The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011

What an outstanding Sunday! We had so much talent involved with hours upon hours of crazy jams and songs and art and poetry. This was undoubtedly the most well-balanced of all our T.A.Z.'s yet, as far as art mediums go.

I took the liberty of naming many of the jams below with some rather whimsical titles for the sake of organization and such. I'm sorry if any of these songs actually have names already, and I'll be happy to correct any mistakes that irk any of the singers in the recordings below.

I decided to include a lot of jams that may or may not be interesting to anyone but I figured it was better to have them than to not. There are, in my opinion, quite a few moments of spontaneous brilliance from the night when things really did come together in unique ways. Perhaps you may find such moments and others too in the songs I posted.

Of the many recordings from this session I find that I am most excited about Evan Altes and his poetry reading. This was certainly one of the more powerful moments of the evening.

My big regret so far is that I don't have any recordings of Clay Jackson's amazing session towards the end.Even though we recorded his tunes I must have snatched the wrong mp3 off the handheld because I found that I had two copies of the same file instead of two files. I am still currently looking through tapes to see if his songs managed to get recorded on there, and I am crossing my fingers that perhaps the digital recorder falls into my hands sooner than later. If those files exist and I can get my hands on them I will edit this post again to include those songs as well.

All in all, Marielle and I have been so pleased with how things have been going. Thanks to everyone who has been coming. You make this thing what it is.

"Adam's Honey"
Adam's Honey (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"On Time"
On Time (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Something"
Something (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-11 by Matt Wall

"Don't Think Twice"
Don't Think Twice (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Sugar in Your Mouth"
Sugar in your Mouth (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-11 by Matt Wall

"Sympathy for the Reverend"
Sympathy for the Reverend (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

"Sunflower Chapel"
Sunflower Chapel (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

"Miss Sinister"
Miss Sinister (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Red Dread"
Red Dread (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

Evan shares some of the poetry he wrote while in Haiti along with a few selections from one of his favorite works.
Evan Speaks Poetry (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Evan Sings"
Evan Sings (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

"Gold Plated Diapers"
Gold Plated Diapers (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Say It Ain't Weezer"
Say it Ain't Weezer (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Quickpounded"
Quickpounded (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

"Desert Eyelight"
Desert Eyelight (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Attack of the Drones"
Attack of the Drones (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

"Eternal Return"
Eternal Return (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

"Salamander Meanders"
Salamander Meanders (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

"Slumber Song"
Slumber Song (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

Marielle and Amanda finally bring some long awaited visual artistry to the Collective.

M:

A:

Matt and Ryan get together and make some sweet jams later in the night. I'm sure everyone agrees that is a band that needs to exist.

"Sonic Spacejam Tk.1"
Sonic Spacejam Tk.1 (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Sonic Spacejam Tk.2"
Sonic Spacejam Tk.2 (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

"Backwards 5/4"
Backwards 5 4 (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

Jason debuts his new hit single
"Whiskey Dick Blues"
Whiskey Dick Blues (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

Night in Ocala

Rambo Plays Before the Fire by Matt Wall

The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-23-2011

Well it would seem that every Sunday is getting better and better. This past T.A.Z. was off the charts and the energy levels were all turned up to eleven, or you could say everyone's controls were set to Jupiter and Beyond.
The best moment for me of the whole night was when I finished playing a spectacular jam session with everyone using my song called "A Gathering". In all the years since I had written I had never heard the song sound so right in both spirit and style. That tune was meant for Mark's guitar licks.
After finishing the jam I looked at Anthony and said, "Boy, I wish we'd been recording that."
Anthony looked at me and smiled, "We were." He pointed to a little red light shining out from the book shelf in the wall. Well done, Anthony. Well done.

The following links are the various jams from the evening. The songs played all happen to be from the "Child of the Earth" album I had been working on in my head for over three years. This day was a very special day also because I had finally found out how to tie the whole album together. The last pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place and I felt like playing these songs and with new zeal.
We did Scaffold twice on here because Matthew wasn't around for the first take and I wanted him to hear the song. Now that I'm hearing these tunes recorded I wish we had played more of them, but hell, I'm thankful that Anthony the trickster had a recorder up his sleeve to save the day along with the memories.

