An Interview!

I recently did an interview about The Book of Annwyn. Though I self-published it in 1998, it seems to have deep roots, fortunately! This was for the American Welsh Society (Americymru Association). Click Here!

The Muse Onward

I wish I might explain the enormity of Image,

Merely a magnification that reflects back

From the eyes of those who do not know me at all.

The fear of breaking from my little box.

Trapped in my own Illuminated corner.

Magic appears from behind the curtain

The Enchanted mirror:

Scenes from a lost childhood teach humanity to search out idols -

Its temperamental need to be reminded of a Perfect world -

Yet full of swift rejection should the Human turn its head

And bring forth its own heart

Not the one expected or more often demanded

But the gleam of a life lived onward

Full of turns and tides.

Like life, We ebb and flow.

Hell hath the fury of every little resented Reflection.

The pedestal smashed underfoot in moments.

Thus the rest of Persona must remain immersed in the water,

Drowned.

For the time at least.

Hope itself is enough to bring the Dead back to life.

I am the Muse:

But I must reflect that which radiates upon me.

It can not come from the void.

So the One I choose to shine on

Can only be the One that causes me to shine.

Now a beacon of light flares from my center

Like a homing signal high above the cities.

I radiate endlessly - electricity pours from my fingertips.

I cannot stay calm or silent but will -

Not for my own choice but that of thousands who must learn

Slowly -

That even the realm of Dream -

And the humans that live under such a weight -

May change and breathe new life.

My mythology changed forever.

My Tale is that of beginnings.

This is Truth.

Crows

Documentary: A Murder of Crows

I have written on these magical beings often... They are very prominent in Celtic Mythology, as Bran (Welsh for Crow) and Branwen - White or Shining Crow. The Crow is their War deity, and this is just the beginning... I have Crows that hang around my yard - they cluck and clickw hen they hang over my yard... I love that they know that my place is a good place...

Watching this documentary is incredibly inspiring to my own creative work as it manifests...

Loneliness. Patience. Wisdom. Happiness.

Woke up to a lovely rain, it feels more like early Spring than Fall to me. Watching the dogs nap and listening to Maxine, the duck, quack as she wanders the garden. All is peaceful...

Last night I went to a friend's place and met his kangaroo, she is a rescue who has ended up living there. The doc is a long-time zoo vet, so this is not an unusual animal for him to have at home. I watched him give her a bottle, and then she came up to me to check me out, surrounded by her five dog companions. SO cute!

Animals. I could not live without them.

Life has been upside down since returning from the last European Tour - but I am picking myself up again. I feel I have so much to say but it is hard to put it into words. This is the problem of emotion, when you feel gutted and empty from circumstance and have such trouble trying to explain how it feels to those who aren't able to live inside your skin.

Poetry is how I connect and speak truths, touch hearts and rise to that very special place where words are nothing but cages - trapping the deeper meaning behind their doors - snapped shut with metal lock.

My thoughts are like animals - they need to be free and given wide open spaces to roam, to find kindred spirits that connect their voices to emotion and yet somehow still breathe, and say it's okay to do so - to rise above the soil up into the sky - to look back down from a distance without pain - that was something left somewhere below...

AH! To the Future! I cannot wait to look calmly at the Past.

Just typing this has brought a wave of peace to my soul.

Back to Nature

Lyrics in progress for a new InfraWarrior song...

Through the cracks in the wall I'm going back to Nature

Through the holes in the floor my roots search for the waters

Along crumbling brick I rebuild the great temple

Over collapsed walls I'm stretching myself homeward

The walls are blurring and the lines between

What we know and what's Unseen

You need to walk with the Great Mystery

You've got to let Nature in

As the sidewalks break I'm going back to Nature

Along rusting wires I'm stretching out my fingers

From the rotting beams I'm reaching towards the answer

Along the broken glass I may walk forever

Back to Nature

The walls are blurring and the lines between

What we know and what's Unseen

You need to walk with the Great Mystery

You've got to let Nature in

Leave the endless noise I'm going back to silence

On the crumbling bridge I cross back to the mountains

By the light of the hundred year old lantern

Through the blood red sea I'll sink into the alters

On the fluttering wings I'm going back to Nature

On the horse's mane I'm going back to Nature

On the lion's back I'm going back to Nature

When the trees have burned

Leave a bounty of fruit at the base of the cinders

When the oceans die,

Cry your tears along the rivers.

If you have no voice, speak to Nature

If you have no direction, look to Nature

If you life stands for nothing, stand for Nature

If you believe in nothing, believe in Nature

All Lovers Lost - 2010

I am my only Thief and Jailer Keep

The hours pull me through the seasons of a Crooked year...

