I’ve timed it to release right around the time of the Capricorn Full Moon (call it an induced labour), because I, astrologer that I am, really like the chart for this Full Moon. My li’l baby website might just grow up to be something really special with a chart like this.

Yeah yeah, I know. It’s just a website. But it’s mine, it’s been a long time coming and I’m as pleased as any new mom.

So with all due “Ta-Daah’s” and “Huzzahs”, and without further ado, here it is!

Cheers and blessings to you all, and to me too
Bee

Still, I’ve been Phoenix for a long time now, and there’s a limit to how long anyone can be comfortable as a Phoenix. It’s a turbulent path! Sooner or later, I have to just, well, Bee.

My birth name, Debra, means ‘The Bee’. I’ve always loved that, about as much as I disliked the name itself. Not that it’s a bad name, it’s a fine name! I like it fine on other Debras and Debbies I know. But it happened to be the commonest name for girls in my age group; it felt like a generic name, a non-identifier.

Once, when I was a shy new bush kid in town, a kid yelled across the street at a group of girls I happened to be standing near, “Hey Debbie!” Nobody answered, and after he called again several times, I dared to imagine he might mean, gasp, ME… and he was cute, and I hoped… so I tremulously answered, “What?”

Well, he fell down laughing, gasping, to the mass hilarity of his audience, “I knew it, I knew there’d be a Debbie, there’s one in every crowd!”

Please believe when I say that was a ‘please kill me now’ moment! Ever since, I knew I must eventually find a way to change my name. I couldn’t find one that worked, though; then back in the winter of 87, my buddy Sir said, “I have the perfect name for you! You’re Phoenix!”

And I said, “Phoenix? That’s not a name!” But Sir is a wise woman, yes indeed. I couldn’t forget the damn thing.

I happened to be moving to a little Gulf Island where everybody seemed to have odd names. I decided I’d just try it on, just in case, you know. And nobody laughed or acted surprised even when I introduced myself (except a guy who said, “Phoenix? Isn’t that an awfully strong name for a woman?”). Then after a month I had a dream in which somebody called me Phoenix and it just stuck.

It’s time for now for me to let go of the Phoenix phase of my life and move into a Bee phase. I like its simplicity, I love what it says. The bee is a singer (buzz buzz), a dancer (they dance to show the hive where to find the pollen), an explorer in service to its folk, and those are all things I both am and aspire to become more of.

I am also taking out the hyphen in my last name and including Wolf as a middle name. I will be Bee Wolf Ray, or Bee Ray, or Bee W. Ray. Wolf honours my motherline (it’s my mother’s birth name), while Ray is the surname I was born with and the one I still feel most at home in.

Thanks for understanding, y’all… this is a stretch for me, despite having done it once before (I was much younger then! And I no longer live on that little Island! And people don’t even give their kids weird names there anymore! And I’ve changed my name once already, how many times in one life does a person need to change her name?).

I don’t anticipate needing to do it again. This fits very comfortably and gives me lot of room to grow. I’ll take my time with things like changing business related stuff like brochures & advertising, if I do so at all. I may just keep Phoenix as a business identity, it’s a familiar brand locally because of my horoscope column in the Word. And because of this domain name! I can still be found, and I will still answer to Phoenix and Phee for those who find change difficult (this means you, Mom ).

But me, as a person, I’m going to just Bee.

With love,
Bee Wolf Ray

I’ve finally decided that I need to stop taking the song lyrics I write so dang personally. It makes me invalidate and dismiss my material with ‘who do I think I am?’ type thoughts when they come through in this kind of a grandiose, messianic form.

It’s a mystery to me where the idea came from, but it came, and I wrote it, so there it is. I’m not in charge of how my kids turned out, either, but I worked damn hard to bring them forth.

Our Kingdom Come

you don’t have to lecture me
I know what I’m doing
There’s no need to rush me
I’ll get there one day

This ain’t no fairy tale,
and there ain’t no happy ending
no point pretending, everything to see
live for truth, and truth will set you free

I’m a late bloomer, I’m a baby boomer
yeah I heard a rumour we don’t have to die
it’s a hungry season, all for a reason
I don’t need to know, so I ain’t asking why

I’m asking how, I’m asking where,
I’m casting bones, I’m climbing stairs
I’ve been lying low, until the time has come,
it’s in the rhythm, the rhythm of the drum
you know our kingdom will not come
until we’re home

