Oh dear… I wish I knew how to record more than one vocal track so I could have the sound of twins singing the chorus, but when you are a non-stem female musician, you just have to do the best you can & keep walking forward.
His eyes were blue, his eyes were pale The absence of a fire. Where the wind blew, there they went The absence of desire.
Peppermint, a hint of life Something pure and true. All around you like a kite There his blue eyes flew.
A piece of lace, a secret place No one knows where it ends. But all along he held your hand Just like a pair of twins.
His fingers were so thin and yet He held your little hand. He walked with you upon the beach A heart drawn in the sand.
The sky was flying like a flag Had you seen that flag before? A gust of wind opening a door.
A piece of lace, a secret place No one knows where it ends. But all along he held your hand Just like a pair of twins.
You stood upon the beach with him the gavel was put down. With rings upon your finger now The absence of a sound.
A piece of lace blew in the wind It was tied to a pole. The wind was blowing to the east The place where fairies go.
A piece of lace, a secret place No one knows where it ends. But all along he held your hand Just like a pair of twins.
This song was inspired by the zodiac sign of Libra. As I mentioned before, whenever I am feeling down I choose a sign of the zodiac to connect with and quickly it will cheer me up. I chose Libra, because it is the astrological ruler of lace, one of my favorite things.
It is probably dangerous to spell out for the world a list of your favorite things, but I will do so anyway and hope for the best. As I said, one of them is lace. I like to include a piece of lace in every song. It is a nice escape from my everyday life, which doesn’t feel lacy. My regular life is cornbread baked in a cast iron pan, so heavy I can barely lift it. But I dream of lace and one day I will buy a piece to keep forever.
So, at any rate, this is a list of my favorite things, but please keep in mind that by virtue of them being my favorite things I am also drawn to their opposites and to things which hit them at odd angles.
Goodbye for now, I go Who am I? I don’t know, nobody knows Goodbye for now, so long I will reach for you one day through arms of song…
I saw the people form a long thin line They surrounded me in a circle; I did not want to die I saw a dark spot move across the sky Her message was so clear to me: goodbye, goodbye.
Goodbye for now, I go Who am I? I don’t know, nobody knows Goodbye for now, so long I will reach for you one day through arms of song…
They built their village in the northern woods This is not my home, one day I’ll leave for good I cooked my food beneath a veil of stars This is not my home, I said with quivering arms.
Goodbye for now, I go Who am I? I don’t know, nobody knows Goodbye for now, so long I will reach for you one day through arms of song…
They crossed the river in a long thin line Their clothes were stacked upon their heads, piled so high They held each other’s hands with long thin arms Though I leave this place, I will remember you as fallen stars.
Goodbye for now, I go Who am I? I don’t know, nobody knows Goodbye for now, so long I will reach for you one day through arms of song.
*
I wrote this song a couple years ago when I was redecorating my apartment in the hopes that it would magically transform my life into a more exciting one. Since I had already tried every other decorating style I could think of- and my exciting life had not yet manifested- I decided to use reverse psychology on the universe and make my home impersonal and sterile, like a business office. I ‘decluttered,’ removed pictures from the wall, and replaced cutesy soap dishes with industrial ones. I tried to make everything as white and empty as possible. I decided to stop writing songs, to make the void even greater.
And it did make me feel empty. I always get this particular sad feeling after decluttering. ‘Decluttering’ is a popular movement at the moment- supposedly all aspects of your life will improve when you release unnecessary possessions- but I am more or less an opponent of it. Without possessions to weigh us down, our minds become untethered. I learned this the hard way, having given away my possessions many times. When I left one husband and married another, I placed everything I owned, clothing and all, into one duffle bag. I didn’t even have different clothes for summer and winter, just a pair of green shorts and yellow pants that I wore both in snow and extreme humidity. Plus a pink polo shirt with green frogs on it.