A Gathering (Live) The Electric Body Collective Initiatif- 1-23-2011 by Matt Wall
Scaffold Tk.1 (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif- 1-23-2011 by Matt Wall
Scaffold Tk.2 (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif- 1-23-2011 by Matt Wall
Rowdy Beatdownz (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-23-2011 by Matt Wall
Black Magic Rainfall (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif- 1-23-2011 by Matt Wall

"Child of the Earth" Track Listing and Lyrics

Disc 1:

1. Witchcraft Tavern
2. Song of Samuel
3. What He Said
4. Tragedy
5. Welcome to Redemption
6. The Spark that Starts the Fire
7. Dirty Gospel
8. A Gathering
9. Baptized Bodies

Disc 2:

1. Your Father's House / Upside-Down
2. Storm Moves
3. Sympathy for the Reverend
4. Black Blood Rising
5. Afraid
6. Scaffold
7. Black Magic Rainfall
8. Jailbreak on the Mountain
9. Battle for Redemption

Lyrics:

Child of the Earth
Disc 1:


1. Witchcraft Tavern

Fireside at the Witchcraft Tavern
Evil site of the blackest coven
Glory, glory of the Darkness,
I'm breathing the night
And it's lovely.
I'm drinking in the wake
And I'm singing in the dust
The dust of American Magick
Give me... give me your curse.

2. Song of Samuel

There was a boy who was born
With an evil heart.
He had a soul that was soaked
All in soot black tar
But our boy was meant to be a hero.
Our boy was meant to be redeemed.

Wrestle your angel and limp through the dark.
Carry your cross and your curse to the start.

3. What He Said

Well you can tell 'em bout how you was struck by the sound
Of the loveliest laugh that you ever did hear,
How she took your pain, held your darkness at bay,
All your hatred and fear, how it all disappeared.

But it's just like your daddy said,
If you're believin' in love, than your believin' in nothin'.
Cause be it death or difference there'll come a time when it's gone
There ain't no way you can stop it
It's just like your daddy said,
If you're believin' in love, than your believin' in nothin'.
Cause be it death or difference
There'll come a time when it's gone.


Samuel:
Oh come on, my love, you're all I've got
And I don't understand why there's any doubt,
You know the moment you leave it's gonna break in me.
All the locks and levees, baby, gonna be released.

But it's just like your daddy said,
If you're believin' in love, than your believin' in nothin'.
Cause be it death or difference there'll come a time when it's gone
There ain't no way you can stop it
It's just like your daddy said,
If you're believin' in love, than your believin' in nothin'.
Cause be it death or difference
There'll come a time when it's gone.

4. Tragedy

Samuel:
My whole life has been a tragedy
My whole life has been a tragedy
Why can't the good Lord do a little good by me.
My whole life has been a tragedy.

Mama drowned in the lake
And I watched my father drink himself into the grave
The Prattle sisters, bless their souls, they took me in
But the townsfolk said they was witches and they burned at the stake.

My whole life has been a tragedy
My whole life has been a tragedy
Why can't the good Lord do a little good by me.
My whole life has been a tragedy.

You should see the way the townspeople look at me
The reverend and his superstitious sheep
They say I'm cursed, and lately maybe I agree,
And so I go to church and I pray and read and sing
I sing and I sing and I sing.

My whole life has been a tragedy
My whole life has been a tragedy
Why can't the good Lord do a little good by me.
My whole life has been a tragedy.

But when the clouds part, yes, it must be the Divine
A hand that wipes the tears out from your eyes
You are the only blue sky I've ever seen
Oh, the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen.

5. Welcome to Redemption

The Reverend:
We built this town on solid ground
Sing Hallelujah, Sing Hallelujah.
Every tongue, every knee shall bow.
Sing Hallelujah, Sing Hallelujah.

Welcome to Redemption.
Welcome to the rest of your life.

