October Love

Well, we made it. Through the worst of mercury in retrograde.

I don’t know about you but it was a hard one for me!

Hormones, life changes, the anticipation of preparing for new shows…the endless inner chatter that so many of us who have lived through tough times can’t always silence…it had a grip on me. How about you?

Surrender was the best way through, and I’d advise it for the next week…if any of you are feeling what I am.

Gratitude is always a centring practice. Just writing down one word, one thing, one event that you are grateful for…filling a page….will bring you back to a place of relative calm. Because then you can sit back and look at everything you’ve written, breathe everything in and know …. tomorrow there will be more….yesterday was not as bad as we thought it was. Time - the ultimate friend.

It’s been 964 days since I had a drink. (Yes I had to look it up.) I’ve stopped counting the days, but this past week it crossed my mind. There are times late at night, when things seem so dire…you want to take that old, easy road…tell yourself the same sorry stories, and I think partially we do that because it’s comfortable. We lived that way for so long. The thing that stops me is identity. I think I have gotten to a place where I know who this Emm is. And there are certain things she’s not gonna do…certain ways of life I would hate to go back to. So I ride it out, like a horrible storm…Kind of like coasting on a personal potential of 3%….until morning comes….and then it’s feeling more like 60%….and then the next day….it could be 80%….or it could feel like today, which felt like 100%.

The sun, the fair….family….new ideas….new thoughts for how to serve people, how to combat the injustices I see…those things made it 100% today.

Serving others….and allowing our friends and loves to be our mirrors.

To show us where we are f*&^%ing up.

To show us where we can love harder.

This week I offered a record deal to Zwerg. He’s made a beautiful new record, a total labour of love, full of great songs and lots of heart. Yes, my Dead Daisy is a small operation, but I know I can help, and once we had hung up the phone I felt the most perfect calm wash over me. Things (not having to do with music) I had been angry about had vanished. I felt possibility.

And I remember how much this community means to me. Small, but mighty. We have adventures ahead of us. Let’s never let go.

I’ll be sending a note about the next Backstage Hang soon…I’ve been missing you guys. It will be October 23rd at 9am PST / 12pm EST and 5pm UK. I hope you’ll mark it in your calendar.

Sending love and hope,

Emm

Above photo by Fran Tran.