So Today I Got the Nerve...

Okay. 

{{Breathe.}}

(The Video)

Today, I finally got the nerve to finish helping Matt edit the video from Soule Feste.  As soon as I started watching video three out of four... to get song names/times that sort of fun stuff, there HE was, right back in my life, up on that screen.  He was all over the place!  I think that he probably played ten instruments that weekend, with just about every band that was there.  And the funny thing was... he’d not be there, and then suddenly, poof!  He’d be there again.  Damn he was (is) a shapeshifter, and a space traveler!  It was frankly strange... but also heart warming, and after the initial shock wore off, it was calming and made me smile.  HE was smiling!  And bouncing around... giddy like a schoolgirl, playing the congas here, the cajon drum with the brushes there... the sitar over there.

Heh.

How utterly... strange, weird and wonderful, out of the ordinary and out of character that seemed... to see him up there, jamming his heart out, in front of people, “AT” people! Hahahaha.  But so... perfect!

Blane, I thought you told me you didn’t like being in the spotlight, dearheart?  Yet here you are... in full rock starr mode.  Just beauty incarnate, rocking the fuck out.  O... yeah.

God dammit I love that man.

(The Funeral)

Okay so we got back from the funeral, which was beautiful.  Niki was the best hostess ever, and the service that she and Brennan did was just perfectly... wow.  The passages she chose and words that came from her heart... oh.  Synchronicities everywhere.  Made me so happy to really know and see that he had so many great friends like this.  I am daily astounded and pleased to learn of more and yet even more people’s lives he touched, and still touches, anew... in so many ways.  I played the music I prepared and I nearly broke down and fell on the floor shaking but he came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me and said... “It’s okay.  It’s Okay.  It’s Okay.”  And giggled that low deep chuckle he does.  And smiled.  And I breathed and smiled and got through it.  There were musical signs everywhere.  Joy prepared a lovely cd of music for the beginning of the service.  It was synchronistic, and perfect.  “Let it Be” was playing when I walked into that room.  I knew which songs to do then.  It all hit me.  Thanks, Joy.  He loved you so dearly.  I got to meet his beautiful family.  I knew they would be beautiful.  I felt ever so blessed.  I would like to see them again, spend time in his garden, time in his home, which we planned on me coming there and doing, but I never got to do it then.  I’ve only seen pictures of the place I was to be visiting, myself, in just a couple weeks time.  There were photos everywhere.  None of his eyes though, naturally.  Must have been like the Native American superstition with him, that not many could capture those beautiful intense blue eyes... even in a glance... “hey... you can take a picture of me playing my sitar with my sunglasses on, man... but no photos of my eyes... got it?  cause... like... it’ll steal my soul.”  And I think... maybe he just wouldn’t have liked that.  No one could possess him.  I loved that.  I felt a kindredship with him because of that.  Anyhow, his beautiful family... oh my gosh.  Each so sweet and gentle in spirit, just exactly like him.  They invited me in and it made me feel amazing.  All of his relatives were so cool, and wise insightful gracious just supercool Cajun folks... and, I guess I just knew they would be.  I have relatives in Louisiana too, and LOVE the place... so another commonality!  I didn’t even know all of this about him.  So much and yet so little.  Every single person I met that touched his life now touched mine, in that space on that day, and in such a good way.

Thank you.  All of you.

I still look forward to the memorial in May, where I hope to connect and reconnect with those of you who I was unable to connect with this time.  We have such stories and songs to share.

(The Hurt)

I felt that I should also mention... It seemed also that there were perhaps a few sensitive and hurt feelings flying about here and there, in betwixt all of this amazing beauty... which I guess is to be expected in times like this.  I have been no exception, my feelings and heart have been extremely tender also.  I have found myself walking away from people rather than listening to them, here and again, or have steadfastly shut my eyes and ears to them rather than open myself to them to help them, or dare to allow myself to face any morsel of negative energy these last few days... (or have at least tried to avoid it) but I really, REALLY so badly just need the space at this time and I have to heal, a lot, also.  So... I hope that one day there will be understanding there.  If that can’t be, well then that is not for me to mend or fix for them, anymore.  But... (butbutbut) I also know that he, well, wouldn’t have wanted that.  At all.  He fought worse battles, and he turned out beautifully.  We can do it too.  It’s intense but we can get through it, together, or together alone.  It’s chaotic, but all we need is a hug.  Really!  We can help his memory live on, with the help of each other’s stories and songs and tales.  Share his spirit, manifested through ours.  With and within each other.  Please let’s not fight.  About any of it.  It does not matter.  Love each other.  Be good and civil to each other.  LOVE always wins.  Let’s get on with it, get it out, and get over it so we can heal.

