Sometimes it takes the death of a close friend to illuminate to us just what small, insignificant, selfish and egotistical beings we can be. I am no exception.
My friends, words will hardly be able to describe to you all of this, my feelings about all of this, my relationship with this incredible person, which lasted such a dammed short time, and all that goes along with it. I must do my best, though. I must do my best.
They speak of a “light shining through,” with certain people; ones who can influence you in such a way, that you know as soon as you meet them that your life will be “changed” profoundly, forever. In this instance, it may have been more subtle, but it was definitely something, and it was there from the beginning. Something inexplicable. Damn, the man was so brilliant and intelligent. I heard things coming from him that I had simply never dreamed of before, and honestly, in my 43 years here thus far, and in my arrogance, I believed I had seen, heard and experienced a lot. I saw with Blane, things that I had never seen before, heard before, musically, magickally... and many of them are just impossible to explain. One night he simply disappeared within the mists, as my sister tells it... almost as if he belonged there, and no where else. But then, he returned from it, late the next morning when he finally reappeared, and no one really questioned just precisely where he had been during that time. He was magickal, for real, and for certain. This, I know.
I met Blane probably four or five years ago, in another place, in another time, while playing music there with my former band. I do remember him vaguely from that encounter, but we never really connected until later. He was doing some sound for our band at the time, and he said that I was one of the only people there who talked to him. (THE only person, at the time, apparently.) He had his sitar there, and he was shyly trying to play it at the fire circle, later that same night. Discouraged by some who commented unkindly on his bringing a sitar to a bardic circle, he quickly put it away and I never heard about or saw it again for years, until he brought it here and showed me how to play it. He was an extraordinary talent as far as musical sounds went. He could not only play just about every instrument in existence, at least a little bit, (and he had one representing nearly every branch of musical instrument ever created on the planet) but he could make them each sound... really... neat. (He would have liked that word used to describe it, too, I think.) Yet... the sounds, they were also... Different. Humanlike. Strange. Passionate. Wailing.
He loved to play the slide guitar on just about anything you would let him play it on, but he played many other things as well. He was always so encouraging to any other person who felt like they wanted to play music, in my brief experience with him. He would never, ever criticize someone for playing music, no matter how it sounded, if they were making the effort. He was just fascinated by... sound!
(If I may presume to speak so boldly. I do feel that in our many conversations I can safely say that.)
He started out sending me files upon files (dozens of them in all) of atypical, unusual music that he liked, and we talked a lot about sounds and how to create them. He told me all about how to use different recording methods and machines, though it honestly went largely over my head, unfortunately... and that is where our relationship really started out. Music. It is mostly what we talked about, usually all we talked about, at first, and it is the foundation of what our relationship was based on. He loved “Crazy chicks that could actually talk about music,” loved sending them music too, and turning people on to good music in general, and he really dug old classical rock gems that had great potential as just mind blowing slices of sentience. He definitely tripped the edge of the so called “normal.” He seemed to adore many of our contemporary peers and their music, too, especially Darwin Prophet, (he virtually worshiped her, and he said that he was “Afraid that he had become one of her forever adorers, and that he might have to sell his guitars to go on the road to become one of her devotees) and Kate Bush (her too, just loved her voice and her sound), and more recently Sharon Knight, and even me, occasionally, and he also newly loved the girls from the Violet Lockets, who sing sweet and thoughtful songs and play gorgeous delicate mystical and al of those genuine things that he so seemed to love. He even brought them out to Wolvenwold to play for us... for which we were grateful... he had such an ear for beautiful, out of the ordinary and uncommon sounds.
He played music with me, on many occasions, and my group, a couple of times, and at our last event, in fact, he got right up there and played with a full band of about eight or nine people, musical members of my band Spellsinger and also the fellows from Romani Blue, and then there was Blane... all of which together was something quite special to behold. (and somewhat uncharacteristic of him to do so. It was an amazing night that I will never forget.) I was above honored that he shared music so much with me, and with so many others. I hope that will never be forgotten.
The first time we got together and jammed, we were working on a new song, I asked him if he had his guitar, and he just came over and started playing with us, sitting under our tent. His riffs were steely and cool and really far out there... very strange and wonderful and mystical... just like I love. And, it meshed! What a rare thing to happen. After we finally stopped playing the song, he simply said, “Cool. Let’s do it again.” Automatically, I thought, we have something special here.
