A silver crescent moon sits in the midnight blue sky - light
and dark in perfect balance. Tonight will be the longest night. Tomorrow, the
wheel turns.
What if our time on earth is simply this - a dance between
polarities, the final recognition being that there is no self or other - only
the unifying music of the spheres.
photo by Leigh Hilbert
There is so much I do not understand. How can it be that
each child I share with is so full of bright potential, so willing to express
and experience love, and yet the grownups who manage our world are so often disconnected
from their hearts? Snow sparkles under the maiden moon, stars twinkle in the blue-black
night. Tomorrow, the sun will rise and shine upon all of us. How can we so deftly
ignore the miraculous, so tidily package a reality severed from the source?
Here is my winter prayer. Tonight, may breath and space and
silence enfold all those who are harming or capitalizing on the gifts the
natural world so freely gives us. May a flicker of desire for balance and
wellbeing spark them to make bold new choices and take life-giving actions.
Tonight, may we sleep the sleep of the innocent, snuggled cozily in warm winter
beds. May our dreams gently guide us to a path that takes us from this darkest
of nights, safely to the light.
A rare west
coast snowfall - the kind that blankets the world like a feather quilt and
stops school, schedules, and traffic. I am walking outdoors, reveling in the
swirling flakes when I notice it.
photo by Kmax
“It’s so still”, I whisper, “So
blissfully still. How I’ve missed this deep quiet.”
It wasn’t
just the lack of noise. It was the sense that all was rooted and
resting, in balance with the season, taking pause.
photo by Leigh Hilbert
In my busy
life of doing and our world of constant buzz, I had begun to think the stillness
had vanished. Yet on this snowy morning, my cells remembered how it feels to connect
calmly and fully with the natural world around us: expansive, energized, relaxed, open, and at
ease.
photo by Leigh Hilbert
The
stillness is still here. Somewhat frayed around the edges by the ways our wireless
communications technologies interfere with the earth’s electrical and magnetic fields,
but miraculously – the stillness is still here.
photo by Leigh Hilbert
The next
day, as the snow was melting I reflected on what else in my life generates this
sense of cellular connection: holding
stones, touching trees, swimming in rivers, walking in the forest, putting my
hands in the dirt.
photo by Kmax
It seems I need
nature now to ground my body, reboot my nervous system, and electrically re-balance my brain.
Why? I am susceptible to the electromagnetic
fields created by WiFi, cell phones, dirty electricity, and all the digital
technologies that are the new norm. As I
observe the frequently stressed and frantic world around me, I suspect I am not
alone.
My wish for
all of us this holiday season is that we experience the joyful calm of winter’s
stillness - our own silent night - and that we begin to understand how the
technology we choose to use shapes our lives and affects all beings.
Yes, nature
is resilient. And still, a core part of me longs for the deep peace of the earth’s
frequencies, uninterrupted.
For more on
nature, humans, and technology, take a few moments to watch my seasonal gift to
you, a piece called Cellular Deception which combines Leigh’s wildlife photography with my music.
For those who are curious, here are some specifics on how I choose to navigate the
digital age:
I have a powered off, emergency-only iPhone without a service plan in my car in case I am on the road and have to call 911. All other calls are made with a corded landline.
We use
secure, wired high-speed internet at home. The WiFi is always turned off.
We don’t use cordless DECT phones or any
smart, Bluetooth, or wireless devices.
Our forced-upon-us smart meter is shielded,
with its radio frequency transmitter turned off.
I use a
wired keyboard and mouse with my laptop to minimize my contact with its field.
My device
of choice is an iPod – always in airplane mode, always switched off when not in
use.This gives me the perks of a smart phone without the problems.
At night,
we turn the breakers off in our bedroom to give our bodies a chance to rest, regenerate,
and “Sleep in heavenly peace.”
When I am silent, I fall into the place where everything is music. -Rumi-
A stolen
hour; an empty page. A lone swan swims across
a winter lake. And I breathe, just breathe, and give thanks for this moment.
