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People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

For well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool / By making his world a little colder

– Paul McCartney, Hey Jude

Denslow’s Humpty Dumpty, 1904

Contempt. In the past few years, I’ve a few times come across something Nick Cave said in response to inquiries about his growth and perspective as an older chap who’s navigated deep grief in the last decade, having lost two sons. He talks about how he, for the better part of his early adult years, held the world and the people in it in contempt. This really stayed with me, as someone who, from an adolescent age, started to observe, with a questioning eye, the many stupidities of humankind.

Over the years, this awareness developed into a contempt of my own. One need only take a short look around to find deep lack in the way stuff gets done; our considerations toward one another, our blindness to our interconnection and shared suffering, summer road work in Toronto. We often live in disregard, usually, I think, unconsciously, while we race about making life happen.

This unconsciousness, for many of us, stems from trauma. For some us, the trauma is complex, wont to rear up without warning, reducing us, whispering self-hateful slogans into the raw spaces. The more I learn and experience, the more I see that this is most of us. We are generations of humans learning to express our vulnerabilities and what’s there in the dark corners of our internal experience.

My own inner world has lately been an amplified, fitful landscape, with my friend Contempt shouting righteous indignation from the rooftops. This isn’t new. Anytime the black dogs rear their heads, I stop seeing the beautiful bits. Things get fucking ugly. The world, the method, the person in the mirror. Standard self-hateful fare. And how on earth did that become standard fare? Through years of damaged practice. Through experiencing in my formative years things no one should experience.

The grace in the current crisis appeared through radical acceptance. I’m apprehensive using the term. It’s been overused in new age lingo, when at the root it’s accessible to everyone. Accessible but difficult. It’s hard to take the things that hurt us most and let them in. They’re strange friends to sit next to. I’m aware that this thing that’s followed me around forever needs a hug. I’ve known for years that we don’t necessarily get rid of the fragmented parts. It’s only through this current wave of struggle that I’ve felt a dawning surrender. That I’m broken and that’s okay. There are good bits, too. Love and Hate springs eternal.

I came across today’s quote a few days ago. It hit hard and clear. I’ve been listening to the confessions of my own character and not digging the sound. My lens is dirty. Yes, there are so many aspects of the world that are completely messed, but the vehement distaste I’ve felt, that’s informed so much for so long, has been a major player in stamping out trust and good things. It’s a fear-based exercise. Creating false safety by tearing down externals.

I’ve spent years trying, like all the King’s men, to put myself back together again. To mend the scattered parts. It hasn’t worked all that well. Sounds like it’s time to let the satellites wander…

As always, thanks for reading.

K. xo

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Father, why are all the children weeping?
They are merely crying son
Oh, are they merely crying, father?
Yes, true weeping is yet to come

                         – Nick Cave, The Weeping Song

I bunked off work early, the strains of the week pulling at my spirit, headlong into Friday’s reprieve; the wages of love, parenthood and finishing Stereophile jostling for the top spot on the neverending to do list. The plan: To kick back for a few, then head down the hall and finish mixing the last of the premasters for the record. The reality: With chronic pain at the redline, a few hours flat out in a haze of medically approved cannabis oil, searching the interwebs for musical redemption.

After a YouTube trip into Live At KEXP and NPR Tiny Desk Concert land, I came across Kingdom In The Sky: Nick Cave and Warren Ellis Live At Hanging Rock. It’s a forty-two minute doc and live performance from their show there last year. I was curious, but reserved. The setting at Hanging Rock is beautiful and these two chaps are both amazing musicians, but I’ve been a bit put off Nick after reading about his late-found Christian zeal.

I’ve loved Nick Cave for many, many years. I was turned on to him when he was well into his career with the Bad Seeds. I feel blessed to have grown with him over the years. In the time I’ve been listening to his music I’ve watched us both evolve. He’s become a kinder, more compassionate human being, with a wonderful perspective on humanity.

Not too long ago, I saw a clip of Cave at his Q&A tour and someone asked him about religion. His answer had to do with all of us reaching for something. It was eloquently profound and applied to all. Shortly thereafter, I read an interview where he talked about his Christian acceptance. I happened to be listening to one of his records at the time and it hit differently. All the aspects that felt like questions about Christianity now felt like devout proclamations. I said earlier that I’ve been put off, but I think, more accurately, I’m struggling to find a place for it, for the obvious reason that many of us find aspects of Christianity and the church questionable, and I am one of those.

I’ve often looked to Christ for guidance myself, though without the dogmatic trappings and hypocrisy of the institution that bears His name. I’ve often wanted to find comfort in the church, or something like it, for a foundation in which to live my life when the storm feels so relentless. Who that seeks understanding wouldn’t want a harbour so safe as this?

It occurs to me that Nick’s Jesus thing might be the prime mover in his evolution and greater kindness as he ages. I know others to which this happens without religion, but I don’t know many of us who have gone through the great tragedies of losing a teenaged son and then losing a grown son only a few years later. Nick Cave lived these sorrows publicly, with rare grace and courage. The former tragedy spawned the record, Ghosteen, which is a work of unspeakable beauty. Cave and Ellis close the Hanging Rock show with the song Ghosteen Speaks, where Nick sings, in the spectral voice of his late son “I am beside you, I am beside you…”

All this said, I hit play last night, not sure I’d make it through much of the show, but wanted to give it a go. I was almost immediately enraptured and riveted, without even realizing it. The delivery, the feeling, Warren and Nick’s love for each other, Nick smiling at the band and the backup singers, Colin Greenwood from Radiohead on bass. Throughout the concert there are cutaway interviews with folks at the show, most of whom echo my own feelings of being there all along for Nick’s growth, as an artist and human being. It was beautiful.

Years ago, on the eve of going to have my first record mastered, I had a dream where Nick and I were sitting in a pub somewhere, in a horseshoe shaped booth of the deepest red velvet and black wood. He looked at me and said “So, you’re going Hollywood?” I didn’t know what he meant, but thought it was cool to have a dream where we were hanging out. Turns out the studio I’d booked was abruptly commercial and managed by someone full of himself, who was blathering on about some Hollywood starlet who had just been in to try her hand at being a singer. Nick had given me the heads up.

Since then, he’s visited me overnight a few times. It happened again last night. He and I were wandering through field, farmland, and country roads, talking quietly together. He was leading the way the entire time, as though showing me the way. We parted at a petrol station, where he jumped on a Vespa and sped off down the road, muttering something about having to get back to work.

I’m so thankful for the gift of writing. As I write this, I feel a greater understanding. There’s so much in our dreams. And so much in our judgement of others. There’s so much we know inherently, but it’s not physical or cognitive, so it goes unrecognized while we try so hard to fit the mould of a world that’s been set up so fucking backwards. Our magic is beaten out of us from the time we are born. We are taught to forget: We are Divine.

I chose today’s quote, from the Bad Seeds The Weeping Song, for two reasons. The band did a bang up version of the song at the concert, with a newly minted groove, but also because of this particular verse. I think it’s only as more experienced beings that we feel true, deep sadness, in the face of all that we’ve lost and all that we long to return to.

Love,

K. xo