Journal

photos by Ximena Griscti

Hello?

photos by Ximena Griscti

Good times were had by all during the most recent UK tour.

Ian's House
I had a house concert in the Wildmare area of Chetwynd while on the BC Cherry Bomb circuit for Home Routes. Tricky to find and an icy driveway in March, but worth it to spend some time in a beautiful, acoustically delightful round house built with love by a retired fighter of forest fires. Ian is a very youthful guy. He keeps a full schedule growing food in the summer and working on this ever evolving house and land, solar panels, hauling water from town... He's the organic salad bar supplier for a local school, though this time of year all that's around are potatoes. Ian was crowned the Garlic King of Chetwynd, and assures me it's fairly easy to grow garlic if you just plant in the fall to come up in the spring. Cut off the curly flowers and eat them in a salad.

We're north enough for midnight sun. Still light come summer by quarter to midnight, light to get up at 3:30 am.

Ian has a beautiful wood stove that is so cozy heating this place. The details of the decor came alive with a little haul of the locally grown. It's an amazing thing to have a home in a giant circle. The place is meticulously well insulated, which holds the key for the crazy northern winters. The roof is a cone and the central beam is a seriously huggable tree trunk, salvaged from the logging industry. Surrounding the central core is an inner octagon of tree trunk supports, slightly smaller, but still impressive in size. Tons of open space, 4 rooms including the bath which all start at the octagon posts to the outer walls of wood, concrete, insulation. The twenty something sections of outer wall are well windowed, and the plants in the space thrive, ivy growing up one of the support logs.

I played a show here for five people. One drove 40 k, 3 others 65. Smaller audience than usual... but it's a milestone for me because I seriously don't care. I think it was good for all of us. Really good.

Ice.
Raw Timber.Road to Chetwynd
Driving here was a beautiful ride, and I thought constantly about conversations with X who came to Chetwynd year after year to plant trees in the 90's, and saw so clearly the facade of the industry. The main road is surrounded by mountains that are tree covered. But beyond the view of the highway the mountains are slashed and clearcut for miles and miles and miles of rough terrain, unbelievably rough terrain. That's where the planters would plant their little tiny treelings. Try to catch up with the sawing maw of the logging industry. You could die trying, or at least seriously test yourself. The tree planters seem to have the utmost respect from the other workers up here. Not a coveted job, not by the logging company, not by the forest fire fighter. Almost disbelief that anyone would do such a job, so awful the conditions, camping in the snow, the bent low position, the grip of the hand on the shovel and the impact on bones and tendons, the dig, shove and stamp... And yet from the perspective of my left middle upbringing, in my urban Canadian youth it seemed that tree planting was a right of passage, and all the people I know who have done this work are good ones. The camps were legendary, the stories ,the music, the cooks, the mosquitoes, the monotony and the meditation of the motion in the life being planted...

The self-proclaimed red-neck logging manager I met also had respect, but perhaps also thought of the planters as crazy people... Dammit though, the forests should still be growing. What's crazy is that they are cut and cut and cut. That even now I hear of last stands of old growth a being sliced down at such a fast rate, and not even for lumber. Not even for the wood. For pulp. For newspapers to be thrown away. “Crazy” environmentalists and hard working societal outsiders become a strange partner to the forestry industry here. The trees supplied and planted are not to make a forest again but to grow lumber. So what does one do? Save up money by working a crazy planting season and happily nihilate outside the worlds enslavements for the rest of the year, playing (albeit on a budget) but not working.

Ian said firefighting is like that too. Good money, crazy season, then you relax. Good for when you're young. My host is certainly a crafty guy who lives in a wonderful way that makes me appreciate the intense and so often destructive luxuries of our time and space. I nearly dropped my CD sales down the outhouse hole and came inside to the warmth of the wood stove thinking, “I don't want to require money.” Playing music for people who want to listen and sing along, sitting with some kind of core of being together for a while, the great journey to get to these people, the food and stories shared... the stewardship of the land... equal rights and justice... It's slow it's slow, but it's happening.The Loo

fiddle photo by Ximena Griscti

Ideals, hard work, community, love, music. Put ‘em together and whaddaya got? Well, something very good, that’s for sure. Something needed.

I had the privilege of participating in a new programme set up by the Shelter Valley Folk Festival to bring artists into schools in some of the smaller communities of Northumberland County, Ontario. I headed out to Campbellford, 2 hours North East of Toronto, and ended up in the generous hands of the hosts of the Shelter Valley Festival, who took me around, offered me an abundance of local treats, and shared their inspiring stories and sites. They illustrated a commitment to community and the work of providing more of the good stuff in life for all!

