Winter Music Saved My Life

Winter Music saved My Life

When I was a young adult, music saved my life in many dimensions. perhaps we can all say that music has saved our life, our sanity, our being at some point or another, and that is what I am saying. Today I am celebrating the music that educated me on the possibility to appreciate music as it occurs naturally in nature.

The Paul Winter Consort, founded in 1967 and lead by Paul Winter is an assembly of musicians with strong influences of Jazz and Blues. The group's work is still very much alive and won Grammys as recently as 2005, 2007. I first heard The Paul Winter Consort when he played at Wofford College in 1978 following the release of their album Common Ground. I still have the vinyl album with the group's autographs...somewhere.

The striking thing then and now about the music lead by Paul Winter is the incorporation of animal sounds, recorded in nature, into their music. I was able to hear the true music of the wolf and the whale and experience the gentle continuance of their song through the haunting rifts of saxophone and lumbering rhythms of percussion. It was through Winter's music that I began to develop an affinity with the planet and those with whom I share it.

If you can stop for a moment today, do yourself a favor and turn out the lights, turn up the sound and let this group take you on a journey into your very own world - lead by the voices of nature and the music of masterful musicians.

Wolf Eyes

Lullaby of Mother Whale

Not A Dead End - Signs and Words

I am a committed believer that the right words work wonders and the wrong words go nowhere.

Just down the road from us is the local Hospice Care Center. Hospice is an amazing organization and I have the utmost respect for their work. I am even close personal friends with one of the early 'founders' of the organization, Elizabeth Callari.

To get to the Hospice Center near me, you turn off of a busy thoroughfare and onto a side street that ends just beyond the Center. I just heard a curious fact recently. Apparently, the city had to be persuaded to replace the DEAD END sign with a NO OUTLET sign at the entrance to the street.

Am I wrong for finding humor in this?

1976 Musical Memory for 2010

1976 Musical Memory for 2010

In 1976 Al Stewart and Peter Wood released a melodic song with a play time of over 6 minutes and that still managed to dominate the airwaves. Last Saturday, while mowing the lawn, my iPod shuffled to this song and lost in the magic of ear-bud land, I heard the lyrics as if for the first time. Some of them were familiar to me but as the music rolled on, I was smitten by their beauty. There is real poetry in this song, I tell you.

The simple interpretation of the song lyrics tell a story about a tourist who meets a hippie girl in an exotic market, stays the night with her, and thus misses his tour bus. The larger story is about how we can lose ourselves in someone else to the point that our intended destination is lost and the direction of our lives permanently altered.
Please accept my invitation to listen to or read some of the most romantic and enchanting lyrics from the 70's.
Hear the song here: Year of The Cat - Courtesy of LALA.

Lyrics below.

Year of the Cat - Al Stewart & Peter Wood

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime

She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolour in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat

She doesn't give you time for questions
As she locks up your arm in hers
And you follow 'till your sense of which direction
Completely disappears

By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls
There's a hidden door she leads you to
These days, she says, I feel my life
Just like a river running through
The year of the cat

Well, she looks at you so cooly
And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea
She comes in incense and patchouli
So you take her, to find what's waiting inside
The year of the cat

Well, morning comes and you're still with her
And the bus and the tourists are gone
And you've thrown away the choice and lost your ticket
So you have to stay on

But the drum-beat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the new-born day
You know sometime you're bound to leave her
But for now you're going to stay
In the year of the cat.

An Evening With Spike Lee

I spent some time over at Wake Forest University this evening listening to Spike Lee deliver the keynote address for the Reynolda Film Festival here in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

His comments were passionate and targeted at encouraging young adults to find and pursue the thing(s) that make them happy and about which they are passionate. One poignant statement was when he was discussing how often the dreams and passions of young people don't fit with the expectations of their parents. Mr. Lee said, "Parents destroy more dreams than anyone else." Powerful words of warning and awareness.

I know my parents/grandparents did their best and I also know - in hind sight - that they did not encourage the best of my gifts. I am by talent and nature an entertainer. I love to act, write, and speak publicly. They just didn't have the vision to see how pursuing these arts would be helpful to me.

So, I'm wondering... did you have to swim upstream against the expectations of your parents in order to pursue a dream? did they destroy yours?


