Listen.

In the midst of my personal transformation, I'm trying to recognize and act through the wisdom of my senses met with reflection. In the rush towards a new era that is oversaturated with unfulfilling data and stimuli, I think we share more in regards to our misreads than our understanding. At every turn in my life of late I am charting missed opportunities for connection with a greater fabric that bring us echos of home or, for some of us, home itself. I want to make a list of the obstacles, identify them completely, and then burn them down with word, sound and gesture. With the means laid out before me I'll create return transmissions to blast back across the canyon. Because while the arts continue to be reduced to commodities in the constructs of the 20th century, the artist is more vital than ever.

Right now I am focused upon listening, in part, I'm sure, because I am a musician and a lover of sound, but also, I suspect, because I am aware that I am losing my hearing quicker than most. For me, listening to music and sound transmitted from any place, in any medium, gives me great psychic and mystic vibrations that I believe are available to every soul, regardless of where they come from in their expereince of music/sound.

For any skeptics, pick a song - one you know or one you don't - and sit with it for 15 minutes. (For passionate music lovers with opinions that can be defined by genres and radio stations, I challenge you to pick a song by a band/artist you don't have a taste for.) Listen to it once. Respond to how you feel, what it makes you think of. Then listen again. See what changes in you, what changes with the song. Did you close off to it already and "pass judgement" or are you still listening? If not, at what point did you stop listening? Why? What thoughts are floating around the way you feel about the music? Are you aware of the the heart(s) and mind(s) from which the music comes from? Can you get a sense of who they might be? etc. etc.

I'd like to believe that anyone open to the idea of this process will have a deep dialogue with themself, which In my opinion, is the greatest wish of any artist with something to share. (Notice I didn't write "with something to say" - I think the backlash of 20th Century experiences like Bob Dylan inadvertently shut people down in regards to how music - perhaps especially recorded music - can affect their other senses.)

Anyhoo, the end result, I hope, is joyful or at the very least, life-affirming communion.

Off the top of my head, recommended mind-blowing listening: Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis and Has Been by William Shatner. Don't indulge your thoughts about what these recordings are until you've heard them. And if you've heard them, listen again!

Anyone with a passion hit me back with song or thought. I'm listening.