onehouse

Christmas Lights: Day 6

The sound of stars:

A small clip of fiddler/composer Oliver Schroer playing along the Camino de Santiago in this composition called Field of Stars. Schroer died of leukemia in July of this year. His last words were "Well, I guess no excursions today." Maybe he found himself amidst his own field of stars hearing his very own "Fear not."

Christmas Lights: Day 4

Reposting Counting Stars from last year as I think of those calls from my uncle each advent season.

These adventures in solitude never done...

I sent this off to someone today who I know understands what it means to walk away and then actually recover from something you thought was so much of you. Sometimes I feel like the great crowd of witnesses is singing this to some of us who are wondering and wandering around unlost in the wilderness:

Balancing on
One wounded wing
Circling the edge
Of the neverending
The best of the vanished marvels have gathered inside your door

More than begin
But less than forget
But spirits born
From the not happened yet
Gathering there
To pay off a debt brought back from the wars

We thought we lost you
We thought we lost you
We thought we lost you
Welcome back

Picture Blogging: Day 18: Devils and Dust

I've been working on clearing out some of my books. I keep a LOT of books around. Organizing articles  tell you to get rid of the ones that you aren't reading and I laugh. Anyone that loves books will tell you that the point is to have them on hand so you can read or re-read them whenever you want.

But I am getting ready for a possible move in the nearish future - anybody want surly little me in their backyard?  - so  I've been selling some books and throwing out others. Someone else heard I was doing this and dropped by a box  from their parents' basement - mostly retro children's readers and some fiction. But then there was this little paperback warning the world about the effects Satan's music on the youth of today. When the book fell open to this page, I was surprised that the copyright read 1980. Wow.

Some of the books I am getting rid of have nothing to do with life as I now know it. They contain thinking  that contributed to a life that I have had to recover from (even though they contain none of the utter foolishness demonstrated in the above picture). Those books I throw away. I can't even think of reselling or recycling them as I don't want to have to waste anyone else's life and brain power. I have even used a few to start my summer fires. It's not an old fashioned book burnin'. It's just I'd rather see their useless energy transformed into warming friends on a starry night.

So take it away Bruce while I file this one under F for fire and futile.

Picture Blogging: Day 15: Roseanne Cash

I looked around the net for an interesting picture of Ms. Cash or Mrs. L as she calls herself in her excellent column hosted on her official website. I found mostly promotional pictures which are all well and good but don't capture glimpses of her as well as her intelligent and honest writing in song and in prose. So this picture blog of Roseanne Cash is made out of pieces of the alphabet.

Poke around her column for reflections, excellent book and music recommendations, and art experiences. Or check out her latest songwriting column in the New York Times.

On vacation recently, there were some Christian fundamentalists at lunch at the next table and I felt the tension and constriction of their religious beliefs wafting off them like a perfume. That is my own projection, I’m sure, but I thought of something a friend used to say about that particular brand of religion — that it was like “looking at the ground with a flashlight when the whole universe was around you waiting to be noticed.” Walking to the beach later, I was thinking about how my own idea of God was so mutable, and that even though I pray, most of the time I haven’t a clue to whom I’m praying.

And I like it that way. Sometimes God is Art, Music and Children and that is more than good enough. Ruminating on these things, I thought of a phrase — “the pantheon of my religious desires” — and I wrote it in my notebook. That line is probably too sophomore-English-major precious, but this is how songs begin for me. Sometimes.

(As you read it, click on the song link to Dance With the Tiger which she refers to in the column.)

In every woman and man lies the seed of the fear
Of just how alone are all who live here
Denying the fear is the name of the game
To stare at the fear is going insane
Forgiving the fear is one up on Cane
Is to dance with the tiger
And laugh at the rain

Picture Blogging: Day 12: Just pretty.

That's all. Just mellow and pretty. (4:36)

The Centre of a Seed

This is one of my favorite songs right now. You can only find a 30 second clip on the band's website so this live clip (with backup by Sarah Harmer as on the CD) will have to do. Someone called this whole album "zen americana" which works for me.  Lyrics below.

I Became Awake
Great Lake Swimmers
CD: Ongiara

I became awake,
From a very dark place, a patchwork of fear, of poorly conceived ideas.
With a blister of water, the mark of working hands,
Ready to catch, or cut.
The senses aligned, the animal urgency, and voices picked up,
Flowing over the static, late, quiet.

I became awake.
Fingers are open, eyes they are open, the firing if images, an orchestra of scribbles.
The guts of an engine, the veins of a leaf, light onto paper, exposed.
A filament in a bulb, up above or in the ground.
Together we are magic, together we are dreaming, together we reach enlessly,
The centre of a seed, so full of possibilities.

I became awake.
I thought I was sleeping, but I was only forming a structure with no ceiling,
With words like a runway, a cloud of a person drifting away.
I was heavy, but now I am light.
I was heavy, but now I am light

Falling up.

We have quite a craptacular government in my province and they were voted back in tonight after decades and decades of blech. A good time to listen to Rickie Lee Jones.

Honey baby
We're living with the Romans now
I want you to remember this
Come on
Try to remember

We're falling up, yeah, yeah, yeah
We're falling up, oh, oh, oh, oh
We're falling up, hey
We're falling up, oh waouh

Try to remember
Try to remember
Try to remember

Inspiration.

I'm looking for a little bit of a breeze to blow so I'm listening to this. I heard about it while listening to CBC in traffic and the first song "Field of Stars" were a nice contrast to the irritated drivers and an ailing car.

In May 2004, fiddler/composer Oliver Schroer set out with three companions to walk along the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrim trail that meanders across France and Spain. Over the course of two months, the four companions walked 1,000 km in the footsteps of their medieval brothers and sisters. Certain things may have changed since medieval times – pilgrims are less likely to be eaten by bears or to be robbed by gangs of raiding mountaineers as they cross the Pyrennées. Yet the mechanics of walking have not changed in 1,200 years, and so they endured similar hardships, pains and tribulations along the way. Along with the joys of making a long journey on foot, of being totally immersed in a slowly changing landscape and experiencing it with all of the senses…

In his pack, Oliver carried his violin and a portable recording studio. When he found a church or cathedral that was acoustically enticing… and open… he played and recorded in these spectacular, sonic spaces – 25 different churches in two months of walking.

Oliver Schroer:Camino brings together the best of these recordings. Oliver’s violin sings in these magnificent Romanesque churches, each space different in character and resonance. And the sense of place is strong – pilgrims praying, children playing, birds, bells, footsteps, passing snatches of conversation, and the sounds of the buildings themselves.

Schroer is currently battling leukemia.

World Without Tears

I've got this song on a loop for some reason. I'm not sure why.

If we lived in a world without tears
How would bruises find
The face to lie upon
How would scars find skin
To etch themselves into
How would broken find the bones

How would broken find the bones
How would broken find the bones