My love for Willie
One of the weirdest things for me so far this year is Willie Nelson
I
never would've expected to be listening to Willie on repeat, yet his
album Teatro is the one I keep reaching to load into the stereo.
My partner wasn't impressed at first, saying that his music reminds her of an abusive ex.
Yet yesterday she wrote a post on Facebook saying how it now reminded her of a friend whose death she grieves.
It's a similar connection for me, I think.
My interest in Teatro arose from watching Rich Beato's interview with producer Daniel Lanois.
Around
the time my father died, I spent a lot of time distracting myself by
watching Beato interviews and the one with Lanois is a highlight.
It's
clear that this old slide guitar player has a funky streak,
particularly when describing the importance of getting a good groove in a
song -- such as Peter Gabriel's hit Sledgehammer.
Teatro was only briefly touched on during the interview, but the track caught my interest and I ordered the album.
Now
as I listen to it I find myself imagining it as something I would've
shared with my father and wondering if he might've appreciated Willie's
music.
The other thing I realise while
listening to the music repeatedly and having an emotional experience is
the way it is conditioning me.
A few years ago I
wrote about how an album by The Avalanches had begun moving me to tears
through being the soundtrack of my son leaving home.
I'm
coming to embrace the role of music in sharing these significant
moments in my life and realise how it's creating the kinds of
connections that I once had with music as a younger adult.
Maybe it's my sentimental streak, but I appreciate the opportunity to create a stimulus that produces a physical reaction.
Zen Roo exhibition
I’m running a series of haiku workshops that will develop a collaborative project with Naviar Records and result with an exhibition in Griffith during May
The workshops begin on 27 February and we’re soliciting Japanese-style short poems (haiku, senryu, renga and tanka) to be considered for the exhibition.
See https://ree.org.au/stay-cool/ for details and links to the Facebook events.
A selection of the contributed poems will be shared with the Naviar community, who respond with music and soundscapes to haiku that are shared each week.
It’s really exciting to hear how the mood of a poem informs a piece of music and when I ran a similar project with Naviar in 2017 we ended up with over five hours of audio that became a rich soundtrack to the prose and photography.
If you feel like getting involved, join a Zoom workshop in coming weeks and we'll discuss the styles of poetry.
This project began with an exhibition that opened last weekend and I made this short video.
Happy new year
Recently a friend invited me to join a ceremony to acknowledge the transition into a new year
The purpose was to draw energy that hadn't been used in the previous cycle and reclaim its potential in the next one.
There were a number of steps to open new beginnings, as well as steps to show gratitude for the abundance in my life.
I
found it useful as a process of reflection, prompted by a series of
rounds in which an offering of seeds were placed into a fire.
We chose to use chia seed, since there was a large bag of it and this gave a dramatic popping sound in the flames.
The
rounds addressed:
- unrealised love,
- clarity that wasn't used,
- energy for manifestation,
- powers that weren't accessed,
- ancestors who passed,
- misused potential,
- wasted medicine, and then,
- calling on energy, and
- evoking mother earth.
It was suggested that
journaling on these themes would help to instill these concepts within a
personal context and I was surprised to arrive at a series of words
that begin with "A" since it is the beginning of the alphabet:
- aloofness,
- ambition,
- attention,
- allowing,
- authority,
- ambivalence,
- art,
- altruism, and
- awe.
After the seeds had been given we were encouraged to sit quietly in the Dreamtime, where past and future meet.
There we were told to invite these two tenses to stop rejecting the other, allowing timelessness to reconcile.
Then
we went to bed, where my friend and I had restless nights and it seemed
fitting that calling on energy would have this result.
My
friend said it was good to hold this ceremony between the calendar new
year and the beginning of the Year of the Snake as a process of
"shedding skin" to begin anew.
While I am
ambivalent about some of the aspects of adopting ritual practices, there
are benefits in prompting reflection and symbolically releasing one's
history to chart a path forward.
Top five
Each year, when I remember, I share the top new posts on this blog
These results reflect the popular additions during the year and I acknowledge that some older material might have had more visitors than current preoccupations.
It's interesting to see that, when I returned to making these lists last year, I made a resolution to post more in 2025.
This year I've posted the most since 2017.
12 tones of Christmas
I've been cultivating a friendship with a local guitarist
The right-handed guitar had a left-handed neck, which isn't uncommon since it gives a strong Hendrix vibe.
It
also was missing a couple of screws and resisted adding more, an issue
that revealed two had already snapped off in the heel of the neck.
I swapped that neck for the next one, which was also branded Fender and it felt like that was meant to be.
I realised it was a style of guitar that suggested it was late 1980s or early '90s when shredding was popular.
After
filing off the broken screws on the warped left-handed neck, I was able
to revive a busted guitar that I already owned and it now has a good
character despite some intonation issues that I continue to tweak.
Anyway,
as I reflected on now having two more working guitars, I offered my new
friend the "Grungemaster" guitar he'd admired when visiting.
They
say it's difficult to make new friends in middle age and I'm grateful
for how my new fixation on pulling apart guitars has created so much
joy in recent months.
My mind is often pondering the possibilities of modifications and there are so many to explore.
And it's wonderful to have found someone interested in hearing the results, as it must bore my family.
Still life
While visiting my sister I woke from a dream about being at a school and teachers asking I to build a pop-up skull
I think I mentioned it to her, but it was still surprising when she suggested we make art on Saturday afternoon.
She identified there were the flowers given to her after our father's death and a collection of animal skulls to choose from.
Reminds me that I should draw more often.
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