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Ego: The Sound of Two Hands Clapping

“One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the word 'I.'”
- Ludwig Wittgenstein

        Ego. The word itself is the essence of conflict. Team "e" pitted against team "o" colliding at a hard "g", the toughest most guttural sound in the English language.
I can just picture the battlefield...  at "g" the swords clash and the blood spills. Compare this word to words like "peace" or "breathe" that glide seamlessly. Language seems to contain a wisdom much like that of our dreams.  Both are direct products of the mind, made up of components it readily recognizes and can assign meaning to, yet they communicate far beyond those meanings.  This implies that we instruct and guide ourselves unknowingly - or better yet - that there are different kinds of knowing within us and the one we commonly consider "real" is not telling the whole story.  If that isn't another argument for our inherent divinity, then I don't know what is.  But I digress - back to my opening image, teams "e" and "o" duking it out... 

        Many contemporary spiritual thinkers believe the phenomenon of "ego" is what cripples our self-understanding and that this misunderstanding is the source of human suffering.  Ego is the part of us all that needs to classify, enumerate, divide, rank, distinguish, define and discriminate.   It likes to judge, strive, compete, to make us & them distinctions. It is one kind of knowing (the conscious mind) that has managed to convince the whole being that it is the only kind of knowing.  It creates the illusion that our conscious thoughts and our sense perceptions are the limit of reality - the entire scope - and that nothing beyond that is possible. It tells us that the Self is finite and contained within that limited reality.  Thus all ego actions are fear-based - all of its anxieties are fueled by a terror of death.  But to think of the Self in this way is analogous to thinking of science as the only eye, of minds as brains, and people as bodies. Science is very good at observing, predicting and labeling, but never bothers to address how it all happens in the first place. Why and how are still giant question marks, no matter how impressively technical we get with descriptions of physical phenomenon.  So, philosophy asks, why Self?

The ego conception of self must maintain its "separateness" from everything else. In ego's view, to fail to do so is to vanish or to no longer exist.  This capacity is a survival tool for us, a species that must navigate through time and space for food and mates, etc.  How would we function if we could not categorize and differentiate and organize great volumes of incoming sensory information? The important thing though, is that this way of seeing does not map total reality.  We forget that no such categories exist in nature and just because we think and perceive in a certain fashion does not mean that this is how the world works - or more simply - just because the world passes through our minds and senses in a certain way it doesn't then follow that the world is that way. A grasshopper sees reality through a very different ocular structure and so it looks totally different than what we see, but is it any more real? Is one version more true? In the human mind, ego says its version of reality is the true one. Yet the very acts of human perception and thought filter out an enormous percentage of what is actually going on in our bodies, our minds, our surroundings. Ego can be construed as very important evolutionary functions - perception, classification and differentiation of the physical world - that have gone haywire and taken over, convincing its owner that its mode of being is all there is, and moreover, that IT is the arbiter of what is real - its methods/perspective are the only ways to assess what is true and what is not true. This is an illusion of such psychological strength that it has effectively transfixed the entire human race. Eckhart Tolle and Wayne Dyer have written extensively on this subject, and the Eastern thought traditions from which it springs explain it very elegantly.

Given that this impoverished conception of a Self offers no peace or certainty, we are constantly compelled to gather evidence for its claim of "separateness" out there in the world - a process that includes not only labeling and acquiring (agnostic, Muslim, feminist, yuppie, sculptor, in a certain income bracket, divorced, heterosexual, forty-something, Liberal, blah blah blah)  but also identifying enemies, "othernesses," or "that which is not us or opposed to us."  Therefore it is Ego at work in emotions like defensiveness, bigotry, greed, racial/national hatred, jealousy. There is a panic to protect such a narrow, fragile, time-bound definition of who we are.  No wonder we have such a hunger for a more expansive sense of reality!  The external chase is inevitably fruitless and can't even come close to describing what, in essence, a person is.  So we must look in the last place ego would have us look - within. 

Our intuitions - our mysterious kinds of "knowing" - are certain there is another plane, we feel it - that there is more to a human than just how he/she's measured in years, accomplishments, labels, and the long list of categories we put them into.  When you wonder at the miraculous workings of your own body, don't you feel like the chatter in your mind is just a small sliver of the universe that is inside you? Or as Nisargadatta points out, what within you is noticing your thoughts? Who is the noticer?