Sometimes I still find it challenging to deal with the responsibility of material possessions, but that is life. It is better to be crushed alive by heaviness than to go insane from extreme lightness. Isn’t it?
At any rate, this song is an expression of the ache I felt after turning my home into a business office.
A previous redecoration, where I decided everything needed to be painted green, even Slippers. The poster on the wall is from an earlier decorating scheme where all walls were covered with pictures of water. I don’t know why I felt the need to constantly redecorate, but living in a house has forced me to put that mania behind me, at least a little.
And before you call Slippers fat (as people did at the time) remember that she had just spent the summer in solitary confinement, after getting hit by a car, with nothing to do but eat kibble all day. This photo was right after we adopted her.
As I’ve said before, I never know what to say about songs. I don’t think they have literal meanings and yet it feels so haughty to say nothing at all. So, I will say I believe this song was inspired by my experiences with spirituality combined with the woozy feelings of spring.
My spiritual experiences have mostly involved the complete subjugation of myself to another person. This is why I got married the first time. First, I had to go on a private retreat with my spiritual guide to achieve enlightenment (I was a teenager at the time, so it seemed to make sense.) Then of course while driving me to the “retreat” (which turned out to be the basement of his parents’ house) he had to grab my crotch to subjugate my ego. Things degenerated from there until a few days later I had to marry him since I had now touched his naked body which was too pure to be touched out of wedlock.
I don’t think my experiences are unusual, but just what you should expect when dealing with a Spiritual Person. When you see Spiritual Things going on, rest assured there is something dark and perverted behind the curtain.
But why? I don’t know. Maybe because humans can’t be spiritual. It isn’t real. The spiritual world is something we connect to- just like we connect to dogs and plants- but not something we can embody.
If it wasn’t unpopular to do so, I would want to warn people away from all Buddhist & Hindu spin-off movements practiced in America. “Eastern Religions” as we call them. It is not the religions in their natural environment I object to. Even though my degree is in Tibetan Buddhism, I think it is hard, maybe impossible to understand the role religion is playing in another culture, so I don’t have an opinion on whether these religions are good or bad in faraway places. (Although I can say, the history of Tibetan Buddhism is basically a blood bath.) But I do object to the form I see these movements taking in America. I have been involved with a number of them, and while I understand how they excite people with the promise of new horizons, I have never seen them play out well for anyone in the long run. Even meditation (I used to practice Transcendental Meditation) is, in my opinion, better left alone.
My involvement in these realms did lead to many of what you might call spiritual, blissful and transcendent experiences. But I imagine a person could have many of these same experiences from doing drugs. Drugs would probably be preferable to the extent that the person would realize there was a recreational, escapist quality to these states of mind, rather than believing they were rising up to a higher spiritual plane.
One problem with all Spiritual things, from meditation to Christianity is that they tend to create a ricochet between two polarities- good and bad, bliss and suffering, etc. The more a person attempts to bind themselves to one side of this polarity, the stronger the other side grows. But since you are attempting to identify yourself only with the positive side, the negative side gets projected or suppressed until take on a life of its own. Like a poltergeist. One way this can play out is the “spiritual” person becomes a magnet to the dark people who now balance them out. That is how things played for me.
Anyway, here are a few more problems I have with Americanized Eastern Spirituality.
The subjugation of the ego: We have an ego for a reason. It is our self-interested mind. If anyone wants to help you transcend your ego, run as fast as you can. You may as well get a lobotomy.
The denigration of thought: These religions will subtly- or overtly- push the idea that thoughts are a negative thing to be transcended. An impurity of some sort. The guru will humbly giggle about how we all have thoughts- they are nothing to be ashamed of- and yet- let’s just try to gently push them to the side a little, shall we? Thoughts are clouds which block the sky of Pure Awareness. For a long time, I tried to restrict my thinking due to this pernicious influence. When at last I managed to release this notion and feel good about thinking to my heart’s content, my life filled up with color.