I just have the feeling I’ll just be spending a lot more of my time in the outdoors, probably relatively alone, in these upcoming days.  I have been so shut up, shut in and shut off, I feel... for such a long time now, that I just need to get out there, stay out there, talk to the trees and stay away from people at all for awhile.  I know how impossible this is with my immediate chosen life... because that is what a life is... one in which all of your surrounding circumstances are chosen... but it is what I so sorely need and I am going to find a way to make it work, or my soul will utterly crush and fall in upon itself.  There will be a way, and that way will be shown to those who seek.

So, love and healing to all.  And to me, too, because I need it.  Take it, use it, spread it, live it.

Do what you wish with it.

On to the next portion of the incredible gifts of this day...

(The Woods and the Beauty)

I spent an amazing few hours out in the woods today.  I had conversations with people, past loves, visited long missed sacred places and touched inanimate yet very alive objects.  Stones, trees, plants, leaves, dirt... birds, sounds, songs, flutes (again), streams, and waterfalls.  I laughed and cried some more.  The conversations were brilliant and sad, poignant and sometimes hilarious, and not all coming just from me, I was certain.  I felt wildly crazy, unfettered and free.  Some day I might have to incorporate some of those conversations into a story I am writing about Wolvenwold.  I also had a most intriguing conversation with Béla on the stage, about it all.  She is so amazingly insightful and full of the gift.  It is so much easier for children to stay in touch with the Otherworlds.   At least she’s got that for a while.  I hope she keeps it throughout her lifetime.  I try to be as encouraging as I can.

(The MUSIC!!!!!)

So then comes tonight, also, and only after I watched all of the Soule Feste video... mind you, I looked up Blane’s Reverbnation music page, called, of course, Iconoclast Psychoacoustics.  Heck, I had helped encourage him to set it up, via emailing and such... kind of, and had seen it several times before, when he first got it up and had just a couple of songs on it, but had not seen it not lately.  There was a lot of new stuff there, and 20 songs, altogether!  Songs I haven’t even heard yet!  YAY!!!!  Enough for two albums!  Hahaha.  The first song listed there is the one we did together.  There are photos all over the place of our stage here at home... all of the instruments scattered around... all of it.  Proof of love, right there.  Past, Present, Future, all one.  Love of a shared Love, the love of Music.  Right there.  That is all.  It is what it is.   That is what I needed to see.  I did not know that there were twenty songs up there.  And little subliminal messages for me all over the place, too. ;-)  I ask of you, please go and listen to this music.  The man was a genius, and the music that came from his fingertips and heart from places of love and pain and beauty of soul... ohhh...  My Gods.

Go Here if you have the time>>> http://www.reverbnation.com/icononoclastpsychoacoustics I implore you.  The first song up there, “Black Goddess,” the Psychedelic version, is the same song that I posted links to about three blogs ago here.  Though we actually did two versions of this song that weekend, he really liked this one because it was so... “far out there...” and so he posted it on his music site... unbeknownst to me, (at the time) and resulting in my initial chagrin, (which I quickly got over, seeing how happy it made him to put it up) is just, well, strange and beautiful, and perfectly imperfect... (in the most magickal of ways, I mean to say, and in a complementary way)   So it is a great song, one I wrote and love and he played drums on it with me and edited it all and added some things for effect... I was just surprised he put it up there!  It has a similar dreamy quality to his songs, which you might recognize after listening to those too, but it holds such a special place in my heart because we did it... together, on my stage, our stage, with all of the crickets chirping away into the night...  I will never forget that space in time now, no matter what happens.  Wolvenwold studios.  Iconoclast Psychoacoutics studios.  What will be birthed from THIS, mewonders???