While I was reading the other day, I was struck by something that made the entire maze of this concept come clear for me. The whole truth seems to be that there is no otherness. That's what we can hear the natural world saying to us in times of clarity.  It says, with peace and ease, that all one and all is infinite. This is what I think that mournful forgetfulness is in the work of Levinas. When we are confronted with the face of another, some other, eternal timeless face stares out at us, begging to be remembered and recognized.  This is why humans experience compassion, an emotion that seems to offer no evolutionary advantage whatsoever.  Ego is standing in the way of truly understanding ourselves, of the world, each other. We mistake the shadows on the wall for the actual things, to borrow from Plato. We forget that we are the same substance that flows through the tulip, the fish, the elk, the ant.  We have the same power that lies within an ancient rock. Nothing is really solid or separate - physics states that it all matter is mostly energy and empty space.  Yet we come to believe that we get one chance and that we must frantically construct a describable identity, often fighting each other in the process, so that perhaps we will be written about or remembered. Is it so necessary for me to compare and compete with my fellow humans if I feel as though they ARE me? Is it so necessary for me to draw a fence around myself if I understand that it's actually impossible to do?

Hmmm. How love explodes within me when I put down my weapons, so to speak.  The Buddhist will say that a small bowl-sized heart can be ruined by just a drop of poison, but a limitless ocean can't ever be, no matter how much you dump in. This little image moves me greatly. In that chaos of wanting to help the world but not knowing how to, I feel that if I trust in this image and in the part of me that is beyond ego, I will know what to do, I will be guided.
 
I'll leave you with one of my favourite Krishnamurti quotes: "What we are inwardly exposes itself outwardly."

Roses, blue velvet, limos and rain

When I look at a goat or a passion flower (look it up, it is astonishing) I am convinced that the Spirit or Life-Force or whatever it is has a fantastic sense of humour and is having a gay old time playing around with form. Rhinocerous, wasp or rooster - it's all rather hilarious. The same applies to circumstance, and my delightfully ridiculous weekend at Montreal JazzFest definitely qualifies.  First of all, Montrealers seem to sing and dance nonstop for the entire warm season, so imagine an atmosphere of pure revelry. Add to this that Q92 has requested that I perform at their charity event in Dorval that same evening, so we are shuttling around all day, back and forth for staggered sound checks, in one of their hired limousines. What silliness! I buy a little box of Timbits for the fellas to even out this illusion.  Timbits in a limousine. Ah life!

Add to this the spastic weather, at one moment, thick with golden sunshine, the next, pouring rain. Add to this that Andy The-Anh made me a blue dress at the 11^th hour that miraculously slid over my skin perfectly like Cinderella's slipper. Add to this that I am out of sorts because my regular touring band mates were all unable to accompany me on this trip. Wanting to shine my brightest for the beloved Montreal crowd, I admit I was a wee bit heartbroken about it, but one would not want to be vulnerable or take a risk in any other town, for this place applauds it!  They are as fierce a force as a performer, they are not in any way passive listeners. I love this!

After the show we are whisked in another ridiculous vehicle back to the Q92 site.  I have flowers and pastry gifts from the beautiful Montrealers.  Sigh.  We step into the whirl of circus chaos in Dorval after circling the venue several times. It is utter disorder.  I feel like I'm singing but the sound of a crash symbol is all I hear. Stage hands are scrambling like insects all over the stage. Frazzled and slightly deaf I teeter back to my trailer.  How densely we can pack the seconds.... after it is often necessary to experience seconds with nothing but cool empty space in them.  I do this in the car on my way back to the hotel with my face pressed into a bouquet of roses.

P.S. Thrilled to report that I will be participating in January 2009's episode of "Canada Reads" on CBC. Can't divulge just yet what great work of Canadian fiction I've chosen, but it's a goodie and I am preparing to defend it with vigour...

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Ottawa

I wake up in my hotel suite that morning after spending the previous day with journalists.  Remembering how they asked me intelligent, penetrating questions, my heart hurts from their earnestness.  I answered truthfully. Sometimes I think I can't lie. If someone asks me something difficult, I feel compelled to answer with the truth, no matter how much of that truth should be concealed for decorum's sake... a peculiar malady.

The sun was out. I walked to a park near the Natural Sciences museum and stared for a while at a fake triceratops.

(The rhythm section)

After sweating wildly in the gym to hush my accelerating mind, I get ready to meet industry dudes in leather jackets.
Part of me repels this, resists like two same magnet ends, and my internal monologue goes haywire, wobbly, like a surfer losing the wave.
Hmm. I watch my own discomfort with detached curiosity - good little monk-in-training.

