The word ‘ambient’ refers to the immediate surroundings of a thing and so ambient music is often conceptualised as a landscape, an environment – think of Brian Eno’s Ambient 4: On Land, or some of its many ancestors, records like Basil Kirchin’s Worlds Within Worlds, Alien Bog by Pauline Oliveros, Sun Ra’s Moon Dance, John Cage’s In a Landscape, Alvin Curran’s Songs and Views From the Magnetic Garden, Gail Laughton’s Pompeii 76 A.D., Les Baxter’s Sunken City, Richard Maxfield’s Pastoral Symphony, Winter Trees by Terry Jennings or Jon Gibson’s Visitations.

We often assume that if we are good people we will not suffer the ills of the world. You may feel that you and your loved one honored your part of the deal: You went to church, synagogue, or your particular place of worship. You were loving, kind, and charitable. You did all the things you were told. You believed you would be rewarded if you did. Well, this loss is no reward. We also assume that if we care for our bodies, eat right, get medical checkups, and exercise, we will be granted good health. These assumptions come crashing down around us when the good, the just, the loving, the healthy, the young, and even the needed and most wanted die on us.

Whenever we ask people to be different than they are, or to feel something different, we are not accepting them as they are and where they are. Nobody likes to be asked to change and not be accepted as they are. We like it even less in the midst of grief.