Adrian Belew Interview

This is an extremely interesting interview with Adrian Belew, the brilliant guitarist who has played with some of my absolute favorite bands of all time- King Crimson, Dave Bowie, Frank Zappa and the Talking Heads- and no doubt many many more. I love this though because he talks about all these bands that were part of my formative musical background. And all of this music had such a huge influence on me, literally a lifeline during really tumultuous times.

Before I went away to boarding school my brother gave me a KLH stereo and every day I would come home, or go to my dorm in school and lay down on the floor with my head between the speakers and let the music take me away. That music was so full, so rich, so subtle and so powerful and I see how much I have taken from it in my Sound Journeys- the ability to combine sounds that take the listener to a different realm. I really never thought about it in that way until tonight.

Gethsemane Sunset (Cymatics).wmv

This is just incredibly beautiful. Can you even begin to imagine what is happening inside of our bodies, our brain, when we listen to music?

And isn't it interesting how many of the formations from the disc on the left actually look like the brain?

Who is Tingsha Bobo?

Tingsha Bobo has been a rare but most welcome visitor in my life. I have experienced the gift of his wonderful ability to touch people's hearts and tickle their funny bones only twice in my life. The first time was on my 50th birthday several years ago ("several" is more than 3 but probably less than 10, yes?). Last Saturday he reappeared as if by magic while a few family members and I were in the midst of a celebration for my mother's 90th birthday.

I decided to write about him in this blog because sound is one of the vehicles he uses to transport people into his world of magic. His recent visit was quite short- no more than 7 minutes altogether- but during that time he played a small didgeridoo which he pulled out of his knapsack as well as a set of Tibetan tingshas (presumably where he gets his name) and a small rattle. When he appeared at my birthday he brought out a long haunting flute and quickly brought a group of 50 or so people under its spell. Both times he has combined the gifts of music and laughter, two of the best medicines known to man. We also discovered that he has a marvelous voice when he unabashedly serenaded my mother with her favorite birthday song! Anyone who has ever had a birthday in her presence has heard her sing that song. How did he know???

I have been looking on line for a derivation of the word "Bobo" which seems to be a fairly commonly used name for a clown. So far this is the most interesting and seemingly relevant bit of information I have come up with:"Who is Boo-Boo the Fool? A listener wonders if this African-American character has any relation the Puerto Rican fool, Juan Bobo. Martha draws a connection to the Spanish term bobo, meaning “fool,” and its Latin root balbus, meaning “stammerer”. Grant notes that the name Bobo has been extremely common for clowns since at least the 1940s, and the bobo/clown/jester character is prevalent in most all cultural folklores, be they African, South American, or Anglo-European."

So, if anyone were to ask me "Who is Tingsha Bobo?" (which they occasionally do since we have an extra line for him on our phone just in case someone needs to reach him for some laughter and song- hopefully we could call him in through the ethers) from my brief introductions to him my answer would be that he is a clown, a very sweet clown, who uses music as his medium- although I suspect he has some other tricks up his sleeve (or in his knapsack) that have yet to be revealed.

Enjoy!

Fred Neil, Vince Martin & John Sebastian - "The Dolphins" 8/2/76

Fred Neil... Sweet! And John Sebastian playing that oh-so-sweet harmonica. Great and rare find on YouTube. I love that more and more posts go up every day of and by so many great musicians- stuff that is rare, precious and heart-warming.

Wake Up Call

Good morning blogaholics. I haven't written a word here in 6 weeks. Finally my schedule has wound down. I am in Massachusetts at my mother's house and will be here for the next 8-10 weeks- through the new year as it looks right now.

About five weeks ago I went back to California for two weeks to teach a sound healing workshop on the use of tuning forks. It was at my sister's clinic in Los Gatos, the Six Harmonies Traditional Medicine Center. We had a class of ten students including my sister Miranda and her partner Jen Minor- who are both amazing practitioners! I have to admit that I am quite astounded at the work they are doing out there. I have known them both for a long time (yes, well... one of them all my life!) and have certainly experienced Miranda's work but the blending of modalities and the sensitivity with which they individually address each client was so impressive. They use Traditional Chinese Medicine (acupuncture, herbs and tui na), Thai massage and craniosacral therapy and also have a number of apprentices they are training- all of them either acupuncture students or licensed acupuncturists.