Post-lunch I speed over to the venue to reunite with my sanity - the band. Ah. There they are, setting up their equipment.
Exhale.

The Bronson Centre is falling down!  Old gal, keep it together for us, we want to roar magic through your peeling, reeking hallways.
Seriously, the place smells like a locker room but I have Pink Tartan dresses in hand - beauty will reign, dammit, by any means necessary.

But what is it? I can't tell. Something in the air, the weather, the creepy clock ticking is putting me on edge. Put your white dress on Slean, I mean...your armour.
I step on stage but I can't shake the eerie feeling and it sticks to me throughout the opening songs. I wrestle it for the first half of the set and then it finally relents. Sheesh. What was that? Some ghosts like to mess with me, even when I play the piano with all my heart in green high-heels.

Once I shake it, we really catch a wind. The beautiful audience cheers and sniffles and sighs. Voila, the chariot is back in orbit. Merci, milles fois Ottawa.

Toronto

Strings o glorious strings.
Five hours on the road and 15 minutes to frantically load up merchandise from my apartment.
Arriving at the Danforth Music Hall with an hour and a half to spare and a brand new quartet getting ready to sight-read 10 scores cold, I am, uh, in a state.
Full body clench, head down, just rehearse. Never mind that in a few hours all those seats will be filled with expectant faces.
Do not even utter the words "train wreck". Oops.

In sound check I discover that I've made grave errors in a few of the scores. Barking instructions and whipping pencils around I do believe I am sweating while the
piano tuner taps his foot, grunts, looks dramatically at his watch. The piece finally coalesces. Sweet heaven, I guess my little tousle with the ghost in Ottawa earned me a cosmic get-out-of-jail free card. Phew.  The tuner can commence his A440 poking and I must get out of my sneakers and into something more befitting of, hmm, a Baroness.

 

(Hey, get outta my dressing room...)

(soo very tired)

Poor strings players are attached to their microphones, so our two encores are, hmm, not really a surprise...
but it didn't matter!  I could feel friends in the audience. I could feel good flames licking their throats, goose bumps on their arms.
Sadly the security guards kick everyone out of the lobby. Grrr. This makes me irate. 
Suddenly I am ravenously hungry.   It's amazing how music can feed feed feed you when you're weak - and then when your body is back in the driver's seat you realize
the machine wants more than carrot sticks and ginger candies. Homeward bound in a black car with flowers on my lap and your singing, Toronto, tucked into my ear.

Kitchener

Buying pantyhose in a Shopper's drug mart, a young woman with a walkman stops me and tells me she's listening to me, "right now".
I walk back to the venue in wind and sunshine through the streets that are weirdly vacant, except for two swearing skateboarders and the goofy nodding tulips.
Sometimes I don't know what to say. If the world was asking me something just then, I would be standing, staring, unsure.
The theatre is a dark hollow - a vast gaping mouth. There are blazing white spotlights fixed on us that don't dim or change direction. I feel like I'm being interrogated. A snarky comment from some constipated woman leaps out of the silence. I shoot a blazing arrow back in her direction.  We play like soldiers. The sound is surprisingly rich and full.
I still love my job. Though I need a shower and some Charles Simic. 

(Dean making notes. Could he be any cuter?)

Fredericton

This piano is the stuff of erotic dreams. HOOO-eee. And the Playhouse is pretty much an ideal sound environment. My purple dress officially needs dry-cleaning so I pull out some bright pink. Look out Fredericton, it's short. Two encores later, beautiful ladies give me home-made earrings.  Thanks!

Moncton

Speaking of presents - WOW! We were all blown away by the gift of a painstakingly hand-crafted journal from a sweet-eyed lady in the lobby. I shall only put my most electric truths in there, thank you kindly! The Capitol Theatre gave me shivers upon first glance. Ornately carved and delicately painted, opera boxes, velvet red seats, elegant pillars and trim, the dream I dream when mentally casting my musical. Sigh. There is even a front stage apron where young starlets-in-training can practice their charm-weaving and general tom-foolery... ahem. I contributed an exercise or two. In a puff of Chanel I stroll out and greet the sparkling souls of Moncton. Ah Canadians....

(View from backstage...thanks Royal!)

