I have been hesitant to write lyrics for my songs for a while now. I did write one song with lyrics a few months ago. But usually, I can’t seem to fit what I want to convey into words.
It could be that my level of craft is not up to snuff in my use of words. Words seem too tight. They hone in on a thought. I don’t want my thoughts to be captured that way.
Feels to me like when I try to hone in on a thing, its meaning becomes more elusive. You try to pinpoint a thing and somehow the space grows around it, and it is no longer as definable as you once thought. Like particles. I never studied physics. But I have heard that if you study small “things” on a nano scale called particles, their behavior changes depending on whether they are observed or not.
Maybe it is this rational analytic process of thought which is self limiting. Maybe it just goes in circles after a while. I don’t know. How can I? I may just be going in circles myself.
So I give up. Well, part of the time, anyway. Sometimes I seem to be able to convey so much more when I wail and growl and create my own language and just send my raw emotions through that avenue.
I have a friend who is an artist who encourages me to think outside of the box in regards to my own art. At my friend’s suggestion, I went down to see an exhibition of Xu Bing’s art at the Williams Art Center at Lafayette College in Easton. There is a book there which must be a part of a work called Books from the Sky The piece was created through a long painstaking process of carving small wooden blocks with imaginary Chinese characters and using those characters to print the book I saw and a lot more. The book I saw was put together with rice paper, traditional Chinese binding and water based ink. The book is beautifully crafted, but the characters used are made up. The book does not actually say anything. There were other works there as well, and they all spoke to the relationship between meaning and language.
There seems to be a lot similarity in the different ways in which we humans express. I guess it says something about what it means to be human. Or does it? Sometimes it seems like the shape of a thing on the outside has little relationship with what is on the inside. There is so much to know. Yet, maybe silence will tell me more.
What is it about Rock and Roll? It is so much fun to play. It is so simple but packs such a wallop. I have been playing some simple bluesy rock and roll lately. That’s what has been coming out of me much of the time. Generally it is very happy music. Bluesy-happy? Somehow, yes.
I don’t know much about structure in music. I took piano lessons when I was 5 or 6 years old. I learned how to read notes then. I guess I progressed into the second book of piano music. I learned to use two hands in my playing and in interpreting the notes at the same time! I started writing songs at the same time I picked up the guitar when I was nine. My first song was called, “Oh, My Little Gerbils”.
When I was in seventh grade I had a music class where I learned that songs can be written AA BB structure, or ABAB structure. I guess I must have learned a little bit more than that, but I don’t remember now. I did apply some of what I learned to writing music.
Mostly though, I have been a real snob about learning about structure generally. I guess I gave up on “fitting in” in most ways at some point in my teenagerdom. But I realized later that I could have benefited some by learning theory. But then again, I concentrated on theory in a very general sense in college. Actually, I love theory. I want to share ideas.
When I was fourteen, someone gave me a book called Think On These Things by J. Krishnamurti. His writings had a huge effect on me. I carried that book around with me for a couple of years. I used to go walking everywhere as a young teenager with my guitar and a backpack with my journal and that book in it. It was partly through Krishnamurti’s influence that I decided to at least in some ways, rely upon my own perceptions to decide what is and is not true, and to realize the influence that the world has upon me in developing those perceptions. I decided that I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me what the truth of anything was, including any truth about music.
I guess, though, I did end up compromising myself in some ways. But now, as I have said so many times now in earlier posts, I want to learn. I want to listen. And I want to share.
I think the next time I get on stage at the Wildflower I will express my desire to learn a little about Rock and Roll. There are some amazing folks there. I would love to try to play Rock and Roll with some of them. For Fun. What better goal is there?
I have been licking my wounds for a while now. I was in a very difficult situation. I am still extracting myself from it but at least today, I find that I am seeing past my own pain and thinking about what is next. Mairead Corrigan Mcguire’s speech has inspired me.
I am now in a unique position to make all kinds of decisions. My life is, for now, fairly flexible. I want to figure out how I can direct my energies towards making a positive contribution to the world around me and in the process, support myself and my kids. I am sure there is a way.
There is an organization in the Lehigh Valley called the Alliance for Sustainable Communities. They provide a great network for individuals and organizations in the area who are working towards sustainability. There are folks who focus on the environment, on peace, on sustainable farming, education, alternative energy sources. The list goes on. I haven’t gone to one of their meetings in a long time. I am going to try to make the next steering committee meeting.
I know that there are a lot of other people who are thinking along this line. It’s just hard, somehow, to take the first step. It’s time to go from thought into action.
I spoke in an earlier post about singing through different parts of my body. I said that I discovered that the quality of the sound and the emotional content change as I explore different areas.
Since I started being more aware of my own inner processes in the past couple of years, I have learned about chakras and a little about what the meanings are in the different regions along the spine in the front and the back. The concept really isn’t that far out. It’s not unusual to hear people talk about a “gut feeling” or a “guttural sound” or “speaking from the heart”.
I think that to a large degree, people have come to judge the lower chakras, those that are more connected to the earth, as lowly and less deserving of attention. These areas are connected with basic survival instincts, security, money, home, appetites for food and sex.
These needs and instincts have been used as weaknesses; as tendencies to manipulate. We manage these needs of our own and each other with a focus other than love. We exploit ourselves and each other just as we exploit the earth itself. I want to focus love and attention on these lower chakras especially. Maybe it is OK to be so very human. Maybe we need to accept each other’s humanness. Maybe it is OK to love and accept the very materiality of the earth. Maybe it is OK to be here, really here. Maybe here can actually be heaven.