Photo by
Gemaskerde-Muchaco
It has been
a year since my last message. A year of tilling
soil and planting seeds, of learning how to conserve an abundant harvest, of
stepping away from the stage and into the heart. Along the way, I have met the wisest and the
woolliest aspects of my nature. I have
learned that when I feel riled up or stressed, the best I can do is breathe, just breathe, and reach beyond the
story I have mistaken for truth, the story separating me from Self.
Photo
by Leigh Hilbert
At the same
time, I love stories that I know are
stories. I love the language of music and
its power to transport and transform. Yet, I am hungering for new stories, for words that gently and bravely guide
our way home.
My truest sense
of music this past year came to me at Samhain - Halloween - as I played and
sang for a dying friend. As I let myself
give way, I fell outside of form. How I love
that spiralling, soaring place of light and dancing shadow that music becomes when
I breathe, just breathe, and let my
essence flow.
Photo by Leigh
Hilbert
We fill
these days before the winter solstice with cookies and carols, with cards, and
Christmas movies. It only takes a moment
to step beneath the bustle, and breathe,
just breathe, into the stillness of the dark.
Photo by Leigh
Hilbert
Last night the
Star appeared in a clear, cold sky.
Bright and beckoning, sparkling with knowing, it reminded me that this
Mass of Christ is a celebration of the birth of a great teacher, who – like so
many other wise ones before and since – believed in the powerful potential we
have to live in peace on earth with joy in our hearts. How simple and complex is their message: “Peace
is here, peace is now; it lives within each one of us...” And as I rush to the post office to mail
packages and start to feel snappy and stretched, I remind myself to breathe, just breathe, and be fully in this
moment.
Photo by Leigh
Hilbert
May the
light returning bring you joy, may the new year bring you beauty, and may we
all remember, moment by moment, the Love that we are.
If you too
enjoy song & story, have a listen to December Song.
At a time of year when the days are short and the lists are long...
Stop, Breathe, and Give Thanks.
When you are shoving a gift into an envelope in hopes of rushing through the throngs at the post office, and in your haste, snip the necklace you are packing in half...
Stop, Breathe, and Give Thanks.
When approaching the pile of presents that needs wrapping and things that need doing begins to resemble climbing Mount Everest in a blizzard...
Stop, Breathe, and Give Thanks.
Photo by Pat Morrow
When you read one more story about Fukushima or Syria and wonder what kind of world we are leaving to the children...
Stop, Breathe, and Give Thanks.
As a luminescent moon paints the sky with wonder...
Stop, Breathe, and Give Thanks.
As snowflakes fall, perfect and unexpected...
Stop, Breathe, and Give Thanks.
As the still, dark days coax our inner embers and sing of seeds to come ....
Stop, Breathe, and Give Thanks.
May the magic of the season enfold you and may we dream the world anew as we stop, breathe, and give thanks...
Here in the cave, it is cozy. A fire burns in the stove, and night enfolds me like a pair of flannel pajamas. Here in the cave, it is silent. The phone does not ring, the traffic stops. Mind chatter gives way to being and breath. Here in the cave, it is still. I am alone. I sink into this space of solitude and watch sorrow and loneliness surface and settle and I listen to their story. Here in the cave, it is dark. But there are windows, and if I pull back the curtains a perfect, tiny crescent moon fills me with her light.
Last Week's "Cosmic Smile" captured by Leigh Hilbert
Advent. The dictionary says that beyond being the season before Christmas, it is the arrival of an important person or thing….I stop to reflect. Is this perhaps the downfall of modern humanity? We focus on what might happen, what will happen, what we will to happen, and miss the moment?
So, is all this frenzy of Christmas feasting and frolicking, this attachment to holiday tradition, this shopping and baking, decorating, and dragging our sniffling and sun-starved bodies from one potluck or choral event to another an authentic celebration of the season? Some of it may be, but much of it may also be a way of avoiding the gift of the cave - the deep, dark, quiet of these short days and long, velvet, star-studded nights.
