Alexandersmap

    Tag: Joni Mitchell

    • Where the River Meets the Sea

      And inside every turning leaf
      Is the pattern of an older tree
      The shape of our future
      The shape of all our history
      And out of the confusion
      Where the river meets the sea
      Came things I’d never seen
      Things I’d never seen
      I was brought to my senses
      I was blind, but now that I can see
      Every signpost in nature
      Said you belong to me
      — Sting, I Was Brought To My Senses

      Nature is a highly effective lens from which to see the world. When we look at the complexity of even the simplest of things—say a leaf or a snowflake, we begin to see the truth of our place in it. We may feel small, but we ought to feel equally complex and an essential part of the universe. We are billion year old carbon, after all, brought together in this moment to dance with the present.

      There’s a part of me that feels a natural end to this blog on the horizon. There’s a part of me that sees it continuing for as long as I do, for the clarity it brings to my days. It brings me to my senses, such as they are, and raises the game by forcing me outside of my own head again and again. Why stop now? And so every day, eventually, there’s one more blog post to ponder or dismiss awaiting the universe.

      All these ideas flow into the larger ocean of ideas that is the connected world. That there’s some turbulence there is natural. That ideas settle and are often diluted in a vast ocean of thought and opinion is inevitable. That we are a part of the great and infinite conversation is essential and assured so long as we click publish and let our thoughts swim.

      Thank you. See you again tomorrow?

    • Life Change

      “To change one’s life:
      1. Start immediately.
      2. Do it flamboyantly.
      3. No exceptions.”
      ― William James

      Some of us think of radical change but do precious little of it in practice. Instead we opt for incremental change by changing habits or jobs or the way we commute to work. There’s a strong case for incremental change in our lives, for it sets us up for long-term success. Flossing and brushing one’s teeth are good habits that can change your life (and those in close proximity to you) for the better. So is reading and writing every day: The benefits are long-term and tangible and well beyond holding your own at a cocktail party.

      The idea of changing radically and immediately is fascinating when we get stuck in a routine that doesn’t inspire us. When you see people do it, it seems less ridiculous to think you can do it too. I’m more inclined to believe selling everything to sail off to ports unknown is possible because friends have done it. There’s magic in possibility realized, and we all want a bit of magic in our lives.

      William James’ recipe for change is a simple two step approach. Begin now, not someday. And be bold in both your vision and how you communicate it to the world. We shouldn’t go slinking off to some incremental change—we must follow our damned dream to the ends of the earth if that’s what it takes. Changing the bath towels isn’t going to do it.

      Tangible life change is really a combination of bold choices and consistent action. Dreams can be realized in one bold act, but for change to last we have to do the work to make our desired identity stick. Put another way, we can buy a plane ticket to paradise, but if we don’t work a plan for our life when we arrive there it’s nothing but a brief holiday before the world wants us back. Is there anything sadder than returning to something you don’t love after a brief but glorious dance with a dream? Here’s an idea: establish what you love and put yourself in the place where you can best realize it.

      Lately I’ve been talking to people of a certain age about what their exit plan is. What are they going to do when they’re not doing “this”? It turns out most people have a general vision for a future version of themselves, but it isn’t very specific. Playing golf seems to come up a lot. Travel. More time with family. These are all very nice things, but are they bold? Do they stir the fire deep within?

      To be fair, maybe the long-term comfort of a warm hearth was the answer all along. We don’t know what we’ve got ’til it’s gone, as Joni Mitchell reminds us. We ought to ask ourselves why we want change, not just what we want to change. If the why is compelling, the what often seems to take care of itself. Habit formation is easy when the vision is clear. That vision is the person we want to be in this brief dance with light. Being a bit more flamboyant with that vision is the least we can do for ourselves, don’t you think?