Navel gazing: As a rule, I think people are better off striving for external goals than internal ones. Survival demands it. Families and communities rely on it. Navel gazing seems especially harmful to men. Males have a lot of energy that needs to radiate outwards. If they try to fold that energy within themselves, through meditation for example, they become pent-up and angry. You see this a lot in long term meditators. Poke their peace bubble and they explode. Women, on the other hand, are built to hold energy inside like a pool. But meditation is bad for them as well because it focuses on the mind and stillness, whereas women really need the freedom to feel and express their full range of emotions.
Disconnection: Ultimately, a meditator’s life becomes all about themselves. They live in a little bubble and focus on controlling the weather within that bubble. Their goal is essentially their own personal happiness. And though they succeed at feeling high and connected to the universe, it is still a different feeling from the more thick and liquid connections we are meant to have with other humans. A deeper form of happiness arises, I think, when a person no longer cares about their own happiness, their own psychological state, but is focused on goals which transcend their subjective reality. Paradoxically, caring less about your own state of mind is probably the truest way to uplift it.
Gurus and spiritual leaders: All I can say is do not touch these people with a 10 foot pole unless you want to get fucked hard. The strange thing is, you WILL have spiritual experiences around these people. I don’t know why that happens. Maybe it is self-hypnosis. Maybe they have absorbed so much blood and energy from their previous victims that it gives them a form of radiant power. But walk away. You don’t need these experiences. Regular life is more supernatural than any of these spiritual things. We are just so used to it that we forget. At the very least, hire a detective prior to any contact with a spiritual person. He will find bodies. Guaranteed.
Anyway this is just my opinion, and I know there are exceptions to everything. Someone out there was born to meditate, just like some of us were born to swim with sharks or bury ourselves alive. But when people push the idea that everyone should have a meditation practice, I want to hurl. Just get a second job delivering pizzas. Or learn to build houses. Our minds are already working the way they should. We don’t need to tamper with them.
To swing, to fight
A world at night
To shake, to weep
A world asleep.
They sleep, I see
No one touches me
They think I don’t know
The place where all the children go.
Paw Paw the ringing boy
When spring comes he will bring you so much joy.
Paw Paw the ringing boy
When summer comes then the world will fade away.
These things A world of strings But look, you’ll see The world is me.
Alien, okay I don’t care what they say I am bought and sold Although he is very old.
Paw Paw the ringing boy When spring comes he will bring you so much joy. Paw Paw the ringing boy When summer comes then the world will fade away.
Your needs A string of beads I dance, I twirl A milk white pearl.
Worlds fade, worlds end I dance, I spin No one touches me Except for spirituality.
Paw Paw the ringing boy When spring comes he will bring you so much joy. Paw Paw the ringing boy When summer comes then the world will fade away.
A song… I guess… about my love for men who are boring on the outside but shady* on the inside- like detectives… or maybe it is a song about my love for the gray clouds and fog that hang over West Virginia in the early spring. All I know for certain is that I wrote this song while thinking about the constellation Scorpio in a bathtub… sometimes when I am feeling down or lost I will choose a constellation to think about to cheer me up… and the moon was in Scorpio at the time, which is why I chose it, maybe. I was in the bathtub because it was the only bathing device in the house, the house being from 1907. However, a shower head has just been installed, so life is more normal now.
*Secretive, I mean. I secretly admire people who have that quality, because I usually end up spilling all the contents of my mind, whether I mean to or not.
You could be my dark man Stranger in the park man Standing in your trench coat flashing Stars above but somethings crashing down
You could be my shady friend
Standing where the street lights end
Shadows fall always behind you
No one seeks and no one finds you now
Clouds stretch so far away
Endless worlds of endless grey
Walk before me and I’l follow you
This road leads us to tomorrow, true?
