I finally wrote a song with words about two or three months ago after struggling for a really long time to commit to a particular idea. Here are the lyrics:

As a child I went out to roam and explore
Took on new inspirations, no fear in my soul
I loved to run and to sing and to dance and to give.
Like so many the years have pressed in on my soul
I have narrowed my vision to what I could hold
On the teaspoon of acceptable practical logical form.

I am free now.
I can see now.
It’s the breeze now
From the sea now.
All around me.
Come around me.
Come and hear me.
I have found thee.

Lines and measurements, gridlock to life
I am bursting through boundaries just like a knife
An explosion of pent up will and intention and love.
Please open your eyes and open your ears
I really want to calm your fears
Let the love and the light flow full force from within.

I am free now.
I can see now.
It’s the breeze now
From the sea now.
All around me
Come around me.
Come and hear me.
I have found thee, I have found thee!

Sometimes when I look at myself and what I have been doing about my own pain and need, I see myself as a psychologically challenged person who is acting out how she needs to. There may be some truth to that point of view. But if I look at that same thing from what I believe to be an even wider perspective, I think that my challenge is a shared challenge. I believe that most of us are in pain and are on a quest for finding peace within and without. Maybe if I share my perspective, however faulty and Suzielike it may be, and share it from as deep a place as I can, maybe I will provide hope and courage to someone else to take a chance also.

I find that as I go along this path that I am following I am meeting some incredible people. Now my challenge is to open myself to learning new things. I have something to say and now that I have said it, it is time for me to listen. Please folks, feel free to contribute your thoughts.

Hey Everyone:

I received an e-mail from Bill Medei about something happening at the Wildflower tonight. Here is the text of the message:

“Mr. Imagination always encouraged everyone around the Wildflower Cafe to create and enjoy something new. The music that comes from the Cafe has a direct connection to the tangible art that he creates from society’s discards. Tonight’s Open Mic will be dedicated to Mr. I and our feelings for him. Let’s allow Southside’s healing to begin.

This is my invitation to you to attend Wildflower’s Open Mic tonight. There will be no signup sheet. Just talk to me with your ideas and instant combos and we will make them happen.

Bill”

I am certainly going to try to make this one. Come on out, anyone who is reading this! They are at 316 South New Street on the south side of Bethlehem, PA.

I think each one of us tries our best to contribute to this life. I am trying my best in my own way. But it can be frustrating when it seems like so much has to be done to avoid the fall that we all seem to be coming to.

Joe DeRaymond and many others commit their lives to trying to change the systems which are causing so much strife, bloodshed and death. He and many others pay a high price for their efforts. Here is a link to his article in Counterpunch about some of what is going on: Joe’s article. Joe also publishes a local online independent newspaper, Lehigh Valley Independent Press.

Reading this and knowing people like Joe makes me want to gather my faith and my courage to do even more than I am doing now. Thank you Joe and so many others.

OK folks so here I am sitting at my computer. My cat Abby is on the desk in front of me waiting to be petted. My dog Dakota is on the floor hoping that sometime I’ll be done and take him out for a walk. My kids are both upstairs in their rooms with their own routines. And here I sit typing.

Yes, I love to reflect. And I love to send what’s in me out through my music. But the cat, the dog, my kids, the pile of mail on the floor, the dishes and all of that is here too. And it is as it should be. I spoke briefly in one of my entries about coming down to earth. OK. Out of my brain and into the world!

Speaking of procrastination, check this out, folks:

Sometimes the world seems like it has gone crazy. And it is reflected in my own life directly around me and within me. I reached a point a couple of years ago where I felt like I was being sucked down into a well and I didn’t know how to pull myself up to see my own horizon any more.

But then someone gave me a sense of hope which I followed. And gradually I began to remember that I exist. You see, at that point I couldn’t even feel my own existence any more. I was awake and I had a body and I had thoughts, but somehow I was gone. It took someone looking into my eyes and seeing my despair for me to realize some time later my own despair.

Life can be really tough. And I guess it is particularly tough right now. It is scary to watch the world as we know it fall apart. Outside and inside. But since I grabbed the thread of light from my friend, I have been climbing out of my well and I have remembered that I am really still here and now I even have a sense that the world around me exists. Hey people! Hello! How are you!

I began a yoga class a couple of years ago. It taught a very relaxed deep form of yoga called Svaroopa. It allowed me to ease into parts of my body that were holding tension and not allowing energy in. I began a process of release. Thank you, my wonderful teacher and friend Midi.

I have been exploring the disallowed parts of my own inner space through yoga and qigong since then, and have found that breath and energy work can be blended with singing. I have found that singing can in itself be energy work. After all, certain notes are associated with certain chakras. And I do find that if I draw attention to different parts of my body as I sing and allow the singing to flow through those parts of my body, the quality of the singing changes, a feeling emerges and blockages can be cleared.

I am finding through my qigong that energy work can heal others as well as the self. I am hoping that I can use my singing in the same way. And my talking and communicating generally, although I am reluctant often to commit myself to strict rules of thought which sometimes makes understanding me difficult. I think I still have a bit of anger to work though. I will gradually come back down to earth through my healing process though. I really want to get to know you all! And I want to begin to learn from you too!

So much of my life in the past couple of years has been in change. The process of change has made it necessary for things to be fluid. My music has been no exception. It has only been in the past couple of years that I have been playing the guitar and singing again. There was a twenty year gap when I did not create. I think the music I created a long time ago would be called folk music. Please forgive me, folks as I go along. I am an expert at nothing but my own present experience. I don’t know much about genres, I just have a general impression about things. In any case, my music has always been folky and acoustic. And I have pretty much stuck only to my own music and to my brother Billy’s music.

I self-pollinated for a long time. Actually in every sense. Not just music. But now I am reaching out. I want to learn about myself and the world. I’m done with being scared and not taking chances. So my music is following suit. It is changing. Much of it has been very fluid for a while. I am sort of afraid of committing to much structure. I feel that way generally about my life. I have been cast into a heavy mold for so long, I am afraid of being pinned down again. But my fear is lessening and form is surrounding the creative core. Yet in the process of traveling through parts of myself that I hadn’t allowed myself before, I am letting new kinds of expression out: still very fluid: grunts, shrieks, a language that seems to have a life of its own. But it is forming itself into something very new to me. And I am finding beauty in this new form.

I have found a wonderful place to perform my music, no matter how weird my music gets. The Wildflower Cafe in Bethlehem Pennsylvania is owned by a wonderful lady who has created this space where people can feel free to be themselves. It has attracted some amazing talents, and a lot of wonderful accepting people, where respect for each other is central. Come out on a Monday or Tuesday night to join in with the open mike. Sign up starts at 7:00 PM.