Tracks In The Dust

04 Mar 2012

Speed Bump Ahead

I was walking through our wooded park in the neighborhood when I walked by road with a sign that said “Speed Bump”. It occurred to me that we all come up against speed-bumps in our lives. It doesn’t mean to stop or back up (I could just imagine all of the cars along the road stopped behind the speed-bump with nowhere to go). It means to slow down, take it easy over the bump, and keep your course ahead but be aware there is something in the road that is going to slow you down. It’s put there for a reason to keep us from going to fast.

It seems like we all have some speed bumps in our lives. Some of them come up really quickly and we don’t entirely notice the signs. We run into them full speed and it just shakes us very hard. We have to slow down for a bit, compose ourselves and make sure everything is okay. Other times we see the sign, we prepare for the speed bump a head – slow down and watch for it and slowly drive over it.

There are going to be bumps in the road, some we see and some we cannot see or others we choose to not see. We have to look for the signs ahead, be thankful that someone put them there to warn us. Some other times so many people have ridden that same road that there are pot-holes that have come with so much traffic, perhaos they are damaged roads and we don’t see them- or we follow others as they speed there way into them.

Either way, once you realize that you should expect some pot-holes, some speed bumps, some things that will slow you down; you can keep your eyes wide open. It makes you aware that everything you do (even the little things) can make a difference. Slow down as you look. You can slow down, and recognize the opportunity to move foward (over the bump) and that once yoy get over it you can move on.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Self-Awareness, Signs, Slow Down

01 Mar 2012

Sing With Your Head Up

“sing with your head up
with your eyes closed
not because you love the song
because you love to sing” (Aaron Marsh/Copeland)

There are days where I have no time to really think about how simple things can be… I hop in my car, dash out to work, get thru the day, get home and eat and relax and then start over.

I recently realized that lately I never stop to sing, stop to take the time to just raise my head and sing. Not because I love the song, but I love to sing. Its a chance to make joyful noise, and allow yourself the opportunity to look at the day and be thankful. Seems like everyone around me could use the break.

“i’ve never any time to play
i always seems to slip away
but it never really goes by
while i wait here with my lullaby
for our only try” (Aaron Marsh/Copeland)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzhAlxT2_H0

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged Copeland, Grace, Self-Awareness, Sing

29 Feb 2012

From Ditch To Ditch On Your Way To Center

Always working for a center, it seems like we are frequently blind as we move from ditch to ditch. We may not see it when it happens – not immediately anyway. But then looking in the rear-view mirror it seems easier to see. We want to be independant, but we rely on others to validate our value day-to-day. For some of us that means imersion into relationships (friends/lovers) or jobs or school. It can be almost surely a pleasure, but with these earthly things- we can equally be the ditch we are not aware of. Our center is questioned? Do we really need to be there? Can we be what others want us to be and still be at our center?

But being good with yourself as you (as I had said in another post) means understanding who and what YOU want to be. Spiritually is foremost. What defines you? For one of my children it meant voiding everything he had learned for his life before his mid-teen years, and becoming validated by someone who he met online who provided him some kind of answer. Her definition of my son. So many years ago he left our home one day never to return, with someone he met online that helped him to a path ahead that didn’t apear to be his “center”- but another persons idea of what that should be. I haven’t seen my son in 9 years. He is lost in somone elses definition and I pray one day he will find himself and look for a way to remove himself from the ditch he is in.

It happens a lot. A controlling person driving relationships from ditch to ditch.

Friends and lovers, family shouldnt consume you, control you, determine your fate or make you someone that is not you. They can help define you in the world by pointing out the ditches, by helping you keep steering to your middle. You can be left of center/right of center, or dead ahead center… but stay out of the ditches whenever you can. It starts by being true to yourself.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Self-Awareness, Sprituality, Truth

28 Feb 2012

The First Time I Heard The Music

The “First Time” for Music. There are so many first times in one persons’ life you could dedicate a book to it. Since music is a theme, I wanted to recall some of my best firsts with music that changed me forever. My top 5 Albums. What albums have changed your life? Made an indelible impression on you forever?

1 Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: I held it in my hands that summer day and listened to it over and over and read the words (they included the fickin words) and stared at the cover. I didn’t have the money for the stereo version- I bought the mono version. It didn’t matter, I was consumed by it. It still amazes me every time I listen to it end to end. It seems like a much longer album, but it wasn’t that long from begining to end.

2 Who’s Next: I blew a set of speakers because of this album. I think it was on “Baba O’Rielly”, but it maybe could have been “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. I can’t tell you how great it is that all of my teenagers love this album as much as I did in 71. They totally get how it influenced what they listen to today. It still makes sense even now. The songs. The lyrics. The music. Since then I can recall just one other time jacking up my speakers: Blink 182.

3 Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars: What Sgt Peppers did in its day, Bowie helped glam rock and all that it would be. It captures the heart of Velvet Underground and what would be the rest of the Mott the Hoople/T Rex/Lou Reed evolution. Even though there were better albums in that era in some pieces, this was the complete damn record.

4 Innervisions: Stevie Wonder man- in the way that this album was constructed is like some sort of opera for the inner city, but also like a painting, or a movie. It stands as a work of art. The album influenced the word of soul, funk, and everything that came after that. It influenced me by taking me beyond rock for the first time in a way that Motown music had not done before that.

5 Hotel California: The first time I heard this, I was in denial. I had heard the Eagles first album and it was stacked up with the America album in my collection. Then I listened to this album. It was the way that they captured the essence of California, and all that it meant to be the cool part of the next decade. The 60’s were behind us, this was the cool 70’s and this was the new band to take it there.

My top 5 list (of 50). Believe me when I say that there are a dozen really great contemporary albums on my personal list. I will forever be a Copeland fan (Beneath the Medicine Tree) and as emo it seems it is…Dashboard Confessional (A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar) or Something Corporate (North) or Jack’s Mannequin (Everything in Transit). Yes there is Dylan, Joni, Frank Zappa, the jazz of Dave Bruebeck or Miles Davis and others from the era gone by I guess- makes me feel old when I don’t feel old. But there they were.

Just bear with me here, music is the paintbrush that creates moments in time like pictures and the recollections that are always there. What are yours?