Elizaveta Ephemeris

the world is not enough - or is it enough?

I am overdue on a number of things, one of which is calling my mom, who is in Russia. I miss her.

It has been a difficult time, emotionally. Perhaps it is time to turn to some literary friends I have acquired over the years. And so I do... to one man who is always with me, because of his words - well you guessed who it is:

..Love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away, you write, and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.

And if what is near you is far away, then your vastness is already among the stars and is very great; be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend.

Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.

Avoid providing material for the drama, that is always stretched tight between parent and children; it uses up much of the children's strength and wastes the love of the elders, which acts and warms even if it doesn't comprehend.

Don't ask for any advice from them and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.

(rainer maria rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)

I am learning a lot these days - about myself, my limits, desires and true needs.

The good thing is that the music is flowing freely - I have a full album's material's worth on my iPhone - and that's just my iPhone.

I feel like a phase is ending and another beginning, but I am still in between. It's not the most comfortable place to be, because I like certainty. But perhaps that's just it: learning to be in that place, with patience - that is the lesson.

It appears to me that many of the people I know are having a similar experience. Or perhaps, once again, I am just seeing the world through my own little private lens, that just so happens to be a bit foggy these days.

 

I am doing, however, some good work. There are some interesting covers in progress, as well as originals. I am also wrangling with software and cables. Eck! I hate cables. But, alas, they are necessary in sound engineering of any kind.

Here is a bit of a cover I am putting together. It is a French song I have loved for a while now. I think I'll do another version with English lyrics... well, I'll have to WRITE them first, but it will be a pleasure. And then I'll have to remix it for sure, it's too gorgeous of a melody, it has to go over beats, too.

 

 

It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living.

Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing.

That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, is already in our bloodstream. And we don't know what it was.

We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can't say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens.

And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than that other loud and accidental point of time when it happens to us as if from outside.

The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate; and later on, when it "happens" (that is, steps forth out of us to other people), we will feel related and close to it in our innermost being.

And that is necessary. It is necessary - and toward this point our development will move, little by little - that nothing alien happen to us, but only what has long been our own. People have already had to rethink so many concepts of motion; and they will also gradually come to realize that what we call fate does not come into us from the outside, but emerges from us.

It is only because so many people have not absorbed and transformed their fates while they were living in them that they have not realized what was emerging from them; it was so alien to them that, in their confusion and fear, they thought it must have entered them at the very moment they became aware of it, for they swore they had never before found anything like that inside them.

Just as people for a long time had a wrong idea about the sun's motion, they are even now wrong about the motion of what is to come. The future stands still, dear Mr. Kappus, but we move in infinite space.

Yes, that is definitely me today.

 

Mission for the rest of 2012 is to learn to walk a careful line between smugness and a sort of magnanimous noblesse oblige. And own it.

let the alchemical tinkering begin

The secret to life, I have found, is acknowledging once and for all that what is inside you colors everything around you.

If your heart is feeling murky and dull, that brush will tarnish the brightest day.

If, however, you are bursting with gold, everything and everyone around you will glisten, regardless of whether there is any sunshine about.

It is an alchemical process - and the magical alchemical engine, which works every second of your life is right here, right now, inside your own self.

That is also the reason why we almost never inhabit quite the same reality as anyone else: that force that informs our existence is vastly different for everyone. We may see the same things, but we interpret them very differently. If life is a coloring book, we color in the same shapes, but the shades of color are so very varied. 

Today I received some disappointing news... and yet, the strange bubble of joy that has been growing inside me in the recent days, refuses to evaporate. In fact, it works as a shield of sorts - and what would normally deflate me, has merely been accepted by my inner self as yet another twist of the Road. 

And here is this:

 

From Bruce Mau's "Incomplete Manifesto for Growth" :

1. Allow events to change you. 
   You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
   
   
2. Forget about good. 
   Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.
   
   
3. Process is more important than outcome. 
   When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
   
   
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). 
   Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
   
   
5. Go deep. 
   The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
   
   
6. Capture accidents. 
   The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions. 

getting there... and back to poetry

I am feeling a lot better today, but it is still a day of rest.

