Dear Dearest Dearies,
The time is drawing near – we shall not fret, we shall not fear.
Harmony is but a state of mind – soon you all shall openly find.
In our practice, we shiver with chicken skin.
The magic of voices and rhythm and grins.
Don’t send your love by mail, join us Friday at seven,
where songs we shall unveil may remind you of angels in heaven…
Love,
Crystal and Anita
Of late, I have been focusing on a healing path I never could have expected. The traumatic sexual and neglectful abuse of my past – the love and support of my loving Grandparents, lifelong Mentors, and my amazing Friend Family – the hard lessons of self-actualization I am learning through therapy and sobriety – and the Love and Divine understanding I have so hungrily craved since I was little, are all coming together and after much surrender, prayer, ritual, and release, I have been given an answer. Music.
For all the miracles to have occurred to place me right here, right now, gives me such reverence for Life I cannot explain. Through some lessons I didn’t see coming, and now others I am choosing to seek, my path is evolving into a new sense of self. I am working from a humble place, seeking a light that shines from within me to glow brighter and brighter. I want to work to enlighten other people who have experienced such abuses to feel free to come out and love themselves radically, to courageously face the demons of incest and sexual abuse. I want them to feel safe to seek justice for their pain and to truly feel that they DESERVE it. Music has given me the power to rise above the pain, to embody and employ it, to create such a stir that the pain actually SERVES ME instead of ME SERVING IT. MUSIC DOES THIS. MUSIC HEALS.
I have been given a Gift. One I do not doubt. I have a voice which has been used to chant rallying cries, protest demands, and wail in sorrow and in joy. From this point forward I plan to use this gift and share my voice with the world in a format that I had only dreamed of. For so long I was uncomfortable sharing my gift, afraid to shine and afraid to truly be free of self-built walls. So, without further ado, my announcement is this:
I am going to start pursuing music, writing songs, and make a debut album, putting my heart into all of it, not just a side gig. I’m inviting my muse to stay awhile – whether she does is a Divine insight I cannot predict or claim to know, but I have made the invitation. I have made the decision to make this my passion. Make this my craft. The gift I have been given is more than a hobby and I plan to fine-tune it.
I plan to record a studio album and I have ended my supplemental income (2nd job) in order to make this happen. I’m planning a fundraiser to help me make it through this Summer – to take piano lessons, write songs about this last year (and whatever else comes in!) practice my guitar skills, playing gigs throughout North Carolina, and some other nearby states, collaborating with my nearest and dearest music-makers to create something beautiful – and all this to make me happy and to feel fulfilled. I’m also going to make a zine about the story of my little girl and how she got here – that will be part of the many surprises to come. Stay tuned. Welcome Home Anita. 
(This poem I will put to music – I am feeling an irish-haunting and playful sound of old..) Listen to the poem, follow along with the lyrics below. ❤
They used to call that old white lightnin “moonshine” in these hills
How many lips have uttered those words; family ties it breaks and kills
Strawberry, apple pie or dark cherry kinds
But I found a new flavor my fingers, my heart longed to find
Paid heed to the unanswered questions I spent too much time tryin to answer
Somewhere down the line I met a Spirit, and she bade me to release her
She gave me the keys to an old wooden shed
Her hair was long and dark, she was only 3 and her granddad’s hair was red
She came from the deep, A dark despair trail of loneliness
She rose up from the ashes and held me through the hunger and distress
In that shed, she showed me the silver, copper and gold
she Showed me the jewels inside me, ones I thought I couldn’t hold
She said the way it works is like this,
“You fill it up here and it makes a little hiss,
What you put in it is who you’ve been
What comes out that Mystery Still is your destiny, my friend”
The Mystery Still, a belly full of unknown
Stands in that shed just waiting to be blown
Up inside, all the ingredients are there
“You just gotta believe” she said, “in yourself, if you dare”
I’ll show you the way cause you couldn’t even see
No matter how hard you tried, that Spirit… What will be will be
“and that’s the magic” she said to me
“Of sacred mysteries that come from pain and grief”
To know her name, down this path you must go
Of surrender and sorrow and even joy you can know
This still don’t make moonshine, but the moon glows here still
Upon deep waters, wet and a tear-stained two dollar bill
The birds are all calling and cannot be boxed in
Your dreams are free and aloof, just like the wind
Ask for them to come and to you they will find
Their way through the core, the ground, from the mines
The caves you dug a long time ago
Were dug by the same shovel that now makes you glow
This girl, she smiled, as I sat down in awe
Bowed my head in silence, in reverence; I had no flaws
Suddenly I was Sacred, and when I drank from that still
realized I’d learned the hard way, then she screamed, her voice hard and shrill
“your mantle, your fireside, your magic, I live inside.
