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Charleston, West Virginia Writings

The Smallest Blog Post

I go through phases where my arms and legs freeze up. I can’t move. The blood has retracted to my core. My brain freezes. My kidneys hurt. It is a response to fear I guess.

I can’t sing. It’s hard to talk or write. The feeling of silence is so thick and blood pumps in my ears. The acute phase lasts 24 hours. Then a lingering reluctance to make sounds or speak words. Eventually I remember to surround myself with the color red and it gives me the urge to be again. I can’t even say I like red in a ‘favorite color’ sense but it has thrown me a lifeline so many times it is like an angel.

That is the phase I have been in today. I’ve been listening to Hello by Lionel Ritchie on endless repeat. I don’t usually listen to music but when I do it is one song that hits me and so I listen to it over and over and over again. I like this song. It is so beautiful. Soon I will try surrounding myself with warm colors & hopefully it will become easier to speak. But first I will listen to Hellow a few more times.

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Charleston, West Virginia Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies The Pine Fairy Videos

The Pine Fairy Loses Faith but Clings to Survival (Video)

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Hurricane, West Virginia Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs Uncategorized

Eskimo

 

I promised myself I would not write another song until I had something warm and tropical to sing about. I feel like a cold front is sweeping this country, filling people with piousness and righteous ideas. I am okay with a little righteousness, but once it reaches the point where people start to take pleasure in doling out justice I get nervous. I did not want to add any ice to the group mind.

Still, this Arctic song woke me up in the middle of the night and I decided to write it down anyway. Because the South is all about trusting in Providence, just as the North is about Self-Reliance.

 

Eskimo

 

 

We walk through the frozen mountains.
We wade through the icy stream.
We shine like the northern rainbow.
We blow like the icy breeze.

Am I real?
Am I real?

Kneel down to drink from the water.
Kneel down to drink from the stream.
I’m too thirsty to think about it-
I don’t care if it’s dirty or clean.

Am I real?
Am I real?

We lie upon a caribou fur.
We rest our eyes upon a ceiling of ice.
Silver needles fill my fingers and toes-
I start to sink into a paradise.

Am I real?
Am I real?

We work beneath the silvery sun.
We rely on our ancestry.
Sometimes cold overtakes my heart-
It floats beside me like another me.

Am I real?
Am I real?

I cut my finger with a silvery knife.
I tuck my knife back inside of my fur.
He licks my finger with an eager tongue-
Raw meat is what we prefer.

Am I real?
Am I real?

We walk through the frozen mountains.
We wade through the icy stream.
We are silver needles beneath the sky,
Dissolving into the Bering Sea.

Am I real?
Am I real?

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Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs New Hampshire

3 Stacked Stones

 

I think this song may have been inspired (like so many others) by my hero Reinhold Messner, whose brother Gunther died while they were climbing a mountain together. But on a personal level, it reflects the feeling of being lost in a world of  ice- coldness, loss, isolation- as the flame of life struggles to hang on.

Copper print of Tibetan making Torma with gods and Himalayas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: 3 Stacked Stones

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Kentucky Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs

Ice Man

 

Another recording  of Ice Man- this one recorded at home. A song about being so defeated by internal and external forces that a person no longer has it within them to struggle… a song about ice!!

Queen Egg Lace, lady curled up in snow, dripping, with ribbon and mysterious text

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Ice Man

Visit my previous post and recording of this song.

 

Categories
Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies

Indian Friend

 

This song was inspired by Reinhold Messner’s  “The Crystal Horizon,” a book about the first solo ascent up Mount Everest, but also, metaphorically, about the challenges a person can faces while trying to follow their own path and be true to themselves. The loneliness, guilt, and doubt, but also the exhilaration.

To me, crystals, mountains, and ice all represent that place of individuality and isolation… whereas valleys represent the warmth and comfort that comes from merging with others and following a more well-trodden path. But hopefully, when a person does come down into the valley, it will be to nourish and renew themselves, not to donate blood to a wandering mercenary.

Friend we will meet again. Smiley face pulls mountain climber onwards, as she glances at skeleton and fallen cowbird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Indian Friend

Categories
Kentucky Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs

Nobody Lies

 

Another song about somebody all alone in a world of ice struggling to keep their will to live alive…

 

Dead woman floats in the river, her eyes open.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Nobody Lies

Categories
Kentucky Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs

Ice Man

 

Another song about someone dying from hypothermia.  It was inspired by this magazine cover…

OUTSIDE MAGAZINE. Survival: Who lives, who dies, and why. Why do I like songs about people dying from hypothermia?  Because as humans, we need our world to stay just the right temperature.  We lose our ability to live if things get too hot or too cold.  Sometimes, we compensate for an excess of warmth or an excess of coldness in ways that prove detrimental to us later… for example, if our lives feel too cold we might engage in excessive risk taking or drama making, or if things feel too hot and chaotic we might isolate ourselves and hide behind a computer screen.

But, there is only so much we can compensate for, and eventually these hostile forces overtake us.  When there is not enough love and nobody seems to care about us, we can compensate for a while, but eventually the ice creeps into our soul and we lose the ability to move, to reach out, to feel, to care, and finally even the will to live is extinguished.

It makes me think of the following poem by Robert Frost:

 

 

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Download MP3: Iceman