ALEX NOBLE - WRITING JOURNAL-2015

MoreThan Singing, More Than Speaking - With Jocelyn Rasmussen

 

 

www.morethansinging.com

 

MORE THAN SINGING, LLC is committed to creating a world where:

• People have affordable access to tools and information to help them realize and develop the power and beauty of their voices.

• People feel comfortable to sing which supports self-esteem, expression and harmonious community.

• Singing, recognized as a complement to wellness and growth, is utilized to improve concentration, imagination, productivity and emotional balance in diverse settings.


W H Y   I S   I T   M O R E
T H A N   S I N G I N G  ?

Jocelyn hears more than singing in the human voice. She hears the beauty of a life speaking its truth and passions, the resolution of a human spirit in word and song.

 

See Biographical Information About Jocelyn, Below:

 

 

Time for a Change?

Assignment:  Find a sanctuary and get very still.  Shut down your Monkey Mind and get in touch with whatever your body is feeling. Focus on the idea of a positive change. Ask your God, your Muse, your Angels - whomever you listen to - to tell you about an area of your life where you would benefit from a change. Identify that change with as many specifics as possible. Think about what you need to do to make that change happen, and outline the steps you need to take. Visualize what it will feel like when you have actually made the change, and are in your new chapter. Imagine yourself celebrating. Write Now! GO!

 

 

Indigenous People's Message to the World: Myth & Story Audios from Better Listen

 

Excellent audio files from some of our leading scholars on great myths and stories. Hear James Hillman, Ram Dass, Thomas Moore, Coleman Barks and many others...

http://shop.betterlisten.com/collections/myth-story

 

 

About the Featured Audio, The Indigenous People's Message to the World:

 

About this program: BetterListen! was called in to document on audio, the lectures and cultural music presentations at The First World Conference of Indigenous Peoples in 1992. The result is this award winning program produced by David Ison, endorsed by The United Nations, Starred Review in Publisher's Weekly and now available for the first time in digital format. 

"This is our chance to listen to a message from people closely connected to the Earth. The industrial world has put their very existence at stake. Stop and listen to their world!" - Mickey Hart (Author of Drumming at the Edge of Magic and Planet Drum, drummer with the Grateful Dead.) 

"This authentic product is a "Who's who of ritual tribal music and ceremony" - Publishers Weekly. 

 

RIP: Whitney Houston

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From a Fan:

This lady has inspired more people in the Music industry then anyone else. She set the bar at a level very few could reach. My prayer for you Whitney, I pray you find peace and contentment in death. The struggles of addiction are real. The pipe had a hold of you very tight. But nothing can break the hold God has on you. You are at rest. The media will do there thing and people who turned there backs on you in the industry will jump on the band wagon. Your music will live forever in the Fans

RELAX! "Epitaph" - Piano Solo

 

 

"Epitaph" solo piano composition by Ralph Zurmuhle coupled with wilderness spirit imagery by Cecil Whitt. Video produced by Sam Henegar of Still Waters Imagery & Media, Inc.

Planet Earth - The Most Beautiful Places in the World

 

 

Assignment:  Watch these gorgeous images of our Home Planet, and write a poem, prayer, or meditation on the feelings and memories that these photos bring up for you. Think about the happiest memories you have of being immersed in nature, and feeling at one with all life.  What was it like for you? What did you feel? If you are not feeling poetic, just write a list, and try to capture the magic and beauty of those times.Write Now! GO!

 

 

 

RELAX! Return to Freedom - From the Wings 2002 Album "Return to Freedom"

 

 

 

 I dream of home wherever that is, of a tree as green as thought in a canyon as red as iron.

Edward Abbey

What Would You Take to a Desert Island? (New Yorker)

 

Assignment:  When asked what he would take to a desert island, Playwrite George Bernard Shaw replied: "Seven blank books."  The article below details what a number of folks would take to their island, and is entertaining as well as informative.  This is a most useful thought exercise, and makes for a useful journal entry, as one realizes how one's chosen items may change over time.  So here we go: What would YOU take to a desert island, using, if you wish, the specifications set out in the article below? Write Now!  GO!

 

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Seven Decades of Desert Island Discs

Posted by Judith Thurman

January 30, 2012

 

 

Yesterday morning, as dawn was breaking in Manhattan, and Londoners were enjoying a late Sunday breakfast, I tuned in to BBC Radio 4 to hear the seventieth-anniversary broadcast of “Desert Island Discs,” an hour-long, live interview show that first aired on January 29, 1942.

      For seven decades, “Desert Island Discs” has been introduced by the same theme song, “By the Sleeping Lagoon,” composed in 1930, by Eric Coats, and every week a new “castaway” of distinction is asked to name the eight tracks of music, one luxury item, and one book that he or she would choose to be marooned with. (One also gets the Bible, or its equivalent, and the complete works of Shakespeare.) There are only two longer-running shows in radio history: a British program of religious music, and “The Grand Old Opry.”

