Sunday All Over the World

Morning:
I like Sundays. It is my favorite day of the week. Usually. Today: Dreary. Cold. Snow Dusting. Depressed. Tired. Homesick. Morning tea postponed: hotel hot water downstairs in thermos smells like coffee. No go. Dave working,
The ghosts that haunt this area, and all the way to Boston, are thick as thieves.
Tea at Starbucks.

Afternoon:
Sun is out. Downing Rescue Remedy like water.

'Soft flexible mind is the way'
My mind is obviously neither soft, nor flexible…

I am unskilled at applying the principles from my practice to my day to day life:

What is available right now?
Where is the edge?
What is too much?
What is too little?
How much energy do I need?
What are alternate approaches?
How small is a bite-sized piece?
Determine what is a bite-sized piece.
Take bite-sized pieces.

What needs the focus of my energy?

What needs weeding?
What needs watering?
How much can I handle?
Take frequent breaks.

Feeling selfish makes all my work seem transparent, insincere, and like a sham. Ironic that I think some things ought to be easy, and that things ought to change quickly. Nothing changes quickly. Lives do not often have avalanches, at least not ones that have not been building for years, occurring only by surprise due to unawareness. Has it been snowing? Wow! I hadn’t noticed! Circumstances, feelings, actions, reactions, habits- all morph, grow, change, and evolve over time. No quick fixes. No instant gratification. Slow, methodical, smart work yield Big Change. Just like the Universe. Since I am the Universe and It is me- us…all of us, why might I think I’d be organized any differently than a glacier, a forest, an ocean?

Radical listening practice.

Zazen.

More radical listening practice.

Reading down by the fire. Always delightfully surprised at Neil Gaiman’s genius. Am in love with Anansi Boys. Scarily applicable to my life. Isn’t that what makes art good?

More radical listening practice.

Evening:
Dinner (ate too many French fries! Ugh!) and delightful visit with Mum.

You Gotta Serve Somebody…

Last Nite:
Ah…relief…hotel bed and roomy shower. Pea discovered under mattress at Mum’s- I am revealed as a real live Princess! And they didn’t believe me! :o. Hi-speed internet for D's work- welcome respite for him from spending the day at Starbucks.

So, how and/or who do I serve? If where you are going is how you get there, you are already where you are going. My how stuff was going just peachy until faced with an actually, real-life, honest-to-goodness emotional challenge. Isn’t that always the case? Easy to find peace all alone at the top of the mountain, but engage in the world and that is where the practice comes alive. I’m not doin’ so good on the fellow man front right now. Apparently, I still suck at that.

An exhausted Zazen before bed.

Today, Morning:
Delicious sleep. Tea. Sunny cold day. Still waiting on surgery date for Mum- will not know until Monday, likely to be scheduled late Jan-Early Feb. She is doing well physically, is unadmittedly stressed about the immanent procedure, but in freakishly high spirits as usual. She is a remarkable woman.

Feeling less like a struggling fish caught in a net and more like a surfer: found a very cool, small holistic market with veggie café (table service, even!). Resistance is futile. Struggle and rejection yields nothing but more of the same. Find the wave and ride it. Recognizing the unfamiliar wave is the challenge. I was riding a nice long fabulous wave at home that had become quite familiar territory. Flying up here, I paddled out and caught another, and became misguided that I was applying the same surfing principles, when I was repeatedly falling off the board.

Zazen.

Afternoon:
Nap. I never take naps. Today I did. Groggy reminder of why I never take naps.

It Is What it Is

Morning:
Tea at Starbucks. Radical listening practice. Persistent headache. Cold and gray, little snow. Unrestful sleep. Princess and the pea bed: I can feel every spring poking up through the mattress and am certain there is an old, dried up, shriveled green pea under there somewhere and it feels like a boulder. No private time is driving me nuts. Feeling stifled and suffocated. Hours trickle by.

Inspired by Robert Fripp recording session I am watching….he is playing in blues and greens and for dark timbres, he adds some brown :) I like that.

Later Morning:
Still at Starbucks. Radical iPod listening practice continues. Dave working devilishly.

So self involved to think my little life experiences, thoughts, pains, loves, hates, minutia, etc are of such an individual and special nature that no one else has experienced them, that they are outside the realm of human everyday experience, singular to me. It’s laughable when I write that…What I feel is what I feel and that is that. How to not label good and bad? How to suspend judgment when faced with my emotional life, especially when I am in emotional turmoil? I am feeling selfish and resentful, I am not acting that way. So why the self flagellation? Why judge and attempt to censor how I feel or think? It is only the continual stream of morphing and changing thoughts and feelings floating across an ever-changing landscape. Whatever sense of control that is developed is from allowing what is to be, not, methinks, by suppression…

Thursday, January 05, 2006
Hell
Late Afternoon:
It’s freakin 4:10pm at is as dark as midnite in the bumfuck Northern state.
Little sleep on rock hard bed. Tea bag tea (good heavens) in microwaved water (egad) steeped in my Starbucks thermos. At least it was organic tea for cryin’ out loud.

