WIth the new year I am pleased as punch to offer musical gifts for your personal edification. I do hope you enjoy these midwifed creations from two of my creative collaborations. I will follow up this post with individual posts with the story of each track, and I most wholeheartedly encourage you to comment on the tracks because I love feedback and it's a very healthy thing to learn from. So without further ado, it is my honor to give to you...

Musical Offering ~ The Rivering Flow is about the joys of parenthood. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Seriously. The greatest single challenge for me has been to allow for flow. With creativity always beckoning on the one hand and the demands and responsibilities of being a healthy papa (meaning that the boy always comes first) on the other hand, staying true to the sonic soul expression has been intense. Learning how to be gracefully interrupted and then to rejoin the creative rivering has been amazing (especially for one who was quite used to holing up in the studio for days on end...). This offering is called The Rivering Flow and I do hope you enjoy...

Musical Offering ~ The Pa-Tang Grin. This was the first time I was playing music and realized I had tears streaming down my face as this expression was being birthed. I now associate it with a deep thankfulness, appreciation, and the simple joy of being.

Here's another wildness that I now associate with this recording ~ Recently my feline familiar of 16 years transitioned from her incarnation whilst in my lap. It was time. Maybe someday I will have the opportunity to share stories of our countless adventures together, including the daily walk of a mile and a half to and from the road to our off the grid house in Alaska through moose infested cranberry bogs during the years we lived up there, or of all the mountains we climbed together in Colorado (none of the fourteeners though..). Needless to say I was moved pretty deeply when she left. I soon had to hop in the car for a spell and decided to put my iPod with over 3,000 songs in it on shuffle, to see what the radio iChing was playing for this occasion, and this unfolded through my speakers. I couldn't have chosen a better sonic memorial of joy if I had consciously tried.

Musical Offering ~ L'heur Verte.  This last one is quite simply from a dance with the green fairy. That pretty much sums it up. Enjoy! 

Musical Offering ~ Planetary Celebration.  Planetary Celebration is part of my current unfolding creation of the sonic aspect of VoxGaia. (See my profile and the Thomas Berry quote there for more info, but in a nutshell it is from my new show that is in the process of being birthed). This is a real time (nothing has been pre-recorded) live solo performance. Ahh the wonders of friendly technology.  I can't even begin to express how much fun I have doing this, but then again, maybe the music speaks for itself...

Musical Offering ~ Emergence.  This is another taste from my new show.  VoxGaia is shaping up to be a performance art environment wherein soundscapes are created in real time to complement, augment, and accent a telling of The New Story a la Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, et al.  I am quite excited about it’s unfolding process, and am continually amazed at the vibrancy it seems to inspire. 

Aho Relations!

I just watched "The Awakening Universe", a short 15 minute film by Neal Rogin available from The Pachamama Alliance, and I am completely floored by how elegantly this piece was written and presented.  It is the perfect introduction to The New Story as envisioned by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme.  If you are unfamiliar with the concept, The New Story is the emerging cosmology where all of creation is shown to be an integral system as confirmed by science but told through a poetic lense.  As Thomas Berry says ~ "If you are going to tell the story of anything, you have to tell the story of everything."  Allowing for context in this day and age is of paramount importance, wherein we derive meaning and value, and The New Story provides that in a way undreamt of until very very recently.  It is the ultimate marriage of new world and old, of brain and heart, of thought and wisdom, and I would recommend, nay urge, all thinking, caring, compassionate, and aware souls to support, spread widely, share, and watch this blessed creation.

If I had one magical wish for my entire lifetime, I would want everyone alive to view this film.

Always Love,
Eric

Aho friends and family!

I just started a new pod to celebrate the new year here at Zaadz called The Gaia Community College pod.  It is dedicated to celebrating the thoughts of Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Drew Dellinger, Neal Rogan, and all other creative ambassadors of The New Story. 

What is The New Story you ask?  It is the emerging cosmology of our times, weaving together the perspectives of creation as described by science and conveyed in the languages of wisdom through our hearts.  The marriage of mind and heart, thought and feeling.  The New Story provides us with a meaningful context within which to lead our lives, and gives us perspective within which to function as a whole entity, and rejoin the community of life that we have alienated ourselves from for so long now.

Ultimately The New Story gives us the power and strength to heal what has been broken, and to walk boldly forward as integral beings with care, and compassion, and love.  

Thomas Berry has said "An integral story has not emerged, and no community can exist without a unifying story. " 

The New Story provides this integral story with the capacity of unifying our species as nothing else can. For after all, "The universe is a communion and a community.  We ourselves are that communion become conscious of itself. "

You are most cordially invited to experience this awakening perspective and join in this timely conversation for yourself.  After all, the only thing we really have to loose we've already lost, so all that's really left is to find it again, and embrace it with all our hearts.

Always Love,
Eric

Aho friends and family!

I've been watching this transition from Zaadz to Zaadz within the greater Gaia Community, and it has been amazing to watch different people's reactions to the change.  It's been quite illuminating in many ways, and reminds me of Octavia Butler's famous earthseed quote "God is Change" from The Parable of the Sower. 

Siona, one of the community admins that has been so graciously and conscientously guiding us through this process, posted a transitional blog entry the other day with the statement:

 "I'm humbled and grateful and so happy to see what our new site looks like. It's a little like the beginning of Zaadz, except with a team of 150,000 instead of 10.

(Next time it'll be 7 billion, right? The creation of this virtual Gaia Community is just practice for all of us becoming conscious of Gaia in the 'real world.' ;)"

This has been a very provocative statement to me, because we do live in an age where we are beginning to make the transition from little isolated cultural identities to a planetary identity within the even greater cosmogenesis event that we commonly refer to as universe.  As above, so below; our little online microcosm is a hopeful reflection for the greater macrocosm, and I can't help but notice and appreciate the numerous parellels. 

There will always be individuals within every species who "don't get it" for various reasons in the greater evolutionary scheme of things, and fall by the wayside.  In context of conscious humanity, I feel that this is akin to loosing perspective, the proverbial missing the forest for the trees.  Our species has spent the last ten thousand years or so doing our best to convince ourselves that the same rules that apply to everyone else don't apply to us, but as we begin to mature as a community (in all senses), we're beginning to understand the sheer folly of that basic premise. 

I am fascinated with this growing awareness of our transitional process, and this is one of the prime reasons I was drawn to Zaadz / Gaia in the first place.  Along those lines, and to honor the visionaries who are midwifing the memes that will help guide us through this transitional process, I have created The Gaia Community College.com and a Gaia Community College pod here in this community to create forum for further understanding of such awarenesses. 

I would like to coordially extend a warm invitation for interested individuals to our budding communities that are nuturing these growths, and encourage any and all participations and contributions.  Ultimately we are all living in a most stupendous time in the history of creation, and it has come to be that the choices that we make now determine the course our little ship will sail as we collectively explore the heavens.

Namaste.
Eric