Category: Work

Haiku Horizon weekly prompt- needle

Version 1

Skilled with your needle

eternal seamstress help us

repair our torn lives

Version 2

Skilled with your needle

O great seamstress teach us to

mend our tattered lives

Version 3

Merciful seamstress

your invisible needle

binds us together

one anothering us all

Eternally 

Writing 101 The Impossible Musical Choice

Day Three: Commit to a Writing Practice.  Today’s Prompt: Write about the three most important songs in your life — what do they mean to you?

My initial reaction is: impossible choice. Music is deeply personal and each day offers me the chance to choose new and old favorites again and again.  Additionally, in my work I am always choosing music for rituals, life events and other activities. While I appreciate music that is specified for such things, I believe that popular/secular music has the potential to be used in ritual and try to choose songs that reflect the lives of the people I encounter. All music, even the types that may not resonate with me are offerings to the universe. Art is our act of offering our best selves to the spirit and if you believe; to God or a power greater than ourselves.

Music often expresses what I cannot, in a way I cannot.  Although my undergraduate degree is in music, I utilize music as an avocation or adjunct to my work. I love that a song can transport me to a place I was when I was five or fifteen or twenty five, when the first few notes come drifting through the speakers. Music lulled my children to sleep as I sang “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof  to them at night. Music takes me through seemingly insufferable workouts cheering me on.  It accompanies me on long road trips. It lifts me up when I’m down or allows me some minutes of wallowing when I am processing the events that took me down. In the span of a playlist I can travel back in time and relive favorite moments all through a song. These reasons scratch the surface of why this writing assignment seems challenging to me.

So my twist is that for today, these three songs are the ones I choose from my infinitely overwhelming and exhilarating musical tarot deck. The music speaks for itself. I’m approaching this as a three song reading of my life today. Faith, Hope and Love. Today’s playlist is exactly that.  Tomorrow’s will be different and might include Bright Eyes, Gogol Bordello, and Leonard Bernstein.  I won’t know until I wake up.

Faith: Faith cannot grow without doubt. This song expresses that sentiment for me in a way I hope to embody faith. It is a struggle, a joy, a challenge and an important part of my life.Faith is about kind action and even in my struggles I am no less obligated to try to make positive change. Billiy Joel- River of Dreams

Hope: Warren Zevon is better known for many other songs. To me this song is about hope and about caring for those who care for us.  It is an expression of gratitude. I hear it and sing it as a prayer. Warren Zevon Don’t Let us Get Sick

Love: My Uncle introduced this song and the whole show- Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, to me when I was a teenager. I picked this version, rather than my beloved one from the show because I hear this song as an anthem or hymn and because I still dream of a world where the words of this song become true. Jacques Brel If We Only Have Love