“Any fool can get into an ocean . . .”
By Jack Spicer
Any fool can get into an ocean
But it takes a Goddess
To get out of one.
What’s true of oceans is true, of course,
Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming
Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor’s seaweed
You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess
To get back out of them
Look at the sea otters bobbing wildly
Out in the middle of the poem
They look so eager and peaceful playing out there where the
water hardly moves
You might get out through all the waves and rocks
Into the middle of the poem to touch them
But when you’ve tried the blessed water long
Enough to want to start backward
That’s when the fun starts
Unless you’re a poet or an otter or something supernatural
You’ll drown, dear. You’ll drown
Any Greek can get you into a labyrinth
But it takes a hero to get out of one
What’s true of labyrinths is true of course
Of love and memory. When you start remembering.Back in January I saw a post on a friend’s Facebook page. I don’t check Facebook often, so it felt like fate when I happened to open the app and see he had just posted a couple of minutes prior. This friend is a photographer, and he was looking for male models to help him get into boudoir photography. I messaged him immediately, and was privileged to be given the first photoshoot spot! I felt a thrill run through me, and some nervousness. Was I really going to be unclothed before a camera? Was I ready to embrace my own aliveness, my sensuality in this way?
I think I sensed on some level that embracing my eros is my way of swimming. I am in the ocean, and now I must drown or unleash the goddess within. It is a matter of gravity, or perhaps of defying it.
Eros is about so much more than sex. Eros is life force! Vitality. Source. The spark of aliveness I felt made me hungry for more. I felt the thrill of anticipation as I got ready for my photoshoot. I thought back to a moment when a previous girlfriend of mine went to a boudoir shoot of her own. Was this how she felt? I wondered. Why did I not realize that I wanted a boudoir shoot myself at that time? Have I been hiding from my own aliveness?
Yes, of course I have. Our life force is terrifying. Marianne Williamson wrote “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” As I sense in to how it feels to be wildly alive, I am beginning to understand those words for the first time.
This is where the fun starts. Have you tried the blessed waters? Have you felt in the power of that vast ocean the threat of your own annihilation? Naked Banjo is one of the ways I am swimming right now.
The vision came slowly - a calendar, an album, a creative marriage of forms. I have been feeling the pull to go back to my roots, to record an album that is intimate and spare - just me and the banjo.
So this calendar is a way to support the album, and both are ways to help me stay afloat among the sea otters, mermaids, and goddesses that move with the tides. I’ll include a digital download of the album when you purchase a calendar. I have already started pre-production and have made a few recordings. One thing is for sure, there will be life in these songs.
In Kinship,
Crispy
P.S. Have you heard my latest song? Long Lonely Time is out now!