 

The Local-Global Flip or "The Lanier Effect" (Edge)

 

 

A Conversation with Computer Visionary Jaron Lanier [8.29.11]

 

Source:  http://edge.org/conversation/the-local-global-flip

"If you aspire to use computer network power to become a global force through shaping the world instead of acting as a local player in an unfathomably large environment, when you make that global flip, you can no longer play the game of advantaging the design of the world to yourself and expect it to be sustainable. The great difficulty of becoming powerful and getting close to a computer network is: Can people learn to forego the temptations, the heroin-like rewards of being able to reform the world to your own advantage in order to instead make something sustainable?"

 

"I strongly urge you to read this truly epic interview with Jaron Lanier at Edge. ... It's an extraordinary interview, packed with insight and often grimly funny." Matt Zoller Seitz, Salon.com

"Fascinating conversation with Jaron Lanier, influential computer scientist. On economics of the Internet – implications of networked technology, destruction of middle class and dark side of new media". — Writing Worth Reading, The Browser.com

 

The Mayan Songs of Dzitblache - Flower Song

 

The Tzolkin Mayan Calendar

 

The Songs of Dzitblaché include most of the ancient Mayan lyric poetry that has survived. In these songs, the poet speaks of personal feelings and ideas, of love, philosophy, ancient rituals and spiritual values.

The original title page reads, "The Book of the Dances of the Ancients that it was the custom to perform here in the towns when the whites had not yet arrived. This book was made by the honorable Mr. Bam, great-grandson of the great Ah Kulel of the town of Dzitbalché in the year 1440." The title, "Songs of Dzitbalché," was given to the collection by the first translator into Spanish, Alfredo Barrera Vásquez, and it is by this name that it is generally known. Written above the title is the word kolomché - a ceremonial dance.

Source:  http://www.red-coral.net/Dzit.html

 

FLOWER SONG  

  The most alluring moon has risen over the forest;

it is going to burn suspended in the center of the sky to lighten all the earth, all the woods, shining its light on all.  

Sweetly comes the air and the perfume. Happiness permeates all good men

Music for Reflection: On the Road Again - Bob Seeger

 

 

 

Journal Assignment:  Music can be a powerful catalyst to evoke memories, moods and hidden feelings.   I have always loved what I call "Road Songs", which would include the Eagles, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan and many others who sing compelling songs of the open road, of freedom, of being out on the long blue highways of the Soul. 

Martin Luther King Jr. - He Had a Dream - What's Yours?

 

 

He Had A Dream - What's Yours?

 

Quotations from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.


A lie cannot live.

A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

A right delayed is a right denied.

A riot is the language of the unheard.


Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.


An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.


Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.


Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

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Continue for music videos celebrating the life and accomplishments of Dr. King:

James Carr - Freedom Train

Nina Simone - Old Jim Crow is Gone

 

 

KIDS! Pacha's Pajamas - A Story Written by Nature, A Dream to Change the World

 

 

"Hero" From the Auditions for Pacha's Pajamas,

A Story Written by Nature

 

Visit the Website:  http://www.pachaspajamas.com

 

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Pacha Starts to Dream …

 

Pacha’s Pajamas is a story whose time has come. One night, the plants and animals on Pacha’s new pajamas come alive to share their own stories. Eventually, Nature takes the stage at a global music festival where the critters come together to bring balance to the planet.  

What is the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment?

 

What is GATE - The Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment?

 

GATE is an evolving community of creative, business and technical professionals in entertainment, media, and the arts, who realize the vital and expanding role media and entertainment play in creating our lives, and who aspire to consciously transform those domains for the benefit of all.

GATE is a nonprofit 501c(6) membership trade association providing valuable and relevant knowledge, resources and services to a wide range of professionals in the media, entertainment and arts industries, to aid in their personal transformation and to help them create and distribute content that expresses their transformational worldview.

 

Serious About Songwriting?

 

The Fab Four

 

Long before the printed word captured our brains and locked us down into the alphabet (see The Alphabet and the Goddess)  we had songs. For much of our history as a species, we have sung our prayers, psalms, sagas, stories and epic poems.  Songs are in our genes, and today songs are exploding worldwide, from garage bands in small African villages to basement bands in Seattle.  Songs can provide a heart to heart connection between people that mere text can never do, engaging the emotional power of music coupled with poetry.

Just think...the right songs can change the world in wondrous ways.  Remember "We Are The World"? How about John Lennon's "Imagine"?  What about "We Shall Overcome"? 

If you have ever wanted to write songs, your journal is a perfect place to start.  If you are not a musician, find a friend who is, and collaborate.  

WRITE NOW! Reflect on Being Fully Alive!

 

 

 

Questions:  Are you feeling fully alive right now? Do you have a sense of joyful celebration about the New Year?  What are you looking forward to? What do you plan to do to bring more joy into your life and the lives of others?  What are your thoughts about being alive, on this planet, at this time in history? Are you excited about your goals and plans for 2012? Are you expecting Angels and Miracles to appear in your life to support your journey and success?  Are wonderful things happening for you? Are you grateful for the opportunities that are presenting themselves to you?