Awhile ago, I was talking with a couple of friends when one of them asked me if I knew my power animal . I have had many meaningful and profound encounters with animal totems and friends, including Bear, Moose, Wolf, Cat/Panther, Honeybee and Slime Persons (known disparagingly by humans as ’slugs’ ). But when I tried to identify one of them as my particular power animal, I couldn’t come up with one. Then in a flash of inspiration, it came to me.

“Gaia is my power animal,” I stated firmly.  It felt like one of those goosebump moments of truth when the molecules in the air seem to resonate with affirmation. After a moment of silence, my companions said in an awed kind of way, “I felt that.” “Yeah!”

Now, on this Earth day, I feel it’s also a bEarth day for me. Now I am sitting at the Camelot Coffee House, a place I like to go to work on my computer and drink coffee (it’s the only place nearby I can do both those things). While I was writing the last post, about the bEarth of my ‘Salon Phoenix’ project at SoulSpeak, the server (a young woman I have done a card reading for in the past) said to her boss, “She reads cards!”

“Oh!” she replied eagerly, “Would you like to set up here with your cards?”

As a matter of fact, I said, I’ve been looking for a convenient place to set up another day of the week. We agreed on Tuesdays. Then I let her know I was a musician. And wouldn’t you know it, she also wants to open the space for folkie countryish stuff of the very sort that I play. I love the idea of having another regular venue. I don’t need big crowds. I’m just ready for some space in which to play for folks. Even one or two is good. It’s a start, and it feels like a nice balance to the Salon evenings.
It feels like another bEarthing for me. A new beginning. It is significant to me that these openings are manifesting on this day, this Earth day, my power animal day.

It may seem like hubris to claim the entire planet as one’s totem. But it feels more like She has claimed me, and what can I do but surrender? Why would I want to?

I’ve updated the ‘what i do‘ page to reflect these new openings and shifts in my world. Do check it out.

Hallelujah and glory be to She.

Salon Phoenix is coming

I’m very excited to announce my new project, hot off the presses! A few minutes ago, I sent this email to my friend at SoulSpeak:

Great talking to you yesterday!! I found myself inspired and sparked into other possibilities afterward. I’m looking at my 100%–what do I REALLY want to be doing? Do I want to be teaching classes and workshops right now? No… I’m not ready for that, and perhaps it’s not really my path. I seem to be experiencing great resistance around it. I want to be teaching, yes, but I want to have fun with it and have it be fun for people. I want to teach through singing and talking. My house concert on Saltspring was lovely–the discussion afterward was stimulating, lively and very enlightening, and I was the ‘host and moderator’, facilitating and guiding the talk which was inspired by the content of the songs. And there was talk between songs, too. It really worked.

Then I recalled the very first remark that was written in my little comments book after my first house concert last fall, which began (caps hers) ‘This was a perfect evening or ‘SALON’” and a light went on… I wrote down, ‘Salon Phoenix’.

I’d like to reserve Tuesday evenings for this and do regular informal salons in which I will sing, talk and be stimulating (as I can!). This will benefit me, because I really need a regular venue, at least once a week in which to polish my songs in front of people, and it will also give others a chance to get to know me and my material and what I have to offer. Somebody mentioned to me recently a study that showed that people have to be exposed to something new a minimum of seven times before it sinks in.

I would love to try this, starting next Tuesday… I will show up and play my music, with no amp or mic, just informal me and my guitar, and I’ll put the word out to my network and create something for you to put the word out too. It’s possible no one will come for the first time or two, but I want to start it anyway, open the space and vibration and create magic with my intention and love.

This would be different from the bigger, more formal house concerts like the one we’re planning at the end of May; it is a sort of prepare-the-ground time for that, to generate interest and to give me the experience I need.

She responded immediately in the enthusiastic affirmative, so we’re on! I’ll post more details as I know them, and I’ll be creating some promo material soon too. I love spring.