And to those I gave life

Confessions of a gift worth end

Dawn breaks like ice on a pond - springing forth green eternal
The flooding of cool waters - life emerges...

Hours pass...

Five minutes brings the shock of it all
Winter's icy shadow rises to prey upon me...
The tears are endless.
The agony of fear of a future never expected...

And the glutton for emptiness

Can feast on my heart

In the minds where my dear Alvina weeps

Once lifted their voice in praise

But past is ever past.
The past too great a treasure,
Caught in the gleam of a shining coin.

Summer's dry heat has returned.
I am unable to cry,
And can't fathom why I should.

Then the chill of Dusk - like Fall -
Love's dead leaves crumble through my fingers
I am frozen in time -
Completely and utterly hopeless.

And all lovers Lost

Find them in the heart of darkness...

Winter thus returns on the hour of a clock that stopped ticking.

Such is the reign of banishment

In my heart...

New Work...

How easy it is to leave a two-dimensional realm...
A history lesson from a faded textbook, in the end...

My complexities no longer exist.

I simply fill the space that is taken by my ghost -
All the details that made me breathe fire to your heart
Contained and destroyed.
I rained ash upon you with each smoldering ember.

Dare to breathe me in
And your lungs may fill with dust.
Run - that is the simple answer -
I cannot haunt places I haven't been -
Your secrets are safe in the black and the white -
In the freedom of a future where I can no longer find you.

Within the Old realm, another dimension was fervent.
My wrists - the smallest bones you once kissed -
The hand you longed to hold -
The eyes that drove you mad -

Home.

Home - once in my arms -
Now a square drawn on a page of a book
You dare not read again.
Add a chimney, a swirl to the smoke -
It may remind you.

Save yourself from the fury of cobwebs
That have taken the throne.
I am the keeper of what must never be -
The ash covered corpse of a slowly crumbling being.
Through the years you may forget her a bit more,
But no living future bride
(Unknown - or already known)
Will ever come close.

And you know this.

She is still here!
Somewhere...

Her memory is lost to the ancient texts.
Her image made to silhouette.

Lesson learned.

The Battle...

This was written around 2002 - and was included on my book, 'The Muse Inward' and partially used in 'Boudiccea' from 'The Burning Season'...

Have I spoken of the battle between Word and Deed?

I have traveled long and wide on the hills of
When and when to step and where
Lightly and hardly
I would I might should I
Become Her at last.
But rather to write of it may heal enough.

Experience versus the mind -
I was the Queen who fell upon her sword,
In Dreams I have fought the good fight - Inert all else.
Silent in person.
Silence...
My words have laid the path,
Ah, but my deeds I am most likely to be known for...

When she steps she does so delicately,
And where she steps
The grass does grow in the shape of her exquisite footsteps.

Promise is a sickness when it all but speaks and acts opposing to its word.
Pianos cannot play themselves.
I’ll slip away when at last we meet.

I am warrior...
My madness impossible to detect within the horrors of social conduct.
My wits sharpened to weaponry.

Deed cannot but make my tongue silent -
Word is an act enough to bring down effortless Tyranny.
Deed renders me inert.
We would rather the doe shot down simply in the story, I think...

Word may somehow retract Deed.
Chooses a face with strange cracks.
Ah, but Deed.

Deed is the Truth of character.

Poetry...

I am in full writing mode, and will begin posting new poems and lyrics every week... This is the working poem that a number of song lyrics sprang from, I began it in 2005 or so....

---

What have you done?
There is no forgiveness when the heart is gone.

I spoke the truth until it hurt -
The space behind the heart that holds it like a fist
Breath tightened under duress -
Or the truth within us.

Ripped from the root:
Shut the thinking down

And let the show begin.

A low-itched harmony, that chest-pained fear of life,
The lump in the throat that panics speech -
That kind of pang that can well one up in tears
At the snap of a finger:
An idea of a child’s memory relit
Like an old unwanted dog with such sadness in its eyes
It hurts to see its such weariness
And we all know this.

