), and retired from a global software enterprise in 2014 with a job classification of Software Engineer. He is a co-founder of Fools Mission, a volunteer lay ministry of witness, accompaniment, advocacy, and the arts on the San Francisco Peninsula. Aghast at the collusive madness of our day, he longs to see
degree programs in curiosity and motivation.
Thomas is now writing his first play, tracing the co-evolution of four characters through multiple reincarnations across three thousand years. He seeks to hold the whole sky; but he never will.
Would you like to play with us?
How to Join
To join the cohort, you will need to create an account on our dedicated Cobb Institute Community website.
Our community site is powered by the Mighty Networks social networking platform. That means you'll be able to add posts, share information and photos, and interact with other cohort members, just as you would with any social network . . . but without any unwanted distractions, advertisements, and private data collection, etc.
When you setup your account be sure to fill out your profile, introduce yourself, and download the mobile app so that you can access the cohort anytime. Click on the button below to create your account now.
If you're already a member of another Cobb Institute cohort and have an account on our community website, just click on the button below and you'll be automatically enrolled.