    • Love Is Touching Souls

      Oh, I am a lonely painter
      I live in a box of paints
      I’m frightened by the devil
      And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid
      I remember that time you told me
      You said, “Love is touching souls”
      Surely you touched mine
      ‘Cause part of you pours out of me
      In these lines from time to time
      — Joni Mitchell, A Case of You

      Joni Mitchell, 79 as I write this, recently played live for three hours with Brandi Carlile and a host of other very talented people. I thought about doing a “Joni Mitchell in Five Songs” blog post as I’ve done with other artists, but this isn’t the time to summarize a career that’s once again active. I think I’ll leave it with this one brilliant lyric from A Case of You. Do you wonder who she’s writing about, or reflect instead on your own ghosts? She remains an inspiration for those of us who are forever stacking words together to find the meaning hidden deep inside of us.

      We are, each of us, influenced by ghosts who reveal themselves now and then in moments of clarity. Some are profoundly important souls who reverberate long after they’ve passed (I think of a certain Navy pilot as I write this), and some reveal themselves in a vision replayed from time to time. A gesture or something said that caught your attention in a conversation long ago, which rewards you now as a nod of approval for an evasive line you didn’t know you had in you. What carries these memories even now, after all this time?

      We are each in the business of touching souls, and making something of our time with others. It would be bold to say that we’ll ever be a highlight in someone else’s memory playlist, for being memorable was never the point at all. Too many focus on cleverness, when it’s bringing meaning to another life that ripples beyond our time.

      So what has meaning in our moments? Isn’t it feeling connection with another, for an instant or a lifetime built together? Touching souls begins with revealing our own to another, that they may feel liberated to rise beyond themselves. It’s a flicker of light in the darkness, fragile yet forever illuminating. Prompting reflections that shine beyond their genesis.

    • Back to the Garden

      And maybe it’s the time of year
      Yes, and maybe it’s the time of man
      And I don’t know who I am
      But life is for learning
      We are stardust, we are golden
      We are billion-year-old carbon
      And we got to get ourselves
      Back to the garden
      — Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

      At first I thought it was simply the snow melting while I was away. The place looks different, I thought. Some of the usual winter cleanup to do, fallen leaves and an abundance of fallen branches litter the lawn and garden. Some wood rot on the pergola that must finally be addressed this season. Some fallen trees that ought to be cut up for firewood before mud season arrives in earnest. Yes, this must be what’s different about the place, I thought again. Spring cleanup and such.

      We know when we’ve been away too long from the garden. There are things to be done. Things that bring us back to the earth. Things that ground us. Seasons work on us in profound ways. It’s not just the place that’s changed, but me. I’m not the person I was when winter began—are you? We’ve all change in ways big and small. What are we to do when we understand this about ourselves but to lean in to our best possible outcome in this next season?

      It occurred to me that I didn’t even know what stage the moon was in late last night. There was a time when I knew where every planet was in relation to where I was standing. The universe marches on whether we pay attention to it or not. Sometimes, in our frenzied and productive lives, we forget to be a part of things. Sometimes we forget who we are. What our place in the universe is. But life is for learning, and a new season is upon us.

      Gardens and sweat equity, pets and poetry, walks in the woods and wonder at the stars: each offer an opportunity to find our stride once again. As Whitman would prod, this powerful play goes on, and we may just yet contribute a verse. Has everything changed? Always. But while we go on, we might play a part.

    • Kindred Contributors of Light

      Kindred comes from a combination of kin and the Old English word ræden (“condition”), which itself comes from the verb rædan, meaning “to advise.” — Merriam-Webster Dictionary

      Talking to a friend about poetry, I mentioned a poem by Li-Young Lee, and paused our phone conversation while she read it, waiting for the payoff when one reacts to great poetry. We do this now and then; find some magic in the world and bring it to light for others to see. We each find our fellow torchbearers by the light they bring to the world. We learn, don’t we, that our light alone is not enough in the darkness? But just as the stars bring light and meaning to the infinite void of the universe, kindred spirits bring hope to us back on earth.