Well, I’m in my own little Concentric Ring of Hell, probably unknown even to Dante: The X-Family-Step-Family Nightmare Ring. Definitely located below The Virtuous Pagans’ ring. I always thought that’d be a nice place to live. X-Family is a more fitting nomer than Step Family because it is more realistic of the actually circumstance. Step Family connotes some sort of normalcy that is supposed to exist- of course that is just an imaginary condition created by our culture and its inability to recognize that when things change they Change- they do not remain in some nostalgic fantasy state. X-Family, I think is actually too weighty: giving the impression that there was much of a family there to begin with and it sounds kinda cool and edgy, like X-Games or Gen-X (moi).

Its always a fucking crisis when I come here. If one doesn’t exist, it is promptly created upon my/our arrival. No point in going on about any of this, it just pisses me off and makes me feel invisible. You know what your mother used to say about if you’ve got nothing good to say….it’s worse: I have only bad things to say. Temporary alcoholism is a delightful solution to the stress- for me that means a glass of wine each evening.

I feel like all of my personal work is down the tubes because I hate being here so much. Selflessness isn’t one of my virtues- it’s not even a personality characteristic. This is simply a trip that gets in the way of the life I imagine(?) I’ve created for myself which exists a good 2000 miles from where I am physically sitting right now.

Lovely talk with Mum…that is the only glimmer of light here. We had tea and chatted about a woman’s right to choose, the nature of the Universe and Being, and the Christian Right missing the whole darn message they are supposed to espouse.

In any case, this is a Journal of Isness. And my Isness today is that this totally sucks. I am on a forced practice sabbatical which I am hating,- but I am trying to take my own advise of never underestimating the power of a break (this break is too long goshdarnit!).

I don’t really accept anything that exists up here, at all. Why does acceptance feel like defeat and resignation? Is that what acceptance is? I don’t know what the fuck acceptance is. I am accepting that this totally sucks and I hate this and I wanna go home and back to my life and my cats and singing and practice and Solstice Cat Cup and kitties and Backyard Possum.

This too shall pass.

Later Evening:
Everytime D kisses me I get butterflies….still.



Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Cat in Yard Make Good Meditation Partner

Ok, you have to say that with a B Movie Japanese accent.

Morning:
Tea in Solstice Cat Cup…listening to my very cool, enormous collection of newly cataloged MP3’s- how much does this rock? Yet more evidence that drudgery pays!

Zazen. I am not my thoughts.

Through repetition the magic is forced to rise

Morning:

This is happening in my life. Big time. I’m feeling like in order to get the Universe to hold up Its end of the bargain, the amount of energy I have to put into my life is, well, intense. Then again, the Universe is an intense thing and an intense place, and clearly not designed for slackers. It won’t ask anything of you that It wouldn’t be prepared to do itself.

Simplicity and Repetition. Repeat. Simplicity and Repetition.

Ok, I know I had this quote posted already, but golly I like it. And, well, posting it again, is simplicity and repetition, is it not? I also made another cool inspiring little bit of art for my desktop with Fripp aphorisms and a Graeme Base pic. Too cool.

The Solstice Possum visited us again last night and partook of the very ripe tomatoes we left out for him! Yeah!

Late Morning/Afternoon:

Practice.

I’ve noticed that if I become emotionally involved in the execution/performance of a piece, it all goes to hell in a handbasket. As soon as I feel that adrenaline rushing, tummy tickling, ‘oh, I am so into this’, I am headed toward trouble fo' sure. Ego jumps out into Look at Me: I’m Acting Mode. Getting in the way. Much about keeping the lid on the intense, low simmer, keeping the power of laser-beam focus, being the battleship.

Afternoon:

Off to coaching with Herr R today and a swing by TALA to pick up info on forming an arts nonprofit. Preparations continue for NE. More CD cataloging.

Coaching rocked. Sang my ass off.

Very tired and rundown feeling. Ugh. Skipping the run for vit C’s, echinacea and zinc suckies. Armed with the neti pot.

Evening:

Packing, laundry, etc. Ick. Too much zinc, methinks- tummy not so good.

Late Zazen, which was more like sitting in a Zazen posture with Baby Cat circling and yowling until I’d pet him. Well, that was Zen today. The Universe wanted to express itself as someone sitting with a cat yowling at them. That someone happened to me moi. Life is good.