I just watched Love The Earth, which is a crowd-sourced short film, scored by Imogen Heap - and then her performance with special cyborg gloves, which produce sound wirelessly, and the movement defines the tone/sound.

She is beyond amazing: I adore her.

Tomorrow I hook up all my equipment, pick up the guitar and start playing with music again. I want to do some special things for the tour that starts mid May. More on that soon..

I also intend to write more poetry, make some serious inroads in the Beatrix story, listen to hours of new music, dance and be wildly inspired and creative. I have been *doing* a lot since the beginning of the year - performing, planning, stressing, traveling, wondering, organizing.

And now all my heart wants is playtime with my Muse.

Last night I went ahead and re-read some of 'The Little Prince' by Saint-Exupery. I recently met someone who made me think of the book and its character - not the grown-up, but the Little Prince himself. This is one of those books that forever speak to me: almost as if it is written in code, and the code translates into whatever daily life I am living; regardless of whether it is now, tomorrow or five years ago.

'The Alchemist' is another one of those books.

 

“It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” 
― Paulo Coelho, Alchemist

A poem I wrote a while back:

 

I am not afraid
Ok, maybe a little bit
but even if I am
it's just a temporary place.

But this much I do know:
The straight lines and corners;
illusions that we make
and clothes we wear
to separate ourselves:
they are not us.

Now and then I get this
aching desire to let go
of everything I have ever learned
about who I am
where I am going
and what I truly want.

There is something here
I keep seeing out the corner of my eye.
Perhaps, if I move sideways
instead of forward, or backwards
or even standing still
I will know what it is.

Now and then
I get weak at the knees
from the love I feel
for this world
and tonight they're within me:
the knowing, the fear, the pleasure
of being human:
so alive and imperfect.

poems as maps.

Face it, everything always takes a lot longer than you expect.

Especially when it comes to building something. Act of creation may be spontaneous, but even God, according to holy texts, had to take a rest after a few days. While something can be destroyed in a blink of an eye - a life, a forest, a career, a dream - a relationship - it can take aeons to build either one of those.

It also applies to days. You can plan out your day or work, but some tasks will take a lot longer than others - and you can beat your head against the wall all you want, but there is no use.

It is already one week into 2012, and I still feel like NYE was yesterday. Does it progressively get even more so as one gets older? I hope I can find creative ways to slow my perception of time down. It feels like universe is playing a game of poker with me and bluffing, when time goes by this fast. I have to call its bluff or else.

I also feel like I should start writing poetry again. Poetry crystallizes the moment and is a meditative experience. It's not unlike taking a walk inside your emotional world: it is a snapshot of your internal landscape through a lens of words. I think poetry is more useful, over time, than paying a psychotherapist. The wild or wounded creature inside you may take a while to emerge, when faced with a rational, albeit sympathetic stranger. But given an opportunity to express her or himself via a few random words, committed only to paper - or screen (for the smartphone poets out there) the emotional self will take the bait and give you a hint as to your real feelings and the why's of them.

I have practiced this time and time again. Some would argue  it's not poetry, but 'free associative writing' because it doesn't have to rhyme. Ah, but 'Poetry' sounds so much better. Put some words to paper from your heart, and you are a Poet. I like being a Poet a lot better than just plain ol' me who is doing something called 'Free Associative Writing'.

Just make sure these are not poems you post on Facebook or take to your significant other and say, uncertainly: 'Oh, it's this poem I wrote...uh...mmm...want to hear?'

These are poems to be kept hidden and private. They are maps of your internal continent and some of the traced routes may lead to treasure or great peril. Make sure you share them only with someone who already loves and accepts you for what you are, and does not need for you 'to complete' them. Or vice versa - if you are a people pleaser and need to validated, don't go there. 

Keep your poetry to yourself.