Photo by Leigh Hilbert
Here in the north country, the earth grows still, as if hollowing out a cradle for the rebirth of the light. I love the Winter Solstice. I love Christmas. And I know if I don't sink into the cave, I will neurotically or habitually fill the emptiness, and miss the richest gifts this period of advent has to offer.
Yes, like all of you no doubt, I have been busy. This was a magic autumn spent recording with Daryl Chonka, a musical soul brother who has helped me create a beautiful thing. (I will let you know when it is ready.) The most wondrous part? All of this was done within walking distance from my home: the album photo shoot, the recording, the mixing, the mastering. Come on, I'll take you there….
Photo by Kmax
Walk to the top of the hilly vineyard, past the lambs who are almost full grown and no longer scurry away when you pass. Climb over the neighbor's fence. Be careful not to tear your pants. Take the trail that crosses the still dry creek. (It's been such a warm, atypical fall here.) Follow the path of soggy, russet maple leaves. Notice the sprouts covering the forest floor and the young nettles springing up as if it is spring. Wonder if one day soon the climate here will rival that of Hawaii… Pass the copse of fir trees and inhale their good, green scent. Stop when a flock of skittish starlings lights on the overhead branches and bathes you with their chatter.
Walk through the same sword ferns that filled the ohia forest on your tropical island home. Jump over the birch tree that fell in a recent windstorm. Do not take your usual route up the mountain but instead head down into the valley. Enter the yellowing blackberry thicket. Step out onto the reddish dirt road and you have arrived at the studio, the magic place where music is birthed and captured and then sent out to the world.
(And here is the luminous cast of characters who have joined me in this sonic cave...)
Jami Sieber on the cello
Desmond on vocals
Richard Lee on woodwinds
James Mujuru on vocals
Chris Bertin on Percussion - this is his handmade Mother Drum
Producer, engineer and musician extraordinaire Daryl Chonka & Chris jam on the didg
Zavallennahh Rokeby-Thomas on violin
Mike Fox on Violin
Corbin Keep on cello
Eventually, soon, this wonderful music must leave the safe, dark womb of the studio and be released to the world. How, you might ask? Much of it from my home computer.
The internet has changed everything. Everything. I am beginning to wonder if it is irrevocably changing me. Yes, it creates more empathy, a sense of global connectedness. It teaches me to communicate with few words and big presence and to use instant discernment and intuition when assessing someone or something I stumble upon there. But when I go on the net I am opening an energetic door that invites all kinds of things to come to its threshold. I wonder how much of this is actually entering me. There is something very intimate about sitting down with my computer.
As I develop my Myspace site, I am discovering the internet allows instant friendships to form with hundreds of people most of whom I'll never meet. We are all on a first name basis. Yes, there is connection - sometimes it stays on the surface, sometime it runs quite deep. Each friendship is like an energy thread that reaches out from my psyche. How many of these can I support before I become diluted? This way of connecting creates a speedy sort of mind buzz, a heavy-headed eye burn that must be counterpointed with walking in the woods, or touch, or having a bath, in order to keep me in my body. And yet it is addictive. The flickering, seductive screen keeps the dark away.
Just when I feel I am stretched to the end of my cyber-networking capacity, I am told about Twitter - the new way to make your mark in the music world. Three times a day, I am encouraged to give short reports about where I am and what I am doing. I can text messages from my cell phone. (What cell phone?) I can invite people to "follow" me and I can "follow" them, which means we can check our email a hundred times a day and voyeuristically discover what we're all having for breakfast.