Isness

Morning:
Tea in my favorite cup. Impending trip to NE making me fairly continually nauseous. Dread settling in.

Beautiful day.

Glorious!

Sunny, breezy. Intoxicating. The kinda day the Universe makes to shout, ‘All things are possible!’

Tea and cookies with Neil at Empire.

Random Oblique Strategy for today:

Only part, not the whole.

Ah! Always I need this reminder!

Afternoon:
Energizing vox lesson.

Run with Dave…still low energy. Ugh. Tired. Feeling run down. White tea with Ipod music transfer drudgery. Saw a really funny thing today that I think sums up life pretty succinctly: a woman driving a convertible Porche Boxster with the passenger seat filled with toilet paper. That about says it all, folks. We’re all in the same boat here, people.

Evening:
Zazen and practicing. More organizing of what has turned into an entire overhaul of my music library. All CD’s (which were compeltley disorganized in many different places) are getting ripped onto the new enormous hard drive and organized in iTunes for at home and iPod fun. From drudgery to delight!

All is Quiet on New Year’s Day

Morning:
Tea and morning prattling. Zazen.

Afternoon:
A walk through the Houston arboretum. Pine forested. Incredible serpentine, sinister vines. Fallow in winter. Warm day, breezes and sun. Quiet trails. Viney arbors. Noisy trains and highways sometimes very near, sometimes a little farther off. Dry creek beds. Bayou...

Faery woods

Back home and the un-decorating of the Solstice tree. We planted him in the back yard: Auspicious Cypress for the coming year and beyond!

Evening:

Dreary but necessary computer maintenance, backups etc.

Another several visits from Backyard Possum!

New Year's Eve Day

Simplicity and Repetition. Repeat. Simplicity and Repetition. – Zen Guitar Dojo

Late Morning:
Tired. Headachey. Less pain than yesterday. Tea, socks, emails and surfs. New Year’s Eve plans of lovely firepit in the garden and veggie dinner delight with Dave.

Afternoon:
Feeling better as the sun crosses the sky. Winter stew in the new very cool Solstice earthenware crockpot.

Zazen and on to practice. Tea a-plenty. Dave at Vollyball. Kitties napping.

Winter Stew:
Butternut
Squash
Parsnips
Carrots
Mushrooms
Applewood Chicken Sausage
Thyme
Marjoram
Veggie Bouillon broth
half & half
pepper
olive oil
onion powder

cut sausage in slices, brown in olive oil, thyme, marjoram and onion powder. add sausage & veggies to crockpot, add some veggie bouillon broth and pour some half & half over stew. stir. crock on low for several hours.

On to quiet New Year’s Eve.

Her Eminence: The Creatrix

Before figuring out what was going on physiologically, a woman’s Moontime was considered tremendously Powerful. Females are the only beings that can bleed for 7 days continually and not die. The roots of the separation of the sexes during Cycle Time was grounded in this honor for Power. Women gathered together to celebrate their Power, take a much needed break from community life and child-rearing, and reconnect with themselves and each other.

For many, many years I have honored this time as a reminder of my unique femaleness and my ability to create new life- whether literally or figuratively. I have enjoyed the bittersweet feeling of my hormones changing, and surging, and my body ovulating. The pain of the undulations of my uterus is a reminder of the Creative Force present in all life of which my body enjoys a fleeting spark. In the weeks preceding my quite (always been) irregular Moontime, I tend to get increasingly focused, very productive, and wonderfully creative. As usual during this time, I’ve been experiencing that intensity in my continued practice schedule, organizing my studio space, creating a gift set, as well as my own set of Oblique Strategies, the amount of journaling I’ve been doing (including transforming this blog into its own daily practice), and finally adding a long overdue Sitting practice to my life.

A woman’s Blood is her connection to all other women who she shares her life with and who have come before her and who will carry on after her. Her Moontime connects her to to the Spirit of Creation: The Creatrix. Celebrate your Power and swear your Moon Blood on sacred objects. Mark your cycles in your Blood on parchment, or fine decorative papers. Find a beautiful cloth, consecrate it, and allow your Blood to flow upon it during meditation or quiet sitting time. Find a calm, private place outside in your backyard perhaps, and allow your blood to run on the Earth. These are Powerful, Powerful acts. These are acts of respect for yourself, your body, your innate creative nature, respect for women who have given birth, for women who have died in childbirth, for women who have chosen not to birth children but Mother a creative or professional life, for women how have adopted children; respect for your sisters, friends, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, both alive and great-great-great, respect for all women everywhere, ever. Your Moontime is what you share with every woman who has ever lived. It is the essence of what makes you physically female. It is your Birthright to draw on this Power from the Great Mystery of the Cycle of Life.

