Can you make some Linden Tea Can you make some Can you make some Linden tea Can you make some From the earth comes a sound Like a bird Buried in the ground Looking up through the dirt Becoming one with the earth Moving with the worms Can you make some Linden Tea Can you make some Can you make some Linden tea Can you make some And the eyes on both sides Two worlds collide Soaring up burning flames Falling down towards ones name And my mind shakes Like an earth quake And it moves like a knife In a groove Like a flat plate That I saved for my last flight And it soothes All this heart ache As it moves through my crown I can feel the blood vibrates As it works its way down

The first time I was introduced to the white pine was around 2003 when I was having breathing challenges. A very wise woman suggested I make tea from the needles and just as importantly that I sit and spend time with the tree. To be honest, the last thing I wanted to do at the time was sit with a tree.  I just wanted to feel better…!

I started making the tea, drinking it a few times a week and each time I did I noticed I began to breathe easier. It took me a full year till I finally decided to actually sit with the tree, not that I was expecting some miraculous tree healing, in fact it felt a little funny and uncomfortable. That being said, I found myself periodically back under a white pine whenever I had the time and saw one when in a park. Then something happened, I can’t tell you exactly how, or when, or if it even happened in one specific moment or over time. In fact I can’t even tell you exactly what happened? All I know is I began to feel lighter, more connected to the world around me and yes in certain occasions experienced what I can only describe as moments of healing. I never actually heard voices as in physical sounds outside of me, but I did start to notice voices inside of me welling up each time I sat with a white pine. They were like thoughts but not quite like thoughts, they were more like feelings that flowed into very assertive, simple and powerful thought messages, that were than sent back into feelings in my body that resonated as truth!

I hadn’t written creatively in any form for a very long time and now prose, poetry and songs were constantly flowing through me. It literally felt like they were just flying by without effort or reason. I could choose to receive them or let them float by if I didn’t have the time or energy to reel them in.  I often had challenges paying attention and focusing when I was younger. Now I could sit further back in myself and actually see and hear the world around me. In fact I found that drinking the tea also helped me with focus. A curiosity was born. I wanted to learn! Learn more about history and art and science and nature and… Everything! It was as if a porthole was opened and there was no turning back, just a constant honing and fine tuning of this new awareness, this new… Gift.  Now I feel quite comfortable sitting in front of a white pine and any tree for that fact.

It is known all over the world as the tree of peace and drinking the tea made form it’s needles opens up the bronchia and helps one to breathe slower and deeper. breathing deeply is one of the most simple and profound things one can do to invoke more peace into their life and the lives around them.  It is a song about standing tall, reaching for your dreams and fighting for what you believe in in a grounded and peaceful way. 

(more…)

I was in the studio recording some lullabies inspired by my first nephew while my sister was pregnant with her second child.  After many takes of a song called “Opening Eyes” we took a break to stretch.  I had been at the piano and things weren’t sounding the way I wanted to.  I went to use the bathroom when I heard the engineer fiddling on the piano and going between two chords.  He was riffing off the chords and melody of the song we were working on but changing it into something completely different.  As I walked back I told him to keep playing and press record.  That was it… There was no rehearsal, I had no idea where he was going and he had no idea what I was thinking.  I just walked up to the vocal mic listened a bit and sang the first things that came into my head.  My sister had just been visiting and after all the songs that were inspired by her first child I guess subconsciously I felt a little guilty I had nothing for the second yet.  At the time we were recording I knew they were in the air flying back to Florida.  So this song was a kind of letter to her unborn child and all the hope and excitement in getting to meet him soon.  There was one or two small edits but pretty much what you hear on this recording was that take, that moment.

“I know the moon is aching

I know it’s time for sleep

in the west it’s slow and sinking

as the sun starts to rise in the east

I know it’s time

I know it’s time

I know it’s time

to rest”

We may not be long for this world or we may last another million years. Either way it is O.K., either way we should treat our world, earth, fellow human and animal as if it is our last day.  try it, next time you go to the gas station, grocery store, are online somewhere or talking to a family member who causes you stress, imagine it is your last day, your last interaction, the last face you will see.  Wouldn’t you want it to be a good one, fresh and without the baggage we all constantly carry.  We should treat everyone, everything, every tree with kindness not because if we don’t we won’t survive (which may be true), but because we love them as we love ourselves.  We are all made up of the same minerals and matter and energy.  The more we understand this the better off everyone and thing will be.  Yes, it is economically sound, ecologically sound and evolutionary sound to treat our earth kindly, stop drilling, mining, polluting, mistreating the earth and our fellow humans… but even if we, “turn things around” then what? we cruise until the next impending doom?  News flash… the earth will be fine, it doesn’t need to be saved.  It will be here much longer than us.  Is it hurting? Is it in need of us taking the clamps off of it’s body? Of course! But treating the earth and each other compassionately will benefit us most of all.

And… Even if we do everything right, reverse climate change, cut back on consumption and some how curb the population growth, an asteroid could still hit us and wipe everything out! I am not saying do nothing, pillage and give up, I’m saying act from a place of love, of joy, of gratefulness, not just for the earth and plants and animals, but for yourself!

I was on my way to visit some friends in Greenpoint Brooklyn when I decided to take a detour down a small street that led to the river. I parked my car in the cold-a-sack, but before I could enjoy the view, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a car a couple hundred feet away to my right. It was stopped parallel to me but perpendicular to the road it was on. Just as soon as I turned to look at it, the car went from completely still to full speed in reverse, slamming and bouncing off the large brick wall that was only 15 feet behind it.  A woman fell out of the driver side screaming, crying and then continued in a hysterical manner. Physically she seemed fine but she could not be calmed down by the few of us who were around to witness the accident. I immediately called 911, but was in a bit of shock and confused about what to do next. A few moments after she started screaming we realized why she was so hysterical. There was another voice a bit quieter then hers but still yelling and as I looked behind the car I saw a young man thriving in pain and holding his leg which was bent in an unnatural way and well… I’ll spare the rest of the details. He had been a little off to the side but still behind the car enough to get his leg pinned by it. I couldn’t believe it (especially since I remember thinking, because I originally didn’t seem him, how lucky she was that there was no one walking behind her).

Almost as soon as it happened a gentleman with a large camera and telephoto-lense walked right past the woman and injured man, not to help, but to take pictures and move on. I didn’t know how to help the injured man and before I could walk to him another gentleman ran in.  He was holding his leg up trying to keep it in one piece. I felt like I was in dream. Little by little people from the park started filtering in.  A woman with pink Mohawk and a fairly large cockatiel on her shoulder stood next to me as several ambulances surrounded the scene.  Later when I gave my eyewitness report to the police I found out that the man whose leg was crushed was the boyfriend of the girl who was driving.  It turns out that he was teaching her how to parallel park.  He had gotten out of the car and went behind the car to direct her.   She didn’t realize the car was in reverse and by accidentally stepped full force on the gas. The police said thank you and asked me to leave as there was no more I could say or do to help.   Bewildered and feeling a bit helpless I walked down to the park, looked out at the river and about a half hour words started coming to me. I found myself back at the same spot a week later with a guitar.

“Can’t you see I need some rest

and I’ve taken off my bullet proof vest

and the world doesn’t stop when I go to sleep

so I’m going to trust you as I leap.”