Bruckner and Kingsolver

Well today has been a rather less than psychologically on par day. I have been experiencing some bad depression most of the day, not that anyone really cares, lol. I went to the thrift store yesterday and bought a couple little things for really cheap. I bought a copy of Barbara Kingsolver's A Prodigal Summer, a novel based in an "ardent commitment to the supremacy of nature" (San Francisco Chronicle). I fell in love with Kingsolver's writing with her book The Poisonwood Bible. Her style is almost musical and it really illustrates what seems to be the true meaning of nature.

I also bought Anton Bruckner's Symphony #4 played by the Philharmonia Slavonica, Conducted by Henry Adolph. I just finished my first listening of it and it one of the finest Romantic Symphonies I have heard in a long while. I now realize why the mid-Romantic to the early 20th centuries are my favorite. The style is almost militaristic with its harsh rhythms and sharp modulations. However, I have feeling that is far from what is truly being expressed. I think this because the slower (though no less intense) places give a mysterious, mystic feeling. It is so wonderfully Romantic (no wonder its subtitle is the "Romantic Symphony"). I have re-fallen in love with Bruckner and am at the moment downloading various Masses by him and Rheinberger. Good music and good literature should help keep my spirits up some.

PS: While reading an article on the Trials of Purification, I found a wonderful quote that I would love to share:

"Blessed are those who may enter the trials of purification in a state of awakeness, and who can go through the experience with God as companion, rather than without."

I love this and it has deeply strengthened me. Please read the blog that this came from. PLANET UPGRADE. You can also find the link in the Blogs I Follow Section on the left.

Poetry

Good afternoon everyone! I'm hanging out at my friend Josh's house just browsing poetry and it put me into a very poetic mood. Poetry is one of my favorite art forms. They are the closest art to music in my opinion, or at least to vocal music. Anyway, my good friend and colleague Zachary Hugo have been speaking of setting some poetry to send to each other to perform. I'm excited how each of us sets these texts differently (we have extremely different styles, but I respect and enjoy his music immensely). As of now we have not chosen a poet, but we were thinking about 3 poems by American poet, Sara Teasdale.

Also, I have a great deal of poetry that I would love to share and just keep forgetting to post it, so here is one that I wrote for my mother last Christmas:

Children

Children are born of such strange seed;
they sprout and flower
and then fly free.

Of hugging deep
and letting go,
and pain of growing things unknown.

The pain is real
Love's hold so strong
Forget me not, oh golden crown.

I walk with strength
Your will is strength
as mermaid tears adorn my back.

Oh sun, my sun, I am your star
and while I may be far from sight,
Your warmth encompasses my garb.

Relationships grow firm with time
connecting with so firm a line
that time and distance become unconfined.

If you must recall a promise,
know that I will always be near,
My heart, my soul, your gift to care.

And if perchance
your heart will speak
it will be an image locked deep beneath.

Though tears have healed
your troubled breast
this vision pure, Truth's beacon bright,

A little child
so meek and mild
abreast to one so strong and kind.

A woman
born in Wisdom's truth
to bestow the miracle of my birth.

Stressful Packing

Goodness. Its 5:17 in the morning and I'm still packing. Bijan should be here in about 3 hours. Hopefully I can have almost everything done by then. I am almost done, but the last bits are the hardest. I also am not strong enough to move some of these boxes. Complain, complain, complain. But what can I say, I'm pretty damn good at it. I still haven't ventured to the "how am I gonna pack all this shit in my car." But I think I'll leave that to the packing skills of Bijan. It'll work out, but I'm just not sure how right now. I can only focus for like 5 minutes at a time and I always gravitate back to this empty computer. Wow, what a short post, I guess I just needed a source to bitch into.

Poem

A short poem:

Fireflies flickering wild messages behind my eyes.
Birds chirp idly on.
Fences hold nothing back.
Creased branches closing in on my porch.
A child cries out as a streetlight glows dimly in the evening.

Madonna and Moving

I find it so strange that I still feel the need to spend so much time writing in this blog, even though I know that even if this blog ever does get a following, very few people will ever think to look at these past entries. I guess it's the journal feeling of blogging. Even though I have my own personal journal and it serves as one of few solidifying factors in my life, a "public" journal has a whole other luster. Oh well, I will keep writing.

