Following on from Evolution, Lineage turns inward to examine something far more personal. How do we process and cope with being part of something far larger than ourselves, something that stretches back through millennia?

This two and a half hour journey through solo piano begins in ancient spaces. Standing stones, temples and ruins. Places where the weight of deep time is tangible. But these crumbling monuments are not merely settings; they are catalysts for introspection and questioning of where we sit in human history.

Across twenty five pieces and four movements, we move through this landscape, and learn to sit with the questions. Through darkness and doubt, through glimmers of hope and moments of celebration, the journey traces a path from outsider to belonging, from feeling lost in vastness to finding a place within it. This is a story of eventual acceptance. Learning to dwell comfortably with the knowledge that we are both small and yet profoundly connected to everything that has come before us.

The Journey

Part 1 - The Ancient

Ancient Stones

The journey begins amidst weathered ancient standing stones. Built thousands of years ago. Desolate, abandoned and forgotten. Inviting stillness and reflection.

Ancestral Ceremony

The ancient standing stones were likely a site for ceremonies, rituals and community. They are in effect witnesses to ways of life that spanned millennia. Encountering these stones makes us realize how ingenious and resourceful our ancient ancestors were and just how ritualistic they were.

Buried Secrets

Not everything from the ancient world was meant to be found. This piece descends into mystery. Knowledge deliberately hidden, wisdom lost to time, practices that died with their practitioners. There is darkness here, but also intrigue. The exotic scale suggests something esoteric. Some secrets remain secrets, even when unearthed.

Through Ages Past

This piece ticks like a clock. Time itself becomes palpable. Not measured in days or years, but in epochs. Mountains erode and civilizations rise and fall. The rhythmic pulse evokes the relentless march of millennia. This is a confrontation with the sheer scale of deep time, the incomprehensible distance between then and now.

Temple of the Heavens

Simple stones gave way to monumental temples with soaring halls and astronomical alignments. Here, ancient people looked upward and asked their own eternal questions about the cosmos and their place within it. The grandeur is both inspiring and humbling. These were people who built spaces to contemplate, who understood that some questions dwarf human scale entirely.

The Eternal Question

Standing beneath a vast night sky, the one question emerges. Why are we here? What does any of this mean? The mysterious, questioning mood suggests no answer will come easily. The question is what makes us human. It hangs in the air and remains unanswered.

Prometheus

In myth, Prometheus brought fire from the heavens to humanity. Not just literal flame, but knowledge, enlightenment, the spark of understanding. The capacity to think, to wonder, to create meaning even in the absence of any.

Bygone Transmissions

The ancient world speaks to us through degraded transmissions. Crumbling papyrus, worn stone tablets, cave paintings. What are they trying to say to us? This piece accelerates with urgency as if time is running out for the decoding of these ancient messages. What wisdom might they still hold?

Part 2 - Reflections

The Passage

Imagine walking though the halls and stone passage ways of ancient temples. Passing through the years.

The Inward Turn

The gaze finally turns inward. The moment when the question becomes personal. It's not "What does all this mean?" but rather "What does all this mean for me?" This piece creates the space needed for that inquiry. There is tension here, uncertainty.

The Search Within

Looking for answers, for understanding, for some foothold in uncertain terrain. How do we fit in?

Unknowing

The first discovery is uncomfortable. Not knowing. Uncertainty.

Amidst The Vast

Enormity hits. All those ancient spaces, all that deep time, all those countless lives. Billions upon billions of human beings who lived and died before this moment. How small any individual life appears against such a backdrop. How brief. How easily forgotten. This is the dark night of introspection, the moment when scale threatens to render everything meaningless. The slow, brooding quality mirrors the heaviness of this realization.

Lost In Thought

Thoughts deepen. Weighing possibilities, exploring the implications of everything. The mind wanders through its own corridors, finding connections, losing threads, following tangents. There is a dreamlike quality to it, hypnotic and consuming. To be lost in thought is to be fully present in the act of thinking itself.

Unsettled

Reflection is not always peaceful. This piece captures the inner turmoil. The restless, unsettled feeling when nothing quite resolves, when every answer generates new questions, when the mind cannot find solid ground. The wandering melody and dynamic shifts mirror emotional volatility. This is confusion and struggle, the feeling of grasping for meaning and not quite catching it. Some understanding is within reach, but it remains elusive, frustrating, just out of grasp.

Glimmers

Finally, something begins to break through. Glimmers. Small lights appearing in the darkness. Moments of clarity, brief and tentative. Hope begins to stir.

Part 3 - Emergence

Ascending

This is the beginning of emergence, the first steps upward.

The Upward Journey

Emergence is not easy. This piece captures the struggle of the climb. The highs as well as the lows.

Uplifted

After the long journey upward, this is like standing on the mountain top. A sense of how we belong begins to form.

Consonance

There is a sense that the scattered pieces are coming together, that contradictions are reconciling, that internal peace is possible. The feeling of being in harmony with oneself and one's place in the world.

The Dance

This is what it feels like to reach the peak, to celebrate simply being alive and connected to the long human story. The dance is ancient and eternal.

Part 4 - Acceptance

The Long Exhale

After the climb, the long breath out.

Afterglow

The glow that remains after realizing we belong not by finding a predetermined place, but by inhabiting our moment with intention, by actively choosing our place in the lineage.

At Peace

Deep. Hypnotic. Meditative. At peace with our place in the universe. This is what it feels like to stop fighting, to let go of resistance, and to simply be.

Where I Dwell

This is our place in the lineage, our moment in the unbroken chain. There is no conclusion because the lineage continues. This is acceptance. The choice to inhabit this moment, this place, this thread in time, with full presence and without fear.

Final Thoughts

To wonder about one's place in the lineage is to acknowledge that such a lineage exists and that we are part of it. The journey through ancient spaces, through reflection and emergence, through struggle and acceptance. This is not preparation for life but life itself, happening in real time, now and always.

In the end, Lineage is an offering. A space in which to reflect, to feel, to remember that we are not isolated individuals navigating a meaningless void, but members of an ancient family stretching back through countless generations. Every person who ever lived is part of our lineage. Every ancestor who struggled and loved and died made it possible for us to be here now. And we, in turn, are part of someone else's lineage. The ancestors of future generations who will someday wonder about their own place in the story.

This is where we dwell: in the eternal present, connected to an infinite past, contributing to an unwritten future. May this music offer some small comfort to anyone who seeks to understand their place in the vast and beautiful mystery of human existence.