I feel her alive and thankful
Magic the guide to expect as she makes her entrance -
On the roof as the building collapsed,
Oh the wind can cause the rails to creak like a ship in Arctic duress.
A slavedancer, beaded and perfumed
Metal-cold bracelets upon each battered wrist -
The question of my deity rewarded
With a neck that stretches out for miles.
I am yet just and fair in the language of the trees
A warrior in respite while they plotted my death.
Then a simple Bard shackled and singing to a Roman Lord -
I know what it is to lose my two sons
I remember somehow that grievous pain in the pit of my stomach,
My fingernails chipped and filled with dirt from the farm,
Smoke brushes along the contours of my form,
Seamen called and I answered,
Painted for another photo-shoot,
Walking delicately through the mines,
Trimmed, and perfect and haven’t eaten in three days,
Look to the side, see the conspirators behind the curtain,
Down the alleyways,
Waiting in a Model T,
Tumbling through forests,
Guns and knives, hammers and poisons
Wandering between realms
Like Trojan soldiers on a vase, I fought well and bitter and to the death,
I become 100 years old and awakened - animate.
Like the Huntress, I am prey, or conquered by Love.
I fall like leaves from separate similar struggles,
Falling to the side, folding in
My hands frozen at the tips -
Reaching up again to that lovely, lovely place
Frostbite without actuality - a point of meaning -
I cannot see the faces in the balcony.
Flashing one scene then the next -
The lights red to gold upon my hair,
Oh I could answer any question -
The taste of me alone profound,
Resurrected.
Resurrected.

Interview with All Things Girl

This is a quick interview I did...

In New Orleans...

Florida was nearly 100 degrees and such high humidity, we melted before hitting the stage! What a difference from the earlier part of the tour... The last few shows have been very small, and the usual comment of "if we had known what a show this was going to be, we would have really promoted it!" is becoming a bit too tiresome to hear... In New Orleans now, staying on the Garden District in a place that was an orphanage many years ago - our kind of place! Off to find a Cajun Vegan restaurant we have heard about, and get a bit of rest!

Thoughts from the Road

After over two weeks, we are finally in the 'zone' - I call it this for myself, once you break through the insanity and fatigue, though my voice is taking a beating night after night. Three hours of sleep and hours and hours driving to the next city, one needs to be hardened to live this life and open to the realms you find yourself. I love the moment by moment of life on tour, meeting fans, listening to stories, performing and having delirious and hilarious moments. We miss home terribly, and our amazing housesitter has been taking such great care of everyone - she posted photos of the babies on her pages, how gorgeous everything is blooming and the babies look happy and cared for.

I am finding that we are now a '90's era' band, and that some sort of revival is at hand; though people are loving our new music, they also love all the past albums. I am currently backstage in Washington DC, haven't been back here for 6 years - and everything is green and gorgeous! The weather throughout the U.S. has thus far been nippy, land throughout the heartland is barely over the Winter, but once we took the turn down from Canada into New York, we are seeing wonderful new growth. Funny how I look at soil and plant life everywhere I go, it is an entire undercurrent of life around us! Onward to the next, and the next and the next. I am currently in silence mode, and have to actually be somewhat silent when greeting fans in order to get onto the next shows - fingers crossed!

Ars Terra Website

So we completely overhauled the Ars Terra website. It is much more our style now and completely updated with all of the house projects. Stepping back and looking at these photos floors me... It really is amazing when you work with Nature on making changes to the landscape, and brings me such peace. I still need to create a greenhouse section, but as I am just getting that sorted, it will be a bit later. Enjoy!

Avatar...

William and I went to see Avatar, and we both left teary-eyed and very misty. Seeing it in 3D was indeed like entering a new world, but at the same time, it all seemed so familiar to me. This was the world of my dreams as a child. I longed to live in a place like that, and my first tales were of an imaginary lion - Apolleon. I began writing about him when I was about 8 or so, and had a complete book of stories as well as a short opera about him. We lived in a gorgeous jungle-like world together with otherworldly creatures and I was part lion myself. "Sheena Queen of the Jungle" was about as close as I ever saw to what I had dreamed of, but it paled so much to what I had imagined.

What floored me was the concept of the Na’vi people: world-wide matriarchal cultures were merged to create this special tribe who understood the Mother Goddess. Cameron based their words on the Maori language of New Zealand. The idea that their tails connected like electricity to other species, plants - that killed me. To our ancestors, life and land have always been deeply connected.

One idea that I really loved was the fact that the Humans were actually the evil Aliens. Their directive is that which people fear so much should UFOs actually come here: to destroy the earth and all its inhabitants in order to get something out of it - but isn't that what we do to ourselves?

I have read that people have been feeling depression after seeing it, that something tugs them so deeply from seeing this movie - I believe it is because it is the forgotten Truth in our hearts, in our primal brain - the lost connection we once had! People want to live there, because they KNOW they were there once. It makes you KNOW how the way of the modern world is wrong, and that it the very truth we must all look for...

