Open palm, singing into shoulder blades…
“…And all that’s harsh and wrong in my life melts into one sweet song. And my love spreads wings like a glad bird, flying over the road…” (from 2/15)
“For all you steady stories, burrowed to the marrow: you know how I love you, you see what I am. No matter what or how or if it all gets written, I am steady on the wing.
Untethered freedom is my offering, for a patch of mortal sunlight. To bask together with a song and a half, we will walk to the swelling river bottom and sit until our hips ache with truth.”
(It’s just a little tune, but it’ll get ya started while I put the kettle on)
“…Betrothed to the earth, promised back to her at birth, we all wear the ring. We all are separate for a while til we join her in the aisle….” (from The Ring)
Follow yourself awake, rubbing dreams from tired eyes. Move your humble limbs over the bed, outside to where the sky tells all. From there, you just may find, the darkest dark is the brightest light of all. No need to believe, for within the sound of that still night is the beginning arch of dawn’s symphonic return. And you belong to that melody as you belong to simple gravity. Praise the inner compass of life's most simple actuality and the process of it's reflection in our heart of hearts of heart. Praise the grace of the science of mind and matter. Praise the faith of the tree who stretches through cement. For we love and let go and love and let go and love again...to let it all go back to that endless, unconditional, poem of sky.
Ten thousand lives, ten thousand miles, ten thousand ways to tell it all again…
The singer takes the mic knowing some songs are just about her own accountability. Some songs are just for the parts inside that have been fighting for all her life. And from the singing alone, they turn their heads towards one another and listen. To the space under the lyrics, yes. But also to each other.
A seed is planted, you wait. Patience sits in the ribcage like an old record player. Some scratches, such a symphony. You water the sprout only just right, you wait. You don’t force the growing. You let it rise in its own way and time. The weather shifts, subsides. Fog is thick. The breath slows, deepens. You watch, listen, drink the tea. The crackles of light. A melody sung welcomes the sprout. The slowest pace sets the tone. Sleep is adrift. You aim to observe reality as it is - not as you wish it to be.
Bones glow. A light rests in the steady palm. Moon waves course through dreams. And from a river of night comes a call like this….
The Montanan monsoon poured down like a weighted blanket, while primal sound filled the space between the drops. Severity struck like lightning through the bones and all that kept the skin intact was the clawing of earth and the chorus of this song. Oh, noble truth, you are the first. Tender sky, you weep just right when grief this size is far too much to ever hold. Dirt, fill these eyes again, til morning comes. Til somehow, morning.
When the larch trees exploded in brilliant golden and the Milky Way fed her thirst in the crisp, black air, the glacial fed lake turned silver. It was another painfully perfect cabin day. Thus, she captured a song just right, face and back warm with fire and chest pouring out for The TRUELOVE. The poem, that is. Not the cliche.
To rebuild takes rewriting of core foundations, the key blueprint of tender touch; of hearts to life, life to love, and love to hearts. It takes honoring the cycle of security and living by it. It takes embracing the loop of: connect to disconnect to repair. It takes calling clear intentions into all the new spaces.
It takes saying NO and saying YES, even if it doesn’t make sense, especially if it's not easy. It takes knowing your worth and fighting for the highest road with the one who walks beside you as your equal, the best teammate out there. And without doubt, it takes vulnerability of a child.
So, you out there, give the gift. Invite. Don’t hold back, open. Listen for the ease of the rest ‘round your heart. Then open more. Then try again.
Once there was a man. And the wind turned his wings to sea.
1. To be ready. She's seen it twice in others. It looked like northern lights shining from the eyes and every pour of the skin. There ought to be a word in this language for the kind of ready that comes from the hours right before the spirit soars out of the body and through the open window. The kind of ready from one who is in total eclipse themselves, with nothing but peace in their life lived and fading awe for the room on the other side of that door of grace-light.
We also need a word for the kind of ready that happens when one has an intimate view of mortality, at every moment, because they have to. She's felt that once and every day since. To look it straight in the eye and dance with its tendrils only when necessary, takes a soft lake rock in the pocket. This kind of ready looks like lion courage, a release of dreams. It looks like holding what you want as an open basket full of "we'll see's," little doves resting together. Little white, paper doves with poems inside the folds, with ink that fades slowly, in six month increments.
2. In the sterile, white room he said many things and concluded with, "See you. In the dead. Of winter." Her leaking, hazel eyes closed hard. Her breath, she brought it back to that breath.
And in the pause after the door shut behind him, she imagined snow in the mountain view from her cabin, with ravens in the field. And bread crumbs leading to the river, leading to spring.
Let the rain from these eyes flood this home and carry it as a boat out to sea. Let the ocean wash over every crevice of these four walls, then gently drop it on the land prepared by the stars. And when that is all done, a song please, real slow. In 3, like this....
3. To sing what we wish is a feeling unlike any in the world. Do not cling for that which you hold, or that which you wish had not been, or that which is just around the bend. 'Live the questions now, perhaps then, someday, you will gradually, without noticing, live into the answer.' Rilke.
To aim for forgiveness of all, especially those whom have caused great pain, is to labor a miracle child. Even the act of making space for this concept shifts things inside and gives others access to softness at times when they thought it was impossible. Compassion is possible in all avenues of life, even the most extreme.
To cry through singing is something we learn by doing, over and over. Sometimes because we have to, because he died like that, because you truly are that happy, because there is no other way. And because shutting it out dishonors the love, the wish, the spirit, the new life. Whether in the shower, car, street or stage, if you let those tears out while the vocal cords give sound, it will water whatever ground you stand on.
All of this is worth trying, I promise. Start with one sound, one sit, one walk at dusk, one word on a page of tree life. Better yet, start tenderly, exactly where you are.
song credits:
-Te Amo (re-imagined) - by Trevor Hall
-Sadie - Joanna Newsom
-2/15 - Bonnie “Prince” Billy (with Skye Steele on violin)
-Go Long - Joanna Newsom
-The Ring - Skye Steele (with Skye Steele on violin)
-Red, Red Rose - Scottish Traditional Folk Song
-Bring Your Love To Me - Avett Brothers
-What Reason Should I Give - Ornette Coleman
-Now You Know - Anais Mitchell
-On The Ground - Rubblebucket
-I Wish I Was - Avett Brothers
-Waxwing - Olivia Chaney
-No Hard Feelings - Avett Brothers