Playing for Change

 We inspire and connect the world through music.

Playing for Change

Every once in awhile, you get up in the morning, there is a beautiful rainbow waiting for you and a new video from Playing for Change has dropped. I belong to Playing for Change. For me as a clinical social worker and musician it is the most incredible organization out there. Every new video covering a song brings them to a new level. Yesterday however they may have reached the pinnacle. They covered "When the Levee Breaks" via Led Zeppelin via Memphis Minnie. It just doesn't get much better then this.

Playing for Change, "When the Levee Breaks":

 

To Come Into Being

 For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.

Michelle Obama

I have talked before in this blog about my fascination of dark and light. To me they are the eternal dance of how we come into being, how we create and how we journey in our life. My last entry was about being the artist of your life. During the last few days I've experienced some pronounced events that are teaching me about creating and being the artist of my life. No longer am I just projecting the possiblity of being part of a new way of working with people, but it's about to happen. I have offers from 2 companies and am in the process of considering 2 others. There had been the darkness of working on the front lines of Covid-19 which brought my final disillusion with our healthcare system and the broken mess it is. And now the new possibilities of working with people to co-create with them a better version of the journey of this life they want to be on, to see it as a constant process and evolution have brought a tonic to my being. So in the next six weeks I'm going to experience some of the biggest changes I have experienced in 17 years, it's both frightening and exhilerating. Dancing with patterns of light and shadows to see what will come of this creation.

Playing for Change, "What's Going On":

 

The Artist of Your Life

 You are the artist of your life. Don't hand the paintbrush to anyone else.

This blog wasn't created for the purpose of achieving something in connection with others. It was created with the idea of accountability and insight for myself. That is to leave a record, of thoughts, of ideas of creation and results of meditation. Now if it helps someone else, then for that I am grateful. It has taken me a long time to grasp spiritually that I am the artist of my own life and even more that it is never too late to pick up the paintbrush. Things are happening, synchronicities, possibilities and so on. What is amazing is that after so many years of being on one career path and repeatedly stating I was going to make change...well now that moment is coming to fruition. I think the seed has been quietly growing and now is the time for it to bloom.

Bon Jovi, "It's My Life":

 

Fragments

Over the years, confusing fragments, lost corners of stories, have a clearer meaning when seen in a new light, a different place.

Michael Ondaatje

As life advances, we have more experiences, more memories. How often though is it that we hold onto them in fragments? It is only when another experience which some how connects to it, brings those fragments back more into a whole picture, albeit with a new or clearer meaning then what we gave it back then.

Movement is happening into a new phase of career,  and it is bringing back the memory and story of what I set out to do years ago. Now I have a new light and a deeper meaning of what I hope to accomplish in the places I will go.

ILLENIUM and Natalie Taylor, "Fragments":

 

Textures

I search for the realness, the real feeling of a subject, all the texture around it... I always want to see the third dimension of something... I want to come alive with the object.

Andrew Wyeth

Texture is something that I am obsessed with. When I'm out with a camera, I find myself looking for texture in everything around me. Decay, rust, layers all fascinate me... When I do textile art, I find myself looking for ways to create depth with stitches. The feel of texture can be sensual and bring alive the sense of touch. We use texture all the time in arts and life.  Perhaps also it is why I enjoy doing coaching and therapy. To paraphrase Andrew Wyeth to find the realness and the feeling of what is the experience of the client, you help them come even more alive on the journey of their life.

Some of the best texture is found in music. Here is something from a long time favorite.

Jesse Cook, "Into the Dark":

 

Going On An Adventure

 The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.

 Eleanor Roosevelt

It's the first of February and much happened today. I got an updated photo of my pup and I'm looking forward to bringing her into my life in a few weeks and the adventures that may begin. I began the final phases of working with 2 companies that will bring me into private practice and to begin to see the possibilities of new career adventures. If all works out, I will be working from home and from other areas of the US/world as I travel in coming years. I think I've become more frightened of staid staying the same, remaining huddled in my home. The last two years has been long enough with its fear of going out...it's time hang a sign on my life...."Gone on an adventure".

Mumford & Sons, "Hopeless Wanderer":