We bound the devil, he was casted down
Sing Hallelujah, Sing Hallelujah
We found his hornets nest and smoked them out.
Sing Hallelujah, Sing Hallelujah.

Welcome to Redemption.
Welcome to the rest of your life.

Where there's fear in your heart
There is land for the seed to be planted.
If we toil together
The harvest will come by and by.
Is your house built on sand?
Is your family well and protected?
There is refuge for you and your kin
If you walk in the light.

There are lines you must walk
You must walk
Always walk in the lines.

6. The Spark that Starts the Fire

The Reverend:
All the plans that we made together
Walking through the trees
They still haunt me in my sleep
They still come to me in dreams.
I remember picking flowers to put them in your hair
You told me you were scared of something touching you at night.
Something isn't right.

She said, "It feels so much darker in America at night.
Let's not stray too far from the light."

She started having dreams about a storm flooding the town
It always made her cry to even speak of it at all.
Visions of the church collapsing in upon itself
The only place to hide with all the prisoners breaking out.
She always held me tight.

She said, "It feels so much darker in America at night.
Let's not stray too far from the light."
I said, "It's hard for me to know when you don't look me in the eye."
Let's not stray too far from the light

Sometimes in a flash you understand why you were born
All the children in this town are so afraid.
No, the children they should never be afraid,
Oh the children they should never be afraid.

7.Dirty Gospel

Samuel:
Now honey, I know you ain't been here before,
But there's some truth I've gotta show you
There's some gospel that you've gotta know,
As I evangelize to your inner thighs.
The way my hand's movin' up real slow
The way my fingers loosen up your belt
The way that liquor trickles down your throat.
The way it feels to just let it go

It's alright to just let it go
It's alright to just lose control
It's alright, I'm here to let you know
It's alright, you know you gotta let it out

Now don't be surprised if you feel guilty tonight
It's just the way you was raised and it's a damn crime.
I'm gonna show you the way I like it too now,
I'm gonna show you a secret you should do now.


It's alright to just let it go
It's alright to just lose control
It's alright, I'm here to let you know
It's alright, you know you gotta let it out

It's alright...4x
Now lemme sing it in your ear
Lemme sing it real sweet
S-s-s-sing it real sweet.
Just, j-j-j, just.
Just, just, just, just
Alright.

8. A Gathering

We have gathered you all here,
To tell you the time is drawing near
When we shall walk the streets again
And be a people without sin.

Look at all the sad, sad people,
Dragging their feet across the hard ground.
Carrying their heavy burdens
As the good Word drags them down.

One day nature will cover over
All your temples, churches and synagogues.
All the pretty steeples gonna come, come tumbin' down.

Unto us a child is born
So human, so divine.
Unto us a kingdom comes like rays of sun
Through the twisting of the vines.
It's time.

One day nature will cover over
All your temples, churches and synagogues.
All the pretty steeples gonna come, come tumbin' down.

Yeah, we're talking bout the weight of guilt
And the weight of God,
The weight of sin
The weight of law. 4x
Well lay your burdens down.
It's time.

9. Baptized Bodies

The Reverend:

In the Name of the Name of the Name of the Name of the Name of the Name of the Name of the Name of...

You've got to baptize the bodies
Till all the sin is good and gone.
You've got to lay him under water
Till all the black breath bubbles up.
You've gotta shake up that old man
Till all his habits break apart.
You've gotta hold that sinner down
Till all the fight in him goes out.

If the breathing doesn't start
There was no good left in his heart.
You better hope when you are drownin' boy,
The the Lord sees somethin' in you that is still worth saving.

You've got to baptize the bodies. You've got to baptize the bodies.
You've got to hold that sinner down till all the fight in him goes out.

There'll be no thrashin' or flailin' in the Kingdom of God.

Samuel:

And lying in the noontime in a field upon the grass
A sudden wind, a flower falling, landed on my wrist,
So soft and white and delicate and crumbling to the touch,
I don't know why it happened but I thought of Mother then.

Sometimes I can almost remember...

Like shadows in the doorway
Or the voices in my head
My father saying, "Everything is always in God's hands."
Sometimes I can almost remember.

