Rising From Shavasana, We Find That...

Breath brings about balance,
as each cycle continues its achievement
worthwhile with little or no dispute.

And the breath brings energy back
to the hands and feet;
the limbs lay complacent and better
than intact,
for the body is borne anew to breathe deep.

To focus on one thing will be everything
that means something worth doing;
this is found in the case with deep breathing,
as concentration is put to the test at its fullest.

Let the tension sink to the ground,
and make the spine flat, no longer compressed.
The shoulders, pushed back and down;
not round, nor the ribs pressing against the chest.

The mind doesn’t think about bombs dropping
at this moment when the body lies still,
awaiting for the thoughts to surface;
Once there, acknowledge them,
and put them to rest then,
so needed energy can refresh into stressed parts
sending a timely message:

to relieve of wants, desires and needs
and simply be.

The sweetness of 2006, Thus Far...

I highly, highly recommend (band - album) :

Wagner and the Zombiemen - Across the Fall of Sunset
Built To Spill - You In Reverse
The Appleseed Cast - Peregrine
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
Mono - You Are Here
Russian Circles - Enter
The Black Heart Procession - Spell
Silversun Pickups - Carnavas
Thursday - A City By the Light Divided
Cursive - Happy Hallow
The Thermals - The Body, The Blood, The Machine
The Album Leaf - Into the Blue Again
The Lymbyc System - Live
The Black Angels - The First Vietnam War
Editors - Back Room
Film School - self-titled
Dredg - Live At the Fillmore
This Will Destroy You - Young Mountain
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Mogwai - Mr. Beast
Dredg - Live At the Fillmore
Kaddisfly - The Four Seasons EP
Band of Horses - Everything All the TIme
Forward Russia - Give Me A Wall
Story of the Sea - Enjoying Fire
The Umbrella Sequence - Crossing the Wires LP
The Long Winters - Putting the Days To Bed
Sickoakes - Seawards
Empires - EP
Red Fox Grey Fox - The Songs We Sing EP

Where, O Where, Has Time Gone?

It's December now; what the hell? November was just a blur. I saw Elvis Perkins, The Pernice Brothers, The Decemberists, The Lymbyc System, Dirty On Purpose and The Album Leaf all in 3 straight days! Yet I haven't blogged about them at all. Even though they were phenomenally wonderful, brilliant, vibrant, exciting, invigorating, peaceful and rocking shows!

Not to mention, in October I saw a slew of awesomeness:

- North, and Wagner and the Zombiemen's CD release at Lee's Liquor Lounge on Halloween!
- local bands new to me (Empires, Red Fox Grey Fox, The Spirit of '76, Cue The Doves) play with one of my faves, Kaddisfly, at the Toybox
- Down and Above at Ogara's Garage
- the ecstatic, hyperventalating-in-a-good-way Architecture in Helsinki open up at First Ave for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (though it should have been the other way around).

Great, great shows, and no review of them, for shame on me! It can be difficult to capture the present moment of a live performance, especially when a lot of time has passed since. You have the memories; you can conjure up the images and the sounds and your then-breathrate and your sense of comfort of being in the environment you want and all of that which has to do with human nature and behavior.....and yet, what you express never fits what exactly what you felt. That's the awesome power of the combination of mind and body working ever-present. Whoa, there's some poetry/psych for you. Nice rant, I'd say.

Agree?