So we started a relationship based basically on music, after that, and exchanged many emails on many things, including music, magick, science, spirituality, communication, oddities. It eventually grew into something more. What, I will never be able to fully explain or understand myself. Our conversations turned to things that could not be easily seen or heard, or even experienced, except for in imagination and theory. I was amazed with his mind and in his ability to put things, really very esoteric and unreachable kinds of things, in ways that even I could understand. We eventually decided that we needed to make music together.
He very selflessly and generously put aside an entire week out of his very busy watering and gardening schedule (he was an avid and amazing green thumb and gifted natural with plants), to come out there to my home and spend the week on the stage with us, so we could see what sorts of music, and even just sounds we could come up with. As soon as a week came with a few solid days of rain in the forecast, he was packed and on his way here. He proceeded to set up every thing he had (or brought, which was a recording studio in itself), and I proceeded to be astounded. His way and manner of taking all of this stuff, this equipment, with pedals and boxes and boards and old Tascams and switches and knobs and things and easily make amazing sounds come out of them... just befuddled me. We spent a lot of time that week on that stage, doing nothing but what we both loved more than anything, and that was making music, and making sounds. Béla skipping around, Kittin testing the mike singing sultry sounds through the nighttime breezes, and visitors coming out to see what we were up to, nothing seemed to deter it all from happening, and it was all calm, cool, and so much fun. He played the drums on one of my takes, and I played and sang on one of his songs (unfortunately, we never got to record that one), and we just seemed to work together so easily. I was so excited to have found him! But all the time, I felt selfish, too... as if he were out here doing all of this for me... and I hoped that somehow someday I could repay him, but now that I look back on it all, I think that he had just as good of a time as I did. (I hope so, anyway!)
We had planned on me going out to his place for the next session. It never got to happen.
Meanwhile though... he came back for two of our festivals, too... and we all had a marvelous time together. My family, and a handful of my girlfriends also got pretty close to Blane, and we would each have our funny Blane moments with him. There were so many... but I don’t ever think will forget the story of his walking out into the mist and disappearing, or listening to him rant about brewing, or gardening, or about music, or trying to teach me bar chords.
During that week I got rather sick with a stomach flu and had to miss out on a couple of days of hanging out with him, during which time my sister, Kittin, hung out with him and they had their own special conversations and time shared, which I think was meant to happen. Thankfully, we did get a couple of songs pretty much completed. I thought they ended up sounding strange, at the time, and were really semi-unfinished, but now they are pieces I shall treasure... always. They are both recordings of a song that I wrote, called “Black Goddess,” and though neither one of them ended up being exactly what I wanted then, (I tend to be a bit too picky as far as musical recordings go, which is something that undoubtedly drove him crazy) I am going to be happy and honored to share them with you now. I want to share these so people can see what kinds of things he could do with the studio equipment, just in as far as making really cool soundscapes happen out of thin air and such musical magicks. He really worked some magick.
There was, of course, a lot more to it all, but a lot of it will just have to live in my memories, I suppose.
Ah, how to process this now.
I know it may sound a bit crazy...
I was, after all, in denial and just shock for a good part of today after I heard the unbelievable news... hell, it is only Sunday now, and I had just talked to him last on Friday, to see if he was doing okay, since I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, and he said that he had been feeling sick. (Actually, he said that he had a weird “stomach virus or psychic virus or psychosomatic effect, ha ha). But... he said that he was feeling better.
My best friend talked to him just yesterday online, my mother talked to him almost daily, as I did at one point in the very recent past, and it looked like he made his last post at just after six pm on Saturday. He passed away Saturday night???? How is this possible? We all thought he was getting better!
Each of us have undoubtedly been affected by this in our own personal ways, I have no doubt. I plan to write him a letter, an email, one last one, at least, just as I have been doing for so long now, and hope that in some way, shape or form, that he actually gets it and can read it. I know, it’s crazy. And I’ll probably regret it, and be looking in my inbox for a reply for the rest of my life. I looked so forward to his responses each time... insightful, quirky, odd, even, and just so full of uncanny wisdom that I hadn’t even dreamed up yet in my shallow (by comparison) head... I feel as if the treasure and the gift of knowing such a soul was taken so for granted, in such the short time that we had together, and that there were so many things yet undiscovered.