Child of the Earth
Disc 2:

1. Your Father's House / Upside-Down

Samuel:
Sometimes when I reach
You pull your hand away from me.
That's when I know
You've been spoken to again.

The burning in your eyes and chest,
The shortness in your breath,
Oh yes, I know,
You've been spoken to again.

If it's your father's house and father's law
That comes between our love,
What if we ran off into the sun?
Surely there are worlds beyond the limits of this town,
Maybe there's a place where we can make up all the rules
For ourselves.

I can't stop my every thought's of you now
I try to wrap my mind around the truth and the distance.
Everything I thought I knew was wrong.
I'm so glad you came along
And turned me upside down.

All my sense is running out my head
I'm breaking every rule and all the boundaries that I have set.
Everything I thought I knew is wrong,
I'm so glad you came along
And turned me upside down.
You turn me upside down.

Lilith
All of the darkness that's surrounded you,
Well I may not be the light,
But I can share it too.
And maybe we could leave together.
Well, I wouldn't rule it out.
You turn me upside down.

2. Storm Moves

The Reverend
See the clouds moving down from the mountains,
Ghosts on the breeze.
Hear the sound of a thousand voices
Caught in the trees.
I can't understand why the Lord had to take her from me. 2x

Oh Redemption,
Redemption...
I know that I have been chosen
For such a time as this.

I can be your shelter
I can be your friend
I will be the voice that's calling you
Back to the place you began.

4. Sympathy for the Reverend

The Reverend
I saw your face in the fire
And I won't let it go.
Now anything you require,
I have to make it so.
While the people sleep tonight,
I walk through the valley alone.
There's a demon seed in the sky
I'm not gonna let it grow.

You placed a snake within the garden,
For some reason I can't see
Oh would, that you should let this cup
Now pass away from me. 2x

You placed a snake within the garden
Now we're eating from the tree.
Uncertainty.
Uncertainty.

Now all the clothing in the world can't cover us. 2x
Uncertainty.

No, I won't let it go.

4. Black Blood Rising

Samuel
I caught madness
I caught madness
I heard the conversations
I caught the madness.

And so my mother made a covenant
And I was born in the blackest sin
I was baptized in witches' spit
And I can't get it out of my head.
Oh God, Oh God.

I can feel the madness creepin' up
Into my head.
I can see the black blood seeping out
Of my skin.
I don't know what I did
But I let you in.
It's not what I wanted
Not what I bargained for.
Oh God. Oh god.

There is a darkness growing in my mind,
There is a serpent wrapped around my spine,
I ate from the bread
I drank from the wine
But my teeth are on edge
And it trembles,
It trembles inside.

I heard the conversations
I've got the madness, I've got the madness.

5. Afraid

The Reverend:
There is a way that seems right to a man
Please listen my child and know
It is written, it is written
This is the path that leads the soul to it's destruction
Please listen my child and know
It is written, it is written.

Don't listen to your heart it will deceive you.
The heart is darkness,
Dark above all things.

And you used to think you belonged here
You used to think you should stay
And you used to be afraid to walk away.
Now your afraid to stay.

Lilith:
And I used to think I belonged here
I used to think I should stay
And I used to be afraid to walk away.
Now I afraid to stay.

Samuel
Where have you been?
I've been searching the streets now for days.
Your face, your face,
Yes, your holy, holy face.
I can see a change in you
A change in me
A change, I see
A change that's coming through.2x
I can see the change, change, change, change
It's changing me
It's changing you.2x

Lilith:
The reverend said we cannot wed
You're not the one he says,
And we both know all the signs
And the directions they've been pointin'.
Should we still be trying to close our eyes,
I have been trying so hard to keep my eyes closed.

Can you feel the wind tonight?
The racket and the branches breaking
I'm scared of you, I'm scared of you and me.
The wind is roaring, roaring through the trees.


I'm sorry, Love but I have to leave,
I'm sorry, Love, but we both know I have to go.
I cannot sleep anymore, He's always watching me.
His eyes are never closed,
The Lord, He always knows.