Halifax

So simultaneously relieved and sorrowful - the last show of a month long tour. I love this venue. Another triple-fudge-sundae of a piano. And beautiful shining Halifax hearts, open to all songs, every song, every note I can hear them drinking in, digesting. In my Andy-The-Anh dress with a shimmery blue cape (wing?), I stir their minds into a giant soupy vortex. We spin and sigh together. My heart cracks and breaks looking at the faces of the lads in my band.  Just like that, tomorrow we will plug ourselves back into real life - groceries and the streetcar and day-planners and doctor's appointments.  I am a lousy Tao-ist as of yet.

(A beautiful dress by Canada's own Andy The-Anh)

St. Johns...

The fog rolled out. I got on a plane. The fog rolled in. The plane landed in Halifax, refuelled, and flew back to Toronto.  I climbed stairs and did airport laps trying to keep the blood moving in my legs. The fog rolled out, I boarded another plane.  At midnight, St. John's finally decided to grant me entrance. I can only curtsy.

The next gloriously bright day I stroll over to my favourite restaurant, The Sprout, and order brunch fit for a queen. (I would eat here three times a day if possible but it's clear that air travel to this part of the world is sketchy at best.)  Just at the end of the meal my blasted blackberry buzzes.  "Sssshhh" I admonish.  "I'm digesting some quality nutrients!"  It falls silent. Then Royal's phone beeps. He does the same. Then mine buzzes again, with that cow-mooing insistence I find both humourous and creepy. "Uh oh" I am thinking. Uh oh indeed. All's well with the boys, the tour manager, except, uh --- no bass player.  My adrenals start to squirt. Oh nice meal, I'm so sorry!
Tod speaks in calming, tender tones but I'm ready to throw things. Large breakable things.

After several Tums and a few moments later we are setting up equipment and Rhodie is systematically calling all local bass players. Song charts are being furiously printed.

St. Johns' own Andrew Dale shows up, plows through a rapid-fire song-by-song rehearsal smiling, making goofy jokes and looking generally un-phased.
Stress is just not on the menu here. St. John's officially banned it or something.
Two hours later I am packing up in my dressing room wondering what just happened. A big thank you to the Rock. Educational always.

xoxo
SS

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What a rag-tag motley crew we are in the lobby of this posh hotel. A long drive
has ground down our prettiest angles to a weary lumpiness.
I think I have pillow creases on my forehead and Dean and Chris have surely smelled better.
Fluffing my oh-so-Audrey green coat I smile brightly at the receptionist. Yes please, we would like the key to the mini-bar.
Inside my room I melt into the king-size bed.
No world for Slean tonight. Go lads, frolic. I need the crossword and a bathrobe.
Tomorrow night is going to require power. Me and my battery have to discuss things.
The band sets out in search of Thai food. I am asleep at 8 o'clock.

After a few press things in the lobby the next day I'm off to sound check.

(The mighty glorious Winspear in Edmonton)

Holy Sweet Heaven, was the Winspear this large when I opened for Rufus in July?
... battery blinking, sputtering nervously. 
The piano is heart-breakingly lovely... let me stay here, o universe, in this delicious feeling...

(bunch-a-hooligans)

My musical has to happen on this stage... the tiered balconies, the marvelous acoustics, the breathing, expansiveness of it all! What a room - a room - can do to the imagination.
I don't remember much of this night, I was so electrified.
Thank you Edmonton.

Saskatoon
Sold out Broadway Theatre!

Lovelies. I knew you lived. I knew you were not just figments of my fevered imagination. Thank you for the beautiful night, for the tiny blond boy who dazzled me with his pure, magical precociousness, for the theatre that told us initially "I am old, do what you can" and then quickly /later told us "use me, soar!".
It all depends on you, audience. Thank you for the pretty earrings, the museum tales, the singing, 
the suspended disbelief.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=l0RtsIhx3sI

Winnipeg
Burton Cummings Theatre

Darlin, do not forsake me...
come to my arms!... love me as we have loved before..
Do you remember the WCC?
This theatre is full of ghosts. It is cold and hurts and feels empty.
Tell me my mind is mistaken! Send love... and they do...
families arrive in droves. I want to be a farmer.

SS

So many miles indeed....

On either side, as far as the eye can see, Deerfoot trail is flanked by smoothly combed yellow grain fields and the vegetation just stubborn enough to flower.
After such arduous winters, it can only be called a valiant act.

Weather is king in these parts, and the sheer size of the sky reminds me of impermanence; how our plans and our structures are really always at the mercy of a continuous conversation between air water and fire.