Slow down, relax, let go, allow, accept, nurture and love yourself. Let the field be fallow…make space for new growth. I think, for me today, this actually means napping and coach potato-ing.

..................................................................................

Morning:
Early morning, feed furries, Meowzie happily out on the prowl, tea in Solstice Cat Cup, beginning of a long 24-48 hours of painful cramps: a reminder to slow, take a break, nurture, and love myself, more journaling, and online contemporary role research.

I had put away Amour viens aider ma faiblesse for maybe a month? Yesterday with Roger it was totally rockin’ (if such things rock- well, they rock for me!) - never,

never underestimate the power of taking a break

Evening:

Day spent slothing about. Very painful and achey and nauseous. Difficult. Vertical movement not optional. Kitty hotpad welcome.

Managed a very brief practice time.

Her Imminence

Morning:
Golden Yunnan in the Solstice Cat Cup. Emails, surfings, fiddling with my blog template. Feeling like that is a pointless waste of time. Mooncycle imminent, a hint today. Finally. Sluggish, uncomfortable. Workouts suspended until Mooncycle comes and goes, too painful. Working Jammies on.

Afternoon:
Oblique Strategy random pick: ‘Not building a wall. Making a brick’. Love it! On display in practice space.
Second long steeping of Golden Yunnan during Zazen, then on to warm-up and Afternoon Practice.

Making some good headway on the Rossini cadenzas. There is actually light at the end of the tunnel! It is amazing what happens when I cease to be afraid or intimidated by something and simply take it on in manageable increments.

3:30pm - Cat to the vet, chin skin condition returning, not bad, but I feel like I must keep on top of it. She said to keep an eye on it, but no treatment at this moment. Good news. Chlorhex is suspected to have caused the bad skin reaction that led to the infection and the hair loss. Beware the Chlorhex scrub cat parents! Vet recommends a couple of drops of Rescue Remedy in kitty water bowl for stress- I think I shall partake of some as well!

Late Afternoon:
Off to coaching with Roger and much singing.
Fantastic coaching today. Gobs of fun singing and learning. Marvelous-ness a-plenty.

Evening:
Wholefoods shop and now on to making homemade tomato-beet-veggie soup. Yum. Achy. Backache. Mooncycle on the morrow. Finally. Am trying Rescue Remedy myself and adding a couple drops to kitty water bowl- we’ll see how that goes.
Evening Sitting.
Break from Evening Practice tonite. Time with Dave, kitties, and the delight of watching an episode of PBS Mystery! Brother Cadfael which I absolutely adore. I have a weak spot for medieval herbalist monks solving crimes. What can I say?

Just watched a video clip of Brad Warner’s punk band ODFX. You’ll find it by going over to the right there and clicking on the Hardcore Zen link. I don’t know what to say about punk except we all could use a good shot of that attitude. I want the music that I write to have that attitude, even if it is much, much more docile sounding, and I want my classical singing to have that attitude as well. It’s the same reason I adore Diamanda Galas. It’s not the music so much that appeals to me, but the Spirit of it that is so real, raw and powerful. Gimme me somma that!

A little wine with dinner...

Craftiness

I've decided to journal everyday with disregard to content, much to my readers’ chagrin, I imagine. But I don’t have a big audience here, so this little enterprise is simply for me. If you stumble in here and find nothing useful, or find it all interminably boring, surf on! I’ve taken to the idea of keeping a Crafty Journal, detailing what I do each day. A noticing practice. So now this blog is morphing into something more along the lines of a Guitar Craft Journal. I am a singer and not a guitarist, nor am I a Crafty and I have not studied with Robert Fripp nor with any of the Crafty Guitarists, but I have long been inspired by the work of Robert Fripp and his musical compatriots as well as his Guitar Craft teachings and philosophies. To learn more about the aims of Journaling, check out the Guitar Craft site (follow the link over there to the left).

Morning:
Arose late. Morning tea in the new Solstice Earthenware Cat Cup. Stellar. Various emails, journaling, surfings etc. Reschedule of coaching session, giving me a welcome extra practice day. Trepidations about approaching New England trip keeping me up at night, made worse by encroaching Moontime. I am a slow goer in the morning, hmmm.

I notice when I release something I have been holding that I did not need, that the Universe steps right in and fills the gap with new and unexpected goodies. Even something as mundane as clearing files and bookmarks from my computer clears space for new energy.

