Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Music Trumps the Alphabet

I spend all of my writing time this morning hunting high and low for the song.

After a fun-filled dose of Music as Medicine yesterday, I’m short on words and high on music.  Lots of fresh sounds in my ears bringing inspiration and the realization that sometimes letters of the alphabet just don’t cut it.

For instance, that song.  Sun Kil Moon‘s (aka Mark Kozelek) “Blue Orchid” has haunted me for years.  I recall one afternoon I just put it on repeat and probably listened to it ten times in a row.  Is it the chord progression?  The timbre of his voice?  The words of love, angels and a Paris hotel?  I really don’t know what it is about this song that moves me so deeply.  I do know that it seems impossible to put words to the essence of how it feels to hear those notes fill my ears.

So this morning I continued my search to be able to find some version to upload here.  Let the music play for itself.  No words, just a song.

But in all of my internet searches, I only found a handheld video bootleg of a live rendition in Portugal – terrible sound quality – and a woman’s You Tube photo collage with the song as the soundtrack.  Both seemed to detract from the song, itself.

What to do?

Write a post about the elusive tune that you can’t hear?

Then as the sun rose and my writing window slowly closed, I stumbled across something that will have to do.  A You Tube video featuring a still, black and white photo of a woman in shadows and scarves, accompanied by “Blue Orchids”.  I don’t know the origins of the photograph, but I’m feeling thankful for a means by which I can share the song (thanks FerventSylph).  One day maybe I’ll get the WordPress Space Upgrade and stream my own media.  For now, it’s You Tube City and Sun Kil Moon.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Overflow in Motion

photo by Jeb

Recently, all creative juices have been aimed at setting some basic life practicalities in place.  This morning I come to the Archives with no cream for my coffee and feeling a bit inspirationally tapped.

Then I come across a photo taken by Jeb.

There does exist a well without end.
It sources somewhere between the notes of a song or the lines of a poem.
It courses through veins of arms that embrace.

My seven year old son has captured flow in motion.

Ahhh…the cup that runneth over!

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Shoulder Stands and Bird Doo

“Best breathing yet.”

My yoga instructor tells me that my breathing has been good today.  It’s been said that if you’re in a posture but not aligned with your breath, you’re not doing yoga, you’re just stretching.  Today I conjured Vader.  Tomorrow’s practice, who knows?  Every day is different.

Every day is a yoga practice of sorts.  Metaphors abound on and off the mat.

I’ve been given new postures to practice.  A completely new and unexplored realm, the dynamic inverse world of shoulder stands.  Ee gads!  Hesitant, I told my instructor that I was nervous.  Not sure I could get my legs up in the air properly.

“After everything else you’re doing in your practice…this is easy,” he says.

He was right.  It wasn’t that bad.  Just new and unfamiliar.  New positionings for me to attune to.

Speaking of positioning.  Besides being blessed with the addition of new postures in my yoga practice, it seems my feathered friends would also like to bestow their gifts upon me.

Post shoulder stands and beach time, I rolled up to a stop sign with my window down to the tropical air.  Suddenly, it felt as if someone had thrown a fistful of wet sand at me.  A damp and grainy splat had hit my bare leg and smattered the inside of the car door.  With a closer look, I realized that this was not sand, but rather a large deposit of fresh bird poo.  What are the odds?

courtesy of labasta

Bewildered, I stuck my head out the window and looked up, seeing nothing, of course.  My bird friend was swift in flight and long gone.  Amazed at the angle needed to achieve this perfect aim to reach me, I took the droppings as a sign of good luck.  They say bird poop is a blessing and that offering seemed destined for me.

Someone taught Jeb the Italian slang for feces.  For the rest of our car ride home – me with drying bird doo on my leg, Jeb in the backseat – he goes bilingual.  In some allegorical call and response, he delightfully announces “turd'”with a rolling ‘r’ and an Italian accent.  Then follows it with “stronzo!”

There we are, driving home.  Shoulder stands and bird shit.  Me, I’m still breathing.  Deep in the excrement and smiling.  Somehow feeling blessed.