Under the Pine

I just watched Sally Potter's Orlando last night. A few days prior I went to the theater to see The Tree of Life. Both are visually stunning, and somewhat stylized, symbolic and non-linear in their approach. There's lots to love about these two movies, but I think what I love the most is that they use the medium of film to its best advantage. It's like you don't ask a strawberry to be a banana. The strawberry is best as a strawberry. That's how these films are to me. They exploit the power of moving images to affect us, not necessarily to tell an easily understood story by the mind. The mind works, of course, to organize...but often I found myself just letting go of making sense in that way and falling into the world of moving color, design, wonder. It's like what I imagine telepathy might be like -- their vision straight to my head. And the little things became stars -- the way light plays off the planes of a glass building, the way Orlando would gaze suddenly straight at us shattering the lens that separates, or the sounds of trees rustling and insects humming on an otherwise silent summer day. Trees as architecture, or as filterers of light and love, were truly lead characters in The Tree of Life. 


It reminds me of a time when Liz, my high school social studies teacher, rather mocked someone she talked with who said to her, "Have you ever really thought about trees?" "Have you ever really hugged a tree?" She thought that was sort of laughable and that the guy certainly must have been stoned. But somehow those questions have stuck with me. Because, no, I never had really thought about trees and I realized at that moment I wanted to.


So, 20 odd years later when I do my mudpacking to detox I have a lawn chair set up faciing a large pine tree in my backyard. For the 10 minutes that the mud is soaking out toxins from whatever part of my body I have it smeared on, I sit there in silence considering the tree. For the 10 minutes afterwards when I must be outside with my feet on the earth to ground myself, I consider the tree. And then for the 10 minutes after that when I soak my feet in salts and clay to draw out any remaining toxins from the session, I consider the tree.


I have to say I really have no words for those 30 minutes of my morning. But The Tree of Life seems to capture how sublime it is. That pine tree will probably be there for another 100 years or more. It'll just be there, in silence, a home to birds and squirrels, moving in the wind, standing in the snow, sending out little bright green shoots on the ends of its branches every spring. And I will have lived all motion and searching, and brief. We are not immortal like Orlando. Nor are we ageless like stones or still and planted like trees. We do not live from age to age. We are that brief burst of color, and longing, and wonder, bearing witness to what we are not.


And through that we learn what we are. The people who help us there are doing amazing, important work. Our consideration is important work.

Open Letter

I've been reading this really fascinating book called "Spontaneous Evolution". It explores the world of healing and humanity's evolution by recapping our biological, religious, political and scientific histories through a lens that marries spirit and science. The book shares how our commonly held paradigms of "how things work" has been dramatically challenged in the last 100 years by science, and our public perception has yet to catch up. Our modern thought is not so very modern after all. The future, so to speak, is already here but many don't recognize it.


I love books that bend my mind. Because of books like these, and because of my journey with art and healing over the past 2 years, I am starting to wake up and become a little bit more of an activist. I'm less satisfied with stressfully living my own life and more interested in being a part of a movement that wants to illuminate beauty and connection. We live is startling and magnificent times. I will recap some of my favorite 'new facts' in a post next week.


For now, I wanted to share a letter I sent to the Obama Campaign headquarters this month. I'm urging them to consider crafting a new American Myth that lives in balance with this land. I encourage every reader to find a way to raise your voice for one another. 

To the Obama Campaign,

I have emailed this letter to your campaign but I also wanted to mail it.  I feel compelled to let you know about an important issue that will decide who I support for president in 2012.

Hydrofracking is taking over my neck of the woods in Pennsylvania and I -- along with a growing group of citizens -- want it to stop. The President's position on natural gas harvesting of the Marcellus Shale is more or less supportive and I think it's worth it to share that he won't get my vote this time around if he touts this fossil fuel as the answer to our energy future or new sustainable jobs. I suspect I’m not alone. This is a tipping point issue.

I have become increasingly concerned with this administration's leadership on environmental stewardship as it relates to energy production; it's not nearly creative or inspiring enough. We as a nation need a vision to embrace when it comes to making these changes, we need an ambitious and seemingly impossible goal to strive towards, we need a new national story or new American myth of living in balance with our resources. I expect fierce and committed leadership on this issue as there is a clock ticking. Employ the youth and children in this endeavor and it will get done. Employ our president to lead the way and it will get done.

I had hoped that when I saw Obama stumping for election last time – when he very clearly said we'd bring about the end of the combustion engine -- that this would be a man who could lead us into a truly visionary future.

I haven't seen this future. I've seen nearly the opposite. Time and time again environmentally sound vision and policy gets woefully compromised. The natural gas drilling via the hydrofracking method is just another example, and I think people who care about this have had enough. We see the planet changing right before our eyes. It’s breaking our hearts.