Note: Image courtesy of Free Digital Images

All This Talk About Change

Change

Another second ticks past

Another moment that won’t last

Time again yields to nothing new

Leaves behind victories and youth

Those who thought one life could change

Our world from scandal and pain

Belief that hope and desire

Would cast water upon the fire

Yet failures and callused minds

Bind with broken promises finding

Brilliant victories heralding

Vanquished limits and proclaiming

Without giving merit to those

Whose lives already tried and lost

Upon the battlefields

Of soil and polices

Note: image courtesy of Free Digital Photos

Relief - A Tale from the Seaside

Before the lightning flashes, clouds roll in bringing with them a promise of relief from the incessant heat and the potential of a light show over the sea. There is nothing so comforting as a summer evening thunder storm at the coast.

Their regular appearance with their own assembly of sound, light (amazing light) and a palpable embrace. It's the drop in barometric pressure, so they tell me, that creates the change in the air. the air seems to at once feel lighter and more dense with moisture as it brushes against you: an ascending wave of breeze upon breeze. The air smells of salt and sea just before the storm.

Perhaps the sensations are so powerful because of all bare skin; the taut, tanned skin of youthfulness, proclaiming would be eternal beauty and undaunted vigor, feeling every ray of sun, every grain of sand, every coming drop of rain.

Memory tells the story now... Here I felt the world, alive and full. I felt the storms. Here I would grab you by the hand and rush to the beach as the clouds darkened the sky and the breeze began to chase us. Sunbathers scattered for shelter and we would run against the current of people to the beach and scurry like sand fiddlers into the large wooden float box positioned with it's one open side facing the ocean. There we would settle in, giggling and shuffling into our place among the sandy floats, into each other's arms and wait for the show to begin.

Drops would fall, making small dimples in the sand and then give way to sheets of rain, blown sideways by the wind folding them like sheets - waving to us. The light would fade and burst in flashes. Then the moment would come when, framed by the window of our shelter we would see a jagged bolt of lightning descend in to the sea. We would shut our eyes and capture the image of that bolt now cut into the fabric of our souls as we felt the thunder - thunder into us. We would hold each other tightly as we shared the storm between us. I remember your bare back hot beneath my hands, the texture of your lips, and the taste of you.

Lightning flashes. Clouds roll in, bringing with them the promise of relief...

Note: image courtesy of Free Digital Photos

The Puppet Man

The Puppet Man

pull the string, watch the dolls dance

blood runs from my finger tips

maybe this time it will change

calm my fears or ease my pain

see my marionettes take your stage

watch your laughter, feel your rage

safely sitting

program in hand

three cheers for the puppet man

pull the string, watch the dolls dance

blood runs from my finger tips

maybe this time it will change

calm my fears, ease my pain

i see your faces, swoons and frowns

watching fixed, puppet take puppet down

they're not real, you carefully remind

while i silently die standing behind

pull the string, watch the dolls dance

blood runs from my finger tips

maybe this time it will change

calm my fears, ease my pain

with human hate they dance for you

showing the worst the we can do

superb! delight! encore' you shout

so once more the toys come out

pull the string, watch the dolls dance

blood runs from my finger tips

maybe this time it will change

calm my fears, ease my pain

the lights are gone, empty isles now

i fall broken, wondering how

these hands will heal, gather strength again

so, you can watch through my gift, friend

pull the string, watch the dolls dance

blood runs from my finger tips

maybe this time it will change

calm my fears, ease my pain

see my marionettes take your stage

watch your laughter, feel your rage

safely sitting program in hand

three cheers for the puppet man

*note: i wrote this poem a few years back while struggling with managing the internal demands that i often felt from others' external behavior around me. i think as children we often take on the role of performing for the 'big' people in our world - and although maturity requires us to grow more autonomous, we many of us struggle well into adulthood to perform for others... it is only a problem when the price is our very health, peace and well being.

**Photo used by permission

Spring Time Play Ground

We have some new neighbors and they include children. I was mowing the lawn as they darted past me through our side yard and down the hill to the creek. I stopped the mower and as the engine went silent I heard one of them yell, "We're going to the creek!"

We are fortunate that even though we live in the city, we have the benefit of a lot that boarders a few wooded acres and a creek, complete with the remnants of an old mill wall. The greatest part of this event is that these children, ages 7-14, aren't sitting all day inside playing video games or online clicking through Facebook - they are outside, immersed in nature with old trees, clean running water, illusive crayfish and each other.

