Archive for Love

The Edible Garden; a Permaculture Workshop

{ 2008 July 1 @ 1:17 pm } · { Creativity, Design, Food, Healthcare, Love, Peace, Solutions, health }
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The Edible Garden: a Permaculture Workshop

Wow. Milena and I had a great time Sunday at the Permaculture Event at Tom and Susan Armstrong’s “Park” out in Redmond. They are great people: very knowledgeable, energetic, loving, sharing. They own the Raw Source raw food store– it’s in their converted garage. And they brought in Bruce Horowitz, a really great permaculturist/sustainable comunitist/raw food chef from Bellingham. And there were about 8-10 other guests, all of whom were really great, too!

It was just a really positive time of learning about sustainability, permaculture and how its design principles fit into your everyday life, and just being around cool people. And creating stuff! Yes, Milena and I worked on the “Herb Spiral,” which is a circular/spiral-shaped built-up area for growing herbs. It is south-facing, and each quadrant or so has a special purpose. For instance, the southern quadrant or so is made up of sun-loving plants, since south is the direction of the sun. Likewise, the north-facing quadrant or so houses more shade-loving herbs, since they will be shaded by the more southerly plants. HerbSpiral.tTARgwmUospQ.jpg

Get it? One of the main principles of permaculture is that each element of the design serves at least 3 purposes. Another is that the elements are all symbiotic. So, efficiency is prime.

Completed Questions: Experimental Group Voice class

{ 2008 June 23 @ 10:54 am } · { Creativity, Love, Meditation, Music, Music Composition, Music Production, Sharing, Solutions, Stories, Teaching, Therapy, Truth, Work }
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Experimental Group Voice, Keith Rowley

  1. 1.How will this activity attract University of Washington students? This activity will attract UW students by being experientially effective. That is, participants will not only know they have been through an exciting event, they will feel it. This course will expand their range of expression, emotion, feeling, and interrelationships, and in so doing, students will be so excited at their growth they will feel compelled to tell others about it.
  2. Why do you want to teach this class? Because I am excited by the expressive and connecting potential of the human voice. And I want to empower people to explore their humanity, their compassion, and their ability to connect the deepest parts of themselves with the deepest parts of others.
  3. What skills and/or knowledge do you hope the students will gain from the activity? Primarily, I hope students will gain trust in themselves and their classmates. I hope they will learn to trust their own ability to express themselves more fully, trust in their power to overcome any fear of expressing themselves, trust in their ability to share themselves fully with others, and trust in the effectiveness of both opening themselves to others, and being open with others. I hope they learn that by being open to others, by listening to others, and by being committed to the process, they will create something larger than they can alone.
  4. What exercizes will the students participate in? Exercises will include visualization (controlling their emotions), meditation (getting in touch with their emotions), breathing (controlling their voices), calisthenics (enabling a wider range of expression), communication and listening (opening themselves to others), and vocalizing, employing various musical elements such as rhythm, melody, harmony, dissonance, tone/timbre, volume/amplitude, texture (monophonic, polyphonic), etc.
  5. What supplies and/or equipment will the student need to provide? Just their self, their voice, and an open mind, heart, and ears.
  6. What supplies will the student receive? Perhaps some printed inspirational resources, and/or audio CDs.
  7. Please describe your background in this area and your teaching/training background. I have been singing since before I can remember. My family of seven sang rounds together in the car all the time. I have sung in choirs starting in seventh grade, and made the Texas All-State Choir in 1981. I have 20 years experience singing semi-professionally. I have also been teaching at the college level since 2000, and am currently teaching at Bellevue Community College.