So this is week two of a moving process that not only should have started a month ago, but has also dragged out endlessly. Who knew that moving was such a straining, draining, and ultimately overwhelming process. My friends have helped me to the greatest of their abilities, but their lives are just as busy as mine and so I've undertaken most of this on my own. My dreams the past couple weeks have dealt a lot with protection (of myself or others), reliance, and failure for reliance. I feel a lot of this stems from what I'm dealing with now as I'm vigorously and eventfully trying to become self-sufficient. It really sucks, but as I search in myself and through all art I just need to keep pushing. Who care's what's on the other end of this mountain (probably another mountain) but it should be the climb that I dwell in. I have focused a great deal of my time in meditation and chakra balancing which has proved to be unmistakably helpful. The ability to center yourself and to allow all the aspects of your life to flow equally allows those things that are pressing to be clear while not overwhelming. I have become remarkably better at clearing my mind which has helped me sleep and helped me focus my mind away from those things which would overwhelm me.

Life can not be as bad as I always seem to paint it (or maybe it is and I'm just trying to lie to myself, I hope not). I know there will always be problems and that I will not always win, but I can't seem to catch enough of a break to breathe in between these problems. Hopefully once college ends and I start my career SOMETHING will get easier, I fear not. Anyway, enough depressing talk.

My body has recently needed a huge amount of sleep which has halted be from doing some very necessary things with my day, but if my body needs it, I will not ignore it. I have been procrastinating per usual and have been exploring some new gorgeous art. Thanks to a wonderful artist on Twitter, I have been able to see some of the most cutting edge pop art phenomenons. And, per usual, I want to do anything I can to promote those I like (and there is very little I don't like). This is a wonderful artist named Rob Verheyen (http://www.artbreak.com/robverheyen). Please check his stuff out.

Finally, on a whim, I decided to start watching some Madonna interviews from the 90's and found that she was and is such an unbelievably intelligent woman. She speaks of her music like a true musician should. She speaks of trends and cultural influences. She speaks of lyrics and melodic drive. She speaks of the theatrical aspect of music and performance. I already thought Madonna was and is one of the top artists of the 21st century but after seeing this, I see now that she more than that. She created something so beautiful and artistic with the strength and power of her own imagination and those of her colleagues. That is what I wish to do with my life. She is such an inspiration.

Well, I doubt anyone made it this far, but if you have thanks for reading!

PS: Imogen Heap has released her new single which is FABULOUS!! Her new album is scheduled to be released in August. Check out Perez if you want to listen to it

Bugs

Never live next to a wooded area.Bugs will drive you crazy.
They've driven me to the point of insanity.
You can't open your door for some fresh air.
They are constantly looking for light
and for some reason that light is always in my room,
inside my house.
My skin crawls constantly now and I can't tell the difference
between an ant/moth/spider and the hair on my legs.

Call me insane, call me cruel, but they can all die.
I know they help in nature, but get out of my house!
I have stopped trying to take them outside.
Their tiny brains can't fathom I'm trying to help them.
I don't care if it's bad luck. I have so much of that anyway.
I will kill them all. Ants will feel the sting of my butts.
Spiders will feel the end of my shoe.
Flies will feel the darkness of the inside of my hand.

They are beautiful creatures as long as they stay out of my way.

PRE

Good evening/morning everyone. I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July. I'm sitting here on the Wick family computer after a suprisingly mild Independence Day party. I barely drank. Some kind of combination of not feeling like drinking, being stressed about moving, and honestly having fun sober, kept me from having more than like... 3 or 4 beers throughout the whole night. It was a good time though and I got to see some friends I haven't seen for a couple months.

Alyssa (Keith's sister) and I, stayed up till now stalking David Archuleta trying to find a picture where he wasn't smiling. It was impossible. We also listened to some nice old and new songs. She introduced me to an a capella group names "Straight No Chaser" who are a men's a capella group out of IU who are very talented. Look them up on YouTube if you have the chance.

I wasn't terribly sure what to write about in this post because truly at 4 in the morning I have no mind opening insight. I have been feeling very uncreative and down lately but lucikly my friend Rachel and I have been able to co-write and produce a new song called "Monotony" (which I will post a link to once we get it recorded to our liking). We are playing with the idea of forming a band called PRE. It helped me through the hard end of the week that I have been having.

Anyways, this post was more an update on my life than anything else, which is fine. I wanted to extend a good article to anyone reading this though. I don't know how many people are into Numerology but the more I grow up, the more I'll give anything an honest go, and honestly there seems to be some truth in it. I read this article (it's kinda long but reading all of it is really good) on a blog called Creative Numerology and I really enjoyed it. Even if you don't believe in Numerology please take a second to read this. It has a very interesting message that we should all ponder. You can read the article here.

Finally, I have been finding a lot of healing strength in my new meditations and I really hope that I can find a way to make it a daily ritual. I just need to stop bitching about everything and get it done. Enough "but"'s. Well it is after 4 in the morning and I have to be up at a decent hour. I will leave it at that. Goodnight!