      Another poem, discovered in the infinite darkness of social media, drew me to Lee, and I in turn put his work out there that others may see:

      So we’re dust. In the meantime, my wife and I
      make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet,
      we raise it, billowing, then pull it tight,
      measuring by eye as it falls into allignment
      between us. We tug, fold, tuck. And if I’m lucky,
      she’ll remember a recent dream and tell me.

      One day we’ll lie down and not get up.
      One day, all we guard will be surrendered.

      Until then, we’ll go on learning to recognize
      what we love, and what it takes
      to tend what isn’t for our having.
      So often, fear has led me
      to abandon what I know I must relinquish
      in time. But for the moment,
      I’ll listen to her dream,
      and she to mine, our mutual hearing calling
      more and more detail into the light
      of a joint and fragile keeping.
      — Li-Young Lee, To Hold

      We are co-conspirators, you and I, each kindred contributors of light to the universe. We wrestle with the why, make the most of the how, and reconcile our when. It’s a fragile grip we have on our moment, but our hold feels more secure when the load is shared. Eventually we all must release our hold, but think of the light we might pass along before our torch burns out.

      But let’s not talk about fare-thee-wells now
      The night is a starry dome
      — Joni Mitchell, Carey

      Thanks Joni. Yes of course, there’s more: Hope. Meaning. Dreams realized. To be a contributor of light in the face of infinite darkness is to illuminate possibility. To live a full and wonderful life requires the friction of active engagement with all that this world offers us. We must wrestle with thoughts and ideas and opinion and find a greater truth than the myths we were taught to calm us in our moments of doubt. Friction creates a spark that, nurtured, brings light. Here we may warm ourselves in the glow of our potential, realized in this, our moment of fragile keeping.

    • To Be Witnesses

      “We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention. In some ways, this is getting far afield. I mean, we are — as far as we know — the only part of the universe that’s self-conscious. We could even be the universe’s form of consciousness. We might have come along so that the universe could look at itself. I don’t know that, but we’re made of the same stuff that stars are made of, or that floats around in space. But we’re combined in such a way that we can describe what it’s like to be alive, to be witnesses. Most of our experience is that of being a witness. We see and hear and smell other things. I think being alive is responding.” — Mark Strand

      We are stardust, billion year old carbon, as Joni Mitchell put it. To be made up of the same stuff as the universe but with consciousness is a miracle, really. We ought to celebrate that miracle with each breath. More likely, we might at least wake up in the morning embracing the gift when we’ve been granted another day.

      There haven’t been as many mountain peaks or waterfalls in the blog this year, and I plan to remedy that in the near future. Our lives are as big or as small as we make them. Blessed with good health and a sound mind, we ought to make the most of the opportunity. This blog was never meant to be solely about what I’ve read recently. It was derived from a bias towards action and the desire to see as much of this world as possible while here. Stasis should never be the goal in a life so very brief, let alone for a blog designed to convey highlights of the journey.

      This is our time to experience and bear witness to what we encounter. More, we should be active participants in living a full life, for this billion year old carbon we each walk around in will someday return to the universe. It ought to have a few stories to tell.

    • Something’s Gained

      Tears and fears and feeling proud
      To say, “I love you” right out loud
      Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
      I’ve looked at life that way
      Oh, but now old friends they’re acting strange
      And they shake their heads and they tell me that I’ve changed
      Well something’s lost, but something’s gained
      In living every day
      I’ve looked at life from both sides now
      From win and lose and still somehow
      It’s life’s illusions I recall
      I really don’t know life at all
      — Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

      When Joni Mitchell sang this song at Newport Folk Festival at the age of 78 this summer, you might say the song resonated more than ever. You might even call that an understatement. Life throws all sorts of challenges at us, and there’s no doubt Joni Mitchell has faced a few herself over the years. That’s living, after all, and meaning is derived from challenging and blissful moments just the same.

      Mitchell wrote the song when she was 23, an old soul to be sure, but having navigated some challenging moments in her young life already. She’d given up a daughter for adoption when the father left them, as I understand it. How do you process that at 23, full of dreams and schemes dashed so early on? You either give up in despair or you get up, brush yourself off and get back to living every day. You might indulge yourself in the former for a beat, but life demands we carry on or drift away forever lost.