Course Outline for Experimental College Voice Class

{ 2008 June 20 @ 10:18 pm } · { Composition, Creativity, Love, Meditation, Music, Music Composition, Music Production, Production, Sharing, Solutions, Teaching, Therapy }
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  1. General course description
    1. Subject matter covered in this course
    2. This class will cover various experiential approaches to vocalization, including texture and harmony, as a group. We will concentrate on eliciting a variety of emotions, as a group, using only our voices and bodies.
    3. My approach to teaching this content will be both very experiential and experimental. I will use various means to engage and prepare students for our attempts to work together to elicit specific emotions.
    4. The only prerequisites for this course are the willingness to vocalize with other people, and a willingness to be open to all sorts of possible experiences.
    5. This class will draw on various elements of choral composition, such as rhythm, melody, harmony, dissonance, tone/timbre, volume/amplitude, texture, etc. It will also draw upon visualization, meditation, calisthenics, and breathing techniques.
    6. Students might find it helpful to draw upon their experiences working in groups (not necessarily singing in groups!), and in meditative environments.
  1. Method of course delivery
    • The course will mainly entail learning together, as a group.
    • In fact, the main point of this class is to create what we cannot create alone.
    • Students will be sticking to the pace of the group’s growth. I will encourage students to engage in active listening throughout their lives, by listening to various artists, as well as the world around them, in an effort to broaden their “palette” of sounds with which to elicit emotion. But the point of the class is, again, to create together what we cannot create alone.
    • Inspirational resources may be provided via audio CDs and/or printed material.
  1. General course goals/objectives
    • Students will directly experience working in a group.
    • Students will directly experience creating something as a group that they cannot create on their own.
    • Students will broaden:
      • 1) their relationships with others
      • 2) their ideas of what music is
      • 3) the limitations of their feelings
      • 4) the limitations of their expression
  1. Outline of overall course structure (i.e., lessons/topics)
    • The course is broken down into combinations of “preparation-to-create” and “approach-to-creation.”
      • “Preparation-to-create” is: calisthenics, meditation, breathing, and visualization.
      • “Approach-to-creation” is: visualization, and the various choral-composition techniques, such as texture, harmony, melody, unity, dissonance, rhythm, amplitude/volume, and tone/timbre.
    • The course will last an hour and a half, once a week, for six weeks.
    • Each week I will present a new combination of “preparation” and “approach.”

Experimental Voice Class: Summary/Description

{ 2008 June 20 @ 9:06 pm } · { Composition, Creativity, Love, Meditation, Music, Music Composition, Music Production, Production, Sharing, Solutions, Teaching, Therapy }
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In this class, people will use their voices to elicit emotion. The class is inherently experiential and experimental, with the participants exploring their voices, their emotions, and their interrelationships, all within a safe, fun, and enticing environment. Exercises will include visualization, meditation, breathing, calisthenics, rhythm, melody, harmony, dissonance, tone/timbre, volume/amplitude, texture (monophonic, polyphonic), etc. In such an experimental and interactive creative environment, we will foster community via people sharing in the creation and experience of a wide array of emotions, including love, sadness, joy, power, anger, grooviness, happiness, play, confusion, and peace.

Protected: God Is.

{ 2007 November 6 @ 12:16 pm } · { Change, Creativity, Digital Imaging, Love, Problems, Teaching }
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Eating is Becoming

{ 2007 September 10 @ 9:22 pm } · { Composition, Creativity, Fiction, Food, Love, Problems, writing }
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An isolated incident. I’m a normal guy. I don’t know what happened. I mean, it could happen to anybody, eh?

I’ve always figured there were too many people on this planet anyway, and that most of them are pretty miserable if they’re not starving to death. But I’m justifying myself in retrospect. Shit. Okay. I’ll just tell the story.

It was a normal day. Or, it started out that way: went to work, got up to the building and parked; all like I do every day. But this one day when I got in the elevator to go up to the office, I broke out into a cold sweat. It started on my forehead and the small of my back. And I thought I was going to pass out right there in front of all those people– and this elevator was packed, like it is every morning. People going to work, you know? But anyway, my arms and legs start sweating and I can’t get enough oxygen, no matter how deliberately I try to breathe. I’m not really freaking because I’m just trying to maintain, you know– I’m just concerned with staying alive I guess, ‘cause I never really thought about any of the other people in the elevator. Except I remember getting really hungry, which is strange now that I think about it because I’d had a good breakfast just a half-hour before… And then after I got out of the elevator and I was okay again, I was still hungry. So I went right to my office and ate the sandwich I’d brought for lunch, but that didn’t help. I couldn’t get enough to eat that whole day at work– that was weird.

But besides that, the rest of the day went fine; at work, I mean. I worked on this proposal that my group is working on for the Population Control Center. Yeah, everything went normal that day, but for some reason I do remember this one memo on our group’s electronic bulletin board. It said, “the future is Soylent Green.” I just laughed at the time; I got the reference, you know? Ugh… People eating people…

Anyway, so it happened in the elevator ride back down at the end of the day. And nothing like this has ever happened before, you know? Except for this one day. The elevator was packed, like it always is at the end of the day– people going home, you know? But this time, just like that morning, I broke out into this cold sweat, and almost instantly I get dizzy and start seeing stars around the periphery of my vision like I’m about to pass out. And I get real hungry again. And this time I do notice the people in the elevator. I remember them seeming so big and imposing. So close. I’d look at the guy next to me and his face was all pitted and scarred and oily and I could see sweat beading up on his upper lip. Oh, and his breath stank like he’d just eaten a piece of rotten meat. Reminded me of when I was a kid, I got locked in the cabinet under the sink where we kept the trash can. I was stuck in there with all that rotting food scrap for I don’t know how long, but ever since then I think I’ve been afraid of both closed-in spaces and leftovers.