 

A cup of tea
not much longer
until you see
the wake of stars
with plumes of light
the moon is pale
open the window
let uncertainty in
and revel in chaos
of being human
(eik, 8-21-09)

a sort of letter to the soul

I have come across this in my notes again. I think I will read it at one of my shows at some point.Today it speaks to me, as the headlines fill my heart with unease, and I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I am packing. It has been a very intense two weeks. The show last night was a bit of a milestone. There are a couple more of those approaching. So why is it that I am finding myself close to tears today, over and over?

There was a girl there yesterday, standing close to the stage. I was singing and I looked down between songs, and she was weeping.

I only pray and hope that in the coming months, as I develop, perform and record, I find a way to provide something special to those who come to be close to the music I make. It has been dawning on me recently how important it is to use one's gifts responsibly and as fully, as possible, for it is only then that the alchemy happens. And people who are in the presence of those gifts are transformed, for a short while, but the magic has taken root. The alchemy of the soul. Art has that power, and none other than music has more of it..

Mis estimados:

Do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now... Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking.

Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is we were made for these times.

Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement...

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able crafts in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind... Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

We have been in training for a dark time such as this, since the day we assented to come to Earth. For many decades, worldwide, souls just like us have been felled and left for dead in so many ways over and over brought down by naivete, by lack of love, by being ambushed and assaulted by various cultural and personal shocks in the extreme. We have a history of being gutted, and yet remember this especially--we have also, of necessity, perfected the knack of resurrection. Over and over again we have been the living proof that that which has been exiled, lost, or foundered can be restored to life again.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency too to fall into being weakened by perseverating on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear.

Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?...

Understand the paradox: If you study the physics of a waterspout, you will see that the outer vortex whirls far more quickly than the inner one. To calm the storm means to quiet the outer layer, to cause it to swirl much less, to more evenly match the velocity of the inner coretill whatever has been lifted into such a vicious funnel falls back to Earth, lays down, is peaceable again. One of the most important steps you can take to help calm the storm is to not allow yourself to be taken in a flurry of overwrought emotion or desperation thereby accidentally contributing to the swale and the swirl.

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take "everyone on Earth" to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

This comes with much love and prayer that you remember who you came from, and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth,

(Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D
author of "Women who Run with the Wolves")

 

a bit of Rumi for the afternoon tea break.

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,

Like this.

When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,

Like this.

If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or what "God’s fragrance" means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.

Like this.

When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.

Like this.

If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.

Like this. Like this.

When someone asks what it means
to "die for love," point
here.

If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.

This tall.

The soul sometimes leaves the body, then returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.

Like this.

When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.

Like this.

I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.

Like this.

When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.

Like this.

 Vladimir Kush Art

let it rain

Tonight it is raining hard outside. I love rain and all the little noises it brings besides the steady 'thrum' on the surfaces.

I can't believe it has been ten months since my last trip to London, either. A lot has happened in these ten months, mind you. A lot is happening now and is about to happen.

I am weighing a few choices right now and standing at a crossroads. I can feel it and it is unsettling, to say the least. It has to do with pretty much everything in my life, including music and my living situation.

What is that dividing line between fear and exhilaration? Both are fueled by adrenaline, are they not?

I read something the other day about fear. It had to do with doing a meditation/visualisation dealing with your fear. The idea was that you do not fight it or deny it: you acknowledge it. And then you thank it for working so hard to protect you.

It reminded me of a scene in a movie where two men are in the midst of a boxing match and one opponent kisses the other. Which, of course, leaves the kissee completely flabbergasted and open to a knockout punch.

Looking back over the past ten months and reading some of my journal entries, I also know now that sometimes an outcome I wanted most at one time or other was not the right one for me at all. And I knew it in retrospect, looking back. Thank you, indeed, for unanswered prayers. But in the moment, it is so hard to know..

One thing I do know now, though: I will grow older, but I will do my best not to grow bitter, cynical or fearful. That is my choice. I wish to make a positive impact upon this world, I wish to gain complete mastery over my art - music - but underlying it all, there is that choice. To see beauty in this world, hope, joy, humour, meaning and divinity.

Oh, I am not speaking of religion. Although, I am not an atheist, either. Not at all. I am, if anything, a worshipper of Mystery.