Lots of news in my webly world–and my really world too! I’ve made some changes to the format on the website. I removed the ‘astroblog’ because it seemed redundant. The worthy astrological and metaphysical postings I’ll link to on the ‘articles‘ page, with the aim of keeping it simple. Everything gets posted here anyway. It’s all an experiment, ever-changing and rearranging, just like life.

I’ve created a new page for a listing of upcoming performances, the link to which has replaced ‘astroblog’ in the menu bar. I’ll be updating that one often, so do check in. It looks pretty good when it’s all laid out that way! I’m particularly looking forward the house concert at SoulSpeak which is coming up at the end of May. Look for more information about that one, coming soon. And do check out the brand spanking new SoulSpeak website, isn’t it lovely? I can be found on the ‘SoulSpeak Weavers’ page, and what a community of offerings we are spinning here!

Speaking of SoulSpeak, I’ve decided to postpone the classes I’ve been planning to offer. Instead, I will start off with evening workshops (to be announced) and work my way up to ongoing classes as interest is generated.

The house concert last weekend on Saltspring was a sweet treat indeed. A smallish group cuddled on couches and chairs and the floor listening with every appearance of enthrallment, feeding my Leo Moon with waves of appreciation. Blissful sigh of satisfaction… we ended the evening with a kind of salon, a stimulating group discussion about everything under the sun which was inspired by the lyrical content of many of the songs.

And I collected a couple of comments which I’ll be adding to my testimonials page. This one is my favourite (from a young woman traveling from Australia):

“Heartfelt. Brave. Expressive. Everything I aspire to be in my music, myself, my life. I hope one day I am able to bring them together, connect, with the eloquence and beauty you have. Thank you.” - Amelia

My goodness. Thank YOU, Amelia. That’s the sort of response that gives me strength and courage to continue, makes me feel I’m on the right track after all. I have my moments of despair (being a creative depressive with a tendency to shoot myself down on the slightest provocation), and these comments are pure gold for getting me through those moments.

Here’s another:

“Love your faery song and the one you wrote for women’s camp. You have a unique gift for songwriting. Thanks for sharing.”

and

“When you sing, I feel our presence of Gaia. Singing, speaking, blessing, teaching, healing.”

and

“Thanks be! Thank you Phoenix for giving your being in song for the good of All.”

All right. I deserve to live after all. Sweet. That’s a joke, Mom. Sorry. Dark humour is my forte, though not everybody finds it funny. Repeat after me: “I will not worry about Phee.”

To quote a Talking Heads song that I love to sing, “I’m okay, I know nothing’s wrong.” I feel good today. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, spring is approaching through the chill in the air. Blessings and goodness.

In the face of my relentless pressure toward positivity, I find my negative thoughts and beliefs are acting out more and more. It’s as though they are kids being shushed for being ‘bad’ while other kids are being praised for being ‘good’. The good kids beam quietly in the face of my approval, while the bad kids shriek ever-more-loudly, seeking my attention.

I thought I’d give my bad kids some attention for a change. Here’s what they have to say.

First kid:

It’s not enough! I never get enough and what I get is never right or good enough! Nobody likes me enough! I never get enough gifts or attention on my birthday! For every person who admires, likes or gives their love to me, there are five others I care about, that I give attention and admiration to, who ignore me and act like I don’t exist. I give way more than I receive when it comes to listening, attention and positive feedback. I don’t deserve this crap. I deserve better. When will it be my turn? When is somebody going to give me what I deserve? When does it start coming back to me? When is my investment in other people going to start paying returns?

Second kid:

Life is horrible and it must be all my fault. I’m horrible. I’m too old, too fat, too saggy and baggy, too weak and undisciplined. I don’t do enough to earn the praises and attention and money I want. God must hate me. Maybe there is no God. Maybe nothing means anything at all. Maybe there’s no point even bothering. Why do I try? My efforts are never good enough and I don’t have the energy and motivation to try harder. I try so hard I’m constantly exhausted but really, it seems I hardly do anything at all. I probably don’t deserve to live, even if life was worth living.