6. Scaffold

Samuel:
There was a sound in the dark
I started freezing.
I heard it coming down the hall,
I stopped breathing.
There was a shaking in the wall
The pictures fell and shattered.
Oh God, it's finally happening.
My god, it's finally happening.

Well the devil's in the wilderness,
Or so I've heard.
Well, I think I'm gonna go and have a word.
Cause I've had my fill with that narrow road.
And the minister's black veil is weighing heavy on my soul.

Young Goodman Brown,
You'll never make love now,
You're scared to death of everyone.
Scared of your own shadow.
When you woke up from your dream.
Saw that things weren't as they seemed.
That should have been your cue.

Well, there's a Shadow in the woods,
They say he's got a book,
Filled with names of lost souls and the like,
Well I'm signing up right on the dotted line.
And you can sign your name right below mine.

Take me to the scaffold,
I want to see the scaffold.
You can put me on display but I ain't ever gonna change.
Take me to the scaffold,
I want to see the scaffold,
Put me to the stocks I'm tired of fighting it
And I've got something to say...

Oh, the children, they should never be afraid.

7. Black Magic Rainfall

Samuel
I lost your fingers our last touch just by the old oak
You walked down the mainstream but ran when you turned the corner.
But still your ghost is ever near,
I see your face in every storefront glass.
Down in the brook by Potter's field
Or in our secret spot behind the old tavern.

I've got an itch where my fingers can't reach into grab it,
I've got a secret, I'm spitting, I'm kicking, I'm cracking.
I want to wipe you from the bricks,
From every person that you've touched or spoken with,
I want to wash out every street that has ever borne the shape of your footprint.

Black magic rainfall,
It ain't gonna stop until I say so.
Let the rain fall,
Until we're clean.

Drown all your sorrows, I'm drowning my sorrows with laughter,
This town is a shipwreck, and I am the face of disaster.
And all the corpses float along,
Their bloated bellies in the moonlight shining,
And I can feel it in my blood,
The taste of everything that I've been fighting.

Black magic rainfall,
It ain't gonna stop until I say so.
Let the rain fall,
Until we're clean.

8. Jailbreak on the Mountain

Samuel:

Villains and murderers and bad ideas,
Get in line and tell me why you're here.
All the bars of your cages are melting into your stripes
You're free to go, but there's gonna be a price.

Exercise your liberty,
You're just the same,
You're just the same as me,
Have you ever felt so free?

Backwards up and down the stairs,
You won't believe just where they go,
It's gonna be the worst kind of show.
It's gonna be a hard night to get through
A hard kind of fight but that's the way it goes.

Do you feel that chill, yeah?
Do you feel it, Lord, because I know I do.
Do you feel it, Baby, 'cause I feel it too.
I feel it yes, I feel it too.
The wind is blowing, let it roar, let roar.

The Battle for Redemption

The Reverend:

There was no hope for the righteous
Not for beast, nor child, nor man
There was no hope for Redemption
When the sky came crumblin' in
I could spread my wings at an eagle's breadth
But they still wouldn't cover this town.
Oh God, you have forsaken us
You have let your people down.

Child of a black conception,
Child of the earth,
You were born of powers dark and ancient
Blasphemous and cursed
I can see your rise like Babylon
I can hear the waters churn,
But from dust your skin was wrapped around you
And to dust it shall return.

Samuel:
Like dark on the face of the waters
Like black in the formless and void,
My spirit moves across the surface,
Moon sliver in my eye.
Moon sliver in my eye.

I am a god in my new creation.

Reverend:
From dust your skin was wrapped around you
And to dust it shall return.
To dust you shall return.

The Writing on the Wall

"God is the Imagination"
William Blake


The disembodied hand writing on the wall lets fall the simple lines in burning red that say:
Man Created God.

The villagers flash and flail, so much recoiling and I-told-you-so-ing. Some stare at the floor: grave robbed and crestfallen. Others angrily wave flags, the words congealing into montras on chewed up tongues. A call to arms, a call to argument, a song of negation. "We won, we won, there is no God."

But the writing on the wall never said there was no God. This was only assumed after such powerful a statment.