We were good friends, and more than that, even, though the relationship would be pretty difficult to describe. One of art, sharing, music, and collaboration I just hadn’t known before. One of amazing possibilities. We talked a lot about upcoming recording projects, sounds, soundscapes, magick and sound and magick within sounds and music. Unbelievable stuff. For some reason, from the very beginning, I kept just about every single email correspondence. I’m not sure why I even did that. I just so treasured them as something that I would one day have, to look back on and gain new insights, laugh, remember, reminisce... and try to understand all of this person’s extraordinary wisdom and genius... (YES, genius.) I wonder when I’ll be able to go back and re-read them. I wish I could have shared things with him that I didn’t get to... my ideas for doing the music for the Rumi poetry... recently inspired, the new songs that I had been working on, and man... there was so much to do, and it seemed like even when we had time, that our time together just might be very limited and that we were always cramming in every ounce of experience we could get out of it together. It was just a thing out of time. I guess maybe somehow I just knew this. I don’t pretend to be in possession of precognitive skills, on the contrary, my talents lie more along the lines of empathy, which was something that I think we shared intensely.
For example... It seemed to bother him when other people talked about his personal life, especially when he was there... as if he weren’t even a part of it. (Do you blame him?) He really, really didn’t like people speculating on his personal or romantic life. It just, left a bad taste in his mouth, to put it gently. Gods. Even now I feel strange talking about it. There were such personal things related in those many full and potent conversations. Jeesus. I had planned on writing a long letter to another friend of mine, another musical friend and cohort, and describing with unbridled glee all of the wonderful things we (Blane and I) were working on since our connection... and desiring so badly to share this magick with my friends, and with the world. Damn. The potentiality that was there. He let me play his sitar (among others of his various plethoras of immensely delightful toys and instruments) one night during our weeklong session on the stage here at Wolvenwold. He generously said something about it afterward, saying that he had just started showing me how to play it, that I had only played it for an hour, and I was already better than him at it! (hardly.)
He was very encouraging, musically, and in other ways too. Such a gentlemanly soul, so kind and sweet and sensitive and wisely perceptive... and he had such kind understanding in his pale blue eyes, and a softness in his deep soothing voice, and it was almost unnerving when he would finally make eye contact with me. As I type this, I really do detest the fact that I have to speak of this person, my friend, who was just alive yesterday, in the past tense. What fairness is this? There is none. There is no rhyme or reason to the Universe. I think he knew that too, though he embraced it. He knew so many things. He knew about “psychoacoustics.” He knew about the “silences between the sounds.” He knew. He knew time was an illusion. He probably knew how to create and destroy huge things with not much more than a thought. (Seriously. Not that he would ever do it...) And... When you were in his presence, he would share some of it with you. Everything that he grew, brewed, cooked or concocted was beautiful, delicious, created with such love and reverence for nature. I don’t believe I have ever met such an in tune with the Earth Mother kind of soul. He looked at plants the way some people look at their own children.
He was flattering, artfully and ever so tastefully, too. He would never come right out and say something crude or make an uncomfortable statement, although he did do that very thing so many times with me in at least a joking manner, but it was always really funny. He corrected me several times, though; as he would have wanted me to point out that he was “SATIRICAL, not “funny.” (that just made me laugh even more.) He talked about having a romance with his musical instruments. We talked about how sorrowful it was that the art of writing letters, real, actual letters, was becoming a dying, lost art. He talked about how wonderful it could be, in past days, to see a lovers handwriting on a piece of paper, the long, thought out strokes of each word, so carefully placed, the paper carefully chosen, each word thought out with great care, and how the waiting party would have days, even weeks or months to anticipate what the other would say in reply... and he worded this so beautifully it made me wish to write more and more letters, to make sure that this form of communication just please did not die.
He seemed to be so much more comfortable out of the spotlight. I asked him to let me take a picture of him holding his mandolin out and he reached his hand ‘round the curtain... so that all you could see was his arm and the mandolin. Béla and I laughed. I snapped the photo. He liked Béla a lot, too, had the utmost patience for her and delighted in her presence, when I was sure she was going to drive him crazy. He was unruffled. He said that he thought children were just like wiser, unadulterated, un-messed with or messed up big people, and that they could just see and sense more than we could, so we had to be patient with them.
Oh! There is hardly room in my mind or strength in my fingers to type out all that I wish I could say or remember about this person. I am going to do my best though. He deserves this, at least!