      We must live and change every day, leaving some bits of ourselves behind, welcoming our best bits to join us on the next stage of life, and sometimes welcoming the return of old parts of our identity we’d drifted away from. Living our lives one day at a time, we tackle our hopes and dreams and illusions of grandeur as best we can, sometimes losing track of what’s important, and sometimes finding our way back to the path that feels most natural for us. Life is funny that way. We do with it what we will, and looking back, we might see how far we’ve come.

      Looking around, I’ve noticed a growing collection of philosophy on my reading list. I’ve also noticed an increasing inclination for active living. To ponder deep thoughts or to step out into the world? To make the most of this living business you need to pursue both, don’t you? We don’t really know life at all, just what we perceive of it as viewed through the lens of our experiences and present circumstances. But the thing is, we can keep searching and growing, and discover what we might in the time we have.

    • Thinking How I’ll Feel When I Find…

      I deal in dreamers
      And telephone screamers
      Lately I wonder what I do it for
      If l had my way
      I’d just walk out those doors
      And wander
      Down the Champs Elysees
      Going cafe to cabaret
      Thinking how I’ll feel when I find
      That very good friend of mine
      I was a free man in Paris
      I felt unfettered and alive
      Nobody was calling me up for favors
      No one’s future to decide
      You know I’d go back there tomorrow
      But for the work I’ve taken on
      Stoking the star maker machinery
      Behind the popular song.
      – Joni Mitchell, Free Man In Paris

      I hear a big song like this one a bit differently today than I did as a kid. Then I just heard the bigness of the song, the sonic beauty akin to a wall of sound production. Joni at her highest point in her career with one of the great side ones (back when side one mattered a lot). Now my attention locks onto the freedom of going cafe to cabaret and running into friends along the way, which seems like a grand way to spin about in Paris. And so different from the day-to-day grind of making a living and seeing things through. And maybe that’s why it was so popular, more than the inside look at David Geffen from the perspective of one of his biggest stars and closest friends.

      At its root the song is a longing to break free from that daily grind, whatever ours happens to be, and to live that carefree life in lovely places. And that, friends, is the promised land. And doesn’t require a flight to Paris, as lovely as that might be for each of us. Being unfettered and alive is a state of mind achieved just as easily hiking the spine between bald mountain peaks or walking a quiet beach offseason as it is being part of the cafe and cabaret scene in the City of Lights.

      And the question is, how much is enough? When you’ve earned enough to not be homeless or hungry, what more do you need? The restlessness in this song is the thing that’s so identifiable for anyone who climbs those corporate rungs, thinking about how they’ll feel when they find… whatever it is they think is at that next level of accomplishment. That next status symbol that shows everyone that they’ve really arrived this time.

      Last year Geffen posted a controversial Instagram photo of his stunning yacht Rising Sun in the Grenadines with the sun setting behind as COVID raged and he “self-isolated”. You can see the beauty and smugness in that photo, all at once. As I understand it, that yacht takes 70,000 gallons of fuel and who knows how much in provisions. I wonder if he feels like he’s finally found whatever it was he was looking for?

      How much is enough? Most of us will never have a comparable yacht or a private island or a ticket on a luxurious flight into space with a billionaire. I’m not condemning those who chase for more, but I don’t particularly want that for myself. Because being unfettered and alive isn’t about accumulation or status, it’s about being happy with where you are and what you’re doing in this moment.

      Think how that might feel.