You must often stoke the fire and feed me” she cried
“You never are done, don’t think you’ve made it
Each day, remember to keep the bright flame lit
Don’t let it go out, else you’ll have to start over
An axe to this still… and your spirit sinks lower”
Out of reach, out of time, out of luck, out of rhymes
Just put back on your skates and roll outside all the lines
You’re still is your own,
Every seed you have sewn
Waits and yearns for your return
Build another fire to burn
If you still don’t know what this still is about
Think of a soul, longing to get out
As in distill, intoxicate your beautiful self
Drink the mystery of what is, take it down off the shelf
You open a portal and let Spirit in
Release your control over who it is you’ve been
That little girl who showed me the way
She’s the fire-starter, pyromaniac at play
She can blow up some shit up because she knows no better
But refined… She has genius and shakes a tail feather
The horizon cannot hold her, this child of God and Moore
She put in the time and said Grace for her store
This Mystery Still she’s found out how to use
Is a vertical prayer, open to gnosis and truth
I’m learning to use it, growing day by day
Accepting my feelings, no judgment, in a loving and kind way
As she handed me the keys and I return to make my shine
She lies back, relaxes and daydreams all the time
I long to filter out what I’ve been told versus what I know
My innermost yearnings, the balance, the flow
The gut, the tingles, the pangs and blood, it is still warm
All tell me the truth, like a pouring down storm
It’s like talking to God, From a sacred, me – shaped telephone booth
The Mystery Still takes me, shapes me, and provides me with truth
So at this point, I have begun to realize that the little girl within me can be both nourishing and destructive. To channel the experience of her into a form that serves Creation – that is my purpose. I have to remember each day and since I just started, it feels like I am just entering Oz. I can see if from afar, yet I must enter through the field of poppies, and be mindful not to fall asleep or let my light be buried underneath the tall flowers of distraction. This process I must tap into constantly, for I have chosen it to sustain me.
Cliffhanger series…. more to come.
All those pieces of paper
spread out across the floor
stuffed in nooks and crannies
ideas of something more
Those words are bits of spirit
I caught along the way
fleeting moments drifted through my fingers onto paper
all yearning to be sung and played
I’m on the road to make them
to free them from one-dimensional space
let them pass into ears and hearts
giving this Spirit what its longing to say
Craving an outlet of voice and song
where electricity meets the bone
where the sunrise catches my breath
after being gone for so long, the seeds, now they are sewn
Bless this spacious and long-time confined heart
she’s still standing in her self-built cage
the door has been opened, through magic and prayer
letting in the light, sound – let it out, and not backstage!
Go – down into that story and shine
for the sun longs for nothing, brightens our whole world
sustains us all night, bright and stormy
yet, it must have the Moon mirroring in her journey
Be the mirror, the magical orb of night
the sensual tug of oceans, aeons ago – jump in, every time
take one step then the next then the next
let it shine, like Mr. Byrd said, remember T-Rex?
You came from feathery giants and now stand on their shoulders
simply herd those transmissions, spin them as you get older
don’t box them up and in – allow not for dusty dogma, for they are mayhem!
just like your story, they took time to grow – remember love, you must cultivate them
BOTTLE & CAN, Asheboro, NC
7:00pm (food truck will be outside, wings!!)
On this day a man was born who would change things. A match when struck that lit the whole world with courage. That courage could dwindle when we look and see who sits in some seats of power these days. That courage could seem to have been lost when we look around and see hunger still perpetuating in our neighborhoods, when merely the cold can kill people – much less the deadly assault weapons the NRA pays so dearly to hold onto. That courage still however, resides. En masse. That you can see in the hearts of those who march, more and more and more in the latest of years. Marches and protests and rallies and sit-ins and phone calls and letters and inundations of people waking up to the need for a participatory democracy. The need for them to speak up for themselves. No one else is going to do it for you. We may differ in our approach to ideal leadership; however we do not disagree that everyone should eat and live and prosper in a way one sees fit. Where poverty doesn’t damper someones passion for life. Where race does not determine whether or not you get a job. Where sex doesn’t determine whether or not you will succeed at being… an actress… a truck driver… a political leader.
We all have dreams and should have equal access to making those dreams happen and in order to make this a reality, we must have courage. I remember the legacy of DrMLK today as a person (of many) who went above and beyond merely what he alone could do, and fought for what WE could do, together, with others and for ourselves. While mountains of oppression are inevitable to fail, we have to know that to take the first steps toward liberation means we must see ourselves as worthy. Those steps are more than voting. More than praying. More than hope. They are filled with inertia, gratitude, forgiveness, giving, compassion, dedication, discipline, and pro-active love.
Live today for today. But live tomorrow for the good of humanity and the only planet we’ll ever get.
I am not special, but I am unique
A blessing, still a child in so many ways
Stuck because of forgetting where the exits are,
Where’s that damned fire marshal?
I am my own Compass
And I must remember the exits are an illusion just as much as the ground beneath me.
This child still feels the cold
The hunger and the hold of alien hands.
This child still knows alone as if it were her only kin.
This woman is learning what fills her cup and how to hold it in the rain for water and how to hold it in the fire for sustenance.
This woman is breathing in the tools of remembrance, one step at a time.
One moment to the very next,
one owl hoot to the next sweeping call of the crow from above.
The love is real
Find…
No,
Remember it.
It is older than you
Older than us
Older than we can know