Third kid:

This is crap. The world sucks. The system is rotten, nothing makes sense, everything is backwards and inside out. My species is insane and anti-life and I can’t stand being human. I deserve to be dead, and so do the rest of us whackos. Just look at who we allow to make our rules and laws, and how crazy those rules and laws are. Look at the oppressive craziness of bureaucracy, the soulless mechanical corporations that run our lives, while sit on our fat lazy butts and let them. A blind moron could see that the life of any modern human is evil no matter how hard we try to recycle and be conscious. With practically every breath I am committing some horrible wrong. That cell phone case I bought at the dollar store today for $1.50 was made by some little kid in a slave factory in China. Every good deal has a dark side. Ugliness is everywhere. I refuse to participate in this madness. Let me out of this crazy world.

Fourth kid:

I’m too much, too intense, too full and nobody wants me, nobody wants what I have to offer. Nobody will pay me for what I do, yet it’s all I can do, so I can’t support myself in this crazy world. Nobody wants to listen to me or pay attention to me. This is because — (fill in the blank with variations on the first, second or third kid’s theme: ‘nobody likes me,’ ‘I don’t deserve,’ ‘the world makes no sense.’).

There are more, all crying, their tinny voices intertwined, mixing and matching and struggling for dominance.

What to do about these kids with their relentless resentment, self-pity and cynicism? They won’t shut up, they won’t go away. They mutter, shriek and whine in the back of my mind until I can’t think straight, while the sweet light children I prefer go unheard, their gentle song lost in the clamour. I must forcefully tune them out when I wish to turn to their siblings, to whom I listen intently, hoping they can help me feel better. And they do, while I can hear them.

Good kids (in chorus, harmonizing):

I am so grateful for today. Every breath is a blessing. I hear the birds and my heart swells. I feel the blood pulsing in my body in the rhythm of my heartbeat. This moment, here and now, is magic. I feel God here. Every day, every year life feels better and better. Miracles happen before my eyes. I look, and what I focus on brightens, sparkles and expands in my sight. I am a living, breathing, natural creature of power and magic and beauty. I see my beauty in the eyes of people I talk to sometimes, who look at me that way in response to something I say without even trying. I am wise, I am strong, I am creative, I belong. The earth is blessed, everything has a reason, and love is all that exists. I may not understand it, and I don’t need to.

I trust God, I trust Mother Gaia, I trust natural processes of evolution to unfold perfectly, and I trust the future to make sense of what may not be clear now. I release my need to know it all and I realize my potential for happiness now. I am growing stronger, I am better, smarter, more capable, more gifted and skilled every day of my life. I am attracting more loving, genuine, emotionally congruent people into my life who are more willing to love me back than I could ever have dreamed possible even a few years ago. I have more peak experiences, my highs are higher and my lows are higher too. Life is wonderful and becoming more so.

Is it any wonder that I prefer these ones? Their song is easy on my ears, they make me feel good to hear. What they say feels true to me, so I intuitively respond to their goodness. The ranters chanting nastily and hurtfully in the background, conflicting with and contradicting each other, can’t compete with their sisters and brothers. I resist them, I push them away, so that their voices are raised in hurt and blame. I feel bad for rejecting them but I can’t stand to listen either.

What is the solution here? Where is the balance? I turn to the middle ground, the empty place between the poles where I am blind, and this is what I find:

There are no bad kids and no good ones, merely differences in point of view. Some parts of me see a truth that is beautiful and pleasurable, and these parts agree with each other, so alignment and harmony comes easily. It is natural to prefer harmony to discord, but that doesn’t make the discordant parts wrong or bad. The so-called bad parts see other kinds of truth, darker and more emotional viewpoints coloured by past experience that was not accepted and embraced at the time, and therefore remains stuck there, and these are not beautiful and not pleasurable. Yet, because these points of view do not tell a story that aligns with the truth of the present moment doesn’t mean they are not valid points of view. Theirs is a truth that can evolve when it is accepted, embraced, allowed to vibrate and change to be replaced with true understanding.

