laurabsings

For several months I was jamming through life, unaware, just barely present. Disconnected really. On this one day, I rested for a minute in front of my dresser. I was tired, sad, feeling pretty hopeless. I looked down onto the dresser's surface and saw what now appeared to me to be healing presences of all types - necklaces, charms, candles - all together in close proximity, some bracelet chains draped over mala beads, a hamsa resting next to an amber charm. I saw, well, I remembered in that moment that most of these trinkets and treasures had been given to me by this life's family members, each one with a special meaning, given with love and generosity. The light switched on, I smiled in great gratitude and then breathed a really deep breath, opened up my chest, and lowered my neck and opened to receive the peace I knew was mine. When I opened to receive, my heart space, inside and out, was warm. It was so good - I was at perfect peace. I don't think I had been

For several months now, I've known that something big is happening. Haven't been able to put my finger on exactly what it is, if it's career related, family related. It just feels big, and it's happening. It's also happening for so many of my friends. I keep asking around, "Do you feel like something big is happening?" And they answer "Yessssss!" How could something big be happening to so many of us simultaneously, in April/May of 2016? I think there was some planetary stuff, or maybe the election is making us all rethink everything. But really - I mean, it's not like the same exact big thing could be happening to all of us. How could that be? We're all holding onto the same string that's attached to a big balloon and floating together above the US? Whew, it's all kind of amazing, and kind of freaking me out. Aaaaand ... Too much thinking. Usually I expend energy trying to figure out what exactly the unknown is (in this

Yesterday I was sifting through a bag of little red potatoes, picking out the ones that weren't soft. For some reason I just thought the soft ones weren't good any more. I honestly don't know where I learned that. In any case, I sifted, and at the end of my bad potato-be-gone escapade, I had about a dozen "good" ones and a big pile of "bads" that I threw in the trash. I stared at the trash, the little soft ones forming a potato layer of insulation for the garbage below it. And I had a blast of thought - about my grandfather, and him and his family being so poor and only having potatoes to eat. And then it popped into my head, a potato famine that impacted the Irish so horribly. I wondered if, like me, they all thought the soft potatoes weren't good to eat? I think their parameters and circumstances were completely and utterly different. I also can't assume that they didn't have their own experience of privilege (like mine of trash

I generally don't pay much attention to what others do. No, that's not what I mean. I don't pay attention to what others do in that way of attention turned into comparing what they do to what I do. My attention tends to be paid in being inspired by their work, or standing in support of their endeavors, whether it's listening, or offering to execute a task or two on their behalf. But paying attention and then lessening my confidence is something that's long in my past. Well, no. I'm lying. Sorry. That part of me that I just claimed to be long in my past I recently discovered has actually been laying long and low in the sleepy part of me, right here in the present. It woke me up last week and started making comparisons. I was dumbfounded! I thought for sure I was enlightened by now. I believe it's very good to pay attention to others, in the way of being inspired to aspire. That's totally legit. But being inspired to aspire doesn't

I wish all the snacks that keep making their way into my mouth would translate into a lyric. I'm so hungry all the time and I never get full, and that's what's going on right now with my songs - I'm only able to say things musically, but without words. I'm hungry for music, and when it's time for lyrics, I'm full. And my lyric output used to be so awesome, and fast. Now, I wish I could fast, but all I do is snack. I'd like to enter my snacks into some kind of Conversion machine: one jelly bean = one lyrical line about a past relationship one piece of buttered toast = a spiritual growth lyric for a bridge one handful of tortilla chips = a chorus that expresses the heart of the masses So through this machine, I eat but I also get words. I like that. I like it a lot. Or maybe, a simpler solution: I could just listen to my stomach. Clearly it's getting all the attention nowadays. It might have a wise word or two.

I can't stop myself from giving. It's a thing. Well, it's been a thing. It's gone a little too far, though. I've had some really good months of nothing planned, just me getting re-nested after many years of extensive travel. Cleaning, purging, relaxing. Reading, writing. Cooking, baking. And there's some wine, I'm not gonna lie. All part of creating a space to receive, to receive myself. The "going a little too far in the gift department" is what's prompted this quiet settling. Like so many of us, I've been doing-doing-doing for a long long time. Just doing what I've been doing, without much thought at all as to whether or not the doing is actually doing something for me. I'm often told what a difference I make for folks with my music and singing, and how it's clear that I'm doing exactly what I was put here to do. I know this is true, but it's not all of me and I know now that I've let it be all of me.