About GrailHeart
The name “GrailHeart” came to me maybe a decade ago. And as much as it has resonated with me over the years, I’ve been foundering with what to do with it. Lately, I’ve felt like I was closing in. Then, any doubts I may have had were blasted out of my brain by a vivid dream whose almost physical impact woke me with a start. (It was a really simple dream. I’m not ready to share it.) The end result is that I’ll be dedicating GrailHeart to uplifting stories, and music to go with them. Something like a “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood” for grownups. Lord knows these feel like dark days, and I think that a sanctuary from all that serves a real need. (It helps me! “First put the oxygen mask on yourself, then help your neighbor with theirs…”)
If ‘the Grail” means — something ineffable and beyond wonderful, just beyond the horizon, that represents one’s true heart’s desire, then, yes, my life has been, and continues to be a Grail Quest of the Heart. I’m far from alone in that Quest.
— William
October, 2024
About William
When I was 16, my family experienced a horrible tragedy. Which launched me on a desperate quest to make sense of it. In the course of that Journey to the Underworld, I learned Greek and translated the New Testament for myself. And studied voraciously — Western Philosophy, the Great Religions, and mathematics. And Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. And I’ve been a harpsichord builder, a college mathematics instructor, and a computer programmer (including several years at Microsoft on the C++ team).
As a musician, I’m an organist, pianist, and composer. I’ve composed film scores for documentaries — including one airing on the Portuguese equivalent of PBS, and another for the European Space Agency.
And in my travels, I chanced upon the glass armonica — a musical instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin, which works on the wet-finger-around-the-wineglass idea. Mozart and Beethoven composed for it. I’ve played my glass armonica at the Kennedy Center, with the Blue Man Group, and my hands playing the glass armonica were a clue on Jeopardy. And my YouTube video playing Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy has over six million views.
Now I’m hoping that in some small way I can share what I’ve learned on my own Quest, and encourage others on theirs.