night rainbow

a feeling takes form when you give it a name. I have been feeling many feelings lately, and in the state of feeling so much feeling, I have contemplated what it is to feel. I have explored the multi-colored rooms of sensation and emotion. I have noticed how you can feel seemingly contradictory things within the same emotion-- the pleasure of longing, the pain of laughing too hard, the fear of getting what you want. we are complicated creatures. thank the heavens for music. in this time of intense feeling, I find music is like a warm hug of belonging on cold lonely nights.

two nights ago I found a name for a feeling: night rainbow. I am currently sequestered up north in a cabin in the sawtooth mountains. I am here to face my fears. I am hiding up here so that I may finally learn how to stop hiding. I am here to make music, and then to share that music and hope that it serves as a warm hug of belonging for someone else. I am here with my friend and collaborator, jaffe zinn, and so far so awesome. I am enjoying the ride of elation to frustration within minutes of each other. we work well together, and that comes as a big relief to both of us. it's not an easy thing to find. collaboration at its finest, pulling out the best of each part, making something wholly better than you could have alone.

the other night at the end of a long day, we stepped outside into the darkness to discover what I could only name a night rainbow. glowing around the moon, a rainbow of light. it seemed too perfect for how we were feeling and what we were doing. finding the colors in the dark. and so the name was formed for our collaboration. and now, a little peak of our night rainbow.



much love,
b

10 things I learned last night

feeling lost? wanna find yourself? I suggest you head out into the desert alone in the middle of the night with no cell reception and drive with only your headlights guiding you through a torrential hail and lighting storm. that's what I did last night. here are a few things I learned:

1. fear is a temporary feeling you can push through
2. you can never really see what's ahead, it's good to practice getting comfortable with that
3. you are braver than you let yourself be most of the time
4. music is like medicine on dark lonely nights (and pretty much all other times too)
5. lightning is beautiful at a distance and terrifying up close, but it's still the same lightning
6. your mind will tell you to stop long before you need to
7. the consequence of doing what scares you, is that you become aware of your power
8. it's good to remember yourself before there were cellphones
9. it's perfectly ok to give yourself a pep talk, out loud
10. we are only as lonely as we let ourselves be

help me!

I am awake

I am awake. it is dark outside. I want so badly to pick up the phone and call someone right now, but I am giving them the space they need. so I let the space spread like an inky blot, I surround myself with its blackness. what doesn't kill you...

we love, we love hard. sometimes that love takes form as the perfect and pure thing it was intended. sometimes it gets distorted, filtered through fear and doubt and selfishness. the intention alone is not enough. we must watch that love like a hawk. we must constantly take stock, is my love being expressed as love, or has it been cleverly disguised as disappointment or judgement? is my fear of loss turning my love into a hard ball instead of a soft hug? it's easy to become very convinced that what we are doing is right, in response to so much wrong done upon us. but then sometimes a gift, in the disguise of a gut punch, forces you to realize you might be the one to blame for all your dissatisfaction. maybe the love you'd been missing was there all along and it was you that was shutting it out, calling it by another name. maybe you were too busy sinking into the vicious pit of self pity to notice that what you were wanting was right in front of you all along. ah to be a victim, it can feel so juicy, so victorious in its twisted way. but how is the world to respond to someone who feels so unjustly treated? all the blessings bestowed upon your head, tossed aside and dismissed as one more example of how you just have it so much rougher than you should. I am trying to stay with the fact that remains, I am lucky to be here. I am lucky to love, even when loving leaves you sick to your stomach in the middle of the night.

here is something I have been sitting with these past few days: strength is the softest thing you will find. strength is softer than a bunnies tail. strength is not hard like I have been thinking for too long now. I want to soften. I want to open wide and say aaaaaaah. I want to let it all in and have faith that it won't destroy me. I want to trust. I want to let down these walls that I've convinced myself were protecting me, when it is clear now, all they have done is keep me away from the one thing I am wanting--love.

here's to staying soft and open and loving like you mean it.