Donning Working Jammies. I at least have to get out of Sleeping Jammies and get into Working Jammies. I cannot stand to be in uncomfortable clothing. I am fine in fabulous, fun Bohemian Diva Garb outside home, but as soon as I walk in the door, it’s tanks and sweats.

Spending working mornings with my husband is always a treat. Since we both work from home (mostly) we are in each other’s company, yet separate and whirring away at our own projects.

For Solstice, my friend Neil gave me a delightful book by Wendy Froud to add to my books of Faeries. It just doesn’t get better than that.

Afternoon:
A long re-steeping of Golden Yunnan during Zazen, then on to practice.
Made my own cool set of Brain Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies. In my practice space today: ‘Fill every beat with something’.
Off to meet for project discussions.

Early Evening:
Fruitful brainstorming session. Dinner of homemade black-eyed peas and brown rice (yum). Dying my hair to rid myself of the Ten Tenacious Greys. Damn them. Emails, 'net research. Peppermint tea making.

Evening:
Dave at volleyball. Zazen. Evening practice. Unexpected phone chat and artsy pep talk with Neil. More practicing.

Process

“The creative process is utterly mysterious.
It is magical, unknowable, indefinable.

The creative process is concrete.
It is know-able, do-able, feel-able, available.

Both these statements are true.
Both these statements are contradictory.

Unless we embrace and hold these two equal truths,
we are not part of a creative process.

That is, we are not part of the creative process.
That is, we are not part of the process of Creating.” – Robert Fripp

Faced with two major recording projects that will flower in 2006 and will provide the score for dance/performance projects, as well as my continued practice schedule, I am continually looking for and often relying on inspiration.

Zone of It

I had an interesting experience of balance the other night at my concert. (And the concert was great. I always worry about things that need no worrying! What needs to be worried about? Nothing! Ha!)

Balance is something in life everyone is telling you to establish- like you could just snap your fingers and have a balanced life. ‘Be emotionally balanced’ is a big one. What is that? Ok, I am getting better at it. I have cultivated circumstances in my life that no longer keep me on an emotional rollercoaster, so I feel more ‘even’, but that took a long time.

I have a lot of concepts of balance running around my head, and it was nice to have a concrete, real experience of it. It occurred to me that balance is a range of possibilities within a zone or framework- like walking on a balance beam, perhaps. A balance beam brings to mind feelings of precariousness (it’s not precarious for a gymnast, it is home. Don’t throw me in the briar patch, B’rer Bear!), but walking was precarious when we started out as babies: I like the image of walking being nothing more than a series of controlled falls forward. And from such an essential, demanding task we flower into movers, runners, dancers, athletes, skaters, snowboarders, skiers (ok, I have the Winter Olympics on my mind, and Sunday OLN skiing leading to Torino!). Walking is the essential springboard. I’m willing to bet, though I am no biomechanics specialist, that walking has all the building blocks for every high level activity we are capable of. I am also intensely inspired by what athletes do and how they train: the conditions they create over long periods of time that lead to excellent performance. I love to ski, and I love to watch pro skiers. I followed the Tour de France and boy, are those guys inspiring!. I had a great pic on my desktop of the peloton swooping around a bend. Whenever someone else is absorbed in training and practice, it inspires my own practice habits.

Singing the other night at the concert gave me the experience of not one place or one thing being right or it, but the Zone of It was a grouping of possibilities in the neighborhood. This created an alive-ness that surprised me. I wasn’t going for some static (dead!), perfect (dead!) place that doesn’t exist, and therefore is unachievable. The Zone of It is an intangible, imperfect, alive, real set of choices and places within a framework. Refreshing!

PS. The Baby Cat's chin is healing nicely from the meds!

The Mystery of the Crusty Cat Chin

It's never good when the vet says, 'I’ve never seen that before'. I took Baby Cat back to the doctor after just over a week of using some scrub on his chin to try to eradicate these large black, greasy scales that were forming. It was originally diagnosed as 'cat chin acne'. Google it. It’s a peach.

The wash was doing nothing and the fur on his chin started to fall out in crusty, itchy clumps and he was scratching a lot. He eats and drinks out of glass dishes (plastic is a bacteria farm) that get washed after each meal, and his kitty bed gets fresh linens daily! Well, I brought him back to the vet yesterday, and she was perplexed. She did a skin scraping to check for mites (which came up negative) and is running a ringworm culture, though the symptoms don't mimic ringworm, nor do they mimic food allergy symptoms. When viewing the fur under the microscope she was puzzled to find the protein chains looking like a rare dog condition where all the fur falls out. Not fatal, but all the hair just falls out. Forever. Great. Yesterday, when I left she was calling some Texas national dermatological lab to 'pick their brains on what it might be'. She even took pics of his chin.