An artist carefully steps over the bodies and makes her way to the front of the chaos. She raises her hand to gain the crowds' attention. She pauses in silence then puts forth the question, "Isn't this rather a cause for celebration?"

The believers scream "Nay!" till they're blue in the face.
The negators shout "Yay!" Then they "nay" and negate..


As the noise dies the artist continues to say,
"Look at the beautiful mirrors we've created.
Are they not pictures of ourselves as ourselves creating?
Look at the rendering of furrows and wisdom,
The insight and pain and the loss and forgiveness.
Look at the lightning and darkness and terror,
The suffering and irreverent flaunting of power,
Listen now to the tenderness flowing in water.
Over rocks and through mountains: the sounds of surrender.
Look at those rules that were made to be broken.
And look at these broken rules fixed upon motion.
Our many eyes peek through the time stretched beard lines
All tangled with ghosts and chimes
Endlessly looking out from their positions
Along the double rhyming skeletal spirals that snake rootward towards depths unfathomable.


Listen my child, lay down thy sword.
Take up thy quill, and thy staff, and thy scepter.

Put your pen at any a point on a blank piece of paper.
Where is the line between the made and the maker?
There is only one way and God is a circle,
Walk any which wangle you're bound for returning.

The Lord is my paintbrush, the Earth is my canvas.
She angles me my valleys and shadows
She sets my horizons and lines of perspective.
The Lord is my center, my vision, my dot.

Follow this line and you'll find streets of gold,
The Kingdom of Heaven, the philosopher's stone.

Bala's Quest : A Touch that Catches

Departure Toward the South Brings Good Fortune

Yesterday I finally became a believer in magic once and for all.

I said to Marielle on the phone while I was driving, "No longer will I waste my time in awe of the existence of what is labeled by many as the supernatural, instead I will use my time to learn how to work with it and understand it and myself. No longer will I waste my time trying to defend the existence of what is labeled by many as the supernatural, those energies do not need defending, nor do they care if they are believed in or not. What pride I had to have ever thought it was my job to prove such existence?"

Marielle said back to me, "Yeah, those energies are just there. They are there for those who chose to look for them. They are there for you."

While going to Publix this morning I thought to myself as I looked around at the people in the parking lot, "My God, if people only knew the power they had available to them!"

But this knowledge has been suppressed. I just know this somehow. We have been oppressed and lied to about who we are. History has draped a heavy cloth over our eyes so that we cannot remember.

Remember: We are all witches and wizards. We are all gods and goddesses.

Our powers and our magic work in the realm of thought. We can bring forth something out of nothing and then bring that something into this world. The war for power has always been waged over the freedom of our thoughts. We are forced as children down certain lines of thinking. We learn language and words to corral all deviations. We sit in classrooms and we're snapped and punished if we color out of the lines. As we get older we fall into habits and we forget the magic we had, the magic of the imagination. We forget about possibilities. This is why some are drawn to psychedelic drugs and smoking weed. These often serve to derail one's thinking from the lines of habit that have been formed by themselves and others. Most people however just learn to accept the lot that was chosen for them and go seek entertainment and distraction.

But what are we seeking distraction from? What is society trying to distract us from doing? The simple answer is, we are being distracted from creating. And for those who are extra creative, their creativity is often enslaved and used for only certain things. We are told explicitaly from our youth the only appropriate areas where our creativity is allowed to go and restructure. The young boy wearing mother's make up or playing with dolls is quickly corrected. Topics like gender and God and the way things are often breached by the child's creativity, and the teachers and parents quickly turn somber and steer the conversation away. What would a society look like if everyone was creatively restructuring their views on everything they saw and not just manipulating lines on paper or notes on a staff? What if people went off road and used their creativity everywhere? How could a people like that be controlled? How could you sell them entertainment, and drugs, and ideas, and advertisements? The would always be entertaining themselves and everyone around them and they would make everything their own.