And this lady on the other side of me, she was hugely obese and I don’t know what she was doing in there ‘cause she looked like somebody’s worst nightmare of a mother-in-law. God, she was wearing this sleeveless sundress-type wrap of cloth and she was sweating worse than I felt like I was. I remember her pasty skin from about mid-upper arm up to her neck and — oh, God– she had this dark, thick, long body hair. A bunch of it around her neck. It was really extraordinary– and I remember I thought so at the time. I remember I thought, “a lioness!” But she couldn’t have been a lioness– it’s the male lions that have that thick mane around their necks. This was a woman. But god, did she have some sweaty fur!

So all this time I’m getting hungrier and hungrier, and everything looks like a dream. Like slow motion and soft filters and I’m numb except for the feeling of my stomach starting to digest itself. And then I become extremely aware of the smells of these people. There’s the guy’s rotting meat breath. There’s the scent of his sweat and mine and that fat lady’s and everybody else’s all mingling together– and believe me, by now I can tell that everybody in that elevator’s sweating big time.

But the smell of this one woman– she was behind me to my left– God! Sweet! Like an exotic dessert. So I turned around to see her, and, oh, she was simply gorgeous! Auburn hair, green eyes, olive complected, and a beautiful, if nervous, smile. I wanted to eat her so bad. Yeah, really. I mean I literally wanted to eat her right up.But then I noticed this other delicious scent from the front of the elevator, to my left; it was another lady, but she smelled like she’d basted herself in Worcestershire sauce all day. I remember thinking, “she’d make a tasty appetizer!” HA! Yeah, no shit. And so on with all those people.

But what pushed me over the edge was this one lady, Claire. I knew her from my office– she worked in another group, but we’d known each other from just seeing each other around. I’d always been obscurely attracted to her. She’s so somber most the time, you know? But she’s an interesting woman–got a wide range of interests and she’s very personable and interested, too. But what was so strange is that she smelled to me like this dish my aunt Lorraine used to make for family gatherings when I was a kid. Oh, god, this was the best food I ever ate, before or since; and I’d not had a bite of it since I was about 16 I guess– that was when Aunt Lorraine fell into a meat grinder at the meat-packing plant where she worked. But she called this dish– my favorite dish ever– she called it “Claire Lorraine.” I guess it was like Quiche Lorraine, but she had a daughter named Claire and kinda combined the two into the name of this awesome casserole.

So this lady Claire, just as I’d turned to see where this delicious scent was coming from, she turned too, to look at me. And she nodded to me, like she was saying, “I know you’re hungry. Okay. I’m your main course. Bon appetit!” Real somber like she always is!

I couldn’t resist. I was so hungry– famished– and her delicious scent drove me into a feeding frenzy. I devoured Claire in about 3 bites, downed the appetizer lady in about a bite and a half, and the rest I don’t really remember ‘cause there were body parts all over the place and I kinda smorgasborded it, you know. A little bite of this, set it down, a little bite of something else, set it down, etc. And they were all very resigned about it. Like they knew it was coming. They didn’t run or scream or anything.

Even Lisa. She stood back there in her corner watching like it was TV. When I was done, she looked at me and gave a slight giggle– not nervous anymore– and she said, ”Thanks. It was getting a bit crowded.”

And she was right! For the first time I could remember in that damn elevator, I was relaxed! I could feel the oxygen beginning to infuse my veins along with the fuel I’d just devoured. I felt great, like my eyes’d been popped out, washed in a bath of Windex, and popped back in. Everything was crystal clear, colors bright as sunshine… especially Lisa. Her hair took the colors of a bonfire at night, and her green eyes looked like thick jungle.

I sighed and replied, “Yeah, and I’m not hungry anymore.”

Earth My Body

{ 2007 August 27 @ 8:14 pm } · { Creativity, Love, Meditation, Music, Music Composition, Music Production, Peace, Poetry }
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My old friend Dell is helping me with “Earth My Body,” which is a song taught to me by this great guy Kaj (pron: “kai”) at the Kerrville Folk Festival back in, say, 1991. Simple words:

Earth my body,

water my blood,

wind my breath,

and fire my spirit.