I come from the wilderness, I come from the root
I come bearing fruit, I come in peace
I’m coming home, and home is coming with me,

you don’t have to lecture me
I know what I’m doing
There’s no need to rush me
I’ll get there one day

I’ll show you how, I’ll tell you where,
I’ll be casting bones, I’ll be climbing stairs
I’ll be lying low until my day is due,
it’s in the flavour, the flavour of the stew
and our kingdom will not come
till we come home
oh our kingdom cannot come
until we’re home

I’m a late bloomer, I’m a baby boomer
I heard a rumour we don’t have to die

Shyness

Shyness is no joke, it sneaks in and pins you
to the board like a butterfly on exhibit,
inhibits your moves and shrinks your will
stills the flame until you forget your name

Shyness is a virus, passed from observer to observed,
swerves through witness into victim
of merciless perceptions, we watch ourselves,
shelved, packaged and presented for serving

to dragons, the demons of everyone’s denials,
can’t-be’s and has-beens, all waiting for the bucks
to stop here, while we bury ourselves deeper in shed
skin cells, digging a mass grave, save us from ourselves!

Shyness is a virtue, like patience, like chastity,
it serves the agenda of some outside authority
self-designated and never elected, simply present
and accounted for, counting all my costs.

In lieu of rent due, I shall offer my seeds to the
mouths everybody forgot to feed. All those
needy babies are coming home, and they’d
better be fed the love they deserve this time

From the time before time when the big bang
expelled its stuff to fill some kind of void,
we have ever avoided responsibility for this
work, we shirk and shudder and seek to sunder

our bonds, fond though we are of each other,
we can not bear gravity, freedom at all costs,
freedom unto eternity itself, we cry, free me from
This love, this shove into safety from the pit
I moaned and complained to escape!

Free me from my place in the puzzle, my
verse in the song, free me from the tale
I am told in, by a voice not my own, a voice
that blows like the wind and sprinkles

beauty in my mind, free me to find the true self
I am, and become it, simply, simply
I am freed into my place in the puzzle, my verse
In the song, I am freed into the tale I am told in,

By a voice not my own, that blows like the wind
And spreads beauty in my mind, I am free now to find
The true self I am and I become it, simply
and if only, if only

Shyness is no joke, it sneaks in and pins me
to the board like a butterfly on exhibit,
inhibits my every move and shrinks my will
stills the flame until I forget my name

It’s amazing how often that happens! I write things then forget about them until I read back, sometimes years later.

Here and Now

I am in my rightful home, I am queen of my domain
Sovereignty’s my birthright, my true throne is sight unseen
I am witness to the sacred, I am actor in my play,
the same one I am writing on this single blessed day

Chorus:
Here and now I’m in my power
Here and now, my finest hour
Here and now, I can make changes
Here and now, life rearranges

I am here in this moment, I am looking through my eyes
Here I step light on the planet, here I see through your disguise
There is no past, there is no future, only pictures on the wall
of my house of many mansions, with writing on the wall

Chorus:
Here and now I’m in my power
Here and now, my finest hour
Here and now, I can make changes
Here and now, life rearranges

There are people being born and people falling into love
people talking to each other so push don’t come to shove
There are people everywhere who are all trying so hard
to see the light in everyone, and take care of their own yard

and there are people dying, people failing, people crying
people punishing people for the crime of being people
we’re all doing what we got to do to play the cards we’re dealt
sometimes we have to stand our ground, sometimes we got to melt

Bridge
into one precious moment,
go through one revolving door
find the answer to the question,
what is it all for?

Chorus:
Here and now I’m in my power
Here and now, my finest hour
Here and now, I can make changes
Here and now, life rearranges
here and now

I see you
I know what you
are thinking
My eyes flash white
at your secrets
I am at the window
of your dreams
nothing hides from me
wild things grow
in your cracks,
where I live
do you remember?

**

I tried, once
it was difficult
it took the best of me
But that was long ago
before these golden bars
enclosed my world
I dream, only that
to dream is my freedom
which will be stolen
in time, of this i am
assured, to this
I am resigned

**

I am not here
this is your dream
I am but memory
seen through the
ripples of time
a flash only, this glimpse
of possibility
now made obsolete
by current choices
you can never
become what I
might have been

Okay, that’ll do for now. Just keeping my toe in the water ..

We all love falling in love with ‘the One’, that magical feeling of total merging, bonding with another human, being completed by your soulmate. Life is all about happy ever after once you have that experience. Isn’t it?

