I am currently working up a solo acoustic set.
This is raw acoustic guitar and voice alone.
It's been a real journey, a revelation, and a challenge to understand, and bear, what really 'finding voice', is all about.
Song Samples.
"I tried to take the spirit and make it my own
but when I tried to voice it, it got caught in my throat.
My veins bulged, I coughed and gagged,
while the crows flew in to watch and laugh.
Then, when my wailing turned into a perfect 0
they flew high in the air and dove straight down my throat.
Now they assemble, a chorus of crows,
in the caverns of my lungs and in my belly below,
and when I sing well, when the pain is all there,
when the pain is all there, plain and bare,
you'll hear the rabble gaggle cawing
from their dark lair, sweet and fair,
from their dark lair, sweet and fair."
My most recent live gigs were using a rig combining laptop, prophet synth, electric guitar, mixer, many processors...
Samples, walls of feedback and distortion, melodic licks, clicks and tears, it was all there...
Electronic samples -
I have been writing for many years, through essays while in academia, and through thousands of pages of notes, on the theme of 'Love, and the Relationship of Consciousness to Addiction'. This theme could be said to be at the heart of all my writing and songwriting. This is my 'opus', my 'soul work'.
A brief introduction to the 'theory' that I propose can be found in 'Consciousness and Addiction (PDF)', an essay I wrote as a sub-text to the liner notes for a recording called 'NOD'.
For further content it's worth checking out my blog at http://cirque-samsara.com/nikbeeson-blog/ and clicking on the subject links for 'addiction/samsara', 'consciousness', and 'love'.
I facilitated a monthly 'discussion group' at the Shambhala Buddhist Centre in Toronto for two years called 'Addiction as Path'. The following is the invitation I sent out to the members:
"While the word 'addiction' is commonly used to refer to substance abuse,
it's equally possible to be addicted to work, relationships, ideas, power,
moods, being liked, helping others, etc. As the Zen aphorism "If you meet
the Buddha, kill him" alludes to, it's even possible to be addicted to
Buddhism!
The Buddha once said, "With our thoughts we make our world.", which might be
translated into addiction-speak as "With our habits we create our habitat."
Buddhism, with its focus on the attainment of liberation through freedom
from the cycles of desire or craving (samsara), is particularly rich in
teachings on addiction.
What are addictions?
Why do we become addicted?
Is it possible to be free of addiction?
Is the ego comprised of addictions?
Can addictions be part of the pathway?
Can we bow our addictions into dharma?
The group meets every second Wednesday evening of the month at 8:15 pm,
following meditation which starts at 7 pm.
All are welcome, all are already experienced.
BYOA"
The group was wide-open, full of wisdom and bravery, and it was one heck of an education for me.
I also have my fair share of well entrenched abuses, habits and fears, strategies of evasion and denial, blind spots and radical defenses, hiding places and Mr. Hydes. The experience of addiction, and its recombinant delusions, are all very very real to me.
I recently presented some fragments of this material to a Buddhist group in Mississauga.
Starting with a solid hour of Mindfulness Meditation, I then presented some material,
focussing on the development of the ego in Western and Buddhist terminology, cycles and samsara, habits and 'habiler', and the relationship of the development of 'consciousness' and 'individuation' to craving and addiction. There was plenty of time for discussion and questions during which, with honesty and (most importantly, good humour) we get into the nitty-gritty of what it all means in the day-to-day grind.
It was really marvelous and, from the comments of folks afterwards, it was really helpful.
All works by Nik Beeson alone are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License.