Friday, March 7, 2014

Heroic Acts - Scene 1

Every heroic act is a result of deep commitment behind the scenes backed by a heart and faith strong enough to usurp 

Murphy's Law from its throne.  

-Neb Notsgnivil

I am lucky enough in my life to have close ties to some such people who I consider heros for this reason the first would be my daughter Autumn and with her permission, one day I will proudly elaborate.

Today - there is the barely 19 year old "EDEN", who, as I write this - is somewhere over the Pacific ocean headed this way towards the musician's Shangrala" aka - SXSW '14.

I took this picture of Eden during her first tour of Texas

Now - EDEN 2014

She's got her act together and is coming back 

to show us all how it's done.

Earlier this morning, I was preparing for our Kiwi cousin's crash landing on the couch tonight. I started thinking about her amazing journey of pure commitment to her music.. The first thought was about how she is   actually paying her way to come and be here from busking the streets of Auckland and teaching music.

One of the many articles that are being published about her lately make note of EDEN's old soul. I am glad that the press is noticing what would be hard to miss upon encounter, along with her elegant musicality and subtle radiance that washes over you like the first sunshine of spring.

Eden is an amazing person despite her popularity..She politely thanks me when I tell her this.. On the surface I guess she is thinking I am just giving her a compliment , but hopefully, later in her reflections, I hope is that she realizes that my intention is of trying to relate as an artist and that she doesn't feel alone in this world.

This part is only about my experience: 

Now I want to talk about the next thought I had this morning.. That's about potential psychological obstacles set in place by skeptics -interpreted by myself (a young soul) as buzz kills who create serious potholes along one's Yellow Brick Road.

Why would anyone ever try to assassinate my beloved spirit?

The acceptance of a new ideas into the following four predictable stages: 

Stage 1, skeptics proclaim that the idea is impossible.

Stage 2, skeptics reluctantly concede that the ideal is possible, but trivial.

Stage 3, the mainstream realizes that the idea is more important than the trivializing scientists in authority lead them to believe.

Stage 4, even the skeptics proclaim that they knew it all along or even that they thought of it first.

Here's two of my family accounts of skeptic's damages.

My uncle Ed Schlee  and his pilot - William Brock were bound for glory, potentially setting a 'round the world flight record in 1927. They made it all the way to Japan. While they waited out unfavorable weather conditions, Uncle Ed's wife became so worried that she convinced the US Navy to cut off all fuel supply rendering his failure to continue his fate's stride across the Pacific Ocean, home. He became a depressed alcoholic and the rest is not history.

On my mom's side of the family, my grandmother was a child prodigy actress in San Antonio. I don't recall the exact details, but the next thing I do recall is that she left home at 15 yrs. old and when her "respectable" dentist - father caught up to her in NYC, she was auditioning for a Broadway play. He scooped her up and brought her home. She enrolled in the UT Law school becoming the youngest female lawyer ever to graduate. She never practiced law and suffered from depression till she died.

Before museum and gallery talks, my father used to tell me that he hated listening to artists talk about their experiences to a crowd, so his advice was to keep my mouth shut.

As his child, throughout my life, I was easily influenced by him. The negativity was damaging to my self esteem. I fought hard to look deeper and the freedom I found is not commendable, but I will say that on the other hand, I am keenly aware of others who did believe in me. I look to grace in that and look forward to passing the spirit of support on to the next. 

EDEN is coming to Texas, Patti and I for these reasons will take her under our wing. Her daddy, Jeremy will be here April 1st to behold the wonder of his ATX street wise daughter's tour of her new stomping grounds.

I am so proud for EDEN's heroic journey and will sign off with this sage advice from a friend about his wife's path: "I don't have to understand what she's in to, but I do need to support her."

Just in case you were wondering…here’s a little    about me

You might remember me from your school…

I was the kid who was always getting called down in class for cutting up or daydreaming.

I had the attention span of a gnat. 

I did however like to build tree houses and forts in the woods.

Okay, I confess, I excelled at drawing in order to get girl's attention. I became good at fixing bicycles because I loved to Angel drive and crash them into telephone poles, I was learning to play guitar and I had a great passion for the vast Texas Gulf Coast and SURFING.

I came to realize sometime after I graduated from high school that the most logical way for me to deal with the grown-up induced dilemma of "what I was going to do with the rest of my life"

was to keep "trying on” lots of different things that interested me at the time. I thought I'd just let my life unfold like an open book, to be filled with significantly adventuresome chapters.

Surfers, by nature are opportunists, If not, we'd never catch good waves – right? So being a totally indoctrinated surfer, this idea of experiencing life like surfing seemed perfectly do-able to me, certainly more than one of those formal educations. I discovered that potential learning opportunities are like sets of juicy waves that never stop rolling in...

Photo: Ben in Oaxaca

My only guidelines were:

1. If it's interesting and fun to me and won't hurt anybody...GO for it!

2. When it's not interesting or fun anymore, STOP.

This was a good way for me to go when I was young, my life seems like it's been like an "Endless summer surf safari" ever since. In retrospect it seems a bit frenetic, but and I am happy to say that this youthful energy afforded me the opportunities to travel the world and meet many fascinating intrepid travelers along the way.

But now, a new and much greater aspect of travel has entered my Safari scenario, and that is the amazing adventure that come with finding comfort in stillness and holding quiet space inside. Searching for contentment with where I am and with whatever is going on at the moment is truly for me, a first glimpse of the last frontier.

As Willie Nelson sings...

"STILL IS STILL MOVING TO ME"