'Love is what makes music', said Mozart.

I think it is time for me to kiss the fear on the lips, slip into the opening and run wildly, laughing, headlong into love of life, risk and instability.

"Look, poet, love is never what we think it will be. Love is like a boy trying to rescue a drowned girl from the sea and falling in himself'. (Keith Miller)

Do you ever have those moments when you look around yourself and the life you have been building and you wonder if it's really you, or if it's a decision you made, long ago, and you don't even remember the reason for doing so? Or, you remember the reason, but it no longer applies to anything you do?

I am a little emotional today. Maybe it's the full moon. Maybe it's the afterwash of the emotions of yesterday, when I got back from the studio at 4 am to see the news of the twin bombings in central Moscow on the internet, after which I called my mom in panic.

Maybe I am picking up on that energy back there. A lot of people are scared and sad. And it's not just back there: an event like that radiates all around the world, besides, there are so many Russians everywhere else, as well, and they would be affected by it, too.

The cycle of violence never ends, does it. To every action, there is always a reaction. When a violent act is perpetuated, justice is something that traditionally will be meted out sooner or later - to which there will be another act.. These things go on for centuries.

Today I am also missing my best friend who is currently in Cambodia. She is back there for two weeks to check up on the orphanage she worked at last year, for a non-profit. I am selfishly wishing she was here, so we could have some tea and make some good energy, full of laughter and companionship. She will be back very soon though. Time has been flying. It scares me sometimes how fast. There are some major decisions for me to make, shortly, very close ahead. I also miss my mom, who is Moscow, and has not been doing that great, health-wise.

There is a book on my bed, among others: it's Rilke's 'Book of Hours: Love Poems to God'. I sleep surrounded by books: they are like my guardians and silent friends. Only silent until I open them, of course. There is something in Italian, and something in French, as I am getting those languages back. There is a beautiful book called Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, which makes me feel every time that I should be a classical singer, and not delve into the strange, glitzy and ephemeral world of pop music. There is a book of poems by Stephen Dobyns. Then there's a novel by Robert B. Parker. His Spenser detective stories are my favorites. Neil Gaiman's smoldering picture peeks out from beneath the blanket, as it is on the back of 'American Gods'. And, of course, Clarissa Pinkola Estes and her 'Women Who Run With the Wolves'.

There is also a Russian novel by Akunin.

Yesterday I was invited to spend Seder at a friend's house. It was a big gathering, full of children and relatives. I had never been to a Seder. It was another reminder how ritual and tradition in form of stories bind people together and help them move forward through this life. It was another reminder to me how much a part of me has always wished to be part of such a family. Am I going to get a chance to start one? My own family - on both sides - is pretty disjointed and has not exactly been a source of much inspiration to me in that area. Do I even know how?

And it was a bittersweet thing for me, as well, because I was already out of sorts with the news of Moscow bombings. I felt welcomed. I ate too much. I joined in on the singing. I went home and slept badly, probably because I had gorged on the desserts and it was late in the evening.

To go back to my first paragraph. My reasons for doing what I do have changed almost completely in the recent few years. But strangely enough, I think they just reverted to those I had when I was very small. Music, writing and creativity were my delight. I also wished to heal the world. It was really that simple.

As the sadness passes - say tonight or tomorrow - I will have to acknowledge to myself, that, really, I am in an amazing place of my life. There is so much to be grateful for. But there is so much more to learn and accomplish. I would not have it any other way, probably, though. It is also so important not to take anything - or anyone - for granted.

I don't know. Today, as I sit here and type these words, I am finding within myself this strange desire to leave. Just get up and go, walk outside, get into the car, perhaps, and go. And yet, fueled, perhaps, by the energy of last night's gathering and its togetherness, I feel such a deeply-rooted longing to belong and share. And underneath it all, I want to sing, write and make something magical happen. Or watch it happen, as I am a part of it.

I think Rilke says it best, so I don't need to get entangled in words and phrases, trying to express this moment:

I believe in al that has never yet been spoken
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.