Categories
Arts & Entertainment Interviews music reflections

Love Found And Lost


“Sky Blue and Black” by Jackson Browne is an emotional roller coaster looking back on the joys and sorrows of love and its lasting impact. Browne wrote the song over a four-year period and released it on his album “I’m Alive” in 1992. The source material comes from Jackson’s relationship with a famous actress. However, Browne never wants his songs to be identified with his specific life events, so he rarely speaks about his real-life relationships, especially in context with his music.

“It’s a drag to even imagine that people are thinking about [the] relationship instead of their own lives,” Jackson told the Los Angeles Times. “I think if a song is any good, eventually it’ll turn out to be about the life of the listener and not about the life of the writer. Anyway, that’s my hope.”

Here’s my cover of “Sky Blue and Black”.

Categories
acoustic guitar artists Arts & Entertainment music

Jefferson Airplane: Comin’ Back to Me


Jefferson Airplane was one of the premiere psychedelic rock bands of the nineteen-sixties. The Airplane epitomized the subversive love and drug culture that emerged from psycho-active drugs like LSD, Marijuana, Mescaline, and Peyote. The band came to prominence in San Francisco in 1965. The original group of six, featuring lead singer Grace Slick, had a seven-year run. Later incarnations of the group lasted until 1990, but the original group spawned the songs that mattered. “Comin’ Back to Me” is one of those hits. The piece appeared on the band’s second album, Surrealistic Pillow.

The story behind “Comin’ Back to Me” goes like this. While sharing a joint of righteous Marijuana with blues guitarist and harpist Paul Butterfield, Marty Balin wrote the song in five minutes. “It just popped out,” Balin said in an interview. He immediately went to the studio to record the song with any available musicians there. Jerry Garcia happened to be one of them.

In addition to being one of the Airplane’s greatest hits, the song was covered by major recording artists like Richie Havens, and versions of it appear as background music in several Hollywood feature films.

Here’s my cover of the song.

Categories
folk guitar music poetry Videos

Through Her Music


I choose to wander in sunlight to avoid the riptide of darkness threatening to engulf our world.

I prefer to see and hear beauty.

I endeavor to open my heart to love. Not the love that comes and goes. Rather, to eternal love.

I am human. I need love and beauty as much as air and water.

Lately, I’ve been bathing in beauty, love, and light by listening and playing music. Specifically, one person’s music. Listen to my cover of Kate Wolf‘s “Muddy Roads” recorded on her last album (1986) Poet’s Heart. Tell me what you hear and feel.

“When we are connected — to our own purpose, to the community around us, and to our spiritual wisdom — we are able to live and act with authentic effectiveness​.”

MALIDOMA PATRICE SOMÉ

Gratefulness.org

Background Music Credits For Intro Video:

The Edge Will Follow by Javolenus (c) copyright 2012 
Ethereal Space by Snowflake (c) copyright 2011 
Homework by gurdonark (c) copyright 2010  
Reverie (small theme) by ghost (c) copyright 2010 

Categories
poetry

In The Windswept Fields Of My Soul


Desires, Lust, Sex, Vampires, Forbidden, Temptation

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.*

I wonder what secrets they keep.

The moon paints the leaves with a blood-red stain.

If I go in there, will I come out again?

Do thirsty vampires await?

Are the seductive voices I hear bait?

A ravishing woman appears from out of the air.

A second ago, there was no one there.

Her slender fingers with crimson tips beckon me.

She leans casually in a flowing negligee against a tree.

I have never witnessed such radiance before.

Her flaming red hair and porcelain skin are features to adore.

My senses awaken with overpowering lust.

She tells me her name, Melinda, and asks for my trust.

Can I believe my eyes or Melinda herself?

She stares at me confidently, embodying love itself.

What lies beneath such perfection?

To Melinda, am I just a confection?

My mind tells me these images are wisps of smoke.

In my heart the hellish fires of desire are stoked.

My right foot steps forward all on its own.

In the windswept fields of my soul, the seeds of madness are sown.