I visited two schools in the region, playing and chatting with kids in grades five to eight, many on the verge of entering their teens. These are people at the beginning of really seeing the world with critical faculties fully engaged. At Warkworth I sang the song “Apocalypse Lullaby”, which brought out some serious philosophical discussion. I had wanted to address the recent earthquake in Haiti, and to suggest that while the tragedy is massive, the coming together of people in a spirit of helping each other is beautiful and hopeful, that this type of love proliferation is a common occurrence when difficulty and hardship arises.

And so after the song, one of the kids asked me what I thought about the predictions associated with 2012. I was very grateful to have been asked that. People have been terrified of imminent end times for at least the last two thousand years. Cultivating fear has always been a tool used by those wanting power to control populations. But as far as I’m concerned, we’re entering a new era of unfolding love, compassion and broad understanding, and the more of us who facilitate this kind of awareness, the more resistant we can be to the destructive aspects of the society we live in.

I know how it feels to be a kid with annihilation on the brain. When I was a kid the common nightmare was the nuclear bomb. We were collectively scared, experiencing an undercurrent of despair and helplessness. The propaganda worked, and the feeling was awful. So when I saw an ad for the latest Hollywood flick on 2012 I got angry. Fear for profit. There it is again. Such huge efforts made to create this panic of end times. So manipulative.

And so I was not surprised to run into the deep concern of these kids. I started rambling some explanation of pre-Columbian prophetic interpretation, but ended up realizing my basic message was this: Look at where we are! Look around at how good it is! Enjoy this life, enjoy the love that people give you, love them back. No, I do not believe it’s the end of the world and I’m not going to spend my precious time here being afraid.

There were cheers and clapping, not least from the teachers who are undoubtedly faced with the need to dispel panic on a regular basis.

Times are intense. The violence of our culture is incredibly disturbing. But if something is to be cultivated, let it be that we are all capable of kindness, that we are all in a position to apply our incredible human capacities towards the good of all beings. It starts and it lives as a calm state of caring and enjoying and activating, within ourselves and within our evolving communities.

Much thanks to the Shelter Valley crew for their inspiring dedication to creating spaces in which to experience life in all its complexity and beauty. This is positively powerful work.
photo by Chris Oberacker-Lisenchuk

.Brampton Live in Cumbria, photo, Rebecca Kemp
A big pond it is. I'm glad I'll be there for more than a weekend this time, my short trip in the summer was a tease, though a quality tease it was, Cumbria being so gosh darn pretty. And Ireland, can't wait. Like many a Canadian, I've got blood ties... Always an interesting sensation treading the various grounds where roots have been dug up.

I was about to head out on a Western Canada tour with the Sirens of Song, which I was really looking forward to. I was not happy to be put in the position of having to leave the tour. It was a real lesson in the power of money: Business interests over moral integrity. A week before hitting the road I was informed that a certain organization would be sponsoring the tour. I could not even sleep at night in the quest to gather information on them. What I was finding out made it impossible for me to go. By being on the tour I would have, by default, been associated with this organization. If one is to support any type of organization with ones heart and soul, ones music, their activity needs to be considered top to bottom, inside out. And even though I communicated my position, the choice of the presenter was to keep the money from the problematic evangelical aid organization and ditch one of the four faces of the tour. It was not fair to me or any of the artists to have to make that choice. The public has been told it's for personal reasons that I'm not there. I don't see it as personal. It's certainly a protest. It's about awareness. And it is political.

I urge everyone to think deeply before succumbing to manipulative advertising that tries to offer simplistic solutions to problems that have no easy answer. I urge everyone to look at the fine print and understand the implications of the ideology behind the organization. I urge everyone to support local, grassroots organizations, where people within communities are at the helm of transformation. People in your community need your help to overcome the residue of centuries of injustice and environmental degradation. Do give, do act, but act with knowledge.

We want peace in the world. We want justice. We know that there is enough to go around. Finding the answers requires engagement. It requires research. It requires work. The issues are complex and we need to try to understand them from all perspectives. The dominant perspectives have the money and the persuasive power. We have to listen a little harder, dig a little deeper to hear the other perspectives, the ones that are going to offer the most promising, most egalitarian solutions.

Heading out on the road again, this time I’m prepping for a massive continental road trip which will include a bit of a holiday in the South Western U.S., a territory I’ve been waiting to feel under my feet for a very long time.

photo by Ximena GrisctiBefore I leave I’m cramming to finish segment #1 of a soundtrack for a feature length experimental documentary by Tamara Vukov. It requires me to tap into the Slavic paternal roots and the groovy beats as well as a bit of punk rock outrage. I’ve been practicing accordion like crazy and playing with many wires, pedals, nobs and plug-ins.

It’s been a good winter, full of love and delicious food. I’m excited to hit the road again though. It’s going to be a massive trek this time…. Usually I fly the long distance and rent a vehicle for a specific geographical area, but this time my companion and I will traverse the entire continent coast to coast, up and down and around, in a mini-van. The shows are still emerging daily so the listings will continually be updated. I’ll be blogging and twittering my way through so do stay in touch.