World In Flux
“When you look up and realize you’ve been working nine hours straight, something’s probably going right. Or seriously wrong, on a bad day. I started off with an acoustic guitar part in a D tuning, then transferred that finger picked part to electric, did a rhythm part, then redid the acoustic part in standard tuning, playing chords, on a different guitar, on stereo tracks (2). Then muted the existing piano track, and did my own piano track. Then added a synth pad. A funny thing happened while I was working up the piano part. Around take ten, I started feeling a bit befuddled. I don’t read music, and I create parts from a very improvisational framework, so this did not alarm me, but for a few takes, I thought I’d lost the thread. Eventually, I realized the pitch control on the piano had mysteriously shifted a whole note. Which meant all my fingerings were completely different. The moral of the story is, just go for it. Dig deeper for the feeling and use it as a guide, instead of your learning. If you have to use fewer notes to express yourself, all the better. I noticed the incredible glow of the world out my windows today. A world in flux, in anxiety, in confusion, in fear, in ascension. The sun square Pluto put a added incentive toward my diving bell submersion, to escape the heavy, mind boggling changes that have ripped me from my life. But what was that life? Was it working? No, it was not. When as a six year old child you sat your mother down to tell her that you understood evil, to which she had no reply since losing all her religiosity to academia, these times as they are pose little surprise. This affirms my lifelong cognitive dissonance, that something is wrong here. Now it all comes to the surface. Yet, I believe we come by choice, to see what we’re made of, and what we can do to help humanity. Let’s rally to that, why not. Do it with incredible, loving conversations; do it with your car, delivering groceries to the fearful and to shut-ins, do it walking in the fields and pastures, and planting seeds. Do it in the forgotten places, no one visits, but you. These corners, be they well trod or not at all, are filled with innocent grace. We’ve protected earth, and honored her mysteries. And now, we must stand taller and firmer, to be her blessed protectors. Make music, tell stories, sing to animals, set your eyes on the early crocus and maple buds to verify the virility of our pristine surroundings. With all the support we have here in Vermont, and other rural locations all over the United States, there is no way we will allow an invasion by lunatics to disturb our peaceful way of life.”