Real Country: From the Fast Track to Appalachia

Appalachian music

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Because of the nature of our work we are moving, whether it is fast or slow we are in transit. So what we do is bring rooted community members that are working in the places where we are playing, who are able to come and speak to the audiences, connect with people about what is happening locally. That is my favourite blueprint; learning about what is going on locally in all these places and really being fueled by those stories and those relationships. What makes you feel alive? I am very inspired by really cultivated conversations with brilliant creative alternative people.

I can physically feel it. I am also a walker. I walk every day. I love the pace of walking, observing at the pace of walking and also I can clear my mind a lot through the physical process of walking. I walked all over Amsterdam. I had no idea where I went. I went on for hours and hours. It connects me to my own breath, I catch my natural gait. I love that very simple process.

What does wildness mean to you?

I consider myself wild from the jump. I feel like I came out of the womb wild. I have lived in urban places that I love very much and also in rural areas, needing both of them.

I find that for me the wildness is a lot in solitude. I can connect to that sense of very primal animal instinct in the middle of a metropolitan area if I can be very wolf-like and watch, study and observe the way things are moving, the way people are moving, traffic is moving. Just observe the same way a hawk might sit on a perch and watch a field. I find that does the same as if I am barefoot on a trail going straight up into the Alps, the Rockies or the Appalachian mountains. Having a sense of human solitude, checking in with some kind of different energies and different kind of companions has been really valuable to my sense of wellbeing and wildness and self.

I feel a little bit muted, sedated in a way. So it is a really important part of my process.

The Appalachians

It is very hard for me to get access to that on tour, it has been a long conversation to figure out how I even can just get moments of that. Just that sense of solo time to explore and witness as opposed to being in it. Smith, Song and company are at the forefront of the resistance, and are leaders of this new school of progressive action in the music scene.

Resistance Movements In Music: We continue in motion… returning to the rest of the world after 3 days that stood timeless in a land that wakes and breathes in prayer. It will take some time to put into words the beauty and rawness that we witnessed at Standing Rock, North Dakota over the days called Thanksgiving… supporting a living indigenous movement. The communing we shared in, the songs, the chill in the air, the spirit, the military, the fire.

I CAN say for now that it is not what the media is telling us. It is a peaceful and prayerful place, one of deep reverence and big big work. To create community against the status-quo and contra to big business is not only absolutely mandatory to our survival as a species, but is also sacred sacrifice. We need new models… and new leaders… and new ways to pray.

Thankyou for strengthening the ancient ways and creating the pathway for new ones to emerge. Thankyou for the Standing Rock Syllabus. Thankyou to the International Youth Council and to the song catchers that we rallied with… Thankyou for the invitation. It was foggy and cool as we took shovels, buckets and sifting screens out to the shore line.

Ryan Parker, a beach ranger for the Oregon Central Coast District, led us to several areas were debris is deposited by the tide. The people who showed up were so caring and the energy of the group was so hopeful even though the issue seemed so insurmountable. We were tiny drop in the bucket, working on small beach in a big wide world. A world that is now full of plastic particles. Amazing that one person at a time, one plastic bottle or wrapper or rubber ducky at a time, we have filled the ocean with plastic.

I makes sense then that one person at a time, one small place at a time we can also clean that waste. I have just emerged from a 30 day solo winter music retreat in a dome in the mountains around Asheville. During that time I was alone, was not driving, and had a friend drop off greens and vegetables once a week who was my only physical contact with the outside human world.

I want to re-engage, and in doing so, I would like to some how offer a little reflection of the lessons I learned in solitude with the understanding that I am still processing the experience myself and an in depth sharing may come about in other ways. My intention going into the retreat was to offer devotion to Music in gratitude for the amazing year and with the desire to cultivate new musical seeds for the year to come. Looking hard at my self I also saw that it was about feeling a need to go beyond my self perceived musical weaknesses and strive for some kind of greatness….

This was my ego striving to make up for a feeling of not being a good enough musician. Among the most valuable lessons I learned during the retreat was that greatness and skill are not the same thing. Greatness is a collection of elements, existing in a context of responding to need. One can practice till the cows jump over the moon, building skill out the wazu…. I strived to clarify my intentions…and battled with the feeling that I was not doing the service I was capable of in life…battled with feeling worthless….

It is a battle I think we all at some point I think. I turned 36 during this time… an age at which many are holding down partners and families… and i reflected on the freedom from such commitments that allowed me to commit to myself…It is a privilege to be in a place in life where others are not depending on you for their basic needs…. It was cold in the Mountains and with the necessity of harvesting wood from the forest, carrying in all my water from the outside spring tap, cooking, and cleaning up it was very difficult to practice the 12 hours a day I hoped to.

On average I was able to practice 5 to 7 hours a day…. From the inside though it felt like I was failing at what I had intended….. I worked hard to bring my free ranging mind back to center. In moments I was there. People often say, Follow your Heart, or Love Yourself…. The best advise ever yet so overused it can sound hollow without experience and feeling behind it. It was when I would walk, and sit in the trees, with no buildings in sight that I would experience glimpses of that knowing and remembering.