For my first two years at Kerrville, drum circles were just kick-ass: very often, very nice, very humbling, spiritual, powerful, communal. Exactly what my soul desired at the time (and has been craving ever since). (Since the KFF is a "songwriter’s" festival, KFF, Inc. officially banned drums after my second year– quite probably as a direct result of our drumming– which was, to me, at least, and i know to most anyone who was present at this particular circle– among the most divine experiences in my life.)

One evening, on the back of Chapel Hill, the darkest, quietest, most sacred spot on the ranch…

…nice fire,

a dozen or more beautiful hippies,

clear sky, no moon.

lots of stars.

smallish fire.

 

Kaj starts this beat.

He’d taught me this song earlier,

so i knew it. Dropped right in with my talking drum,

got it going.

Organically, grows.

People join in as their spirit gets it–

“gets” it.

Groks it.

All of it going on: super-natural.

Kaj starts singing.

I join.

We sing in unison for quite some time,

and one by one,

people start joining in,

start singing in this unison, this one song…

Once this feeling, this communal bond, is established,

i add a harmony,

the 5th,

very quietly at first,

blending it in as just an overtone.

And it grows.

Soon others join in the harmony as well.

i add the 3rd,

quietly at first,

and soon all three parts are going,

and everyone is feeling it,

knowing,

that–

this is something special!

Everybody knows it, is singing,

playing, harmonizing,

the spirit of the song so growing organically,

moving us all

from the inside

to play as IT

–the SONG–

wants to be played, to be manifested in this plane of reality…

for she is the message,

and we, the messengers…

And i’m on fucking autopilot–

dun-dun talking away–

talking with–

–holding conversations with–

every individual musician/instrument-combination in the circle–

taking turns, listening, responding–

listen/reply–

hear/say–

joke/laugh–

cry/weep–

bless/thanks–

spit/spat–

The spirit rises–

we are all orbiting Pluto–

the stars spinning round our heads–

the gods whirling ‘twixt our souls–

hearts beat in time–

the earth throbs with us–

fire-sparks join our spirits rising–

the wind sings harmonies in the trees octaves higher–

energies race to the farthest oceans of space–

brightening the darkness

all around us,

within us

…

eventually we drop;

we feel the spirit quiet.

As one, we fade,

leaving only the crackling of the fire,

the chirping of the crickets,

the wind, still calling our universal names…

In silence, we all exhale,

for the first time in 20 minutes

(though it seems lifetimes).

i look up at the stars and think,

“wow! look at the stars!”

i hear a voice across the circle whisper:

“wow! look at the stars!”

i think to myself, “this must be God,”

another voice across the way:

“this must be God.”

i think to myself: “I am THIRSTY!!!”

someone hands me a bottle of water.

Like that.

–

Anyway, it’s such a wonderful, meditative chant on our inner connection with our world. It’s always stayed with me, and I always wanted to lay down some kind of version of it. So, finally, in the summer of ‘05, i did. But I’m not perfectly happy with it, so just a few nights ago, I was iChatting with Dell, and he brought up again how he’d like to do some collaboration over the internet, like I’m doing with Jon. So, right there I tell him about “Earth My Body,” and he says, “send send.”

So, I’m excited about music again. Lots of it going on in my life right now… just need some money to be able to keep it coming. Oh, Brotherhood of God, help me open the God-Mind connection, to manifest greatness and goodness, joy and health, for the greater good of the Universe and Everyone Concerned…

Kirtan: the Yoga of Singing. Of Course.

{ 2006 August 23 @ 12:05 pm } · { Change, Creativity, Family, Love, Meditation, Music, Music Production, Peace, Poetry }
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Just heard Jai Uttal and his group (Jai Uttal and the pagan love orchestra) singing “Om Nemah Shivaya”, a gorgeous Hare Krishna-esque chant from their “Nectar” album. Upon visiting his website, I’ve discovered that there is– suprise!– a “yoga of singing,” called “kirtan.” And here is some information about a workshop Uttal will be holding around the turn of the new year.

What a wonderful thing! As I heard the song, a call-and-response singalong, I just couldn’t help but sing along. And soon, I was picturing in my head “my people.” My future. The dream of my future, in a beautiful, natural setting, with my friends and family surrounding me, all of us singing together in this beautiful sound, feeling and sharing love and smiles.

Kirtan. The Yoga of Singing. Of course.

The God-Mind Connection

{ 2006 August 17 @ 10:03 pm } · { Creativity, Family, Love, Meditation, Problems, Therapy }
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M and I have been reading this really powerful book called “The God-Mind Connection,” by Jean K. Foster. I say “powerful” because it is really making me aware of how to tap into the infinite power of God. Now, that term “God” kinda bugs me, but I am definitely getting over it, simply because I’m realizing that such terminology for the unnameable is simply a convenience, and that I do, in fact, understand what is meant by the term “God,” anyway.