I am reminded of the discovery of the wild plums out here this summer... we stumbled upon them together, but he saw them first and pointed them out. What I might have just seen as some fruit on a wild tree, he saw as an incredible gift. He pondered aloud (though really to himself) all of the things that we could made from them... wine, meade, jellies, jams... and he said “We have to harvest these,” as if it would have been a sin not to. As of that was what they wanted of us. He was very passionate about that. I thought it was so touching. It was like he was admiring the tree... he went right up to it and started picking the fruits off and sharing them with us... “Wow! Taste this! Isn’t this wonderful?!” He had such pride in his little yummy pickled golden potatoes that he shared with us. He brought an entire large bag of them to Beltane, and my child alone devoured dozens of them. I think he actually fed several people that weekend, from his potatoes alone, people who would maybe not have eaten, otherwise. He shared his astounding homebrews with everyone who would come near. They were each individually tasty and unique... and dammit, he was supposed to show me how to brew my first batch of amber ale here soon. He talked me though a lot of it already... but I hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to just jump right in and do it, like he has done so many times, and I just kept procrastinating, thinking we had time. He offered to do it with me as a workshop here at the festivals, if I wanted to do it here, or an time I wanted to. Man, I wish I would have just done it. Now, I am going to have to think of him through every step of my first brewing. Think of him with every taste of my first ale.
And... he had a great and uniquely lovely relationship with my mother. Oh... my dear sweet mother, how she grieves for his passing. They developed such an incredibly special relationship over these past few months, and I feel for her so deeply. I don’t think that there was a person around, that I knew so far, anyhow... who had such a sensitivity for him. She and her gentle soul, knew him and his gentle soul, in such a distinctive, precious way. That’s all there is to it. They were like two peas in a pod, talking about gourds, growing, herbes, plants, vegetables... so many absolutely wonderful calm and earth terrestrial mysteries... and so far I do believe she has taken it harder than any of us here, because the shared such a pure and earthly thing as plants.
I try to relay how each and every one of us here, myself, my mother, my sister, my daughter... and many of my closest friends as well, had developed our own personal and uniquely very special relationship with this man. I am so sad for each of them, in turn, and how their hearts must feel... because I know how mine feels, and I know theirs must hurt at least as much. He adored my mother, spoke so nobly of her, and my sister, whom he said was the only girl that smiled at him at that first festival the year that he met her, and they recently spent time hanging out together all through the last one too... and he adored Béla so, and me, I know, and we had so man plans to do so much together. We were excited about doing music, mine, his, ours together... he even taught me the duet vocals for one of his songs... dammit I hope I at least see the lyrics to it again one day. We only actually got the chance to finish two songs that week he was here... we worked so well together, there was no pressure, it was fun again, just like it is supposed to be, I felt like I had found my new best musical friend and that all was well and that we would have decades to do so many exciting and amazing musical projects together. I honestly do not know how I could even think about doing any recording with anyone else at this point. We were supposed to do so much.
A very big piece of me just feels like it going to crack in half. I feel like I could easily go crazy and start trying to contact him somehow, feeling that if he could return my “call,” he somehow... would. I am sure those are just probably the fresh and typical thoughts of a recently bereaved person, and that my logical mind “knows” that this is ridiculous. But is, it, really? With all that we talked about... we know, we just know, that there are dimensions, times, places, and universes out there that we just simply cannot, with our little minds, understand as of yet. Was he meant to go on and explore those things, now? Apparently so... yet... wow. It just seems so sudden. And what if he could hear me? Would he want me trying to do and think this way about it all? Or would he just wish for me to go about my life, happily and easily succumbing to the fact that he is, for all intensive purposes, “gone” to us and this life and existence now, or would he want us to just remember the good things about him and our time with him. I just wish I could talk to him now. Maybe I will try tonight. The veil is thinning, in a week; it will be at its thinnest. Would doing something like this just scare me out of my mind? THIS is supposed to be my spirituality here. I am not supposed to fear death. And, as I don’t truly fear death, doesn’t everyone fear the unknown? Just a little bit? Would we really want to have a solid communication with someone who passed on, or would it just blow our minds? Could we handle it? I stepped outside just a minute ago, and I thought about this, standing out there, alone, in the dark. What in the hell would I do if I heard him calling my name, out there in the dark, right now, as clear as day? Would that be a comforting thing? I still feel somewhere inside me like all of this just has to be a joke, a trick, a thing that isn’t ultimately going to end up being real, and that tomorrow, he will be right back here with us sharing an ale and a tale with us. So wow... am I really that in denial?