Medicine Hat and Edmonton seem to be neighbours on the maps, but such a vast stretch of highway exists between them you'd think we were driving to Vegas...

What to tell you, now that I have these peaceful hours of nothing but the wind purring at the windows and the engine's low drone? Officially half way through the first leg of the tour we have just spotted a hazy, end-to-end rainbow. Methinks it is the universe smiling back at us. But then again, I could find omens in my breakfast cereal...

Thus far:

April 29
Ah Vancouver, together we are like an old French movie, umbrellas and parks and rainy nights that twinkle with streetlamps and candlelight! I want you, you want me, mais naturellement, c'est impossible! For Toronto and I have too much history, it will always be home... but let us have these trysts, this whirlwind romance! How sweetly painful it is to visit you - like taking a mouthful of the most beautiful wine, knowing it must be swallowed. Yes, we have to part, perhaps for a long time, but may the next mouthful be silkier still...

First show jitters float away as the welcoming warm theatre darkness swirls at our feet, all around the peppy Baldwin Grand, in between the mikes, the wires and the band, guiding us together like a school of fish.  I can't remember my fatigue, my sorrows. They've vanished.  A lovely girl brings us cupcakes at the end of the night. Another charming lad presents a sumptuous bottle of red.  We are speechless. Such wild bright hearts! So kind, open to life!

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=iPOO94XCrew

April 30
Injected by the energy of the first show we vow to top it with the next - and the audience, again, brings its own bristling fire.  My black vintage Audrey Hepburn dress does the trick (a garage sale find of my dear friend Kate. Yep. Two dollars). At the end I walk offstage into the audience, forgetting myself, while they sing the simple refrain of “Wake Up” out loud, together, as if it were not a miracle...

After the show a trembling woman in an orange dress unravels tearfully to me. I send her a prayer before I fall asleep that night. Each person, each person is a universe, galaxy upon galaxy of triumphs, tragedies, moments. We must recall this before we are tempted to categorize or dismiss.

May 1
I wake up and start a two hour marathon of phone interviews, but by some happy coincidence they are all intriguing, comic, insightful and clever. What a perfect good morning cup of joe! Ah but I feel the city around me lying to itself, trying to keep up appearances, dancing with the tourists, and something in me turns blue.

(some peaceful make up time)

Victoria, Victoria, you old dame. No amount of the Queen's horse-drawn carriages or cucumber sandwiches can rid you of your junkies and lost souls. Where from, this bizarre attraction to monarchy? In the middle of a modern world, your Plasticine diorama re-casting of aristocratic scenes is, well, weird.

This is what perplexes and fascinates me about you - the strange and strident juxtapositions.  In some places it is more noticeable than others.
We pull up to Alix Goolden Hall and there are schizophrenics perched like maimed pigeons all over the front steps.

Inside, however, is a glowing sanctuary - not just the breathing, life-like building itself, but the soft-spoken gentle souls within it. A very tattoo-ed stage manager tells me he teaches music theory to children. I think, marveling at him, that eyes make summarizing stories so fast, and are more often than not, wrong.

On stage I can hear the audience breathing. I am wearing a purple dress that Pink Tartan has graciously loaned me. The piano is butter. My aunt and uncle have come. I want to conjure fire. The sound soars up into the ceiling and over the undulating balcony rim. But there is a gritty blue-ness in me that I am fighting to kill. Their listening, their eyes, ignite me, give me power. I catch glimpses of my band mates playing with the fullness of their being - and fire is born.

May 2
We play a short private show in Banff and spend the next two days sleeping deeply and climbing mountains.
Is this for real?  Elk are grazing nearby. Clean, tree-filtered air startles our downtown lungs. A real meal makes me feel as though several internal organs have just woken up.

(Sarah in Banff, Sulphur Mountain)

You are the maitre d' who perfectly balances loose charm and dignified formality. Every time I come here it seems something, someone, gives me a very sly wink.

I am awe-struck upon arriving at the venue. Knox United Church positively buzzes with that good peace, the clear ringing bell that is compassion. I can smell it.  Tonight - a white dress - to signify the arrow aimed at goodness, at light - and green shoes to keep one's feet firmly planted in the earth whilst reaching for such heights.

We have re-made “Lucky Me” and “When Another Midnight”.

These songs itch me, they want to get born a thousand ways, and it's a thrill to obey their commands.  We are almost out of the new book The Baroness.  I shall have to make more, bless you, readers.

May 6
Medicine Hat - we didn't know you cared!

