A note from Hawksley.

i felt an initial unease with allowing myself to fully receive the warmth and gentleness of a perfect summer sunday. as if i were staying on guard for the surprise return of snow and cold.  summer, when successful, is a capitulation.  a handing over of the cautious and tentative self, with it’s habitually stiffened tip toeing. the body like an artist rendering.  tired and hunched in charcoal.  never bright.  never lifted.  but here i find myself in the tender caress of warm, fresh wind and evenings that take their time in turning.  blue skies that linger into night skies to play host to what we’re told are a million distant suns.  all this as the last bits of frozen ache leak away from the achilles tendons and out through the heals like an old fridge left to defrost.  the deciduous limbs undulate and milkweeds gush.  there’s latent and unseen growth of wild roses in the ditches even.  there’s a new beauty lurking wherever you choose to set your gaze.  and we begin to let go.  even as we are now more sure footed, we are too, more imbued with a willingness to dream and to let our bodies and limbs and toes be revealed in a myriad of justifiable nakednesses.  at the lake, life has made it’s rally too.  and in the wood, the glow of fireflies at dusk.  and the fox nonchalantly crosses the road with it’s tail in the air.  to speak of this all being temporary is to waste time on a deeply understood truth.  we know all of this is to be drunk in.  sipped and gulped.  savoured and sucked.  a life made easy as a reward for winter’s suffering.  this season’s charity will be siphoned like marrow from the bone. every last bead and drop.  we’ll need this memory when we’re suffering the whip and lashing of winter again.  this is our healing.  this is when we breathe slow and deep again.  this is when we submerge ourselves in ocean, lake and river and awaken that little genetic thread of the ancients.  this is nature’s benevolence come with prayers of a most bountiful and robust rhythm.  elemental and true.  this is a truly worshipful moment.  to give thanks for the sometimes forgot, but newly restored “connection”.  the light.  the water.  the soil.  the seed.  the bud.  the fruit.  the olfactory eroticism of a jostled tomato plant.  i wish you all a patiently savoured, relentlessly lovely summer.
Hawksley will be venturing out a few times this summer and fall with Mr. Lonely.
Close to home, Huntsville Ontario July 21st (tickets available here)
Far from home, NWT Pride in Yellowknife (with full band) August 6th (http://www.nwtpride.com/) and Alianait Concert Series in Iqaluit October 22nd (http://www.alianait.ca/)
And we will have more details about this excitement, www.almostafullmoon.com – but it’s too warm out today to be talking about the first snow of the year…
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Some words.

,

a note from Hawksley.

i’ve just recently returned from wellington, NZ after a week’s worth of ‘the god that comes’ shows at the very wonderful, new zealand festival.  i hadn’t performed the play in just over a year, and was nervous of many things.  would i remember all the words? would i remember the light blocking? but most of all, what would be the fuel to motivate a passionate performance?  the play was written as a place to creatively park my fear and anger for all the mighty “kings” of this world who seek to destabilize human goodness through morbidly rehearsed messages of division and hate.  over the last year, i’ve been seeking to change the way i respond to these reliably placed, emotional detonators. so the dress rehearsal day finally came, and i was feeling pretty nervous.  dress rehearsal days are always fraught with a density of (sometimes) unnecessary self doubt.  and it was on this dress rehearsal day we were invited to a p?whiri , a m?ori traditional welcome of song and words (meant to release the sacred), and a receiving line where hosts greet guests with a gentle, mutual touch of the nose, and inhalation to share closeness and breath.  as the team arrived at the venue for the welcome, i was still mired in thoughts of energy for the show.  if not hate and anger, what would i use to breathe some sort of gravity into this performance?  we were prepped on protocols and were greeted with a ‘haka’ type dance.  an extraordinarily moving and noble dance meant to welcome and give some artful, healthy alarm to the guests arriving.  within minutes of the p?whiri , the room full of people were fighting back tears.  the love and warmth combined with our fragile and frayed emotions from a long ways traveled had me weeping.  it was clear, i hadn’t come to new zealand to try and muster up aggression or loathing.  i had come to breathe in the love that was being so generously and freely given to me and the rest of the guests.  all of a sudden, not only had my heart been redirected to it’s true purpose, but the entire ‘the god that comes’ team felt the enormous responsibility we now had to the festival for the stunning welcome and beautiful reminder of why we were there.  we were there to share joy and pleasure.  to share breath and warmth.  to share our honesty and goodness.  our week of shows went splendidly, and for all my worrying, words and songs were remembered and muscle memory came back to fill in any blanks the mind may have been nurturing.  my time in wellington will be remembered as an emotional one.  i wrote a lot.  not songs.  but correspondence and ideas for embracing love and acceptance in other parts of my life.  i write to you today, from my little house in burk’s falls sick with a common cold.  the fire burns as a winter storm seeks to have us forget that renewal and the green of life wait just around the corner.  happy easter and happy spring.  h.

Live this spring:
Saturday April 9th in Meaford Ontario – Meaford Hall Arts and Cultural Centre (tickets on sale here)*
Thursday April 21st in Bayfield Ontario – The Ashwood Inn (tickets on sale here)*
Friday April 22nd in Peterborough Ontario – Showplace Performance Centre (tickets on sale here)*
Friday May 13th and Saturday May 14th in Toronto – Harbourfront Centre Theatre – a collaboration with the Art of Time Ensemble, a Tribute to Bruce Cockburn (tickets on sale here)

* indicates duo performance

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