THE ARTS

The Joy of Mud

Summer is Earth on your Hands and Clay on your Feet.
There is a Gentle River that calls, making the journey sweet.

There’s something about connecting to the Planet we stand on; to the earth that yields our food, to the elements that make up the bread and bones of our physical existence.

The world we live in has become a maze of blinking lights and beeping appliances, taking us on a journey farther and farther away from our source, our origins, our internal drum-beat.

We amaze ourselves – again and again – by the return to Simple Roots, the immersion and re-immersion in the Sound of Us, the Place We Sprang From, the Fountain of Familiar Song that echoes deep in our own caverns.

Wired For Life

The Internet Cafe.

Wireless Wonderful Life.
Music is almost as old as Smell, in the category of Primitive Sensations.

Ok, it’s like this: it takes you for a ride. And it can be a very sweet sensation. We humans are such a mix of sensibilities: memory, emotion, intellect, intelligence, intuition, silent knowing, dreaming. And our brains, our whole beings are so amazingly developed to savour sensation, to ‘parse’ the delicate labyrinth of “enjoyment”.

Kind of like food, and the art of “tasting”; we’re so wired for pleasure. You know how food seduces you the moment you walk into the house: that definite, even if faint, fragrance in the air. Someone’s been making home-made bread, and the sweet cotton of roasted wheat and butter sends its fingers on a mission: to find You! And the honing in, we move down the hall and the aroma becomes seductive, perhaps mingled with the gentle clanking of cookware. Everything in us stands at attention – the sweet soldiers of Appreciation, trained as early as cradle-babes in mother’s pantry.

Between the Words of Living

Dancing The Blues Away…

Tonight, we sang.

Then we Danced.

Between times we drank some decent Pale Ale. And there was a good blues band playing in our fave bar & grille. We’re talkin’ Chicago-style blues of Butterfield and Siegal Schwall notoriety.

So, in following Jan’s lead, here we are, in the thick of ‘dance’…

Music is such an amazing celebration. It speaks to our bones and ligaments about the spark of life. Animation. I recall going through so many phases of life to get comfortable with my body, my ego, my sense of timing. In years gone by: “what will they think of me if my hands and mouth and hips? don’t obey each other? Or, I can’t do this without a girl on my hip. Or a drink on my lips.

The validity of life as it shouts and screams and calls and sings inside us is magnificent. We who want this dance. We who want this indescribeable blossoming of spirit, this trumpeting and water-falling of nectar at the center of things.

I listened and watched myself traveling through the familiar grooves of what music does to the mind.  We are so multi-sensorial: this is a sweet mix of feeling, nostaligia, memory, joy, the orgasmic delight of that change in the 12-bar structure where the lead guitarist puts in the hooks that speak to your thyroid gland… then the blues harp, french-kissing your eardrums with such a working-mans victory.  The sinking into the easychair of sweetess.

We live such a rich life.

I remember studying the “cerebellum” in physiology, neurology, whatever-ology.  And the teacher spoke of the complex systems of movment, balance and delicate motor coordination that were ‘memorized’ in these multi-dimensional “engrams” of coagulated intelligence.  The example was a child learning piano.  All the subtleties of 10 fingers striking 10 keys with such delicacy, mixed with the nuance, the emotion of the music, mixed again with the recognition of this string of black notes on a staff thru the eyes.  And all that implanted, merged, coded in this amazing part of the brain that stores complex cognitive memory mashes.

We know so little, we know so much.  We know so “nothing”; we know so “everything”.  The everything and the nothing marry, romance, seduce each other and make wild love in these tunnels of the soul.

And we dance, because there is no tomorrow.

The Dance Floor

I wanted to dance this evening, just to express in rhythm, all that is inside me.

However, there was no beat good enough that I could find outside, so I opted to listen
to my own inner music, and see if I could find that one track where so moved, I could synchronize.

I know with most musicians, writers, artists, there comes a moment where you know you have just
switched gears, and what before was a mere consideration to take a drive, turns into a comfortable cruise.

So a proverbial toast, to our highway adventures.

Listening is an art, and my best friend said, whatever art you endeavor to pursue,
you must practice.
If there are distractions, external noise, internal emotional storms,
it is pretty much impossible to be in that place, where you can hear the inspiration you require
to move not only you, but others who may wish to tune in.

So the first requirement to access the creative force is become receptive enough,
that you begin to be filled by that which is abundantly in supply.
Normally we are so preoccupied with the miniscule aspects that preponderantly surround us,
that we forget actually, to take the time to perceive the bigger design, which requests us,
to get synched with its agenda.

When we allow ourselves the freedom to explore what dwells inside us, we are pleasantly surprised that it is far more then the trivia of thought that we are accustomed to pondering on. Leaving behind our limited patterning for a pioneering exploration of our own inner territory is not only exciting, but is exactly what each of us are meant to do.

The attributes and aspects we are looking for, are so at hand, but because they are invisible,
it is not as forthright as what is ever changing before our eyes. So secondly,
this reminder to pay attention, to what is already happening.
We are ever geared to what will happen, that what is going on, we miss.

When we realize that joy is pleasantly living amongst the flowers in our own back garden,
we feel kinda foolish, for isn’t it always someone else’s garden, is far superior to our own?
A good habit to adopt is to begin strolling daily in the territory within, for I sense we will discover vistas, that we have been praying to enter, for most of our life.

I know personally so much of the time, I ignore looking to myself to find fulfillment.
We are too busy, too self critical, too preoccupied with the worlds problems, finances,
family responsibilities, who has time to … be happy?
Well time out, as it is said, time to change this plan of action, and get to the business of counting on myself as a resource for happiness, for it is me who has been created, it is you who has been individually given your own propensities and gifts; when if not now, will we explore what was so kindly packed for us?

Now, is appropriate to listen to the music, this beat of my inner drummer,
this soothing melody that is sweet to my own ears.
I need to listen for I want to know all the gifts that are there waiting for me to open.

Maybe this will help us all to find that which we seek, for isn’t it wonderful, when we see,
that it is so close.
The love we yearn for is ever here, but we have been too deaf, too blind to see what is so clearly …
right before us.

May this be music that will nurture your hearts, for I for one, require that nourishment.