Photo by Leigh Hilbert
Supporters of this site say it will fend away the paparazzi (shucks - I was kind of getting fond of them) as you are openly sharing the juicy tidbits that keep your fans hooked. They say it is a great way to make lasting connections, and that you can quickly weed out those who are authentic from those who are not, just by reading their two line "blogs"…
And I wonder - would an authentic artist be playing her harp, musing in the woods, sitting and writing words that flow from her heart, or would she be calculating that if she tells the world she is going to drive to town to buy some light bulbs she will somehow endear herself to them and sell more CDs? Don't most artists already find it challenging enough to bridge their feelings and perceptions with the world and/or distinguish the world from their feelings and perceptions without making their very lives a consumable piece of art? I can't do it. I cannot trade real relationship and true communion for cyber speak. Yes, this new way of recording and selling music is all computer-based, and yet I cannot allow the computer to become the center of my universe. I must balance the disembodied communication and fuzzy connection to the physical world it fosters with the visceral, the firm.
Photo by Leigh Hilbert
So yes, the cave is a little harder to get to than it was 10 years ago before the onslaught of the World Wide Web. (Spell-check likes to capitalize this.) Even for someone who spends most of her waking days (and sleeping nights) in a tiny cottage on a small island, without company or television, heating with wood, and drinking and washing with well water… What then must I do to return to the cave of myself? Stop. Unplug the computer. Turn out the lights. Light a candle. Sit in the dark and mourn my losses, count my blessings, envision what I want my life and the world to be like. Resist the temptation to fill time, spend time, spend money, eat snacks, numb out. Be wild. Get outdoors. Get sweaty, muddy, real. Allow things to die without immediately trying to fill the space that's left behind.
This advent, I am opening to the adventitious - that which comes from outside in an accidental sort of way. Some might call this magic. Some might say nothing happens by chance, that it is here in the cave of deep self, as we sit and strip down to bare bones and commune with the Mystery, that we call the unexpected forth. Here in the cave, we make space for great miracles; we build a darkly rooted foundation for the great tree of Light to come.
Photo by Stocks Photographs
Here in the cave, alone and yet together, we are dreaming the dark. We are dreaming a balanced, loving world into form. May this season of dying and rebirth bring you peace.
I don't think so. It feels like time is moving too fast. It's only been a few weeks since I finished picking blackberries and rosehips, and spent hours and hours slicing and drying the apples from my trees. Halloween wasn't even over and the shelves of the local pharmacy were decked out in red and green. The sooner they get us hooked, the more we'll spend.
According to National Geographic it would take $19 billion dollars to eliminate world hunger and malnutrition. Across the globe, we spend $18 billion dollars a year on cosmetics…. I'm lucky to live in a place with no malls and very few stores I can afford to shop in. There's no Ross Dress for Less to tempt me here.
Photo by Kmax
Bit by bit, winter is coming. We've already had two snowstorms. The branches of the trees are bare, scraping elegantly against a winter white or dazzling December-blue sky.
Photo by Leigh Hilbert
On those frosty mornings when the grass and plants are glittering, hard-edged diamonds, I put food out for the birds. I spend hours each day hiking up a nearby mountain. When I get near the top, to the place where the stone people tower over me like kindly grandparents and form caves where the Natives did their vision quests, I can feel cougars.
Photo by Leigh Hilbert
One crisp morning, I heard twigs snapping behind me and I felt I was being stalked. I looked at the ground and there at my feet was a pile of unidentifiable droppings. Without a second thought I grabbed a big stick, ditched the trail, and scrambled down the rocky mountainside to my car.
I am still learning about fear.
One day I climbed another mountain and told myself I couldn't come down until I had written a song. I made it out at dusk with an unusual set of elfin lyrics that seemed to come from the mountain itself. A new approach to writing, a new perspective in song, was born. Rather than rushing in to shape and order this newborn, oblivious to its holy, yet vulnerable state, (as futile as attempting to teach table manners to an infant) I decided to sit with this baby, this seedling, and see if it takes root.
This is a solitary time for me, this living alone in a one room cottage, learning to chop wood and befriend the deer and stellar jays that come to visit. I am putting aside my ideas of where I should be in my personal and professional life, while embracing and celebrating exactly where I am.
