Categories
Music & Songs Yellow, Gold, Kings, Fathers, and the Sun

Looking for a King

 

Omega Saint with crosses and gold

I wrote this song while living in Los Angeles, in the tiniest apartment ever- just 100 square feet. The name of the apartment was Egg Nest, and I was very proud of it. It consisted of a little white day bed that had tiny flowers painted on its post, one wicker chest of drawers, an easel, a miniature guitar, a tiny refrigerator and a small plant hospital. On top of the wicker dresser I would keep my stereo, one scented candle, one pink Cosmo flower, and a few animal figurines. The walls were painted pink and adorned with pastel portraits of men, whom I viewed as my protectors.

The walls in my apartment were so thin that I couldn’t brush my hair without waking up my neighbor. This seemed like a metaphor for the minds of the people who lived in L.A. On the one hand, the thin membranes of their minds were what I loved the most- everyone was so open and so willing to consider and imagine anything. On the other hand, the city was filled with industries that preyed upon these vulnerable brains, mine included. Eventually, I had to upgrade my protective portraits to pictures of the most threatening men in existence- naked ones.

Download MP3: Looking for a King

Categories
Music & Songs The Savage Life Yellow, Gold, Kings, Fathers, and the Sun

Longfingers

 

Ecstatic King with egg scepter  and mysterious writing on red

A song about a king with very long fingers… I wrote this during my Ron Paul phase, when I thought my goal in life was to be a Savage Granola, living off the grid in a geodesic dome. I tried to convince James to move to Oregon with me to live off the land and sell chicken eggs at the local farmers market, and he tried to convince me that I wouldn’t actually enjoy that sort of lifestyle. But in my imagination it was wonderful- we even had a pink horse & buggy & there were ribbons tied to just about everything. I would lean over my white picket fence to brag to my neighbor (who happened to be Archdruid John Michael Greer) that the only type of batteries I used were the ones I made from my own potatoes. I always wore handmade dresses covered with flowers and I was so happy it bordered on delirious.

But in the end, James was right. The closest I ever got to being a granola was making my own soap and trying to sell it to a health food store. When they turned me down (claiming that glitter soaps are not organic!) I knew it was time to find a new dream.

 

Download MP3: Longfingers

View previous Longfingers post.

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs

Hunger and Thirst


Blue Saint with cross and skullcapOne afternoon, this blue wave washed over me, and suddenly life felt like an endless sea of longing that could never be satisfied. Or as the Buddhists say (from Wikipedia):

A basic unsatisfactoriness pervades all forms of existence, due to the fact that all forms of life are changing, impermanent and without any inner core or substance. There is, therefore, a lack of satisfaction, a sense that things never measure up to our expectations or standards.

But the feeling passed, and I think Buddhists are pretty silly to claim that one emotion, one shade of blue, is the underlying nature of all reality.

Download MP3: Hunger and Thirst

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs

Masterful Blue

 

Lyndsey Buckingham in blue

 

Sometimes the only way of escaping an unbearable situation is through your own imagination. Or, as the magician in “Electric Company”(one of my favorite childhood tv shows), used to say: “Change your point of view. Look at things in a way that’s fresh and new. Strange, but yes it’s true… you can never be stopped if you change your point of view.”

Good advice? Maybe, but it can make you dizzy if you take it too far.

 

Download MP3: Blue Eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs

Silver Moon

 

I wrote this song while living in Nashville, where it always seemed so dark and cold, maybe because I only went out at night.  To make matters worse, I tried to wear only white and silver clothes  and eat only white foods… why??? I don’t know what I was thinking, but I do know it cast a cold and lonely feeling over my time there. Just thinking back on it gives me the shivers.

Julien singing Blue Sky Cafe, Nashville in white hat and white boots.
Me in Nashville, playing my silver guitar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Silver Moon

Categories
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
Los Angeles Music & Songs Yellow, Gold, Kings, Fathers, and the Sun

Gold Time


Bolstered by flowers, Goethe follows the shadow of an egg.
I wrote this song while I was living in L.A…. What is the gold time? I guess it is a time of fulfillment and completion, when all the trials a person has been through begin to pay off and their meaning is revealed. It is the idea that everything, given enough time, eventually becomes something of great value. Gold is also the color of permanence… a person searches and searches, but when they finally find what they have been looking for, that is the gold time.
 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Gold Time

Categories
Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies

Fancy and Soldier

 

In high school we read Walt Whitman’s poem, “Good-bye my Fancy”, and it struck a deep chord with me. In a way, I think of this song as being a similar story, but told from the perspective of the Fancy, rather than the man.

Walt Whitman in his special hat.

 

Good-bye my Fancy  

Good-bye my Fancy!
Farewell dear mate, dear love!
I’m going away, I know not where,
Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again,
So Good-bye my Fancy.
Now for my last–let me look back a moment;
The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me,
Exit, nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping.
Long have we lived, joy’d, caress’d together;
Delightful!–now separation–Good-bye my Fancy.
Yet let me not be too hasty,
Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter’d, become really blended
into one;
Then if we die we die together, (yes, we’ll remain one,)
If we go anywhere we’ll go together to meet what happens,
May-be we’ll be better off and blither, and learn something,
May-be it is yourself now really ushering me to the true songs, (who
knows?)
May-be it is you the mortal knob really undoing, turning–so now finally,
Good-bye–and hail! my Fancy.

-Walt Whitman

Download MP3: Fancy and Soldier

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
Music & Songs New Hampshire Uncategorized

So Small

 

A song about small things, because no matter how much effort is put into deception, the tiniest and most insignificant details will eventually reveal the truth. As will stones.

Confederate pauses to examine a pebble as the sun rises.
“Confederate pauses to examine a pebble.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: So Small