    • We Are Stardust

      Serendipity lately seems to be taking me to the stars.  I dance with the stars often, as anyone who follows me can attest.  But the stars seem aligned (sorry) for me to write about them once again today.  It began with Ryan Holiday quoting the familiar phrase “we are stardust” in his exceptional book Stillness Is The Key.  That got me thinking about the Joni Mitchell song Woodstock (with apologies to Joni and CSNY, my favorite version is James Taylor singing it on the Howard Stern Show or if you prefer, in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony for Joni Mitchell)

      “We are stardust
      Billion year old carbon
      We are golden
      Caught in the devil’s bargain
      And we’ve got to get ourselves
      Back to the garden”
      – Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

      Heavy stuff when you think about it; we’re made up of stardust; billion year old carbon recycled into our present form.  Our bodies are made up of the timeless material of infinity.  And our thoughts are built on the timeless wisdom of the ages.  That makes us… timeless in a way, doesn’t it?  And one with the very universe around us.  Whoah.  But could this be true?  I believe so, but sought out validation with a Google search nonetheless (because isn’t that where the truth is?)  And I came across a Carl Sagan quote confirming that yes, we are indeed made up of star stuff:

      “We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff,” – Carl Sagan

      So this fascination with the stars is a longing to return? Maybe, but I think it’s more a feeling of solidarity with the infinite universe around me. A way for the universe to know itself… From the daffodils patiently biding their time in the sun to the stars I gaze up at light years away from that sun. To infinity and beyond, if you will. My reading finally brought me this morning to W.D. Auden (via Brain Pickings) and this stunning poem, included in its entirety because I just couldn’t help myself:

      “Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
      That, for all I care, I can go to hell,
      But on earth is the least
      We have to dread from man or beast.

      How should we like it were stars to burn
      With a passion for us, we could not return?
      If equal affection cannot be,
      Let the more loving one be me.

      Admirer as I think I am
      Of stars that do not give a damn,
      I cannot, now I see them, say
      I missed one terribly all day.

      Were all stars to disappear or die,
      I should learn to look at an empty sky
      And feel its total dark sublime,
      Though this may take me a little time.”
      – W.H. Auden, The More Loving One

      When the student is ready the teacher will appear.  I’m a ready student, looking up at the universe in wonder, and marveling at the bounty being returned to me by timeless teachers.  And isn’t that being truly alive, getting out of our own heads and dancing with this timeless wisdom?  We’re all stars dancing in the universe. Some brighter than others. Personally, I strive to be brighter still that I might offer more. If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.

    • Stargazing

      “But let’s not talk about fare-thee-wells now
      The night is a starry dome
      And they’re playin’ that scratchy rock and roll
      Beneath the Matala Moon” – Joni Mitchell, “Carey”

      These particular lyrics jump out at me every time I hear this song.  The spell of a starry dome night on a beach in Mexico with rock and roll music playing.  I’ve done my best to duplicate that portrait many times over the years, sometimes on a beach somewhere, sometimes just in the backyard around a fire pit, and sometimes on an island on a New Hampshire lake with loud music, fire and friends.  Stars over water, stars high on mountain tops, stars in the desert…  always stargazing in the darkest corners I can find.  Epic bonding time with my dog for years before he couldn’t go on our stargazing walks anymore…  and it seems I wouldn’t without him.

      The days grow shorter with the tilt of the earth away from the sun in the northern hemisphere.  Better suited for seeing that starry dome overhead.  A good reason to get back to nighttime walks, head tilted up for constellations, satellites, and the occasional shooting star.  There’s so much going on up there, and we sit in our houses unaware of the dance happening above the roof.

      “You know Orion always comes up sideways,
      Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
      And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
      Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
      I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
      After the ground is frozen, I should have done
      Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
      Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
      To make fun of my way of doing things,
      Or else fun of Orion for having caught me . . .”

       – Robert Frost, “The Star Splitter”

      Orion returns to the dance soon.  I’ve missed this sky dancer most of all these summer months.  I smiled reading Frost’s description of Orion throwing a leg sideways over the mountains.  Were I that clever with a few choice words!  I’ll get there, or at least enjoy the process of trying to get there.  We can’t all be Robert Frost or Joni Mitchell spinning magic in words.  But they weren’t that once either.  Just get out there and do your dance under the stars.  They won’t judge you.