opeth adventure

Just back from an amazing trip to Athens, GA to see Rodg's most favorite metal band, Opeth! And the icing on the cake is that he bought us VIP tickets, so we got to meet the band. It was pretty awesome! I watched the show from the perfect perch up in the balcony at the Georgia Theatre, while Rodg relived his twenties just feet from the stage.

(Yep, you might recognize the CD Mikael Akerfeldt is holding...)
To break up the drive there we went to Chattanooga on Friday and had the most delicious dinner at St. John's Meeting Place! I can't recommend it highly enough, especially the Vegan Goods!

(Which is NOT what Rodg is having:) )
By this time next week we will have seen Opeth again, have helped host Mary Halvorson and Stephan Crump who perform at Indeterminacies at Zeitgeist Gallery, and (fingers crossed) seen Matthew Shipp at the local VFW. And just wait until you see what's planned for the next weekend! Truly my cup is currently as full as the crates at Wuxtry Records... But it is equally as all-good!

full adventure

Sorry about the short posts lately. I'd already packed my spring pretty full, what with this being a 5 year for me and all. Then I added applying to graduate school, which involves writing a 5-10 page paper on top of the personal statement, etc. and I'm going all out! My big lesson in all of this is to try to be in the moment as much as possible and enjoy the process...and not to miss out on all the beauty around me!

friends adventure

Thank goodness for dear friends. I am so lucky to be surrounded by such dear, beautiful, true souls.

(re)treat adventure

Just back from a wonderful retreat with Joe Z. at Loose Leaf Hollow and feeling so grateful to everyone, everyone who made it possible. The waves of gratitude are vast.






Joe turned me on to the interview with Philip Shepherd in the most recent Sun Magazine: "Out of our Heads." It turns out Shepherd is working on a new book and could use your help. If you're called to help, it is good work:

blossoming adventure

On a journey,
Resting beneath the cherry blossoms,
I feel myself to be in a Noh play.
~Matsuo Basho

possibilities adventure

I'm just back from a wonderful visit with my dear father and uncle in Northern California. There's something so special about getting one-on-one time with people who have known and loved you your whole life. And the coast with its spectacular ocean and powerful redwoods was the perfect setting.

The timing for the trip was just right, too. Things seem to be converging these days to help shake me out of a stuck place I've found myself in. I'm starting to see some exciting possibilities and it feels great to think that I, much like the earth around me, am coming back to life.

scraping adventure

I had the most wonderful time in Asheville this week! I've heard so much about it in the 16 years we've lived here, but we didn't even make it to Knoxville until last year on our heavy metal tour, so it's definitely taken time for us to explore that direction on I-40. Wow! It was a gorgeous drive through the mountains and then Asheville itself is a lovely, funky city full of shops and restaurants. I'll definitely have to go back with my sweetie in the near future.


On top of getting to go to Marie Manuchehri's book talk at Malaprop's (the reason for the whirlwind, mid-week trip), I got to have dinner with her and her lovely assistant, Elissa, at Tupelo Honey Cafe. Such fun! Having listened to podcasts of her radio show non-stop on the drive there (it really is the perfect driving companionship) I tried not to come off as the total fan-girl, but I might not have completely succeeded.


One thing I really noticed on the trip and afterwards, likely because Marie is such an advocate for being in one's whole body and not just in one's head, is how addicted I can be to thinking and planning. At the hotel after her talk I watched myself space out on the internet for a couple of hours, looking at what it would take to become a certified applied poetry facilitator, not even something I really want to do. It was just impulse/action/impulse/action, clicking down the rabbit hole of the web for hours. I did manage to find some great dharma talks by teachers who will be leading retreats at the Southern Dharma Retreat Center in the Smokies this year (now that's something I would really love to do), so that was the background soundtrack to my web wanderings and likely the only way I ever came back into my body and realized I was exhausted and needed to go to bed.


So when I was chatting with Joe Z. this week I told him how addicted I am to thinking and planning, nothing he hasn't heard in our Thursday morning conversations. When he could get a word in edgewise he asked if we'd talked about scraping. I immediately thought about how Marie says to scrape one's consciousness out of one's head and into the second chakra, so I was interested to hear what he had to say about scraping. He's getting ready for a daylong retreat about Celtic spirituality and he'd been reading about how they felt like when we see a shortcoming like this our impulse is to scrape away at it. But to allow healing, we need to see it and then allow the soul to do its work.

Since then when I catch myself scraping through the same old grooves in my mind, worrying about the past, planning for the future, I've started just lifting the needle, like on a record player. It feels so good to be suspended in the air, lifted back into the present moment.