Owl-Eyed

I’m turning owl these days. Eyes wide to the wonder star. Wings stretched over sea-cliff chapels. Crashing, hailing, shining.

I follow hoof prints to the top of the mossy granite, the holy cross, the giant’s tooth, the bed that says: “love over everything”

Oh warm bowl of meat and poetry. Feasting, weeping, singing.

I sing into that cave of sainthood and crawl inside. At the mouth where each wave meets its glorious death I find a new horizon of yearning.

Woman of desires that I am.

I see that ocean ahead of me and I am filled with a joy I know is not my own. A boundless and bottomless mystery blesses my cheeks with its salty kisses and I grow a little taller in its wisdom and deeper in its loving reality.

I braid seaweed in my hair and hide a salmon in my bosom and crawl out into the world again with a new prayer on my lips

“Owl-Eyed, Star-Maker, Deep-Sea-Captain!

Shelter me from the pirates of passions that wish to bind me.

Make me new in the river where you bathe your flock.

May I always rejoice in your ever-rising and restoring love that never dies, never ends, never leaves me.”

Yesterday, as I walked through the streets of London I tripped into a terrible loneliness and sorrow. I sweetened my tongue with antiquity and art but it was still there as I walked through Roman Britain and down the lanes of memory.

So I thought of that salty sea blessing and remembered that cave and that star and that great love adventure.

I reached for the seaweed in my hair and the salmon in my breast and I jumped into that river again.

And in those waters I am filled with peace, hope and vision.

KNIGHTS OF THE BLACKBIRD BRAILLE

I’ve started a pilgrimage into a different kind of homeland. I’m holding a hand out for the blackbird and I’ll be sharing whatever insights come here.

The Parish of Kate Bush

It feels impossible to talk about. How do I find the words? I’ll begin with some images…memories.

What happens when 8 women gather to perform the music of Kate Bush, in a southern California city, thousands of miles from the wiley and windy moors?

What began as a spark of inspiration, soon exploded into a 5 year epic that took us across the world. Somehow the music and the fans and some undeniable spirit carried us through a pandemic, a death of one of our own, and a rebirth out of all the tragedy. It feels like we survived the passage of the dragon, visited the underworld and came out the otherside.

Along the way, was Kate’s music…her lyrics and spiritual depth guiding us and serving us with the perfect poetry for every occasion.

Before the phenomenon of Stranger Things…it felt like we were all part of some underground club, a hidden cult of devoted listeners. Baby Bushka quickly began to feel like some kind of church service, a long lost folk club, where everyone knows the lyrics and weeps.

One review of the show goes as follows:  “It’s not impersonation…it’s channeling”

In other words, there is a passage of spirit, and Baby Bushka merely serves as a conduit, a medium between worlds.

This phenomena of channeling, connecting to the divine through music is not new. Think about any ecstatic trance-like music expression and experience. Now insert a whirling dervish or the bone chilling cry of the Cree. It has the power to transport and transform. But where does it come from? Does it exist even if the intention of divine contact isn’t there?

Throughout most of our history as human beings, the artist has served as a conduit between man and God. Music and art a portal to other worlds.

In pop music, that purpose is far more ambiguous and rare to find. It’s an industry filled with divas and ego, rarely do you see a popstar choose to retreat like a hermit in the cave to create, shun interviews and tours and sing about angels and God. But Kate did this. And she’s doing it now. Somehow she has reached mythic proportions in the minds of her fans. Ironically, her silence is not unlike the silence sometimes attributed the divine. But for those who are truly listening…you will find it talking loudly all the time…in the song of the thrush, the thunder, the poetry…the art, faces of those you love.

So remarkably, from among her invisible home in the hills, her song Running Up That Hill has resurrected as a talisman out of the underworld of time and television. It's saving lives. And we talk about it as an “awakening”.

It might seem strange to talk about music that was written in the last 50 years as “age-old” melodies worthy of spiritual interpretation and sages to bring it to life. But it exists. I know because I’ve felt its heat, I’ve heard it roar and I’ve hugged it’s smiling grateful faces, in the audiences we’ve encountered.

Right now I’m thinking a lot about the mytho-poetics of Kate Bush. Spirituality in Pop Music. The Bush Magic and the Parish we are a part of.

Being a member of this family of fans and sisterhood of Baby Bushka feels like going on a great Arthurian quest.

Like knights clad in jumpsuits and cardboard guns and pockets full of rose petals, we illuminate the sacred songs and bring them to live. We open the church doors for singing, for seeing the divine feminine, visiting the deep grief and experiencing the spirited wings of bird-angels.

Kate Bush isn’t here. We are. And it’s magical isn't it?