Pittsburgh has an incredible resource in abundance of water. To use gross amounts of that resource for non-renewable fossil fuel extraction and to risk the pollution of that resource for future use, is doubly reckless in my view. The Obama campaign needs to know that simply getting clever or ‘smart’ about monitoring this type of drilling is not only reckless for the environment and our energy future, it’s also reckless for re-election. 

This is a real and very personal issue for me. I have been detoxing from industrial pollutants for the past 2 years and been feeling pretty awful for about 4 years (which suspiciously coincides with the uptick in drilling downwind from where I live).  Environmental illness causes job loss due to fatigue, lack of mental capacity, and frequent infections, and potential financial ruin due to expensive medical treatments that are outside of health insurance coverage. I'm lucky -- I'm recovering slowly but surely from my illness. However, if the environmental assault continues how will I ever become a fully productive member of society again?

I won't be silent if Candidate Obama campaigns on the back of my and my neighbor's health and the dangerous extraction of this region's resource, in exchange for the pollution of our other resources. I will actively campaign against him if there is any alternative to put someone in office who will do right by our planet's energy future, whether that person can win or not.

Don't get me wrong. I want Obama to be the guy, I truly do. I just haven't seen it yet on these issues. The chemical warfare waged by corporations because of the Marcellus Shale is the tipping point. 

                                                                          

I don’t presume that one letter will change his mind or your plan of action, but I thought it was worth mentioning so the re-election campaign could consider this new reality coming out of Pennsylvania.

Thank you for your time and for listening. I am open to further conversation if you have any questions.

Best wishes,

Heather Kropf

Singer-songwriter

Pittsburgh, PA

Quiet minds and global surrenders

It's been months since I've logged on to this blog. I think that's probably a good thing. I started feeling pretty awesome around the time I was songwriting. Then, like a runaway train, I kept on rolling just a bit too amped up, a bit too intent on getting somewhere.


And I crashed.


One of the things I've begun to really care about is the hydrofracking natural gas drilling that's every expression of imbalance, corporate domination, and backward energy-thinking, that's infiltrated the state of Pennsylvania. I kind of started caring a bit too much.


Question #1: How do you become an activist without losing your center? 
Answer: I'm thinking it's Buddhist in nature but I don't know what it is.
Answer #2: Love.


My heavy metals detox has progressed pretty well, I think. My second labs show that of the three highest metals, one is now totally gone and the other two are within "reference" range. So, I've got some work to do but nothing is elevated anymore.


My adrenals started acting up and I started getting sick a lot, again. So I'm taking a break from the sauna and the detox for the summer in favor of a few other things.


The other things: I had been on track to start making my 4th album, and on track to begin doing repairs on my house to get the mold remediated and get it ready to sell.


But I crashed, remember? 


So I started seeing a new person just for some immune support and adrenal recovery. We found out my entire system is all compromised, so I find myself on a new regimen of products. This time, it's all about getting my body alkaline. And interrupting the interference caused by scars. In my case TB and Small Pox vaccines.


Question #2: How do you know when you're too much on the journey? How do you know when to take a vacation?
Answer: I think it's got something to do with accepting that your timeline isn't really your timeline. My boyfriend reminded me that this is my journey and I'm on it. Although I want to fix up the house and make an album and do all the things that give me pleasure, I'm not done healing. This is my path.
Answer #2: You know when you no longer ask the question.


So, more Netflix movies (been watching all about Ancient Aliens!) and staying home and cooking alkaline meals and juices. Marveling at the wonder of early summer -- my nasturtiums are poking out of the ground. So are the basil seeds and mexican sunflowers.


I started 30 wysteria from seeds and one grew!!! Then the cat noshed on it yesterday and it's looking a little sad. Maja barfed it up and we monitored her pretty closely yesterday to see if the poison was doing more damage. She seems fine.


Meanwhile, I practice being who I want to become; I wait for a time of a quiet mind and a massive global surrender to love.

8 days of beautiful

I have had 8 straight days of feeling fine. It's been almost 2 years since that has happened and so I'm feeling like the luckiest woman in the world right about now.


One reason might be I'm so obsessed with songwriting that there's no time to obsess over symptoms. I'm doing this thing called February Album Writing Month (FAWM.org) where I am attempted to write 14 songs in 28 days. I've completed 3 songs so far: a pop-rock tune, a pretty folk-country number, and a spacey velvety esoteric song about The Wheel. You can hear demos of songs and read lyrics at my FAWM page.