Here's what has them excited - care to come out and play?

Emotive - Not a Water Poem

Emotive

placid ripples radiate

out from the stone's wake

it falls into silence

downward

from a nameless toss it came

flying in a moment

failing to break gravity's spell

downward

descending the abyss

parting waters of primeval ways

stirring the reservoir of rage

downward

what lies beneath

what longings to be stirred

what hopes become reacquainted

down there

a small pebble settles into deepest sediment

nests into it's new dark home

and then

something disturbed

moves

down there.

Beat the Reaper - A Killer of a Book

My son loaned me a innocent little yellow covered paperback book, "Beat The Reaper, " by Josh Bazell.

Turning to the opening chapter, I was smitten - in love I tell you - by the first line: "So, I'm on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow, and some fuckhead tries to mug me!"

The great news is the read gets even better. Carol Memmott, USA Today, is quoted on the cover "It's just what the doctor ordered...think House meets The Sopranos." She couldn't be more right!

Bazell wields wonderfully strong verbiage and a bouncing story line that darts between a clearly depicted real-world hospital environment and a fantastical realm of underworld brutality.

I'm finding the book disturbing (I even have nightmarish dreams). I find it engaging. I find the work mesmerizing.

Sharing the Green Thing Today - My St. Patrick's Day Post

Abigial Harenberg is on a quest - 365 Self Portraits this year, one every day. Check out her flickr record here. She has promised me a special photo for St. Patrick's Day so be sure in click over to see what she came up with.

Stay in touch by following her on Twitter or vis Her website.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

For more St. Patty's Day Fun - see previous post, but then, "where's the green in that?!"

Some Green Worth Sharing

Let's Hear It for Green

I wandered in the woods off the Blue Ridge Parkway one spring and found this place. Now this is some green worth celebrating.

No need to ask, "Where's the green in that?" (see previous post).

Top 10 Ways to Play on St. Patrick's Day

If you are not Irish and you don't drink, what is the point of St. Patrick's Day? Really.
Although one could argue that the day is intended to remind us of the success of the historical St. Patrick's success in advancing Christianity on Ireland - the practical connection is completely lost. For me, it is a good topic for a blog post...

So, how about these Top 10 Ways to Play on St. Patrick's Day?

1. Wear green - creatively. Don't just wear a little pin on your lapel, or a green blouse - get creative. Wear a hat, sport a bow-tie, or dye your eye brows green.
2. Offer green M&M's to people all day (and then whisper "They're not really M&Ms - after they eat them)
3. Write Green - Use a green pen for everything you write that day, or change your email font color to green.
4. Randomly ask people "Where's the green in that?" in response to anything they say.
5. Post "Have you seen my leprechaun?" on all of your Social Media statuses.
6. Send a FTD Shamrock bouquet to your boss (or at least call the florist and try)
7. Ask people to tell you difference between a clover and a shamrock and then reply with #4 above.
8. Rank everything on a 1-5 Shamrock scale and announce your rating - everywhere! "Yeah baby! I'm talking 5 Shamrocks!"
9. Just say "Shamrock" every chance you get. It's fun to say. All together now - SHAMROCK!
10. Provide a #10 for this list in the comments...

Bound - A Poem about Moments of Self Doubt

bound

the knot tightens

the grip of self within self

constricting fists of self hate and loathing

mauling my soul

doubled over in pain

breathless from the impact

blows of fury born of hatred and distrust

disemboweling my being

healing hands, where are you?

gentle touch of truth, come

come, come

release me, untie me, free me

i am weary with waiting

The Top 9,009 Numbers for Lists and How to Use Them

The Top 9,009 Numbers for Lists



Here is my detailed analysis on the topic. After years of research (read "time spent reading") top 10, 20, 3, and 5 lists for countless theories, techniques, processes, and approaches I have come to the following conclusion - one that will certainly simplify and increase your success at list making. So, here are the top 9,009 numbers for lists and how to use them.

Approach #1 - start with the number 1 and then number each item on your list consecutively until you reach 9,009.

Approach #2 - start with 9,009 and order your list in descending order until you reach the #1 (and often most important) item on your list.

And there you have it! The Top 9,009 numbers for lists and how to use them!

(in case you haven't noticed, lists are very big these days and I wanted to write a post about lists - tongue firmly planted in cheek. Did you really think this would be a list of 9,009 items?)