So I was essentially there to help them explore ways that they could incorporate sound into their practice. The workshop was great- it was a wonderful group and although it was one day and basically a very intensive intro, I felt that everyone got a lot out of it and would really be able to work with what what they had learned. I also did a Sound Journey and the second week I was there gave a lot of sessions, all but one with tuning forks. I did give one person a session with crystal bowls.

The most powerful part of it all for me was doing 3-4 tuning fork sessions every day for a week. I was so immersed in the process and it was such a wonderfully contemplative time. It is such beautiful quiet work and a simple straightforward protocol with very little hands on and it allows a space for the practitioner to become very quiet and internal and really it gave me a lot of time to look at my life and where I am now and see where I might want to do somethings differently- particularly for me in regards to my physical environment, given that I have never liked living in Florida. The awareness that it is time for me to really move forward towards making a change hit me very strongly.

The Creative Mind

Woke up- no- correction- found myself awake this morning very early, unable to sleep- my mind having a mind of its own! In fact it seemed as though I slept very little during the night. My body wanted to sleep and in fact one part of my mind seemed to be wishing that the active part of my mind would quiet down so that we could all go back to sleep! But that did not happen. So I surrendered to the part that was awake and my body begrudgingly followed along. We got up (me, my body and the various conscious and semi-conscious parts of my mind), grabbed a copy of "A Course in Miracles" that was by the bed, threw on some clothes and made my way into the living room. The sound of birds outside was irresistible- they've been drowned out by the air conditioner for months and was probably the most compelling reason to remove the pillow covering my head (the last ditch effort to go back to sleep) and get up and enjoy the sound and see what else was waiting for me in the early morning hours.

All of this led me to thinking about the activity, the creativity and the expansiveness of the mind. My intuitive sense tells me that it has infinite potential, literally, but we are so used to be confined in a body that we automatically throw confines around the mind as well because we don't know how NOT to. My friend Will said years ago that we live on an addictive plane- we have gravity pulling us down at all times. That stayed with me. As I lay in bed this morning I was aware of some tendency to move toward fear in my mental body and a lesson from ACIM came to me. Simply, "There is nothing to fear." I allowed myself to rest in that awareness for a little while, observing my thoughts before I got up. The body is not confined by the mind. I know that as I sit in this chair and I write, and I close my eyes and I listen. There are trucks in the distance, dogs, birds, cars, the movement of the air.

Where does my mind go when I sleep? If it does not sleep when I sleep (which it clearly does not!) then does it die when my body dies? It seems highly unlikely. But it will no longer be trapped by the body, by gravitational forces that want to limit it and rein it in. The mind has a compulsion to create and in line with the tendencies of this plane it also can be drawn in to addictive patterns- those tape loops that keep us away in the middle of the night. Some of it I think is biological- like the addictive pull of the computer which I believe is a factor of frequency. How often I sit down at the computer with the intention of either performing a simple task (checking email, sending a message, looking up an address) or beginning a creative project (writing, creating a brochure) and I find myself wasting absurd amounts of time due to distraction and attraction of varying sorts- but I think they all come down to a frequency, or frequencies, that pull at various parts of the brain-mind-body. It is interesting to see the shift from creativity to stagnancy that can occur in a short space of time.

The ability to create is fascinating. The mind uses the body to express itself. Yesterday I read a quote about the challenges of an untrained mind and what a powerful tool a well-trained mind is. When I got up and turned my computer on this morning, thinking about the creative potential of the mind, the confines and the expansiveness, I was met with this beautiful video. The music was composed and sung by my friend Christine Ghezzo. I felt it was the perfect expression of all that I had been thinking about, a perfect example of the mind's urge for creative expression and one of the billions of forms that takes.

Wholistic Chants

Just found some tracks on Youtube from one of my favorite albums of all time- the Apple recording from the Radha Krishna. I still have the vinyl but it is not remotely playable! But I could never get rid of it- especially since it has the transliteration of all the chants from the Devanagari- it was my first real introduction to Sanskrit. I remember when I used to chant along with it as a teenager and experiencing the familiarity of the language and my homesickness for India even though still today I have not yet been there in this lifetime.