I forgot how much I love writing songs, but even more than that I love being caught up in something. My brain is at a smorgasbord of sounds, images, words, ideas. Challenging myself to push past my self-perception as a "slow songwriter" has been the perfect way to brighten up perhaps the most depressing month of the year (in Pittsburgh anyway). Not every song needs to be a hit which is a relief, if not a revelation. AND, I can now see how the hit songwriting factories of yesterday happened -- you just get on a roll and then it rolls you along. Finally, being able to write alone but having a community of people doing the same thing is a perfect set-up. 


If you're creative at all -- and I believe everyone is creative at something -- then it's worth it to get the environment right. We have to get the details right so that we can fall into who we are. If you know that you can't paint unless the dishes are done or off the counter, buy a dishwasher. If you can't invent without good light, find the right room. Stuff like that.


8 days of awesome is making me a cheerleader. I have a short while before getting my next test to see how I'm moving out the heavy metals. I have to remember that even though I'd rather write a song, I must resolve to stay a little aware of the details of purification, too. I've been relaxing a bit, but it's worth the extra push for 3 more weeks. Anything to stretch these 8 beautiful days into 8 years and beyond!

holding on

Clearly I've been holding on to something. For weeks I've had that tight feeling all over and I can't relax no matter how many mind games I play, no matter how much deep breathing or how long I sit on the couch "doing nothing." I'm just all wound up and I don't know why. I wonder what it is that I can't let go?


Today I met a man who kind of blew my mind. With simply a look he was able to unwind me. At first I felt a myself relax, then a sensation at the back of my head, and now I'm home making dinner and I still feel unwound. How extraordinary.


It's causing me to rethink everything I've been doing in the past 2 years to approach my chronic junk. What if it's as simple as a look? 


In the same way as learning that the healing process might be simple, I'm discovering all this on-line business might be simple too. Applications have developed over the past 5 years to assist artist in ways that just didn't exist a few years ago. I've wanted to explore this but it always overwhelmed me -- too many options, too much time, too much maintenance. I've been doing it these past few weeks and it's SO EASY. I just began to set up my bandcamp page, and I just developed a new music newsletter for my fans. It actually looks like what I want to present to the world. 


Poof. More chronic junk gone. Why hold on? 

what we can't not listen to

I have learned this year to sing for spaces, regardless of whether or not people are listening. It's something that helps me stay in the moment. Tonight was tough. The last show of the year and I wasn't into singing to spaces because the people weren't listening. Right there, that's the drama of being a musician. My favorite story was years ago when the literacy council asked me to sing at their valentine's day party. There was a line-up of readers and the room hung on every word. I think poetry readings and my songs fit really well together so I was looking forward doing my set for this audience. I was introduced and wouldn't you know the second I opened my mouth to sing my words, people started gabbing. Like it was intermission. Like my words didn't matter and I wasn't even there. I have to admit that I was pissed.

So here I am again tonight. Part of me says well it's on me to inspire people to pay attention. But that, historically, has taken me down a pretty negative road. So, note to self: ask the booking agent whether or not it's a listening crowd before agreeing to play. Just as a head's up.

In general it's been a rough week health-wise. I am having a lot of uncomfortable symptoms of detoxing. The worst is late at night and the sound of blood wooshing through my ears is deafening. It almost drowns out the ringing. It's entirely possible that the neurological damage of my ringing ears cannot be reversed. But the wooshing and the pounding pounding blood vessels all over my body. It's intense. Someone make that go away.

Hmmmm, talk about a captive listening audience. This is one song I can't not listen to. Noisy bloody music.

now, and now

So, one of the additions to my house is a far infrared sauna (with a mini trampoline!). I've been warming myself a couple of times a week. It's weird. Sometimes it's like my body craves it, like exercise. Then, other times my head pounds and I can't stand the heat and have to leave the space well before I'm 'supposed' to.

I've been so focused on the health stuff that I've neglected the song I was working on. The muse has flown for now. I hope it won't be one of those cast-away songs because I liked the premise: the idea that in your dreams you see the truth of who someone is, the idea that when your dreams have disappeared you gravitate towards their truth because you have none of your own.

I know a thread of melancholy runs through my music. As much as I'd like it to be a thread of contentment and play, it's not that. These days I have no dreams to speak of. There is nothing that I'd like to do. So I want to write a song to grieve this loss. The gain, I suppose, is learning how to be in the moment more often. My dream -- if you can call it that -- is to feel here. The moment is extraordinary and overwhelms me. I sit in the sauna and watch the temperature light waver and the minutes count down. My only moment is to feel the sweat gather in folds of skin, on the small of my back, under my hair.

I wish I dreamed of tomorrow because that is what Americans are supposed to do. I would lean into it with everything I had, if only I had a picture of what I would do or could be. But I see no threshold to tomorrow. I just see now, and now, and now. A non-dream that will not fade.