I Don't Remember Being Forgetful

Let me just first say that my memory isn't that bad. In fact I have an excellent track record of memorizing lines for plays, poetry, and countless talks, speeches and other messages. However, if you ever visit my family down in South Carolina, within 15 minutes you will begin to hear stories about my childhood and one of them will no doubt be about my forgetfulness.

There was the time when I was 7 or 8 years old that my mother sent me to the front yard to empty the waste basket into the large metal outdoor trash can. For those too young to remember (there's that memory again) they look like this.

So, out I went to empty the trash and apparently while on my way back to the house I came across one of the neighborhood dogs wandering through our front yard. Dogs wandered in those days (can you imagine that, or do you need another photo).

Now it seems perfectly reasonable to me that a 8 year old boy would stop and play with a readily available dog. The story, as my mother tells it - endlessly - is that i came back inside (after a prolonged time) happy and clueless of the fact that I had left the waste basket in the front yard. Therefore, I am forever deemed "forgetful."

To me it is a simple case of priorities. Which is more important: an empty waste basket, or a wandering dog?

That's my story and I'm sticking to it - like white on rice.

Rushing from Past to Eternity

Meet Tom Rush

From the cramped space of my college dorm room and the defined limits of my young adult life, the voice of Tom Rush, gentle and filled with melancholy, touches my mind, my soul and reminds me that there are those who capture life in ballads and tunes hauntingly impassioned.

Tom Rush has both lyrics and music that are of a time gone by. Heck, even for the years of his popularity, he was singing stories and a style from the days of cowboy ballads and hobo songs.

Look him up. Take a trip on some of his lyrics, or just sit back and have your heart rocked lovingly by Maggie from "Ladies Love Outlaws."

Bloggers' Words - Is It You?

Bloggers' Words

words on my screen

tokens of life well lived

speaking of actions, attitudes

options, for living

words of one's journey

signs, revealing and deep

challenging me to thrive, live

choose, grow

words launched into timeless space

floating in e-land, wandering

coming home and sinking deep

lifting, my heart

sings

words from you, my friend.

Beautiful Day

One day last month I had the privilege of meeting not one but two of North Carolina's nicest and most beautiful women: Nadia Moffett, Miss North Carolina USA and Lauren Ashley, Miss North Carolina Teen USA. As you can see, I was thrilled.

What is more, both ladies were well spoken, professional and honored by their role.

Lauren Ashley, Miss NC Teen USA



Nadia Moffett, Miss NC USA

The Sea - A Poem from Memory

The Sea

Swirls of foam around my ankles

Wiggling toes intwine archaic sands

Minnows dart, carving the tidal plane

Sun bares upon my bare back

Gulls sing anthems of the dawn

Waves rise in the distance, announcing the coming change

Hear it roll closer, ascending

Fleeing tides rip sand and shell away

Sand moves beneath my feet, as the wave breaks

Salt burns, eyes and nose

Water cascades off of me

Surpries of familiar currents

Laughter swells within my sea

My soul welcomed home

Bellows joy

Another - Kids say the funniest things – Story 002

I have already said, my youngest step daughter (now 22, and a senior at ECU) is the family ‘funny saying generator.’ It seems to be her role to interpret life situations in, well comical if not correct ways.

The traffic was very heavy and hearing her mother complain about it, this wiley 7 year old said, “Remember mom. It’s rough hour.” It was, but made more enjoyable by her comment.

Another one for the memory books…

Kids say the funniest things – Story 001

My youngest step daughter is the family ‘funny saying generator.’ It seems to be her role to interpret life situations in, well - comical if not correct ways.

There was the time, at 7 years old, when she was riding with her mother past the local cemetery and said very matter of fact. “Look mommy. There’s the brave yard.”

Makes sense to me.

Always A Story

I viewed “The Legend of 1900” this week. I enjoyed the film - a fanciful story of a child that grows up on a commercial steam liner in the 1900's develops a mastery of piano and yet never sets foot on land.

There were several memorable moments and charming characters.

One quote that sticks with me is this: “You're never really done for, as long as you've got a good story and someone to tell it to.”

Isn’t that the truth. It's soon time for a story...

From Dusk to Dawn

From Dusk to Dawn

Before dawn
The moon looms
Bright, bold
Shining through the film
Of clouds
Sliding across her
Like lace gliding off your
Shoulders
Last night…