Today's DailyOM Offerings...
September 11, 2007
Imagine Our Love
Lavender Diamond
2007
Originally a character in the punk operetta Bird Songs of the Bauharoque, Lavender Diamond is the alter-ego of sweet soprano Becky Stark, who joins forces here with pianist Steve Gregoropoulos, guitarist Jeffrey Rosenberg, and drummer Ron Rege Jr. It’s a match made in heaven as the boys lovingly wrap Stark’s clear-as-a-bell vocal tones in warm nests of vintage strings, ’70s California-rock piano, acoustic guitar, and ubiquitous tambourine. A welcome feeling of unsinkable optimism comes across not just in the songs but in the liner notes. It’s filled with Rege’s line drawings (he also did the maypole dancing cover) depicting a neighborhood woken up by the unconditional love of fresh-blooming flower children. The art fits the music perfectly; song and storybook united in the drive to get the jaded listener off the couch and back into the garden where they belong.
While united by strong piano lines and Stark’s swooping vocals, the songs range in mood (though all would feel comfortable on folk or rock albums made in California in the early 1970s). There’s a fine sense of emotional balance here; ballads are served up sweet and sunny while the pop ebullience has a melancholy edge. For the bouncy “Open Your Heart,” Stark starts off in the territory of the anxious, singing “When the streets are low / And you have to go / Where are you running to?” before the chorus of “open your heart / Tear it apart” come slowly in over cowboy-rumble guitar and ascending strings, capping the story with a burst of sunshine and rebellion. “Here Comes One” is an upbeat march with a cool Beach Boys-ish bridge. It’s pulsing with summer sunshine and candy stores, and even if Stark can already see the leaves of autumn around the corner, that’s no reason to cry.
The inspirational dynamics in the closer, “When You Wake for Certain,” gradually intensify this realization with a slow lead up to a thundering chorus of beautiful harmonies, lovely and solid piano chords, and a final high-register vocal swoop into the upper-octave soprano heavens (think the female vocal in the original Star Trek theme). The idea that music can change people’s hearts and move us all up the consciousness ladder together suffuses the album right to the end. This is a band to cherish and grow old with. Open your heart and let Lavender Diamond tear your old perceptions of the world apart. Don’t be afraid of the sun’s bright light-Lavender Diamond is here to salve all burns.
September 11, 2007
Thinking Flexibly
Sagittarius Daily Horoscope
You may feel particularly industrious today, and you may want nothing more than to use your natural creativity in some useful fashion. Because you will likely be motivated to accomplish each and ever one of the goals you set for yourself, you may initially feel somewhat hesitant to act too innovatively. Yet consider that a carefully examined risk can easily be the catalyst that streamlines your progress, rocketing you forward. If you allow your enterprising spirit to be your guide today, you can experiment to your heart's content without feeling apprehensive. Your need to achieve your objectives will likely shield you from missteps that could potentially interfere with the success of your current projects.
Our natural creativity can be the most useful tool we have at our disposal when pursuing important goals because we can accomplish nearly anything we can envision. When we allow ourselves the freedom to consider strategies that are somewhat outlandish, it is vastly more likely that we will conceive of an innovative answer to the problems before us. The combination of motivation and imagination is a potent one, for these assets work together to help us think outside the box. There is no reason we should limit ourselves to tried and true methods of achieving certain goals when there are likely better or more enterprising ways of bringing our visions of a brighter future into being. You will have no trouble at all externalizing your industriousness today when you are flexible in the manner in which you approach your aims.
September 11, 2007
Anticipating The Good
Anxiety About Change
When we find ourselves going through any kind of change in our lives, our natural response may be to tense up on the physical, mental, or emotional level. We may not even notice that we have braced ourselves against a shift until we recognize the anxiety, mood swings, or general worried feeling toward the unknown that usually results. There are positive ways to move through change without pushing it away, however, or attempting to deny that it is happening. Since change will occur in almost every aspect of our lives, we can learn to make our response to it an affirmative one of anticipation, welcoming the new while releasing the past with grace.
One thing we can do is change our perspective by changing the labels we use to identify our feelings. We can reinterpret feelings of anxiety as the anxious butterflies that come with eager expectation. With this shift, we begin to look for the good that is on its way to us. Though we may only be able to imagine the possibilities, when we acknowledge that good is there for us to find, we focus our energy on joyful anticipation and bring it into our experience while allowing the feelings to carry us forward.
We can also choose to do a ceremony to allow our emotions to process. Every culture has created ceremonies to help people make the transition from one phase of life to the next. We can always create a ceremony too, perhaps by burning written thoughts to watch the smoke carry them away, thereby releasing them, or we can welcome new endeavors by planting flowers or trees. Some ceremonial activities such as a farewell send-off or housewarming party, we may do automatically. Society also has built-in ceremonies, like graduation and weddings, which may satisfy the need we feel. Sometimes the shift from denial to acceptance is all that is needed to ease our anxiety, allowing us to bring our memories with us as we move through nervousness to joyful excitement about the good to come.