Clouds takes shape but they always lie
We’ll get bored but we’ll never die
Lay your hand upon my head now
Lead me through the fog and dread now
You could be my shadow man
To offer me your white bread hand
Shelling peanuts with your finger
A dusty feeling I remember now
Life can be so many things
Sometimes swirling like a dream
Sometimes flat I’m trapped inside it
Close my eyes but they won’t hide it
Half alive but that’s okay
The other half is filled with gray
Eyes are reaching through the fog and lace
From another world I can almost place
You could be my answer man
A book to dull to understand
A slice of bread upon my plate
The rusty and forgotten gate to now.
Values live on top of a person’s head. They are sometimes confused with goodness, but no set of values can make a person good. In fact, an excessive focus on values can separate a person from the actual seat of goodness- their heart.
The heart is good, but not Good. It is the fuzzy mammalian instinct we have to empathize with and help others. The heart is caring, but not Righteous. It doesn’t care because it should, but just because it is naturally furry and soft. It might not even be aware that it cares; it just reaches out a warm hand to others automatically. The heart expresses her warmth through actions.
Values, on the other hand, are cold and harsh. You could compare them to stars guiding a person through the desert. They offer no warmth nor coziness, but can provide austere guidance and possibly exhilaration. We turn to stars when we are lost and travelling through barren, inhospital places- such as the ocean. It is the same with values. If our whole life were a walk through a rose garden, they might never cross our mind at all. We think of them most when we have nothing else.
Values are useful so long as you choose the right ones. Like stars, values encircle the globe, existing at all locations. They are infinite, and all have polarities- opposites- which are equally valuable. Honing into the right value can help a person to stay focused on their spiritual purpose- like a soldier tuning into Bravery or a salesman into Enthusiasm. There are Soul Values which guide us throughout our life and relate to our deepest purposes, and other values which we may plug into temporarily to navigate an obstacle. Adopting the wrong values, however- such as a soldier plugging into Empathy- could make it impossible to fulfill our mission.
There are two ways to adopt a value. One is to mentally accept it as an idea that you *should* live by it. In this case, it is generally a value derived from our peer group. This can create strong feelings of anger as the foreign value and our nature continually clash. Eventually, this anger may be projected onto others whom the person sees as lacking the value, relieving the guilt they feel in being unable to live up to the value themselves. Ultimately, of course, the angry person needs to question the value of their value and likely trade it in for another, more suitable, choice.
In other cases, a person tries to actually live by a chosen value. I am not sure how common this is, but all our heroes, for example, are people who at least seemed to embody one value or another.
The beauty of a value is that it can unlock supernatural powers. By choosing to follow a value, you are connecting to a living set of higher powers who will set things in motion around you. If you choose the right value, they will be like winds that carry you to your destiny. Choose the wrong value, and it will be an exhilarating ride that leaves you dashed against the rocks.
For a sign
Some people complain about time, boy
I could always see what was mine, boy
I could stand for ever and just watch the stars unwind.
For a name,
A piece of gold to hold in the rain, boy
So buy up all the land you can claim, boy
I will stay behind you in the darkness and I’ll pray-
Pray to men that live in water, men that live in dreams
Show me how to love and conquer, show me what it truly means to
Fall
Show me how to fall.
For a dream
To chase after that glittering gleam, boy
Though things will never be as they seem, boy
Diamonds in your hand evaporating into steam.
And a fate
You can’t stand beside the water and wait, boy
Not many in this world who are brave, boy
I will stay behind you in the darkness and I’ll pray-
Pray to stars that keep us shining, pooling in the night
Stars of love and stars of violence, show us how to truly fight and
Fall
Show me how to fall.
Then the mist
It will flow around you like this, boy
Your thoughts will start to garble and twist, boy
Feeling with your hand to find the something you have missed.
Then the night
It starts when you get used to light, boy
Things will start to dim but not quite, boy
Feeling with your hand you realize that you are dying…
But are you dying from asphyxiation, dying from a flood?
Dying for a drop of luster, dying for some blood?
I will hold you in my mind then, shining like a dream
Emerald lights upon your shoulder- shining like an emerald king and
