SPLINTERED SUNLIGHT
by Michelle Waughtel
February 1999
"Walk into splintered sunlight, inch your way through dead dreams to another land"
Many of us who are interested in the jam band scene are here because we learned from the Grateful Dead to crave music that launches adventures for the mind and spirit. Splintered Sunlight will be reflections on the Grateful Dead experience -- a soulful "tip of the hat" to the good ole Grateful Dead amidst all the exploration we do of current bands in this space.
As the mood strikes, I will talk about the parallels I see between "the long strange trip" and our present renaissance of amazing experiential music and the surrounding scene. I'll relive some powerful memories of what it felt like to be out there, swirling through the Universe in time with Jerry's guitar. I'll point out a really cool tape or highlight some interesting news about a new project a GD band member is involved with. Or maybe I'll just ramble on, meditating on Dead lyrics that have punctuated some major life lesson for me.
Today I am into the image of "splintered sunlight." The visual image I get is that of fractured sunbeams asserting themselves through venetian blinds that are closed. They make cool patterns on the walls and ceilings. However, the whole point of closing the blinds is to keep the light out! What if you are trying to watch TV during the day and the blasted "splintered sunlight" is dancing all over your screen obscuring your view? You get up and fiddle with the blinds. No help. Now what? The lyric I quoted above from "Box of Rain" speaks to me about tolerance of things that are out of my control. Walk into it! Work with (not against) what is in front of you. Find a way through.
Actually, I got started on this whole line of dead-centered psychobabble when I thought about "splintered sunlight" in relation to things that are going on in my circle of friends that I used to go to shows with. It's so exciting to hear all the outrageously positive directions that some of my friends' lives have taken since the Bus jammed on its brakes almost four years ago. Most of us have "inched our way through" the "dead dreams" to our own new lands. Stretching the metaphor, I'd say that many of us had to close the blinds to some degree in order to move forward. But how we deal with that "splintered sunlight" that finds its way through to us in spite of our trying to close it out seems to be the difference between getting stuck and visiting the new lands that are waiting.
Another (perhaps more accessible) image of "splintered sunlight" comes to mind when I think about the jam band scene as I've experienced it as a deadhead. When there were Grateful Dead shows, there was a visible, centralized (albeit idealized) community. Let's call that the sun. In the absence of Jerry, the tribe disbanded, at least physically. What we are left with is "splintered sunlight." Pieces of the Grateful Dead experience, every bit as potent as the direct rays, that pop up everywhere at all the different shows and gatherings we might frequent. "Splintered sunlight" pouring in from every which direction, even when the blinds are closed. Believe it if you need it.