True and lasting change can come only when I give these parts the floor, listen and feel their point of view compassionately without judging or rejecting in favour of a different, better-feeling truth. The truth is that my sensation of discordance is a judgment, and even more negative feelings are caused by my conscious rejection of what I judge to be discord. I want everything to harmonize in a way that feels good so I try to edit out and erase anything that disagrees with the pleasurable truth that feels good to me. But that does not allow the whole truth, it does not allow me to learn the deeper truth that includes shadow as well as light, it does not honour the beings who hold pieces of truth that I reject and deny. It is my own rejection and denial, my own resistance and rigidity that makes it feel so bad to me. If I continue to reject and refuse, I can never know how it might feel to embrace those points of view within the context of acceptance and inclusion rather than struggle, discord and rejection.

The truth is that I have always suppressed certain voices within me because I didn’t like what they say or how they make me feel. That can change, and in fact, it already has. Most of the light voices began their journey as part of the dark and painful clamour, and my self-acceptance and embracing of their point of view has allowed them to evolve. Without that, I would not be who I am today, nor could I be having the beautiful experiences that I do have. I would still be trapped in my dark past, repeating the patterns of my history.

Here is how I have done it: with help. I remember how, now. It’s always a struggle to remember when I forget, which is constantly. And that’s okay.

First kid:

I never get enough.

What do you need? What would help you feel like it was enough?

I don’t know. All I know is I’m always hungry. I am empty and gnawing and aching and hurting and I want help.

That must feel awful. I’m sorry you have to feel that way. How can I help you?

Stop pushing me away. Stop hating me and making me feel bad about feeling bad. I can’t help how I feel. My feelings matter. I’m real. I hate you for making me hurt so bad.

I’m sorry. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have. What do you need from me now?

PAY ATTENTION TO ME!! Love me! Notice me! Listen to me!

Yikes. This kid is an endless black hole of need. I feel it sucking the life out of me. When I focus on her, I can’t love her. She is hateful, angry and too hurt and hungry to believe. What can I do now? As I ask the question, I know the answer.

Ah. Okay. Hey, Big Wholly Mama. There’s a kid in me who needs more than I can give. Will you help?

Yes.

Hey kid. Here’s your mom. See you later. Good luck.

————————–

Okay, maybe not that last bit. I need to stay present with the whole process, no matter how uncomfortable it gets. But I trust - I DO trust - that with Big Wholly Mama’s presence making me bigger inside, I can be enough for myself. I am enough for myself. Whoo hoo.

That’s the trick. I think. These aren’t simply bad feelings that I can push away and suppress. They’re parts of me. Kids, hungry hurt ones. And I’m not big enough to parent them all by myself. I need help. I am asking for the help I need, not to get rid of them, but to help them get their needs met. I know that when they are fed and listened to, cared for and allowed to cry their tears and express themselves to their heart’s content, that they will be able to show me who they really are.

And oh yeah, how good it feels when they add their voices in harmony to my chorus. They make it gutsier, edgier, tighter, more vivid, more real.

Rock and roll.

Click on the thumbnail below to see the full-sized poster for this event

Spring is here at last, and life begins anew, springing forth from the wintry void. I hope you are all getting in tune with the juicy joyful risings of this sweet season. I know I am!

I am thrilled to be performing a house concert on Saltspring next week. I’ve worked hard all winter to get ready for spring and feeling very ready to begin performing again. I’ve been playing regularly all winter at various open mics in the area (the Dancing Bean in Chemainus, the Gabriola open mic with Penny Sidor and the Nanaimo Singer-Songwriter Circles at the Mermaid’s Mug) and I have lots of new songs. It’s been an inspired winter and the songs just keep coming.

