The Breath Isn't Just Deep, It's Also Wide

The Edward Gorey Garden Party at the Historic Overlook House:

In a swirl of black and lace, I made my solo singing debut after almost 7 years of virtually no vocal performances. With the generous aid of my trusty new accompanist friend, Adam, I rediscovered the power in my breath and belly, to soar through the notes of pain and passion in 8 beautiful songs. These songs are people to me, people who I know intimately, like the best of friends and lovers. It was wonderful to meet with them again. Like a wobbly revisit on a long forgotten bicycle, things my body once knew in every bit of flesh and bone came inching back into my consciousness as I reconnected with these song people. The most profound of these old knowings was the sensation of breath which supports truth and tone. This breath isn't just deep, it's also wide. To get the right support to release a high B or C or F, a singer must allow the breath to open and fill every little crevice of their core and let it become the fuel for inspired vibrations to emerge. It's the the play of breath and flesh and space that make the instrument what it is. Free, flowing, and alive, or pinched, frightened, and controlling. This breath is the ultimate Wu Wei, the art of non-doing, or doing effortlessly. In the the not trying, the magic emerges. It's about trust. When we trust, everything flows.

Moon Waning

I think 

the Waning Moon 

makes me lazy.

What would you say upon receiving three clusters of pink hawthorn flowers?

How would the tones of your face reveal themselves if I told you it was 'heart medicine'?

Would your eyes dilate?

I mouse-sneak to spy on you.

I thought I knew where it could happen, but...

You are so good at hiding, you appear disappeared.

Perhaps, now that my longing has lengthened like a shadow near twilight,

Our entrainment has turned to beats, 

Waves canceling each other out.

I'm finding my patience for curiosity is short.

I just want to know if you know the longest word in the English language.

I just want to know how you smell after crying.

What would you say if I handed you a freshly propelled maple seed?

Would you get it when I tell you, Nature imitates Life?

Would your heart jump along that red road with mine?

Wake Up Orange Flower!

Okay, so I've really been working the creative flow.  It's going really well, even if I still haven't established a regular discipline.  It's a dynamic process, which I'm okay with.  Anyway, for quite awhile I was feeling like my red (1st) and orange (2nd) energy centers were pretty closed off.  These centers are very much about sexuality, survival and creativity.  I was feeling a bit dead in this area and was aware that to get my creative flow moving in an optimal way, I would need to give them a little push in the right direction.  Focusing on getting my basic needs met through work and trusting that I'll have what I need has helped in the red center and revisiting the movements of the belly dance (mostly working the pelvic and perineal areas), and movement in general seems to have unstuck the orange center.  I consider this all good, but what has caught me by surprise is a seemingly sudden reawakening of sexual interest.  I was mostly shutdown in that way, which was a conscious choice on my part.  I didn't want to be bothered with sex, lovers, longing, lust, desire....  All too messy and distracting for an aspiring Bard.  It seems however, that the Gods have different plans for me.  They want me to be alive in all ways human, despite what I think I should have.  I may desire an asexual and rather hermetic existence, but They desire a Nova full of the juicy life-giving potential, sensual, attractive, and twitterpated.  I suppose this is good for my creativity.  It gives me a drive and energy for expression that may not exist otherwise.  I'm not totally opposed to it, just a bit curious, watching, wondering and observing my thoughts and visceral impulses.  I'm in a place right now, where I need to understand the whys and hows of my sensual side so that I no longer unconsciously react to it.  I have made a dedication to being with myself at the moment.  I am even planning an inner marriage ceremony for my 30th birthday.  Now that I'm not in the game, however, the game seems to be coming to me.  Despite a variety of intense happenings this week, my mind is fixated on a certain crush which has emerged out of my Svadhisthana reawakening.  I'm bemused by this and I'm seriously considering how to proceed.  I'm pretty sure there's some sort of mutual interest and curiosity, but I'm not particularly concerned if I'm wrong about this.  I'm attempting to maintain a firm level of detachment here.  My goal is to remain firmly rooted to the Earth and to not let my wild imagination to run away with me, as I've often done in the past to my deep humiliation and detriment.  I wonder if I'm simply being challenged to learn how to focus this energy into my creative projects, or if I should actually explore this potential partner.  I suppose, as long as I don't over-invest myself in any expectations, I could ease my way into an exploratory friendship.  It certainly couldn't hurt so long as I remain tightly reigned to my roots of rationality.  Part of my artistic quest is to deepen my self-knowledge and raise my consciousness, but it's also about relating and sharing my experience with others.  I wonder how I could experience and explore this consuming crush as an act of creation?

Rowan's Song

And I asked the Grandmothers to infuse her with the heartbeat of the Earth

I cried into the flesh of ground and begged for this life to come and cry and cuddle our fears

And she fought, for a millenia

Warrior Mother, Kali Woman

To ache it out and down and through

And in vigil we stood

Remembering our breath through the waves

They came and went and washed us of our fixed minds

And we slept and wept and sighed in the sifting of days to nights

Moments moved on, feeling infinite

She fought through emptiness, still brimming in fortitude

And he finally emerged through a crack, from the dark

Perfect and small

Our little red one

A 21st Century Hieros Gamos

Water is where

It begins

Salty juice

Freshest blood

Wind feeling

Trees and me

I am here

Water deep

My feet damp

Clinging rocks

She trickles

Over me

Fuse with me

She cackles

Lie in me

Drink of me

Blackened, my

Visage peeks

Between cracks

And in lines

Snaking past

Rocks and through

Light, She weaves

Her story

Erasing

Foreknowledge

Forever

Moving on

And I rise 

Out of Her

Beckoning

My own Love

I am Man

And Woman

I am both

And neither

Two and Three

All in One

I am my

Own Lover

Sacred Slut

Of my true

Heart's desire

I am Virgin

I gasp the

Shadow-light

Which plays the

Water's edge

He knows me

Intimately

Because She's 

Also me

We love to

Create the

Vessels of

Our madness

Willingly we

Dance into

Ourselves and 

Out again

Drinking of 

The Water

Singing our

Own love songs

Reveling

and Playing

Ecstatic

Melodies

Splashing, we

Mix into

Her wetness

And hold on

And we breathe...

Slowly, we

Take pause, then

We listen

We are drawn

Into Her

Rippling voice

Her calm chant

Softly, She

Repeats Her

Prose so we

Understand

He and She

Rejoin Me

Two or Three

into One

I am here

Completely

Deep in Her

Breathing in

My vessel

Is full of

Her currents

And I am

Simplest blood

Juicy salt

With Water

It begins

An Imaginary Friend Came for Tea

He took my eyes.  

"Because," he said, "Seeing doesn't give you Sight."

He put them in his pocket for safe keeping.

And now, I was under the influence of pure black.  My skin prickled every time he spoke, I could feel the caress of every word vibrate into my cells.  

"Listen quietly, my dear, and perhaps you'll come to know a small vestige of Truth."  

I nodded, then gasped.  My breath seemed to catch fire and blow out with every cycle.  I was afloat in infinite vitality.  There was a cool heat, radiating everywhere.  

He poured me a cup of licorice tea.  As I sipped, every droplet of that hot sweet liquid cast upon me a cataclysmic shudder, my heart leapt for the sounds of my swallows.

Silently, I gestured to him, hand reaching for his.  As his flesh met mine, I gripped and pulled him toward me.  I put my ear to his throat and listened for a rush of tea to drain, mouth to stomach, into his body.  The sound of it washed through me like the blue light of falling water.  The taste of it entered through my feet.  He and I were an obit of stars, our own separate Earths.  

It was then, I began to See.