Imagine Our Love
Lavender Diamond
2007
Originally a character in the punk operetta Bird Songs of the Bauharoque, Lavender Diamond is the alter-ego of sweet soprano Becky Stark, who joins forces here with pianist Steve Gregoropoulos, guitarist Jeffrey Rosenberg, and drummer Ron Rege Jr. It’s a match made in heaven as the boys lovingly wrap Stark’s clear-as-a-bell vocal tones in warm nests of vintage strings, ’70s California-rock piano, acoustic guitar, and ubiquitous tambourine. A welcome feeling of unsinkable optimism comes across not just in the songs but in the liner notes. It’s filled with Rege’s line drawings (he also did the maypole dancing cover) depicting a neighborhood woken up by the unconditional love of fresh-blooming flower children. The art fits the music perfectly; song and storybook united in the drive to get the jaded listener off the couch and back into the garden where they belong.
While united by strong piano lines and Stark’s swooping vocals, the songs range in mood (though all would feel comfortable on folk or rock albums made in California in the early 1970s). There’s a fine sense of emotional balance here; ballads are served up sweet and sunny while the pop ebullience has a melancholy edge. For the bouncy “Open Your Heart,” Stark starts off in the territory of the anxious, singing “When the streets are low / And you have to go / Where are you running to?” before the chorus of “open your heart / Tear it apart” come slowly in over cowboy-rumble guitar and ascending strings, capping the story with a burst of sunshine and rebellion. “Here Comes One” is an upbeat march with a cool Beach Boys-ish bridge. It’s pulsing with summer sunshine and candy stores, and even if Stark can already see the leaves of autumn around the corner, that’s no reason to cry.
The inspirational dynamics in the closer, “When You Wake for Certain,” gradually intensify this realization with a slow lead up to a thundering chorus of beautiful harmonies, lovely and solid piano chords, and a final high-register vocal swoop into the upper-octave soprano heavens (think the female vocal in the original Star Trek theme). The idea that music can change people’s hearts and move us all up the consciousness ladder together suffuses the album right to the end. This is a band to cherish and grow old with. Open your heart and let Lavender Diamond tear your old perceptions of the world apart. Don’t be afraid of the sun’s bright light-Lavender Diamond is here to salve all burns.
September 11, 2007
Thinking Flexibly
Sagittarius Daily Horoscope
You may feel particularly industrious today, and you may want nothing more than to use your natural creativity in some useful fashion. Because you will likely be motivated to accomplish each and ever one of the goals you set for yourself, you may initially feel somewhat hesitant to act too innovatively. Yet consider that a carefully examined risk can easily be the catalyst that streamlines your progress, rocketing you forward. If you allow your enterprising spirit to be your guide today, you can experiment to your heart's content without feeling apprehensive. Your need to achieve your objectives will likely shield you from missteps that could potentially interfere with the success of your current projects.
Our natural creativity can be the most useful tool we have at our disposal when pursuing important goals because we can accomplish nearly anything we can envision. When we allow ourselves the freedom to consider strategies that are somewhat outlandish, it is vastly more likely that we will conceive of an innovative answer to the problems before us. The combination of motivation and imagination is a potent one, for these assets work together to help us think outside the box. There is no reason we should limit ourselves to tried and true methods of achieving certain goals when there are likely better or more enterprising ways of bringing our visions of a brighter future into being. You will have no trouble at all externalizing your industriousness today when you are flexible in the manner in which you approach your aims.
September 11, 2007
Anticipating The Good
Anxiety About Change
When we find ourselves going through any kind of change in our lives, our natural response may be to tense up on the physical, mental, or emotional level. We may not even notice that we have braced ourselves against a shift until we recognize the anxiety, mood swings, or general worried feeling toward the unknown that usually results. There are positive ways to move through change without pushing it away, however, or attempting to deny that it is happening. Since change will occur in almost every aspect of our lives, we can learn to make our response to it an affirmative one of anticipation, welcoming the new while releasing the past with grace.
One thing we can do is change our perspective by changing the labels we use to identify our feelings. We can reinterpret feelings of anxiety as the anxious butterflies that come with eager expectation. With this shift, we begin to look for the good that is on its way to us. Though we may only be able to imagine the possibilities, when we acknowledge that good is there for us to find, we focus our energy on joyful anticipation and bring it into our experience while allowing the feelings to carry us forward.
We can also choose to do a ceremony to allow our emotions to process. Every culture has created ceremonies to help people make the transition from one phase of life to the next. We can always create a ceremony too, perhaps by burning written thoughts to watch the smoke carry them away, thereby releasing them, or we can welcome new endeavors by planting flowers or trees. Some ceremonial activities such as a farewell send-off or housewarming party, we may do automatically. Society also has built-in ceremonies, like graduation and weddings, which may satisfy the need we feel. Sometimes the shift from denial to acceptance is all that is needed to ease our anxiety, allowing us to bring our memories with us as we move through nervousness to joyful excitement about the good to come.