The show starts at 8 pm; cost is $12. The venue is intimate; it’s best to get childcare for the kids. There should be plenty of time to catch the ferry home afterward if you don’t already live on Saltspring or have a place to stay there.

If you are interested in coming, please email me and I’ll send you a Google Maps link so you can find the place.

Happy spring!

My friend Shauna said to me this morning (laughing), “You couldn’t promote yourself out of a paper bag!” And I had to laugh rather than be offended because despite appearances (this blog and all the self-trumpeting I do online) it’s so freakin true.

I played the open mic at the Dancing Bean Cafe again last night. I’ve done that every month for a few months now, and every time I get positive feedback, I think of all the things I coulda shoulda done to promote myself.

And you know, I really shoulda. Last night I got the best feedback! it was a golden opportunity for self-promotion. When folks were praising my superlative wonderfulness, did I say anything like “Thank you! I have a house concert on Saltspring this Friday, if you’d like to hear more,” or “Would you like to join my mailing list?” or “Here’s my card,” or “If you’re interested I have a CD for sale from my former band, TreeRoots Revolution,” well, duh. No. I didn’t. All I could think of was the ‘thank you’ bit. And I smiled and nodded a lot.

Once again, I ‘forgot’ to bring business cards. I ‘forgot’ to bring CDs. I ‘forgot’ to mention the house concert. And I ‘forgot’ about the mailing list. I could call it a mental block, but that’s a cop-out. It’s an emotional block. I’m scared to say nice things about myself in a real, live, in-person way. I’m actually very shy, even bashful, about what I do, the ways that I put myself onstage and sing my own heart out.

I blame my childhood (that’s always easiest, and often true). I was embarrassed, growing up, about the ways I stood out from the other kids. I had a big family, lots of siblings, step-siblings and cousins my age, and my parents and other relatives tried to treat us all equally. I interpreted that to mean, “Nobody’s any better than anybody else. Nobody’s special. Stop bragging. Don’t be so conceited.” And that was hard for me, because I was quite the gifted little hotshot, what with my succession of straight A’s, singing at grown-up parties, awards for artwork and all. I tried hard to be quiet about it so I wouldn’t stand out. I got real good at being quiet. Too good.

Now I find myself called on to put myself out there in all the ways I was discouraged as a kid. It’s weird. It’s hard. I’m not so good at it yet, but I suppose I’ll learn, being no dummy.

I’ll pass on the nice things other people said to me last night in the hopes it will sink in. Maybe I’ll get that it’s okay to blow my own horn. It’s my horn. If I’m scared to blow it, why should anybody else?

A lot more was said last night, but these are the words that stand out in my memory:

(from a table of women who beamed and bobbed agreement with their spokeswoman as I left the stage) “You were wonderful! What a lovely voice, how gifted you are! And you were so present–that’s not easy to do–you had us in the palm of your hand!”

(from a man who sought me out during the break) “That was a great song–that Mother Earth song. And that Leonard Cohen song, wow, I’ve never heard it done that way. You took it to so many different places. It was just beautiful.”

(And from Phil, emcee / sound guy and member of the awesome host band, the Flying Accusations) “That was a dynamite set! That’s the best you’ve ever played here! What have you been doing?”

Phil then gave me a pep talk, with some suggestions for next time. “Next time, I want you to come on earlier in the first set, because I want you to set the tone.” And, “Next time, I’m going to turn the sound up on you. Way up. I don’t want them to have the option of not listening.”

He had other things to say of a similar vein. Was this guy drunk? Was he coming on to me? Really, I didn’t get that vibe. He just wanted me to get how well I did. He was very sweet. At the end of the night, he gave me a hug and said, “You’re part of the family now.”

Thanks, Phil. I feel honoured.