I wrote about this in The Book of Annwyn, its conclusion that I return to often: "Thus, here we are, our modern sense of knowledge completely disconnected from the people we once were. Imagine what it was like to have only the facts of Nature all around you. Watch a thunderstorm with new eyes, where no weatherman exists to explain its coming, or its meaning. Imagine the Moon’s consistently changing shape, the heat of the Sun’s rays, the mists of clouds causing the tops of mountains to disappear, and the falling of snow and hail. Here is the essence of Myth, the awe of the Unknown, where recognizing each tiny change in climate, watching the habits of an animal’s migration - all held a key in Understanding. Our instincts were fine-tuned, and our lives were held in the balance of the seasons... The ability to create art, a skill so misunderstood in this day and age of Art-openings and tiresome criticism, was viewed as simply magical. Music and singing, in its earliest form, was also mystical, and it’s creation had the ability to calm the murderous beast. Some still find this Truth deep within their hearts: some art and music touches a place before memory could be given dialogue..."

Spring: Awakening

This has become my favorite time of year - out here in the desert, it can either be too hot or too cold. March brings hope - moisture to the soil we have been building over the last three seasons, new shoots, flowers, frogs and birds... A ground squirrel has set up a home next to the duck barn...

I am itching to go on the road, but hate the fact that we are going to be gone through Spring... Missing out on the roses, tadpoles, budding grapevines. Before I began planting and gardening, the seasons really meant nothing to me. Now I bend with them. When a frost happens after new shoots have risen, I take it in stride. I have learned that Nature must do what She will, and we must simply work with her, create shade and micro-climate, build soil, allow things to move naturally... Something changes in your heart... hard to explain...

Musings: A New Start

2010 - Musings are starting over in a whole new place... and are part of my creative thought process. A diary of ideas and thoughts that will help me to further explore my current projects. I have been going through years of writings, old poetry, short stories, papers from college... While returning to Graves' "The White Goddess", I love the following quote, have used it often - even on the pages of the InfraWarrior CD. It just gets all the more timely:

"We are now at the stage where the common people of Christendom, spurred on by their demagogues, have grown so proud that they are no longer content to be the hands and feet and trunk of the body politic, but demand to be the intellect as well - or, as much intellect as is needed to satisfy their simple appetites. As a result, all but a very few have discarded their religious idealism... and come to the private conclusion that money, though the root of all evil, is the sole practical means of expressing value or of determining social precedence; a morality of common honesty is not relevant either to love, war, business, or politics. Yet they feel guilty about their backsliding, send their children to Sunday school, maintain the churches and look with alarm to the east, where a younger and more fanatical faith threatens.

What ails Christianity today is that it is not a religion squarely based on a single myth; it is a complex of juridical decisions made under political pressure in an ancient lawsuit about religious rights between the adherent Mother-goddess who was once supreme in the West, and those of the usurping Father-god.

The propaganda services of the West perpetually announce that the only way out of our present troubles is a return to religion, but assume that religion ought not to be defined in any precise sense: that no good can come from publicizing either the contradictions between the main revealed religions and their mutually hostile sects, or the factual misstatements contained in their doctrines, or the shameful actions which they have all at one time or another, been used to cloak. What is really being urged is an improvement in national and international ethics, not everyone's sudden return to the beliefs of his childhood - which, if undertaken with true religious enthusiasm, would obviously lead to a renewal of religious wars.

Since all contemporary religions contradict one another, however politely, in their articles of faith, can any definition of the word religion be made that is practically relevant to the solution of the present political problems?

Cicero connected relegere, 'to read dully' - hence 'to pore upon, or study' divine lore. Some four and a half centuries later, Saint Augustine derived it from religare, 'to bind back' and supposed that it implied a pious obligation to obey divine law; and this is the sense in which religion has been understood ever since. Neither took into account the length of the first syllable of religio, or the alternative spelling relligio. Relligio can be formed only from the phrase rem legere, 'to choose or pick the right thing', and religion to the Greeks and Romans was not obedience to laws but a means of protecting the tribe against evil by active counter-measures of good. It was in the hands of magically-minded priesthood, whose duty was to suggest what action would please the gods on peculiarly auspicious or inauspicious occasions...

It must be explained that the word lex, 'law', began with a sense of a 'chosen word', or magical pronouncement, and that it was later given a false derivation from ligare. Law in Rome grew out of religion: occasional pronouncements developed proverbial force and became legal principles. But as soon as religion in its primitive sense is interpreted as social obligation and defined by tabulated laws, inspired magic goes, and what remains is theology, ecclesiastical ritual, and negatively ethical behavior. If, therefore, it is wished to avoid disharmony, dullness, and oppression in all social contexts, each problem must be regarded as unique, to be settled by right choice based on instinctive good principle, not be reference to a code or summary of precedents.

There seems to be no escape from our difficulties until the industrial system breaks down for some reason or another, and Nature reasserts herself with grass and trees among the ruins. But the longer her hour is postponed, and therefore the more exhausted by man's irreligious improvidence the natural resources of the soil and sea become, the less merciful will she be."- Robert Graves, 1948