She most likely suspects a severe staph infection, so he is on strong antibiotics and has a topical antibacterial/antifungal gel for his chin. Hopefully that will work, and that’s that. If it doesn’t work, we'll need to do a skin biopsy and send it to that special lab.

Otherwise, he is healthy, happy and fine, and seems minimally bothered by it.

This Very Moment

The weather has cooled, the holidays are upon us and I have a concert coming up. I am pretending not to be stressed. My singing never stresses me out. All the gazillion gigs I’ve done and I hardly ever get nervous. It was fun to play with my bandmates: we acted as a team. Classical singing does stress me out. I am trying to figure out a way that it will feel more like ‘normal’ performance to me- or what I perceive as normal performance- which is not me standing up there feeling naked, attempting to capture an unattainable perfect something, all while feeling very judged (by whom, pray tell?)- and that is what I associate with classical singing. I have no idea where I got that idea. It is simply an un-useful, outdated, un-helpful mindset and I will find a path that will take me toward changing that perception. Changing an un-useful thing into what I think I will Punk Perspective. Ok, so I never sang with a punk band, but I have played punk bars, and my band very much had the attitude that we could give a rat’s ass what anyone thought of our music. If they liked it, hated it, even listened to it, or paid attention while we played didn’t matter much. We played for ourselves, for the music, and we did not ‘entertain’. I stood there and sang. It was often a fabulous feeling.

So, I have been practicing my ass off lately. I’ve been learning tons of new music and prepping for this informal concert, which in my head I’ve turned into some kinda big ole deal. I feel out of balance, so tonite after my run (ok, I practiced a little!), then I fixed a pot of tea, made a big pot of my fabulous homemade chicken noodle soup, watched a little TV, did some yoga, and sat and breathed. I always get little insights, little messages, when I practice yoga. It occurred to me as a morphed from one asana to the next, from one luxuriousness movement to the next, from one inhalation to the next wave of exhalation that there is no reason to ever go to the maximum of anything. I know this. I’ve heard it, said it, and have been diligent in practicing the concept in music and life. My practice habits have become impeccable: little bite-sized bits that are strung together by frequent breaks. Not doing too much at once, not ever getting close to frustration. Gently feeding, gently tending, weeding, and watering. But tonite, during my gentle yoga practice, there was something very tangible about the concept. Something sprouted from a seed that had been planted, something knowing and experiential: a different level of understanding. Make it easy, make it pleasurable. Let go of doing it well. Discard the compulsion to go all the way, twist all the way, and stretch forward all the way. Release the urge to max out every movement. I could definitely go further: Resist the urge to max out every moment. None of that is useful.

I’m reading Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen right now, too (and finally watched The Legend of Bagger Vance for the first time last night), and just came upon a serendipitous passage about doing only what is required in the moment. Big stuff: Do what is required of this very moment.

Having said all that, some of the seeds of these insights spring from my work with a very wonderful and fabulous voice and Feldenkrais teacher, who just rocks my world! Yay!

Let us find clean and cheerful friends*

The energy we surround ourselves with is the energy we become. We are whirling incarnate spirits. We are powerful and we are delicate. What we say, what we think, what we drink, what we eat, and what we take in, we become. Who we surround ourselves with is how we mange the flow of energy in our lives.

There are people in my life who see me a certain way, and who, I suspect, are uncomfortable with who I really am. I do not fit into a role or a box that is clearly defined, and if there are people in my life who need to see me confined and pigeonholed, I cannot have that constriction in my life.

I am blooming like a Texas rose in the Spring, and if you can’t handle it, you’ll have to step aside.

*Robert Fripp

Ride ‘em Cowboy

If you are not female, don’t bother to read on. This is about shoes. Mostly. Sort of. Anyway, men don’t ‘get’ shoes. It’s ok. I don’t get football.

As I eagerly await today’s arrival of my very cool cowboy boots I ordered online, to be delivered by UPS today and which I have been tracking along their journey from Louisville to Houston, I find myself contemplating the sacred in the everyday. (As an aside here, I always mistype ‘sacred’, as ‘scared’. I am sure there is deep meaning in that). I was just now sitting having my favorite peppermint and licorice tea, and I was thinking of when my cool boots get here (did I mention today?), that I will try them on: now, not just any try-them-on, mind you. At first I thought that I’d just throw them on to see if they fit, then I found myself daydreaming about which socks I’d put on for the first try-on, and maybe which skirt, or which whole outfit I’d don before pulling them on, so the first time they are on my feet, I’d get the full effect. Urban Prairie, Boho Tejas, Cowgirl Chic. You get the idea.