On the drive in, I am sound asleep in someone's lap until I open my eyes and see giant fluffy white clouds in the window. Brilliant sunshine blankets an abandoned downtown core... where is everyone?

(silly tourist oddities. The kind of hotel with a waterslide)

"Working for a living!" our promoter jokes. (Not downtown I presume?)  Vietnamese veggies and vermicelli recharge my lagging battery.

The theatre is ridiculously top-notch and a giant beast of a grand waits on stage, snickering to itself:
"Better stretch your fingers little lady..." I ignore its taunts and head downstairs to tackle some laundry.

(Slean's manager donates a lovely pink frock)

(Slean contemplates the set list in Medicine Hat)

(while the fellas rejoice - clean socks!)

Sigh - I am wearing shocking pink. (Will life ever stop making these subtle jokes? Ah, I hope not.)  But all that slips away when they ask for an encore. A small voice in the magical theatre darkness peeps "We are cultured!" Every time I think of that it warms my heart 2 degrees and makes me laugh out loud. I'll be back. Just try to stop me.

S

Untitled

Dear heart, furious mind!

I feel a tornado inside of me.  I wake sometimes in the middle of the night to the sound of my rib cage rattling... like the bones of an old house sensing the coming storm - like steel quivering at the threat of a faraway train. You know I only write when the the pen is on fire. I worship this dignified understanding in you.

In February, Winnipeg violinists caressed their glorious instruments behind me and flooded my soul with unutterable wonder. The Art of Time Ensemble let me drive their magical chariot through an enchanted forest of songs.  Cognitive Science dug its way into my cerebral cortex and the Symphonies of Beethoven cozied up next to it. Such strange bedfellows, what paintings will that marriage spawn?

My parents had birthdays, my sister was reliably hilarious and my brother taught his son how to slam dunk. His 2-year old son. Friends came and friends left. I kissed and got kissed.  Ah life, life, you feast!

I've posted a whole universe of new vitamins because art has been whipping me into a frenzy of late ... it is a sure sign that the hard learning has occurred, the desert has been crossed, and now it is time to strengthen and prepare for the telling - the showing - the shining forth.  

During the desert stage, I shrivel and allow my mind to almost consume me.  It is like a  fast of sorts.  My limits are tested.  This is when all the raw pearls are forming - the living, trembling songs. At the edge and the end of the cycle, something draws me back to life. Something tells me to turn around.  In 2003 when I lived in the cabin it was the mice coming indoors for the winter.  "Get outta here!" they whispered "You've finished your task! "

In Paris, it was the mysteriously perfect timing of unexpected places becoming available and leases running out... but also the very strong sensation that the city was no longer hostile toward me, that the giant riverside trees were actually nodding respectfully to me as I walked by.

Then there is the slow delicate process of extraction.  Younger Sarah tried to yank the pearls out as fast as possible.  But impatient hands do damage.  I learn this with each year and each album.  The scratches on the pearls are those unnecessary structural changes, instrument choices, production goo, vocal edits, etc. etc. And they take you further away from the white hot glow....

The gentler you are, the more original truth that little thing retains. I find it so very hard to patient.

At the "shining forth" stage - the butterfly moment - what was shriveled then expands and stretches back into its fullest from.  I am reminded of the Incredible Hulk exploding out of his clothes, but that's perhaps a tad extreme. How about a dried up plant soaking up the rain and becoming green and supple again?...   Eat up, get strong! the world urges. And there is "food" everywhere I turn - brilliant young painters, transcendent performances, music that can dissolve even the most stubborn apathy.

Hence my overflowing "Vitamins" entry, and after such a drought...

My precious listener, this journal is not for the every whim of my flitting neurons.

It is not to tell you what I ate for breakfast or what cool people I hung out with. There will be no photos of anyone with sunglasses on indoors. Like you, I live in books, in weather, in the burning, crackling force field between us and the street folk who slipped off the edge and into the abyss of madness. I live in the yearning for 'god', or more so, the need to dismantle the distinction between It and You and Me and Everything. I live in the ironic ache of love.  "Try to love the questions themselves" Rilke wrote to the young poet.  When I first heard them, I tucked these words inside of me, right between the lungs. They are an inexhaustible treasure.

So this journal aims an arrow. It aims at a wider, deeper truth. The tip is aflame and the archer might be bleeding, but I am certain the act is noble. May it never degrade into dull reporting. May it always dance dance dance its way into your teeming, open meadow-ed heart.

Ever yours,

SS