Not really. Falling in love is only the beginning. Love’s Heaven, when it’s deep and real, the sort that begins with that utter bliss of deep meeting your own perfect ‘other’, the one you feel safe and at home with, your best friend and boon companion, can become Hell when the beloved become the hated Other in a flash.

“I don’t know who you are right now!” “I can’t believe you just said / did that!” “But you know better, you know how much that would hurt me, how could you…?” “What on earth did you mean by that?” “If you loved me, you would never, you would always…”

Love begins with desire and hope, consummates in bliss and passion, and if we choose relationship as our primary healing path, will weave its way through minefields of betrayal, hurt, hatred and everything we most fear, until, if we are lucky, persevere and keep our hearts and minds open, forgiving our own selves and each other all the way, we emerge on the other side, still in love, in a much more spacious, safe and grounded way. We can evolve through to a place where love is safe, and trust is solid. The path to that place is not an easy one, though. It might involve breaking up and reconnecting. It might not. It did for me.

As a songwriter and metaphysician, I am fascinated by love, and my relationship history has deeply informed my writing. These songs chronicle the understandings and teachings of love through all of its stages, the sweet, the bitter and the fascinating. It is a journey that can take us into the heart of the deepest pain possible to experience, and if we are willing to move through it, to a place of spaciousness, empowerment and permanent heart opening.

If we open our hearts fully and unconditionally to ourselves, we become able to open fully to another. If we open fully to another, we will have our frozen places broken open and melted, a kind of global warming of the soul, disastrous while it’s happening, empowering and strengthening after.

Sinead O’Connor wrote, “Thank you for breaking my heart / thank you for tearing it apart / now I’ve a strong, strong heart”.

Having our heart broken by the one we have trusted more than any other human is a profoundly transformational experience. These songs focus on the transformational journey of love, from seeking, finding, losing, falling, betrayal, abandonment, self-forgiveness and reconnection and renewal.

We are complex beings, and we require the mirroring of another to reveal to us our most profound loving, beautiful as well as what we least love and accept about ourselves.

I invite you to share this journey with me.

Winds of Change is located on 5th Street, right across from Hot Chocolates, the concert is in the back room at four pm. There are lots of other events there that day too, starting with a sound healing concert at 1pm and continuing on to the evening, as well as sales and such; it’s the big Valentine’s Day event. Hope to see you there!

********

the mysteries
that hide
behind the veil
are mine, born blind
with nothing to lose
but my mind
The raven’s call drops
like pebbles
into the pond
riffling the waters
of memory,
quickly gone

********

I am friend
to the dark
and sticky side
I live for sensations
that stir desire
as shadows sharpen
I blur, recede into
background scenes
rendered abstract,
nothing left of self
but dark and
sticky laughter

*********

this scrying eye
espies the strand of fate
that twines through
knotted futures
yet now lies hidden in
the coming storm
that looms and darkens
the pathway home
What comes now
cannot be known
to the seer, peer
though she may

**********

I watch,
I remember
I neither anticipate
nor desire
I know too much
for such naivete
all things come
or they don’t
nothing touches me
I reach for naught
these distances
are hard-won

ah! sweet breath
of life, i strive to
remain alive yet starve
for more, i seek with
ravening bliss more
of THIS, that drowns
me, sorrows and joys
alike, that kills me
as I kiss it, this raging
lust I trust not
one bit, there must
be more to me than it

*************

someone must speak
the truth of the wild
that’s still standing
someone must speak
the words, grow strong
break away from
perpendicular lines
and black bars of
compression

*************

o don’t remind me
dreams
of those who have gone
don’t touch me
with your truth
or confuse me with
dissolving ways
i wake, and
conscious must
I stay

*************

do not disturb me
for anything less
than a change
in fundamental
laws for
the way it has been
has killed me
too many times
there must be room
for my heart

my direction is north
my answers are yes
my heart is alight
with songs in my breast
my chances are good
but the journey is long
i will not surrender
i will not go wrong
i care not for looks
care only for truth
i feel it, i know it
as i did not in youth

stunned by wonder
this beauty could kill me
with fulfillment
make it unnecessary
to continue to live
i must take a breath
or sink into the earth
it’s almost too much,
this lush fertile birth
i’ve no room for answers
nor questions unasked
this moment of breathing
my sole, urgent task

struggle is futile
yet i struggle still
so strong the constraints
that wrap me in layers
i cannot imagine
escape
for my prayers
yet still i must pray
and cry for relief
even without
the solace
of belief