Those were the best moments of the retreat. One major musical breakthrough I had during all that practice…realizing that practice was boring…. It again is about context…play for your self, play for life, play for others, play for the mountain, play for justice, peace, freedom…. What am I playing to? What am I singing to? That is Groove that is under the music and gives it life and feeling.

Rising Appalachia

This helped me to engage in the music i was playing rather than it becoming mechanical. I am not saying that practicing something that is difficult for u is bad… the discomfort in our mind when it is growing new pathways is a good thing… it is just to be clear about that for which we are working. Remembrances and Intentions… the Songs that were written, the crazy realizations about music and Universal Harmonics, Social Activism and Visionary Communities will have to wait for another time.

I look forward to sharing them with u in real time. I love U all. U were there with me inspiring me to continue and distracting me and in this journey of life I am soooo excited to have some NOT alone creative time!! Untill that time…Keep honoring your gifts. Keep honoring your weaknesses, and may you find joy and purpose in the process.

We love our filthy dirty south. Its not a catch phrase or a joke or a random east coast west coast pride battle. Rising Appalachia just finished up a 2 and a half week sail boat tour around the Gulf Islands off the coast of British Colombia. We packed out small bags and joined a crew of 20 visionaries and mystics, sailors and song slingers, cebadores and farmers, land tenders and whale peoples on a great Slow Music Movement journey. Sharing music to the people who grow the food. Learning local lore and history and listening to the children sing. Traveling 3 miles per hour on the cerulean waters through wind and great sunshine and rain, high waves and the calmest of days.

From port to port we carried our spirits and songs by boat and by foot to tiny centers of community and tiber framed stages, front porches and off the grid farm house dwellings.

We learned to listen more. Turn off and turn in. Thank the spring foods and the stewards that grew them. Collaborate and cross pollinate with everyone on deck. It was a great Coming To Life. A reminder of why we sparked this great creative fire in the first place….. At first it looked to be relatively clean, but as we began sifting the sand we found that there were small pits of plastic everywhere, mostly in pieces smaller than a dime. It was amazing how much plastic was in every square foot of sand. Plastic water bottles and cigarette butts are the two most common forms of pollution found on the shore line.

They are washed from river and sewers to the ocean, where they hitch hike on currents to be break to small pieces and deposited on beaches all over the world. We learned so much a bout the cycle of plastic, and have so much more to learn about the issue and how we can live more aware of our impact.

Author of ‘Real Country: From the Fast Track to Appalachia’ to Sign Copies at Todd General Store

By making simple commitments striving to always use reusable or biodegradable drinking vessels, striving to never throw trash on the ground we can break that part of our link in the chain. That same plastic we threw away as children is still out there folks. Are we gonna wait for other generations to start to clean up after us, or make the effort to clean up just a small fraction of the plastic we have left in the world. Plastic that has found its way into the Ocean and is making many many marine animals die unnatural deaths.

Sifting through the sand was kind of like being on a treasure hunt. Imagine if it was a normal activity for families and friends to bring screens and buckets to the beach and do a little sifting and clean up int the area where they were hanging out.

Southern Appalachia: 50 Events That Put Us On The Map

Sifting for micro plastic is the new Sand Castle. Obviously there is no one simple solution… there are many. The main thing is to care… to keep learning more, to be committed. Once you see you cannot un-see. Lets think 2 or 3 times before generating more plastic garbage. Lets pick up the trash we see on the ground before it gets washed in a rainstorm out to sea and is left there. We have trashed this place a little at a time. We can clean it up a little at a time just as effectively. That is my thought for the day.

I look forward to continuing to explore this issue and partner with folks around the world to clean it up, one square foot at a time. It is never to late to make a difference where u are. Good morning family and friends, I have just emerged from a 30 day solo winter music retreat in a dome in the mountains around Asheville. I love the silent connection we make as travelers, the caught eyes on unbridled streets that beckon with hot cups and welcoming store front window panes that glisten like new ice as we pass through.

This documentary is well done and tries to be balanced. That's why I give it 7 stars. It gave the history of the Appalachia from the American perspective, from the original European immigrants to the modern times. But, as I watch the trials and tribulations of the Appalachians in the 20th century, I can't help thinking of the original Native Americans who had been there for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans who took over their land and destroyed their culture. To protect the new comers, the US government forcibly evicted the Native Americans so the Europeans can have a free hand and complete possession of the Appalachia.

Do they now regret what they did? No, of course not. Will they give the land back to the Native Americans? When I hear the modern Appalachians bemoan the hardship, I can't help wondering if they have forgotten that their great-great-grandparents had faced much worse hardship in Europe and had to travel to the other end of the world to find a better life and future for their children? If the modern Appalachians choose to stay put, then they should be ready to face and accept the hardship as their chosen way of life.

If not, they too are free to migrate elsewhere. And the complaints about industrialization and progress of the 20th century! Do they really expect time to stay still and everything remain the same? Everything has a price. Hard work and poverty or modernization and change. If they want to keep their primitive ways, they should join the Amish and refuse all modern conveniences. If not, something has to give. They don't get to have the best of both worlds at their choosing. What goes around, comes around. And people everywhere throughout history have voted repeatedly with their feet where they want to go and how they want to live.

Tough it out or seek better opportunity elsewhere.

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