There are little things like that in my life I create sacred space around. I guess my new cowboy boots is one. My morning tea is another. A flood of good feelings associated with the indescribable delight of tea washes over me; sort of like memories, but without images. Swinging on a swingset is another. I love that. I still love it and always have loved it. And now that I am a big kid, I have to seek out the really cool park swingsets with the wide rubber strap seats. It just sends me into fits of laughter- especially on the upswing if I extend my arms and lean waaaaaaaaaaaay, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back!

I also hyper-sacredize movies. Going to the movies, really. That is a sacred art space. That’s why I get so pissed when people talk in the movies. It breaks the spell. Movies are meant to draw you in, envelope you, wrap you up in their magic. Rent a movie at home with your pals if you wanna chat about everything you see in it as it goes by. Movies at home are nowhere near as sacred. You’re not in the temple.

Starting and finishing new book is another. I picked up a copy of Neil Gaiman’s ‘Anansi Boys’, and I haven’t started it yet because I haven’t quite found that perfect moment to open it’s cover, smell the woody scent of its paper and the sweetness of its ink…

There seem to be so many (too many) have no sense of the sacred. I feel sorry for them.

As I practice paying attention to the sacred in seemingly mundane activities, I wonder if I can enfold my life in more awe and delight…

Merce

In seeing the Merce Cunningham Company last night, there were so many things that were striking about the performance and the concept of performance itself. It almost seemed like the dancers and musicians didn’t belong in a performing arts center but some other space I couldn’t define. Perhaps outside. Or in an architectural setting not unlike what I imagine the Cistern Chapel to be like where the music for the first piece was recorded: and enormous and abandoned underground 2 million gallon water tank. Wow. Now, that’s some looping.

There was an introspective quality to the work that I had not seen before in dance. I love dance, and have seen lots of dance concerts. I am usually struck by the athleticism and beauty of the movement, and perhaps drawn in by the meaning or story in the dance. Merce’s work was wholly different. He did not seem to have an agenda. I didn’t feel that he was expressing anything specific, outside of what the audience interpreted in the strangely graceful, jolting, fragile, strong, vulnerable and powerful movement that wended its way across the stage in a mesmerizing meditative event. It was the first concert I’d ever seen where the elements of the dance that were separate physically in the space did not compete for attention. I wasn’t asking myself ‘where should I look? I don’t want to miss anything’ or ‘how do these pieces fit together?’ I felt the permission to experience the dance in any way I chose. If a movement, gesture or contact between dancers caught my attention I followed it, and then that would lead me to another dancer, arm, hand, touch, face, jump that I was drawn into.

The seamless integration of recorded music and live musicians was unreal. I have been challenged by that myself in my own work, and seeing the technical mastery of it was inspiring. The players used conch shells blown from the mezzanine as well as shell music blown into the strings of a piano. They used ballet slippers as percussion, and a sound board and computer for who knows what all. Speaks were set up in the mezzanine and sound was coming from everywhere. The presence of the musicians in the pit and mezzanine asked the questions: ‘What is a dancer? What is dance? What is choreography? Where does the dance end and audience begin?’

The English Channel

I wonder if I am singer because no one listened to me as a child. Seriously. I grew up in a household where everyone talked incessantly, never pausing to let anyone else speak. It was like constant monologues going on simultaneously. Except my father, who rarely spoke. I remember my mother chastising me for butting in. Well, how else would I be heard? I’m surprised I didn’t become an elective mute. I did my fair share of talking and screaming, as it were, but I found the real power in my artistic expression. Yes, the obvious is that my early creative propensities came from a need for attention, and it worked. I got attention, and more importantly, everyone was forced to shut up if I was in a play or recital. I remember when I went off to college; I hardly spoke that whole first year. It was blissful. The power of silence, aaahhh...

This is not a poor me tirade. All of that was many years ago, and I have basically come to terms with it, but I remain vigilant to surround myself with friends and colleagues who are genuinely interested in an exchange of energy and ideas.

When I think of the nature of singing, one thing that comes to mind is not only the obvious power of music, but the power of expression. I think that has less to do with what we say, than how we say it. I love music sung in other languages, and I have several favorite artists who’ve created their own languages to sing, and I have done that myself. For me it is not about understanding the artist and hearing the story, or about creating a story for the audience (and yes, that has a place, and I’ve done that too), but the story is there in the instrument whether a narrator is present or not. I think it is easy to assume that a singer is all about ‘look at me, look at me, listen to what I have to say’, and though there are plenty of those out there, and I’ve been through that a bit myself, (see the above childhood origins of my own singing!)- I’ve grown to experience getting out of my own way, and not being emotionally or egotistically invested in performance or the experience of singing whether performing or not. And here is the cornball, Shirley Maclaine word of the day: Channel. That word brings up so many questions, like :

What is a channel? Dunno (except a body of H2O).

