Folky Fanfare

Dearly Darlings,

I sit here listening to the cold drip-drip of rain drop down the nose-shaped knob of a tree. I'm surrendering to the season and sinking into the grim acceptance that I don't live in a tropical climate.

Facing the fact that a dream career isn't always dreamy. Yet it gives me a grit of meaning that  gets lost in the humdrum of everyday drudgeries.

Paying the bills. Running the errands. Reworking relationships. All the dull to-do lists awaited me upon my return from touring.

In a way, dancing on the edge of a knife suited me better than running circles round the shallow spoon of my "normal" life.

But still.
I bow to the stillness of not-moving. Catching my breath. 

And while I don't yet have the career of my dreams, I do have collaborators stepping out of the woodwork. A promoter here. A costume designer there. A graphic designer yonder. I guess I'm not the only one with this itch to get good art out there.

So now we're stepping into line. Like colorful patchwork soldiers and princes of peace, aligning to reaffirm a beautiful reality that exists outside of the greater media's hypnotism. Who would have us believe that enemies are necessary. That love is pain. That money is everything.

Deep in our sleep, we're onto them. Deep in our meditations, we remember the Big Love that we Are. Within the blossom of the song something unfolds in and around us and we remember that we have hearts. And they were made for loving, somehow, despite all the reasons not to.

I believe the world doesn't need saving so much as just letting it be the harmony that it is. The woods are whispering with the wind every day a sighing symphony singing "Life."

As an artist, I am moving toward this message of positivity and possibility. Not to fight against a great evil power, but march fearlessly toward the lives of balance and intellect and full creative expression that we were meant to have. As free animals born naked on this blue-green pearl suspended in the dark swirl of the universe.

It's thoughts like these that inspired this little improvised ditty I made with my synth-etic friend Paul Tucker: https://youtu.be/AIgT_0XjLW8
 

It's more of a behind-the-scenes video than a polished presentation. Keep watching a little past the beginning and I start to transport into the forest !

If you speak French and can understand, just know that I was totally riffing and being nonsensical. If and when I make a recording of this song, I will surely wax poetic in my favorite tongue. French.

So I'll be performing this song live with Paul at the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar 12/12 at 9pm here in Charlottesville, VA, backed as usual by my lovely Larkspurs.  

I'll also be singing a few songs at Rapunzel's Coffee and Books' annual Christmas Party Concert 12/19 at 9pm in Lovingston, VA. This is a packed and heart-warming evening not to be missed if you care for C-ville's local music scene.

Whether you can make it live with me or not, I do hope that you will join me in the daily parade into a fantastic future.

Go forth and create and share and support each other in the forward march, my little mammal friends. (Yes, you.)

xxooAnnabeth

p.s. With great fanfare, I'm proud to announce that professionally-pressed physical copies of my album Surprise are available on Bandcamp. Just click here and find the link titled "Buy Now." 
And wouldn't you know it, it's just in time for the holidays ;) 

Day-dreams

Here's a bit of reflecting on life and performance of late:

The other night at a concert singing back-up, I finally got to sing sans-instrument. Usually I'm saddled behind one of many instruments, plucking and plunking away.

Not this evening, though.

It was just me and the microphone. My arms were free to flow with the melody, my hips free to catch a ride on the drum beat.

 I got to wear myself out under the spotlight like a delicate moth dizzy under the lamp. 

At times, there was no interaction between my mind and my physical body-- my own corporeal sentience entered into relationship with the full sound behind me. The animal of my blood and bones allowed itself to be animated.

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

I have stopped using affirmations and visualizations so much and have started to just open myself to embrace my life, in all its positives and negatives. To be bigger than the sum of all my successes and failures-- to know the shape of my own soul and rest conscious, letting everything flow within its confines.

To see life's experiences as a fascinating, miraculous mirror, washing up at my feet an endless array of marvels, born of the dance between my own imagination and my subconscious mind.

In this endless process, I am like the rough rock along the coast-line tumbled by each wave life washes over me.

All parts of me caught up in a slow dissolve back into the oneness of the ocean and the infinity of sands.

Each wave unique, but the same intonation as it thrums the coastline: "Love, inhale, love, exhale, love, inhale, love, exhale..."

 * * * * * * *

thanks to everyone who watched my music video and shared the love :)

Some of you have mentioned you re-watch it regularly for giggles. Yay!

Poem ofastruggle

I captured this image of my lovelisome band-mates last weekend sitting down by the river. They are the creators of @FrolicChocolate.

i don't want to pollute anymore.
i don't want to hurt my mother in the name of profits.
i want to live in harmony with the earth.
and make beautiful music.
and feel sustained and abundant.
and happy and connected.

i want it all-- the lights, the laughter, the glamor onstage.
the crisp audio files and high-end tours.
the adoring fans and the heightened performance.
raising the vibes. getting everyone high.
on emotion. the collective feels.

i want to write the perfect song.
the one that will reach out and stop your heart--
then start it again.

i want to garden out the wazoo
and eat the freshest most perfect gifts of the sun and rain.

yet there is no better feeling than rockin' with my musical friends
with an audience as witness
and then selling a CD        !!

--- money, in exchange for the gift that was given two ways--
to you and to me, simultaneously.
you see, these songs, they fill me as they fill you.
like a simple cup, i become full up of the sound waves
which then cascade over the edges of my limited self.
And you can drink here too, satisfy some invisible
unnameable thirst.

I can be who I am here.
I can expand in every direction
through the sonic waves.

I rise to fill the room
and trust the songs
will keep traveling out into space
forever and ever.

My musical accomplice, Miss Renee of @FrolicChocolate faux-modeling @NellieRose raw silk frocks at ArtSpring in West Virginia.

Teaser for Surprise Music Video

on finding my voice

The Mockingbird
by Mary Oliver

All summer
the mockingbird
in his pearl-gray coat
and his white-windowed sings

flies
from the hedge to the top of the pine
and begins to sing, but it’s neither
lilting nor lovely,

for he is the thief of other sound–
whistles and truck brakes and dry hinges
plus all the songs
of other birds in his neighborhood;

mimicking and elaborating,
he sings with humbor and bravado,
so I have to wait a long time
for the softer voice of his own life

to come through.  He begins
by giving up all his usual flutter
and settling down on the pine’s forelock
then looking around

as though to make sure he’s alone;
then he slaps each wing against his breast,
where his heart is,
and copying nothing, begins

easing into it
as though it was not half so easy
as rollicking,
as though his subject now

was his true self,
which of course was as dark and secret
as anyone else’s,
and it was too hard–

perhaps you understand–
to speak or to sing it
to anything or anyone
but the sky.