Sparks : Friends for the No Longer Astonished Emotions
Holding Patterns, an organized mouse and an unfamiliar presence.
Spark #1
Grayson Gilmour is a friend of mine from New Zealand. He played in a raucous band called So So Modern that I used to go see play live when I was a teenager. They were wild, unhinged and full of riffs, scrappy shouting and video game synthesizers. Their live shows were sweaty and felt like a cereal box exploding.
The band have been broken up for a long time now but Grayson Gilmour has been making gorgeous solo records since then and I wanted to highlight an album of his released last year called Holding Patterns through the infamous NZ record label Flying Nun Records.
First of all, I love the artwork by Bryce Wymer.
And the whole album is a kaleidoscopic journey of droning, lush textures, from strings and harps to synths then punctuated by overdriven drum intrusions and huge bass synth lines. His airy voice is so calming and it sends me floating and punching clouds while I’m up there. Highly recommend living inside it for a bit. Every song hits and transports. My personal favourite is A Perfect Storm. I also co-wrote the last song with him Did You Make It. I love records that straddle these in-between emotional states like this. There’s a driving momentum to it but you feel like you’re moving in slow-motion. Do you know what I mean? Melancholic and hopeful. I have it on repeat lately.
Spark #2
A friend of mine sent me this news story from The Guardian telling of a small mouse that has developed a nightly habit of organizing small belongings left out on a workshed bench by a Wildlife photographer. He decided to film it taking place and sure enough, every night, this little mouse puts back the random items laid strewn out and puts them back into the little tray they belong in an orderly fashion. It is a must watch.
“Holbrook even experimented with leaving out different objects to see if the mouse could lift them, but the creature was undeterred and was even seen carrying cable ties to the pot.”
Stories like this just blow my mind. The capacity of we have (mice included!) to break out of roles that may have been seen as the limit of our potential. I have no idea why this mouse has taken to this activity but it honestly moved me to tears watching the studious way they so carefully went about the task each night. Their devotion to this small ritual and the beautiful execution of it… just because.
These little tears in the veil of our perceived reality are baffling but they should also remind us how much there is to notice when we look closer. Magical happenings under our noses…. in the back of worksheds. At night. I guess it just makes me feel hopeful and reminds me that the world is never all that it seems.
Spark #3
I’ve been met by a pretty low season as of late, the black dog’s been sniffing at my heels, I try to walk faster but she thinks it’s a game and only picks up pace. I am trying to make space for it but at times like this, it feels important to return to the writers who articulate these encroaching dark nights like painters find the light.
I have these words by Rilke on my phone with a reminder note to ‘Read Everyday’ :
It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing.
It is so disorienting to no longer hear our astonished emotions living. The ones that fill us up with a sense of vitality and direction. But they didn’t go anywhere. They’re just harder to hear now. So we make tweaks to listen for them again. Do the things that used to bring us joy even if they don’t bring us much in this new moment. Keep going. Recognize something is changing and a presence has entered us that requires loving attention.
He continues…
That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, is already in our bloodstream.
It won’t last forever. It must enter the heart and our bloodstream. We will integrate it into the wholeness of who we are if we allow it to be. So I shall soften my attempts to annihilate this panicked self. The surging self-doubt and disorientation. The presence that pierces with the lie, ‘you’re stuck here now’.
Hello old friend.
Fear won’t have the final say.
I hope these sparks create a little warmth for whatever season you’re in,
Till next time,
Thank you Kimbra. The exploration of all the things of which you write is so profound, exquisite, and sometimes excruciating. I wish I could write like you and I imagine that is partly why I love to read your posts so much. I take something in from them. The mouse. The black dog at your heels. The beauty. I need to listen to the music you mention still... I was writing about emotions recently as I met a musician here at a retreat center in Costa Rica who taught me something new. It was unexpected...as I have studied and experimented so much with emotions and how to be with them. Then this 31 year old classical flute player is teaching me about the breath, and then about energy and emotion in the body. It was such grace. My post isn't out yet and this is a part about that:
"Soak the tension in, digest it
What about when you feel tightness somewhere in your body?
I have spent years exploring this. I have learned to feel it more. To hold it with kindness. To ask it what it needs and to name the emotion of it. I have myofascial released it. Screamed it. Loved it. Written about it. Cut cords with it. Hummed it. You know…worked with it and experimented with it.
So it takes me by surprise when Héctor teaches me something totally new.
He is standing in my kitchen and he asks about tightness in my neck as it relates to a belly breath. What do I think I should do when there is tightness and I am trying to relax into a belly breath? He mentions grief (I have cried in front of him by now). I think of unspoken words that I sometimes hold back. Héctor tells me that we all get those things. He points to his own neck, mentions he feels some tension there and demonstrates. He says, “What if you just swallow it?” And he does.
It reminds me of digestion. My soft belly and organs are there to digest things. Why not emotions that are stuck or keep showing up as tension in my body?
This is much different than “swallowing” feelings to repress or bypass them. It is an invitation to digest whatever “it” is that is stuck somewhere as tension or numbness in the body. To work with it.
I have found it an interesting exploration to play with taking my body sensations into my system more, energetically.
I listen to Héctor and I try “swallowing” some tension in my neck. I imagine it going into my belly to digest, as I breathe a belly breath.
And it seems to work. My neck softens. My belly moves.
I have learned something new and I continue to experiment.
Sometimes, I simply feel myself soaking whatever I feel as tension more deeply into my body. That in itself is a form of digesting it. But more than that, it is a way to truly hold and integrate it. The energy is loved, welcomed, and allowed to land a little bit.
I integrate it."
A few times now I have played with this...letting something soak into my body like a sponge or swallowing the grief into my body. I am still learning to pet that black dog. It doesn't always feel friendly. Sometimes, it feels like too much and I wonder if it should just go away since it probably belongs to someone else or "the world". That is what I have told myself at times.... Much love and thank you for what you share here. I truly do look forward to reading your posts and find they add ease and a lovely frequency of something around the artful way to exist in such a changing world...as song.
I must admit, I am so far behind in your posts but reading this helped me connect. Depression lurks everywhere but I hope you find joy as well. Our breath is sacred and our soul divine. Where we were severed was a freedom, rather than a separation. We don’t notice it until our freedom is taken away.
In therapy, I was asked the question “when was the last time you felt you were in control of your life?”. At that time, I couldn’t answer. I had maybe one or two instances in my entire life. This broke the hold it had on me, that I had the freedom to do what I wanted, to chase my dreams or my tail, to write a legacy rather than birth it. So many things I had to grieve the loss of - time, freedom, people, the idea of a perfect life. I could no longer live in someone else’s shadow or control.
This helped me to find joy in the little things. I hope this is truth for you too.