Night, Darkness, Beauty, Danger,Lust, Desire, Love, Sex

DISCOVER

SCARLET AMBROSIA–BLOOD IS THE NECTAR OF LIFE

*Excerpt from the Robert Frost poem “Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening.”

Categories
inspiration Making Changes motivation musings poetry

If I Dare To Leap


Clouds Interacting With Light. Lightness. Darkness. Hope. Despair.

“The path forward may sometimes be unclear. And it may be messy. But the shared heart is calling, and we have an opportunity to make lasting shifts toward love and justice in our world.”

Kristi Nelson/Executive Director of Gratefulness.org

On a rainy day there is no place to go

Except inside

To a safer place

To a better place

A place where I can spend days basking in meditation

Soaring close to the Heart Sun

Inevitably, I must arise and live in the world

Where the only way to move forward is to take a leap

Into the deep unknown

Into who knows what

Or where

I don’t want to jump

I’m not looking for trouble

Or confusion

Or more suffering

But walking in weary circles leads to “nowheresville”

As my Dad used to say

And holding on doesn’t work

So, a path cluttered with dried leaves is unveiled

Beckoning me towards a seemingly un-crossable crossroad

A paradox or a dilemma

The wise ones say, “Be who you are where you are”

Really? What if that place is constantly under water?

Unless I do something

Like making lemonade from demon lemons

I want to feel real love

I want to feel real peace

I want to feel real joy

If I take the leap

Will I find these delights?

Within reasonable bounds (if reason is necessary)

And so, I am pushed by unseen forces

To the edge of a cliff

Where I must decide

Without knowing

Man At The Crossroads. Decision Time. Jump. Cliff Edge. Dilemma.
Photo By Pagie Paige On Unsplash

Categories
fiction poetry short stories Uncategorized

The Time Traveler


Time Portal

In troubling times, it helps to get out of our heads. Try this flight into fantasy on for size.

Rush hour traffic

Reading bumper stickers

Bumper to bumper

What if

Suddenly

Time jogs out of joint

No traffic

Traffic-less

No highway

A tunnel

Swings into view

Sea shell music

A pulsing oval

Misty edges

The silver sedan rolls and rocks

Sideways

Front ways

Like a Disney ride

Nothing solid

Out of body

The sedan morphs

Into something else

Sleek

A magnificent steed

The tunnel pulsing faster

Strobe lighting

Compressed

Into atoms

Super nova

Lost in a sea of light

Memories stir like fall leaves in the wind

The broken bridges from here to there

Streaming through the eye of a needle

In multi-colored rainbows

Standing on an orange crate

Selling apples, pears, almonds and honey

To strangers who do not even know they are hungry

Bright sunlight becomes

The dead of night a millisecond later

The traveler astride the platinum saddle of the time machine

Racing through the vortex of centuries

Time Travel Vortex

 

Categories
Essays inspiration issues life motivation poems

This Single Moment


I don’t know anything anymore

I don’t know up from down

Or east from west

Or happiness from sadness

I don’t know anything

It’s becoming one big ball

One vast, amorphous something

In the midst of this single moment

I can’t turn away from my insignificance

Or ignore my greatness

In this single moment

Just hold me in the fullness

That’s all I want

All I need

All that matters

David Gittlin has written three feature length screenplays, produced two short films, and published three novels. Before quitting his day job, he spent more than thirty years as a marketing director building expertise in advertising, copy writing, corporate communications, collateral sales materials, website content/design and online marketing.

Categories
Essays inspiration life Making Changes motivation musings reflections

Droplets of Joy


What if you didn’t have to complain?

What would you choose to do if you were free to do anything you wanted to?

What if the word “boundary” was not in your vocabulary?

What if you dared to dream?

What if your dreams came true?

What if you listened to the symphony of your soul rather than the chatter of your mind?

What is peace?

What is love?

What is contentment?

What is harmony?

What if reality was sweet rather than harsh?

What if droplets of joy rained down every day and you learned how to collect them in the bucket of your heart?

What if happiness became your constant companion instead of a distant relative?

What would happen if you took the time to get to know your deepest, truest self?