April Update 2015

G’day there, dear one, on this bright, sunny, Midwestern morning. After my brisk morning walk, i am happy to report that the ground is starting to thaw.

My heart is also thawing and warmed by the completion of another He She We workshop yesterday, co-facilitated with Dianné Jean Aldrich. i am fresh from the privilege of sitting in circles with brave and curious women and men who decided to suspend their beliefs and judgments to gain a clearer understanding of what it is to communicate with one another, within and especially across the genders. Trusting, stepping out and off the ledge, i enjoyed watching us all fly.

So i will not bore you any more with platitudes about this. Just thank you.

Angela Kaset and i put this message into this month’s featured song in Nashville, five or six years back. Angela is another mega singer songwriter, country songwriter of the year, award-winning, etc. We wrote this song honestly, no frills, no grandiosity, ordinary, open. We wrote it to each other, to ourselves, and to all those that we love and who have loved us. It’s a blessing song. Play it to someone you love. (love with a big L.)

Nashville Bound in April!

Nice piece of synergy at work here, i enjoy that word synergy; the whole cycle. The above video was taken in my beautiful writer’s room on music row in 2011. Makes me smile. In two days i will go back to where it really started for me as a professional songwriter 25 years ago. Nashville and my corner of the music business which has served so well.

i get to wander what remains of those famous musical streets of gold.

(Unfortunately with the coming of music file sharing both songwriting and music row has become largely un-sustainable, they are both dying.) i’ll also get to play with my beloveds, my sangha. Eat turnip greens, catfish and grits. Gobble down donuts at Krispy Kreme, the same one on Nolensville Road i sat in as a 30-year-old youngster and wondered what the hell i was doing in Nashville. The dogwoods will be starting to bloom. And i will go zooming with brother Shawn Galloway on rollerblades around Nashville. Living wild as ever.

Funny story. Living in Nashville got me off the belief fence. i’d never called myself a Buddhist before i lived in the bible belt. Mostly i decided to call myself an “ist” so they’d leave me alone. Or at least so they would know what they needed to save me from. And they might have succeeded. As my friend and mentor Tom C. Armstrong always said, poignantly speaking for God here regarding evangelists and fundamentalists: Good help is hard to get.

i will get to sit in my own Circle of Men again, and taste that sacred deer meat with those brothers and their sons and their sons. It’s 25 years pretty much to the day since i’d originally decided to light a candle, that i would be an alone man no longer. That’s a pretty good effort — 25 years of Wednesday’s with men, without a miss — don’t you think?

Underlying this whole trip is my beloved goddaughter Maggie Moo. And i can’t wait to do what godfathers do. i’m feeling my throat close with emotion knowing we will be in the company of horses and eating moon pies together soon! That’s what i’m most excited about: being home. Wow, that just slipped out. i figure home is where my homies are. So it’s a good call. Nashville is just that. That sense of place and continuity that my troubadour lifestyle craves.

If you’ve never been to the guitar town, dear ones, c’mon down. You’ll learn to say, “Jeet?” (Did you eat?) Don’t eat before you get here. i’ve got a meal for you. Jaybird’s catfish will set your heart on fire.

Wilson’s Tree

Joke: what do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back? A stick.

April for me marks two milestones. Two ends of the stick. On the happy end of the boomerang, i get to celebrate my 58th year, happy continuation Washuntara, on April the 30th.

At the other end of the month, on April the 2nd we mark the life and the transition of my beloved Wilson Forrester, my across-the-street neighbor whom i met when he was in nappies (Aussie for diapers). He passed four years ago to that

day, at age 19. It seems inconceivable that this much time has zoomed by, that merely months before April 2, 2011, we were celebrating the high school graduation of this young fella who had been such a part of the web and weave of my life, who had taught me so much about how to be a man and mentor.

The community will gather around the tree we planted in East Park for Wilson, with its plaque “Live Love Laugh.” And so we will continue to live, love, laugh like Wilson. For Wilson.

My pop used to read the obituaries. And i admit to sometimes having a look-see myself. i don’t really feel scared of dying, i’m scared of not living. Living wild. Dreaming hard. And loving big.

Love you big, W