But I have such mixed feelings about the possible job at EB BCo. in Seattle lately, with the sudden death of Aunt Kay and its accompanying complications, plus the fact that M and I have so little money these days, all of which makes it difficult to purchase the airfare to Seattle for said interview… I mean, if this is part of my “growth plan”, then why is it seeming so “hairy,” so borderline possible?

According to Jean K. Foster, I need detailed pictures of my dreams…

I do still dream about owning some land up in the San Juan islands— on Orcas Island, specifically– right on the water, up a gentle slope, with a little babbling brook running thru green, open pastures, surrounded by tall evergreens… Dappled with colorful, fragrant flowers, birds twittering, deer peeking thru the trees occasionally. A main house with a big kitchen and eating/congregating area, several spacious bedrooms, offices, libraries, a big bubbling hot tub…

And out a ways, thru tree-covered paths or down beautiful sunlit trails, are scattered several other, smaller cabins where our friends and family live and help us maintain the place, tilling the garden, tending the animals, installing solar panels, windmills and power plants, constructing buildings off-the-grid…

A place where like-minded people can raise their children and commune with other loving souls…

Yes. Something like that.

And, also in accord with Foster, a temple… A place where one may go to commune with God. A place in which to re-fuel… To re-charge and re-center… To remember and re-remember one’s calling.

But what I really need to work on is inviting God into my heart, or at least inviting the Brotherhood of God (Foster’s “facilitators”) into my heart to that I can follow my “growth plan.”

I thus feel that this move to Seattle is part of that plan. It gets us up there to that area.

I feel, however, that another part of my growth plan is music and community. Drum circles. Communion via the drum vibration… This aspect of my life has just been missing for so long now…

–
As one of my biggest problems right now is our debt, I just talked to this financial advisor, Zack Niehaus. (Very strange because he just called me, just as I’d typed “But what I really need to work on is…” above!) I’ve had problems trusting financial advisors before, simply because I guess I wasn’t really honest with them. The truth is that we are maxxed out. We have no credit available.

Which, if seen from the proper perspective, means that “it can only get better.” I think if I can stay un-obsessed with my computers— which means my freakin’ iTunes Library, mostly— then I think I can maintain the track of positive productivity. I’m feeling great, too. Had a nice little quickie session with my sweetie just before I came to work, and at one point, I got the picture of our farm/commune up in Orcas, with the glowing addition of a child— our child— running, laughing, playing in the sun. So beautiful it makes me cry…

It really seems that, when I am seeing from my god-mind, all around me are the resources I need to become what I am striving for. Ask the question about my addiction… “is there help for me with my addiction?”

The God-Mind connection, the Brotherhood of God…

There is no growth in my addiction, only stagnation, which, if anything is the Devil, it is stagnation: non-growth, sadness, and the realizing of my own personal Hell. And in my life, actually, nothing is just personal. I am married to the beautiful MAW, so I share everything with her. Including my own “personal” Hell.

I do not want anything but the best—in other words, HEAVEN— for M. And thus, I only want the best for myself…!

Love.

Xmas is…

{ 2003 December 22 @ 10:03 am } · { Family, Love, Music Production, Software }
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Not feeling very Christmassy this year. The weather has been pretty cold for Corpus, and we had a Holiday party last night, but, i don’t know… just hasn’t sunk in that it’s Christmas yet. Maybe it will here on Xmas Eve at Mama’s…
Maybe it’s that i’ve not bought many Xmas presents. No wrapping.
M and I have said we’re not going to buy each other presents this year. But i know she’s going to. We say so every year, and she always gets me about three or four things. I hate that! I mean, if we’re going to say we’re not going to get each other Xmas presents, we should stick to our word! And while i know she means well, and that she wants to show her love for me, it bugs me because we ARE in such financial straits now WAY more than ever before…
And i know Xmas is not abt the money you spend on people, but rather abt the quality of the time you spend with them or thinking about them. I’ve just not been feeling tremendously close to people lately. I’m so freakin’ scattered! I mean, i just got this Digital Performer– purchased it with the money from the sale of the Lotus Cup PA– i’ve not been able to get it going to the extent I want.
Partly this is because i don’t have the space i need for setting up my speakers, mixer, mic, etc. I mean, it’s not gonna take a boatload of room, but i need more than i’ve GOT!
We’re going to be giving my desk to M’s dad for Xmas, and then i’ll be moving my big office desk from the LC office to our house. That should give me a big base for my audio stuff. Yes. Cool.

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