Journal

The Point, Sydenham, OntarioSpent Canada Day in beautiful Sydenham, played on a flatbed truck out in the field by the Point, the purdiest little swimming spot you ever did see. Gorgeous day. Julia on Bass, Brad on slide, Tony on drums. The night sky would later explode with dazzling fireworks. Between the daytime concerts and the night-time display, our hosts Kristin and Vanessa taught us Barbershop harmony tags and fed us like royalty with saffron infused rice, grilled portabellos and hand-made tortillas.Sydenham Feast

A couple nights before I played Kinston at the Sandra Whitton Gallery, great acoustics, awesome paintings. They put me up on a haunted boat, which was fascinating. Had a lovely walk along the water in the morning.
Mullein by the Water, Kingston, Ontario

What’s the point of creative action? What am I trying to do? I ask myself often, as life tosses up its challenges. Recently this is what came as an answer: To find broad swaths of truth within a momentary space/time. I think that's kind of it, and to do so as best as I can within this crazy gift of a life. It's about love, isn't it? That's the motivation, and the answer to all the big ol' problems. But you know, it's not easy to love, so how does one do it in a world that seems so bent on cultivating more suffering and destroying itself? Where fear tells us to climb, and knock down and grasp for our lives.

We could run the cars and planes on sea water, easily. We even know how. Water to hydrogen to water. Why are we at war? We could delight in each other instead of fear each other. We could live conscious of our interdependence and enjoy it.

It seems that at the core of every religion, every gnostic practice, every magical state of union, every scientific innovation, there is this: a contemplative practice. That's how you get to the love state apparently. That's how one uncorks the massive well of compassionate action that can move things around, shake things up, dispel the fear, uncover the mystery and the delight in being, find foundation to get the work done towards a massive shift to the positive. But how to find a way to that practice... I guess that's the big challenge. Seeing it, knowing it, doing it.

In the video for resilience we’re jamming off of a grounding technique. You can try it at home! You just stand there and breathe, send your consciousness streaming down through the floor , through the infrastructure of the city if that’s where you are, down into the dirt, through the rocks and many colored stones, down to the centre of the earth to connect to the pulsing red core of this fantastic planet, to draw that deep magnetic well of pure energy right back up into you and your own core. Draw it into every part of you. You are powerful and full of light. Calm and ready to delight in life!

It might seem funny, but the song Resilience came in a moment of feeling absolutely joyfully connected to my extended neighborhood, and all the innovative, active people who make up the community I live in. I can’t always stay connected to an awareness of such grace, but it sure is good when it happens.

I love driving these roads!

Duncan Garage Showroom, The Sioux with guest Jennifer Luoise Taylor, Jérémie Jones bass, photo Alex Comtois

A hand full of pebbles

Visiting wonderful Victoria, I did a wee pilgrimage to the beach on which the song Swallow got itself going. Jennifer took this picture of the pebbles in hand, just like in the song, (I got me a handfull / a hand full of pebbles/ one ball of light/ one shining flight) though originally when I was inside that particular song obsession/creation, I picked 'em up and let the warm stones drop through my fingers.

And so, ready or not, here it comes. Resilience has been printed. It's in my hot little hand. Now I just have to deliver it to you. AAAAH the joys of independence. I've sent copies off to CDbaby, my favorite online music distributor, they'll be there any minute.
The New CD

Doing the best I can anyway. CD almost ready, I'm almost ready, I just need a little touching up and then we roll!
photo: Susan Moss

Slowly but surely, this record in the making is unfolding. We are close. Roma, Viv and I are giving loving attention to every note played. Saturday night we laid out the developing mixes, burned 'em to disc at three A.M. and drove through the wide empty swaths of streets -- Manhattan and Brooklyn -- listening through the whole bunch of tunes at once for the first time. It was a strange experience my friends. Sunday we switched the order, added an afterthought track, and listened again, then we took our notes mixed and mixed and mixed the night through until well into daylight. I was burnt toast by 5:30 am, my head resonating like a bass woofer. But Roma and Viv just kept going.

Then last night Viv and I constructed a swooshing sound with meticulous attention ... a pulsation really, made from breath and symbols, backwards, forwards, pitched down. Likely it'll be barely audible, but somehow it has a vitality. Like maybe it's the sound of blood rushing through the heart, being delivered outwards to every point in the body. River of Lava, head to feet. It'll support the dance going on in the mandolin strings

In the meantime, alchemists work their magic on the imagery to be delivered with the sounds. There are still wild cards and puzzle pieces unplaced... but this feels like a very special time. The moments before full light of day. The stirring inside the chrysalis. May the delivery run smooth and joyous.

Norval Morrisseau, Observations of the Astral World, c. 1994

I just heard the announcement on the radio that Norval Morriseau, the medicine painter, is dead today. Flying in blissful light I hope. It's rare for me to hear news like that and get shivers all over and burst into sobbing. In fact, it's never happened to me. Copper Thunderbirds work connects me to something I need to be connected to. There are images he has offered that I hold so close, that have carried me on this spirit path, that have helped me find my prayers and deliver them.

Copper Thunderbird, thank you for all that. I hope you are traveling now in a place as beautiful as your paintings.

2 nights in a row at La Sala Rossa. I love home.

Last night I sat in with Penny Lang and Ken Whitely, did a little mini set in between these two icons of Canadian folk, got to do some very fun harmonizing and fiddling with Ken, then rolled with the moments through Pennys set with George Koller on bass and Ken on mando and guitar... I played fiddle, mando, sang. We didn't rehearse. It was just listening and responding. Like Jazz said Penny, come on when you feel it. Like a workshop stage at a folk festival she said, just listen and join in when you've got something to do, and if you don't feel it, don't do anything. Felt really amazing. Penny was at the end of a long tour. She's magic even when she's beat.

And now I just got back from seeing Lhasa De Sela backed by a great bunch of musicians who float around the scene here. They had certainly rehearsed. I've seen a couple of them in other contexts, Sarah Pagé on harp and Joe Grass on slidey country things, but it's amazing what a being like Lhasa can do to bring out the magic of music in people. Gosh she's powerful. Creates huge swaths of warm liquid space to dwell in, to contemplate. Grounding. Just what I needed. She was trying out a bunch of new tunes, so it was a very special show.

It's funny, I was talking to George last night about the strangeness of the music business. You know, we live on energy, we channel something good. And then there is struggle to survive, there are egos, and there are formulas that encapsulate something special but within that things are lost. They function, but they stagnate. And there is business to support the demand for the formula. I've learned some things about business in the last several years, coming from this place of naive, but useful I guess, dedication to my practice and my ideals... I've learned how I don't want to run my business, and now I take my hammer and nails and go at building something that works for me within this commitment to the practice of music. But, so George says it's like everybody is a molecule trying to attach itself to more powerful molecules. And yeah. That's how it is. But then I go see Lhasa. And instead of that being a sinister thing based on ego, the idea transforms itself into something beautiful. Lhasa has a purity and a dedication and an uncompromising truth that she so kindly and sweetly shares with us. And holy cow, is that ever powerful in the best possible way. And she gives all these people around her a huge opportunity to create a transformative space together, and they all shine as individuals as they do it.