Channel what? Expression?

Answers are overrated anyway. I don’t think I’ve gotten any satisfactory answers to anything, ever.

More importantly it implies being a vessel for something intangible and only experiential. Being open, clear (as in clear-headed, not spooky L. Ron Hubbard clear). Being ready, being possible. Tha's a cool word: possible. Like 'alchemy' from an earlier post.

Is it still a tightrope? Yes. Do I have to be attentive, kindly nudging and reminding myself of these things? Sure. Is it hard? Yes, and that is part of the fun. Carry water. Chop wood. It is a practice. Wait. It is a Practice, with a capitol ‘P’.

And what am I expressing? Being alive.

Breathe, inspire...

My inbox was infiltrated last night by an unwelcome, unwanted and personally attacking email. Considering that I can occasionally, and rarely these days, be emotionally, how shall we say, ‘explosive’, I think I handled it all pretty well. I wanted to lash out in as scathing, hurtful, malicious and destructive way as I could muster and fume over every word of what I imagined to become a constant volley of hate mail, with myself ever triumphant, witty and cutting, reducing my opponent to a minuscule, insignificant blithering idiot. I would be ever victorious!

I didn’t do any of that. I did create a nice little Outlook rule to permanently delete any further incoming correspondence from the person so I wouldn’t even see it. Not a super satisying 'Take that!' moment. Yet, for me, amazing. Funny that I should actually be proud of that restraint. I imagine my Perfect Self would not respond any other way, it would be natural, unthinkable even, to do so. I am flagellating myself for not being more above it all, more graceful and more compassionate (I honestly question if I know what compassion is. That will be for a later exploration). I have a little moment of triumph, where I do not give in to my baser instincts and though I ought to be satisfied, I feel it wasn’t enough. Telling. Like nothing is ever enough no matter how right, big, noble, or fabulous the effort. But, clearly, I do not completely believe that.

Ok, breathe. I am just now, well over twelve hours after the incident (like it was some physical attack, and indeed, did feel like one) reminding myself to breathe. Take a breath in. Let it out. Pause. Wow. Twelve hours, and I am just realizing now I need to take a time-out.

Happiness!:
The new baby kitty, Herr Schauzer-biter (named for the obvious propensity implied), splashed around happily in the just-showered in tub this morning. That is joyous and gratitude—inspiring. Love it!

Plus I’ve just read some amazing stuff from Trey Gunn’s site that puts things inspiringly into perspective. If we are all not here to inpsire each other, than why? More later…

Rumplestiltskin

Spinning flax into gold. Those words just popped out of my mouth last nite while sharing libations with a friend. I don't often search for the reasons I do what I do in my creative life (as though I can make a delineation between my 'creative self' and my 'other self'. What other self?). I am uncommonly uncomfortable speaking about myself and my work. I figure if the work is doing its thing, it will speak for itself.

I am beguiled and entranced by beauty. Yes, often beauty that has become standard: classically beautiful works of art and music, virtuosic expressions available only to those disciplined and focused enough to put the time into the work for the alchemical process to happen (alchemical, alchemy. That is such a cool word. That is my new word. Thank you, MaryBeth!). I admit to not liking disharmony and dissonance in my life, at least not more that what can provide contrast. I cannot relate to the expression of disharmony for its own sake, or holding the artistic mirror up to reflect the hideousness that is all too prevalent in our world. Ok, so I am not that kind of artist. I am not fashionably provocative or edgy in my work. I do not have a political or social agenda to express artistically. Do I have political and social options? Am I appalled by the violence and horror that exists in the world? Certainly. Do I choose to express or reflect that in my work? No. So, the result is that my work isn't sexy. Giving myself permission to be as I am is part of the process.

The pattern of my self-expression through music, dance, performance and art has, in part, been an escape from what I perceive as the ugliness in my life and my inability to tolerate that: my family dysfunction, relationship challenges, self-worth as an artist. Admittedly, I hear Narcissus the American saying, 'Ooooooh, that is ugly and uncomfortable. Put it in the closet, sweep it under the rug, wall it off. Ghettoize'. However, there is catharsis in my work, not compartmentalization (ok, so I carry that a bit as well). But there is transformation. That which I struggle with is the flax the discipline of self-expression spins into gold. The pursuit of excellence (what is that?), and the time spent at the forge not only increases my skill in a practical way, but transmutes the mud into wine. Hopefully and eventually. My current manta is 'it is not a matter of if, only when'.