Hiya, folks. New song out today, December 23rd, called "Half Empty". It's a little bit somber and a little bit bright. It about winter settling down upon us, but eventually yielding to the rebirth of spring.
Depending on where you live, you may experience this cyclical change every year. The moment spring begins to unfurl, I feel an energy in the air, I sense this shimmering newness pervading the world, and the mystery of beginnings imbues me with a contentment that's hard to describe. While winter is cold & barren, there too is a beauty and stillness without which the budding life of spring would be rendered meaningless. One cannot exist without the other, and I love them both.
In Buddhist thought, "emptiness" is a difficult and heavily concept-laden element. There are a few ways I've read it explained, but perhaps the most helpful illustration is the idea of a cup.
A cup's value is derived from its empty space. Without this emptiness, it couldn't hold water. Likewise, the empty space can't exist without the form of the cup. It's essentially an empty vessel, but paradoxically, it's also a finite form. Neither the space nor the form of the cup can exist without the other.
I like to think the same is true for ourselves - our tough times & our high times, our messes & our successes, all just part and parcel of one interconnected thing, the process of life, us. The last three lines of this song are:
"We're a clean blank sheet,
We are paint,
We are poetry"
We are the foreground and the background of our lives - a process & a collaboration - and I hope this song helps to celebrate that. Cheers all. Hope you have a happy holiday and a good start to the upcoming new year. xxx
https://open.spotify.com/album/6ewIweV4uVBmRvh0AHavMr?si=gu2fosAIQOWmhNZEjb-w6Q