The Magic of Circles: A 10am lesson

At Lexi’s new studio TenAm, I took my turn at her window for a 15min performance on Monday July 4th. I will write more words about this. But here are some pictures…by Katie Berns of the character I created for it “The Merry Stone Maiden” who danced in circles like a stone within a circle…while an audio track played. The audio was my voice talking about circles…a lesson of sorts on the magic of this shape and it’s multitude of mystical meanings. Circles are everywhere.

DEAR DIARY I'M A MIME NOW

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It is day 40-something of quarantine and I have decided to become a mime. First thing I did this morning was purchase some Ben Nye clown makeup from the interwebs and confess my new ambition to my boyfriend. He is very supportive. 

When probed with the question of “Why Mime?” I replied..."Because it is the oldest and purest form of human expression! Because it’s beautiful! Because Kate Bush studied it! Because I want to say the most without saying anything. Because why not!?"

Something about those silent dancers captivates me. A clip of Lindsay Kemp slowly crossing his legs and staring straight into the camera haunts me. Adam Darius trying to keep a flower alive moves me. Watching Bip catch a butterfly makes me happy. I have since tried to reenact that skit and my neck has never been the same. Which makes me question my own ability when it comes to miming. How does one even become a mime? What distinguishes a good mime from a bad one? Do I have what it takes? Will I look good in a leotard? Where will I perform my mime theatre in our new socially distant reality? Who would even watch more than 5 seconds of my amateur act before scrolling to the next post of quarantine craft projects and home baking. Is Mime a dead art form? Even better if it is. I’m a total sucker for nostalgia and the romanticized movements of the past that no one cares about anymore. 

I MISS THE OLD WORLD. I mean the one before Covid-19. I miss having friends over for dinner. I miss having the option to go tango dancing on a weeknight and staying home instead. I miss performing on stage with my band. I miss idly browsing my favorite antique stores and wallowing in my false sense of security. I miss it all. BUT, I am grateful to this god awful virus for giving me the opportunity to pursue an interest I’ve been too busy making excuses to pursue for over a decade. 

As I lay in bed rewatching Marcel Marceau's Mask Maker, and adding a striped bodysuit to my Etsy cart, I am reminded of my first foray into the world of mime. The year was 2005 and I was a confused and idealistic 19 year old student at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. Let’s be clear: I am still confused and idealistic. My scene partner and I were tasked with creating an original skit based on caricatures from Commedia Dell'arte. We chose the Innamorati, the lovers. When the day came to perform our skit in front of the class, I donned the white pancake makeup and dress of a 17th century gentleman and stuck a massive erection in my pants, crafted out of one-too-many bog rolls. I called it Pepe. We pressed play on a Piazzola tango and took our places: me on a bed made of black boxes and my partner outside the door waiting to make her dramatic entrance. After a few measures of bandoneon, I slowly awoke from my slumber, rolled over and revealed my 10 inch cardboard Pepe pointing straight up to the heavens. Suddenly a knock at the door, my lover. I frantically jump out of bed and attempt to get rid of Pepe by way of all sorts of physical comedy from slamming my body against a wall to beating Pepe with a baguette. All the while, my lover's sweet voice grows more impatient as her knocks build to bangs. I persist in my pursuit to get rid of Pepe, dancing around the room in all manner of silent melodrama and as the tango approaches climax, so do I, with the flash of a sword in my shaking hands, intent on chopping off Pepe's traitorous head. The violins crescendo while my lover furiously drums away until I finally surrender ,unable to follow through with the sentencing. Defeated, I lay back down on my black box bed and try once more to rid myself of Pepe. With every downward push of my hands, Pepe pops back up with unrelenting buoyancy. I persist, riddled with anxiety while the music gradually modulates to a seductive major. My frown rolls to the back of my head and I fall off the bed entirely. All that's visible are my feet, gyrating in pleasure. As I reach the zenith my lover bursts through the door making her triumphant entrance and screams in horror as I howl away in ecstasy. And Scene!

Our teacher and classmates laughed and applauded and whatever feedback was offered in the moment is long forgotten now. Instead, I embark on this silent journey alone as a gentlewoman academic. I’m hoping that all the years of life since my days at the Academy will make for a far more nuanced performance, sans bog roll penises, that speaks to truths beyond the comedy of lovers. Amidst our viral and virtual reality, I find myself longing even more deeply for the slow and silent art forms. Mime is a medium of pure emotional expression. It is an art that requires nothing less than total self awareness, magic, sincerity and courage. Armed with an endless web of resources and my obsessive nature, I’m confident I will find my own way. To what end I have no idea. The simple pleasure of attempting to grasp the invisible is enough for now.  Wish me luck.