TOPIC: WAKING UP INSIDE YOURSELF

This week I completed the 200th song I've written and recorded in the studio! And I wanted to share with you that I've discovered that the one song I listen to the most of all, out of all of those two hundred--the one I am moved by, on a regular basis, is one I created just last year, entitled, "Of Grace and Gratitude."

TOPIC: Anna in a Blinding Snowstorm, Driving Toward the One She Loves

This month I am sending you a song of LOVE that starts in a BLIZZARD of "nothing but white" and celebrates what it means to keep on reminding ourselves to REACH FORWARD, even when we find ourselves pulling back from love and connection. Read on to learn the story.

TOPIC: A Father Dies of Lou Gehrig's Disease and Leaves Behind a Song for his Daughter

TOPIC: A Song That Invites You to See Life All Around You, Anew

I once heard a woman speak, and what she had to say was so powerful that it it instantaneously and dramatically changed almost everything about the way I eat, that very day. And I have deeply, meaningfully stayed with this shift, two full years later. 

Not long after that, I was asked by this same woman to partner with her to create a song that honors the Unitarian Universalist principal, "Honor All Beings." It took longer for me to write this song than any song I have ever written in my life - months and months and months. 

But from the moment it was finally created, this song started spreading to new places. It made its way all the 

Here is the video of my talk and the song, "HOME,"created for TEDx WALDEN POND.

Song Audio is clearer on this mp3 audio than on the video:

I have always LOVED Ted Talks and was so honored to be invited to participate in the first TEDx to take place in my hometown of Concord, MA. It was a rare and special experience to get to stand up and share my story and this song, created specifically for this occasion. ENJOY! 

BREATHE
Every element of this month's "performance piece for meditation" is specifically, intentionally, very carefully calibrated to assist with one singular process: the shift, in you, from your everyday sense of being, into

THAT PLACE

WITHIN YOU

That place of loving, and knowing, and certainty, and flow;

That place through which you are deeply connected to yourself, and the Universe.

This is a song about what it means to really and truly turn yourself over to what you want: to DIVE IN. I got to share it on a TV show about "Using Your Gifts" recently, and here is a little more to the story behind the song. While I was working on this song I found myself asking myself, "Are there areas where I am holding myself back? Are there ways in which I identify something I really want to come to pass, and then hover around the edges of letting it become so? And, maybe more importatly, when I look back over the course of my life at times when I really HAVE let myself DIVE IN, have I been glad I took the plunge? My answer to this last question was a strong, powerful, life-affirming YES!

Well, loyal fans, as I write, it is the end of summer, and I thought before we waded into yet another heavy and life-altering topic, (as we will next month), I ought to cut you some slack, and throw you a light-hearted song. A downright silly song, actually. Definitely one of my silliest. This song was commissioned by a Mr. Jameson Willington Smirthington (not his real name) to help answer the question "How can I learn about FUN?" (not his real question).   I think his real question was more like, "How can I use a song to TRANSITION myself into a more happy-go-lucky state of mind?" So this song, "I Wanna Have Some Fun," is our answer to that. I had a ridiculous amount of fun recording this song, and if you choose to listen to it, make SURE you listen all the way to the END of the song, because that is where all the JUICY STUFF IS. 

TOPIC: Reaching to connect with a sibling

My Sister Amy - I jumped off this dock without a life preserver and she jumped in after me 

What follows is the story of me and my sister. Of all the songs I perform live in concert, these two "Sister Songs"--a matched set--are the most frequently requested. When I play the first song, half the room tears up. When I play the second song, the other half of the room gets all watery-eyed. (The non-teary people know better than to come to my concerts, I guess). Each of us, it seems, can relate in some way to one side or the other of this equation: siblings who grow apart--and one who maybe struggles with it more than the other.

GROWING APART
When we were young, Amy and I shared a room, a bunk bed, and many late night conversations, giggling and doing imitations of the voices (and imagined gastrointestinal releases) of all of our neighbors. We had secret glances and little pieces of shorthand. Everything she did, I wanted to do. But when we grew up, Amy and I grew into different lives. And we grew apart. She seemed okay with it. I spent a lot of years, when I stopped to think about it, feeling somewhat tortured by our apartness. I came up with no end of stories, explanations, reasons, justifications, and excuses for what it all meant. On the surface, I am not sure what it looked like, but inside of me, down below the surface where no one could see, there were a lot of approaches, and a lot of retreats. I was hurting, and I didn't know where to go with that hurt, or how to give it a voice.