I wrote him one last email tonight. I know, it’s crazy, it’s not going to accomplish anything, but I just felt that I had to do it, in case he was looking over my shoulder and wondering if and what I was thinking about him. I am.
All I can say is that I still just... cannot believe it. I don’t know what kind of proof I am going to feel like I need for it to make itself true to me. I have cried very little... at first I thought it was just because I am “so strong...” (what BS) but when the couple of bursts of tears finally did catch me, they were fairly fierce... and then I wondered how long this grieving is going to last, and how much worse it is going to get before it finally starts to get better. Do I just grown numb? Dammit! Listen to me... just listen to me ranting about it... you see, all of this sorrow, all of this thought and speculation that we have when someone passes on... it is really all about US, isn’t it? We see, finally how much we took for granted, how much what we did say and felt and thought really DID matter in a person’s life, and we immediately realize how fragile, precious, fleeting, we all are, really. It could be me next, or you, or you, or you! “Why do we fear death?” I once asked someone. “Because it is unknown,” was the answer. Is that all it is? That we are so terrified of it all just because we don’t understand what happens after we die? I see my shelves lined with books upon books of spiritual thought... theories, hypotheses, scriptures... ideas... yet, who in the hell really knows what happens to us after we go? Anyone? Anyone? NO one.
Is there even one ounce of proof, anywhere, form any time in our history, that says there even IS anything? I think that if I could talk to him right now, I might have to ask him to just comfort me. That is all. Let me know that it is all alright out there. K? Just a little sign. Just a little symbol. Holly said that if anyone could do it, HE could answer an email after he passed away. As frightening and yet simultaneously strangely comforting as that thought may be... do I really have the nerve to do it? To try to reach out to him? What if something happens? What if it doesn’t?
(Yes, I fully realize I am just rambling now but I feel the need to do this to get it out of my system, and maybe to regain my sanity a bit right now.)
This night, I have lit my obligatory candle for him, as have so many others out there... in hopes that he may see the light and know that we all collectively love him and hope that it can help guide even a little bit of his journey into the next realm, which I am so sure he is already probably in and comfortable with. (See, I do have some faith in there.) It sits on my windowsill right now. I also realize that though this is probably more for me, us, than for him, that it is soothing in a way. In any case... if it helps him on his journey, so be it.
Our plan is to have the immediate family here gather together this week before a fire, down below in the woods, at a fire circle that he loved so much, and share our stories and songs and thoughts and well wishes and love for him. I know that this will also be more for us than for him, but I hope against all hope that if there is any chance that he may know and hear us, at this thinning time of veils, that he will know of our deep and profound love for him and for all that he has given to each and every one of us who have crossed paths with him.
In all, I will always remember...
Beauty; simple yet so complex, an amazingly peaceful, grounded, serenely calm presence in being in his company... and I will remember the funny things that we said and did together and all that that he wrote and said and did around me and us and our new friends... friends that had such damn little time together to share.
Blane, dear Blane... I do hope we meet again one day. If there is a way... I do hope we meet again one day.
My heart breaks for your departure, as do many other hearts, I just know it... but also I know that it is only we who are sad, (thanks to the reassurance from my friend Holly, who is positive that you are out there somewhere saying, “Cool...”) and that you somewhere, happy and groovy, and going... “Wow.... I wonder where this next leg of the journey shall take me.”
If you are out there somewhere and can hear me... Please, please let me know...
So much love,
Bernadette
(P.S. I just sent the last email. I cried when I sent it and felt ridiculous doing it but I did it anyway. Forgive me for being so selfish. I am sorry for any and all of our misunderstandings. I love you.)
The two songs we recorded together that beautiful weekend, Black Goddess and Black Goddess II, the Psychedelic Version. (Complete with Blane's groovy slide guitar and weird crickets and natural... earthly soundscapes) Hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed creating them during that night beneath the stars.
Photos from the Stage at Wolvenwold... Stage Session with Blane
2 comments:
I'm so jealous that you recieved this gift of knowing. I'm also sorry for the loss you feel. In this day and age we so hardly find those lost parts of ourselves that reside in others, I know that you're hurting now and in the future you will hurt in a bittersweet way, but know this,he knows. That's all, he knows, and so will you.
Thank you Stryder. I hope beyond all hope that he DOES know. Thank you.
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