Embracing Your Fearless

Last weekend, I played a favorite song that I hadn’t shared in a while. It’s a special one because it was co-written with 2 of my favorite artist friends from Taos. A few years ago I was asked to participate in an Ekphrasis which is an event where writers / poets ‘comment’ or create a poem / story based on a visual piece of art.

I was given a poem and a painting and asked to write a song.

The Painting by Tera Muskrat was called, “Channeling Georgia." (see above!)

And the Poem by Jen Acampora was called, "EROS: Georgia's Poem"

It’s interesting that Georgia’s spirit has often been such an inspiration in my life. As a child, I used to marvel at a picture book about her that my mother had a on our living room coffee table. As I grew up, I fell in love with her art. And my first solo trip to NM was planned around a visit to her house in Abiquiu. I ended up in Taos only by happenstance, because it was a nearby place to stay. And well, we all know that I ended up adoring NM :)) Coincidentally, a similarity to Georgia - she was also an NYC girl gone rogue to the mountains and magic of NM.

After playing the song on Saturday night, I was reminded of this quote.

"I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life -

and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do"

-Georgia O'Keeffe

It’s empowering when I am reminded that even the seemingly most brave and brilliant humans have moments of feeling tenuous. I like to believe that we all have these moments. I know I do. People say to me, "Wow! You picked up and left NYC and just moved to NM?" or "You picked up from NM and just moved to Nashville?"

Funny enough those moments, the seemingly big ones, don’t feel like the brave ones.

For me it’s more often about the day to day things - keeping on when I’m feeling unwell or sad, speaking my mind aloud and also things like posting videos and pix and I used to be absolutely terrified to play live shows.... (sharing things like that is another brave!)

It’s funny how 'fear' can mean vastly different thing for each of us ….

It's a reminder to have compassion for ourselves and for those around us. As they say, everyone is usually fighting some battle that we know little about. I mean, I never would have thought that brave and bold Georgia had fears about anything!

Also, the more I gently push myself to do the scary things ... the easier the scary things become. Or perhaps the gentle nudges have given me more courage....

So for me the take away is this reminder:

It’s not the absence of fear that makes us brave, but our willingness to do our best when we are most frightened and we continue to move forward anyway as we carry and honor the fear within us

You Got This!

P.S. Another piece of this story is the influence of one of my other most favorite fearless women, Tori Amos. She has been a powerful inspiration for me and my music. As soon as I saw the painting, I heard this powerful and flowing Tori-esque piano. My first draft of the song included references to some her song titles. I soon found out …. that the painter Tera is a massive Tori Amos fan AND that Tera had been listening to Tori while creating the painting! Thereby I added more Tori references :) The wonderment of synchronicity was another big piece of this collaboration….