My music is responding by coming from a gut level. It is often gravelly and very connected to my body. I can’t help but move as I play and sing. And I don’t want to intellectualize it. It is, I believe, what often is considered primitive; a wisdom that I believe is important now to offset a world which is so out of balance. The outward world seems to be based so very much on control, manipulation and exploitation. And perhaps also the inner world which has its counterpart in the control that we feel we need to exert over our bodies, seeing our bodies, and perhaps our very souls as simply objects to manage.
We need to remember that those “objects”, those bodies and souls are our very being. We really are alive. We really do exist. It is easy to lose track of our present reality when so much of our life is connected to computers, TV’s and cell phones. Maybe I can’t speak for anyone other than myself. I must open my eyes. I must do everything I can to save this thing while there is still time.
I am still so preoccupied, I spend most of my time in my brain. But I am finding my music to be an avenue which brings me back to a fuller perspective which includes my heart, my emotions and my great desire to survive.
I have a hard time putting all of this into words. I am used to using words in a narrow way. The best poetry can convey amazing depth of feeling and more. Perhaps this blog can be my practice in bringing words to that which I want to convey. What I want to convey feels so big and undefined to me, that I find it difficult to begin. My focus is general. It is both upward and downward. It reaches up to God, (and I am not even sure what I mean by that), and downward through my own body and self with all of my foibles and roots itself into the earth. I want to draw nourishment from both directions just like a plant. I feel like I have been focusing so hard lately on the sun that I have forgotten that I also need water and nutrients. The earth feels so arid right now. We need to take care of the earth.
I’ve been talking mostly about the inner world of my emotions lately on this blog. Every day for quite a while I’ve been playing my music also for at least two or three hours a day. Sometimes I feel like I am being irresponsible in this respect. I should be concentrating on how I am going to pay the mortgage next month.
In any case, as I have been feeling a shift inside of myself as I go from emergency crisis mode back into a more stable outlook, (yet an outlook which has certainly been colored by my experiences), my music has been deepening and becoming more confident in its presentation. Strange how I can feel like I am falling apart in my emotional life and yet be anchoring myself in my music.
I really enjoyed playing last week at the Wildflower, being backed up by one of the most spontaneous, fun loving young guitarists that I know there. I hope to do more of this in the future.
I also really want to make some of my music available on the web site as soon as I can. There are a few technical issues I have to approach first. When it happens you will know!
My dear friend often uses humor with me when I am depressed. I was talking to him yesterday about the bracelet that I was given to help me become aware when I am complaining to myself. As I said in an earlier comment, I was told that perhaps if I switch the bracelet from one wrist to another every time I complain to myself, I will become more aware of how much I complain.
On the one hand, I did find it somewhat useful to become aware of this part of my thought process. I guess it’s always a good thing to be aware. On the other hand, I have a tendency to be very hard on myself as it is.
My friend was joking with me: “Oh, I was just stabbed in the back! Oh oh, I’m complaining! I’d better switch the bracelet! Oh, I was deficient in my awareness and I got in front of that bullet! Well, better switch the bracelet again! My goodness! I am such a complainer!” He had me in stitches. It felt so good.
I would like to quickly change perspective. It is easy to get caught in anger and judgment. It is easy for me to judge those who I perceive to be judging. It is more helpful for me to turn it around again to a sense of gratefulness.
I really am blessed. I have enough to eat, I am warm, I have two wonderful kids, I live in a community where I have friends who I love and who love me. I have a sense of purpose now which is still developing.
I do, occasionally, fall and need to be helped up again. I am human. I ask for help. Maybe admitting this vulnerability and asking for help is a gift: the gift of the opportunity for someone else to give and be helpful.
We really need each other. I think that we are just pretending when we say to ourselves that we are independent.
I have heard that it is possible to accept this interconnectedness, vulnerability and insecurity so deeply that a basic sense of love and wholeness emerges.
I quote here a series of sentences that a friend offered to me which helps me when I repeat it like a mantra:
Could I can let go of wanting to figure things out?
Could I let go of wanting to know what to do?
Could I let go of wanting to know the answers?
Could I let go of wanting to know anything (for this moment) right now?
Could I let go of wanting to think?
And again and again.
There is something that I need to remember. I need to remember that when a person responds with judgment and not compassion, that says something about that person who is judging. I am quick to believe other people’s assessment of my situation before I allow myself the time that I need to make my own assessment. True, I am looking for help. Sometimes I am really grasping.
Sometimes I feel like I am in a free fall. I have heard that if you can relax and allow that free fall that fall can turn into flight. Please Lord help me to let go.
I have always thought of myself as being a giving and compassionate person. I have seen myself as a person who gives sometimes to her own detriment. I have been giving a voice to that part of myself that has been put aside for so very long. It has generally felt so wonderful that I have felt confident in simply allowing myself to go where I will, believing that it must all be for the good.
But I have continued to be self centered in this pursuit of expression. Yes, I am generally a giving compassionate person, but I am discovering that there are some boundaries between us which are necessary.
Fusing the anger that I am becoming aware of within myself with good intention is very conscious work. My life generally must now become more conscious and less random so that I will not further the anger and fear that has been placed on me over the years. It is necessary for me to be aware of my own limitations and my own potential to do harm.
This morning when I was playing and singing I found that this is already expressing itself in my music. Some of my music has been simply wailing like a wild animal. OK. That pain is real. But now what do you do with it? There is a lot of pain in the world. How do we transform that into positive action and feeling? This is my challenge. Maybe this is what beauty is about for me. I have not wanted to define what beauty is. I have not wanted anything placed upon me which would limit me. But I do have a responsibility for what I create.
Thank you all for supporting me through this difficult time.