Photo by Leigh Hilbert
So, Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat. Is it all about an excuse to overindulge? And what exactly are we feasting? The Winter Solstice cannot be denied. The light will return. The days will grow longer, but colder until Imbolc, when we'll be halfway to spring. A contradiction, perhaps, but I'm glad to know that nature has them too. It is hard now on planet earth, at this hectic, topsy turvy time of good vs. evil, us vs. them, to trust the light will return. The darkness is fairly well entrenched. Or seems to be. Perhaps this is just an illusion. Like the "40% off" signs you see at the mall, or the way red Christmas lights reflected on snow make you think of fire.
Photo by Leigh Hilbert
Deep inside us, big changes are happening. Beyond the world of Wal-Mart and online banking, newspapers and TV, monumental transformation is taking place. I can't name it, this subterranean flow of power and possibility, not yet, but I can sense it, buried like a patient bulb, hidden but not dormant, waiting for signs of spring.
Perhaps we all take this time we have here on earth too seriously. Recently, I've begun to understand what my father means when he says, "The older I get, the faster time passes." When my head is full of desires and disappointments, to-dos and not-to-dos, I crowd time with mental clutter and lose the moment. When I move into the mountain, listening to my breath huffing and puffing and my beating heart, I fall into the undefined and open spaces of my soul. She speaks to me, without words, of the soft green moss, the play of light on trees, and the subtle shifts of the season that I am a part of. She gives me a place of belonging, a place that lives outside of church and school, career and ideology, a place that is rooted in cyclical change and lives outside of time.
I will celebrate the light's returning in my own small ways. Maybe I will cut some holly from the bush in my yard and hang it over the doorway. Or make gingerbread cookies that fill the house with the smell of cinnamon and molasses. I will wrap a few simple presents for friends and family. But mostly I will use these last two weeks before the Winter Solstice to burrow into the dark and understand silence, to sit with sister stillness and recognize her peace. There is a gift for each of us hidden here in the womb of winter if we risk unwrapping it. Deep inside ourselves, we find the sparkling filament that is our individual genius and our collective truth. We find the Star of Wonder that sings to us of Love.
Epilogue
Despite yesterday's somewhat Bah Humbug tone, today, as the snow fell, (snowstorm number three!), I decked the halls with boughs of holly and "fa la la la la-ed" a stanza or two for good measure.
I didn't plan for this to happen. It was not on my "to do" list. Spontaneity and inspiration struck …spontaneously! Yesterday after writing the above, I dressed as a forest dweller and sat in the winter cave - a shimmering world of ice and crystals, of candles suspended in silver globes as if mimicking the sun - and as magical Shelby, who created this world, tossed her waist length poinsettia-red hair, adjusted her bejeweled crown and crinoline, and told stories to the children who sat and listened in wide-eyed wonder, I played the harp.
Photo by Kmax
I wished I could have sat there longer - till the end of February at least, but at the end of the day as the magic world was dismantled, I returned home with a carload of boughs, wreaths, and swags to be recycled for my upcoming winter solstice show.
"Just keep them on your porch," Willow advised. Suddenly my cottage was infused with holiday spirit. Today, as I hung boughs from the porch railing, and watched a flock of hungry birds scour the yard for food, I decided that this year's Christmas tree would be for them. I stood a large fallen Douglas fir branch in a bowl of white stones. As snowflakes fell, I decorated it with rosehips that looked like slightly shriveled red bulbs; I covered its cones with peanut butter and bird seed, and felt joy.
Photo by Leigh Hilbert
As Bill McKibben says in his article, The Problem with Christmas: "the second you … break out of it - the second you become one of those that exchanges used books at Christmas, or decides to follow St. Francis' Yule tradition of wandering the park and throwing seed so that the birds too can celebrate, or makes it an annual custom to serve turkey dinner at the homeless shelter- then you start sharing in the deep human secret that consumer society is set up to obscure: the things that please us most are almost always counterintuitive. We need to be out in the cold air, we need to think about others, we need to serve."