Our symbols and tools have been stolen and hijacked, banned and made blasphemous so that others could use them against us. The signs, rhythms, colors, symbols, patterns and archetypes that are the very command prompts and lines of coding that define the human consciousness software/hardware interface have been wrenched from our grasp and used on us daily in the form advertisements and propaganda by corporations, religious institutions, governments and various other forces that possess the resources to do so.

We may have forgotten the ancient tools but others have not.
Why does the Catholic church still use astrological dates and symbols in their current ceremonies?
Why do most child psychologists go into advertising?
What are all these brands and logos about?

It's time to pick up our tools again. It's time to remember. We are far more powerful than we have been told, trained, raised to believe: we knew this as children and this is why there is a sacredness in the eyes and words of every child. There very presence makes all around feel closer to each other, and closer to some kind of source.

Unless you be like these little children you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. There is so much more to chose from than what has been presented to us as options.


We are all magicians if we want it. I do. And so I am.

My, myself and I Ching: My first experience with the Oracle

Inspired by an incredible new paradigm that I have been moving into for some time now, I have finally found a way back to both religion and magic, the mystical practices of both enchantment and divination, or prayer and prophecy if one happens to prefer more Christian terms, have both taken on new significance to me now that I understand the all encompassing importance of the nature of our perception and how we construct reality. Enchantment, or magic spells, can directly effect our perception of reality, or rather what we look for and how we shape the way we, respond and shape the meanings around us, by pointing us in certain directions. Magic spells and guided meditations appear to me now as having some kind of similar functional purpose. Both are willful attempts by the individual to send the mind off in a certain direction through the use of tools.

Divination, which at first might seem slightly less appealing, now appears to me to occupy a position of more significance than enchantment. If one considers the divorce or rift in every person that exists between the conscious and unconscious, or the masculine and feminine, or the above and below, or that which is perceived and that which is, than any practice that can mend, even somewhat, this rift will be a practice that imparts great wisdom and insight.

My first question put forth to the I Ching was this: What can you tell me about my relation to the music I make and what should I know about?

The hexagram the coins delivered to me on this matter was number 3 or Chun which means Difficulty at the Beginning.

The following is a more detailed description of Chun:


The name of the hexagram, Chun, really connotes a blade of grass pushing
against an obstacle as it sprouts out of the earth—hence the meaning,
"difficulty at the beginning." The hexagram indicates the way in which
heaven and earth bring forth individual beings. It is their first meeting,
which is beset with difficulties. The lower trigram Chên is the Arousing; its
motion is upward and its image is thunder. The upper trigram K'an stands
for the Abysmal, the dangerous. Its motion is downward and its image is
rain. The situation points to teeming, chaotic profusion; thunder and rain fill
the air. But the chaos clears up. While the Abysmal sinks, the upward
movement eventually passes beyond the danger. A thunderstorm brings
release from tension, and all things breathe freely again.


THE JUDGMENT


DIFFICULTY AT THE BEGINNING works supreme success,
Furthering through perseverance.
Nothing should be undertaken.
It furthers one to appoint helpers.

Times of growth are beset with difficulties. They resemble a first birth. But
these difficulties arise from the very profusion of all that is struggling to
attain form . Everything is in motion: therefore if one perseveres there is a
prospect of great success, in spite of the existing danger. When it is a man's
fate to undertake such new beginnings, everything is still unformed, dark.
Hence he must hold back, because any premature move might bring disaster.
Likewise, it is very important not to remain alone; in order to overcome the
chaos he needs helpers. This is not to say, however, that he himself should
look on passively at what is happening. He must lend his hand and
participate with inspiration and guidance.


THE IMAGE


Clouds and thunder:
The image of DIFFICULTY AT THE BEGINNING.
Thus the superior man
Brings order out of confusion.

Clouds and thunder are represented by definite decorative lines; this means
that in the chaos of difficulty at the beginning, order is already implicit. So
too the superior man has to arrange and organize the inchoate profusion of
such times of beginning, just as one sorts out silk threads from a knotted
tangle and binds them into skeins. In order to find one's place in the infinity
of being, one must be able both to separate and to unite.




I really could not have thought of a more appropriate answer based on what I already know about the relationship in question and this experience has left much food for thought.