And now... what an amazingly special gift... I thought that the three songs that he had sent me via email were the only ones I had... but no, not now... because... there are twenty songs up there on that Reverbnation page.  Sweet blessings.  Each and every day, more sweet blessings.  Dammit I wish he would have set them up with a download link.  Man, Blane.  {and Geez, brother.)  I hope we can at least find the cd’s at your place somewhere.  I can’t wait to listen to them all.  Over and over again.  I’m listening to them now.  Just splendid.  Thank you for putting them up there for us.

(The Future)

Ah... yes, well.  So the future is daunting, to say the least.  But I look forward to it.  I have visions of magickal things... a new cob castle/AND/recording studio combination dwelling place, to be somehow connected, not just a simple mud hut to live in, anymore.  It is going to be a beautiful musical magickal sanctuary, for Béla and I, and all who wish to make great music up there in the woods with us.  He told me he even had building plans in his head all ready to write up for my cob home.  Hahaha.  Wonder what that would have looked like.  A lot of the energy that goes into it will undoubtedly be in his honor, for being such an inspiration to me, and letting me be to him in return.

My visions are changing and growing every day.  I can do this, all of this... in honor of him, in honor of music... and it will be amazing.  I started my new little garden up at the homestead today.  It should be ready for his mustard plants by as soon as tomorrow.  A simple yet beginner-sorta-cescent-moon-shaped frame garden thing, made out of just whatever I could find lying around... overlooking the wild plum ridge that he found and the very place he pointed out to me that day I showed him the homestead site.  What a magnificent gift that was, too.  And I found something very special there today, too, as a token of remembrance. 

So, yes.  This can be done.  All of it.  As my sister so wisely and succinctly said...  “What one man can do, another can do.  Say it with me! What one man can do, another can do!!!” from that movie “The Edge.”  Great line.  And as Holly said... “Bel, get to writing that list of “Today, I’m gonna KILL the mothafuckah” stuff that you have been wanting to do!  And, today, I’m doing it!  (Thanks, Hol.  Thanks, Kittin.) 

He would have wanted me to go on.  To get on with it.  My life, that is.  And thankfully, peacefully and restfully to my sore and drained brain, I am thinking finally about something other than Blane, for the first few minutes tonight since that unbelievable morning.  I am thinking about writing new songs, and working on the “Story of the Rumisongs...” or “Ruminescence,” and my Essential Rumi book was sitting there staring at me all day on my floor.  Thanks, Simon, for the inspiration.  I’ll definitely let you all know it goes and is going.  He would, I think, want us all to get on with it.

Life will go on, after all.  I see it just over the ridge.  There are places out there where one can feel the shapes of the music and ride the waves.  I am in that place.  Maybe we can ride some of them togther.

Thanks for listening.  Thanks for LOVE.

LOVE ALWAYS WINS.

If you need that hug, I will be here for you, but not just yet.  Not today.  Give me a bit more time, and I’ll eventually come back around.  But I can feel it, again, finally.  I can feel it in my toes through the dirt and the earth.  It feels good.

http://www.reverbnation.com/icononoclastpsychoacoustics

More to come.

B

Bel - "Hey Blane, lemme take a picture of you with your mando!" 

Blane - "Uhmmm.... okay..... here..."

P.S.

Songs that I sang at the funeral:

"Moonshadow" (Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam)

"Lucky Man" (ELP, with a few alternate lyrics at the end by me)

and...

"I Can See Clearly Now" (Johnny Nash)

These were inspired by various songs that Blane had sent me or my mother over the past six months or so... but I chose the last one because I heard it at the end of the cartoon movie "Igor," and it just reminded me of me and Blane, the mad little scientist and the crazy amazonian monster woman thing hanging out togther... and also, becasue "Let It Be" was already playing when we walked into the room.  It all worked out nicely.  It was happy, it was fun.  Thanks for letting me play them for you, Blane. ;-)

I am sure to be sharing much more music on this topic in the coming weeks, so bear with me.  I was, am, and will continue to be, greatly, blessedly inspired.