Osprey

   

       When we open ourselves up to childlike fascination, wonder, excitement, awe, and curiosity, we increase our capacity for love. And we increase our capacity to experience the world anew.
        Think of how a little kid might look at this magnificent Osprey, maybe for the first time. The jaw dropping gleam in their eyes surpassed only by their complete rapturous engagement. They would stand there, transfixed, by what appeared to be a magic animal from a different realm. They would stare, simultaneously studying the animal and also engaged in a mindless awe.
       I know this, because this is how I experience not only this bird but lots of life. Whether its nature, the music I’m listening to, the woman I’m with, or the conversation I’m having, I strive to bring that passionate involvement, that sense of awe, wonder, curiosity, and fascination, to all my life.
       My summer at Omega and Kripalu opened up my heart and deepened my connection to my truest self. In the process, I experience both a quieting of my mind and the ignition of an engine within. I want to bring more of my fire to the world, and I want to help others find and ignite their fire. The book I’m writing will be a platform for that. But my whole life can be a platform for that too.     
       So here I am at fifty-one. I find myself with more capacity to love, more capacity to let love in - in all of its forms and manifestations - than ever in my life. I find myself with more capacity to experience the world anew. Furthermore, as I learn to more fully engage, as I learn to more fully allow, my capacity for love will only increase as I get older. Isn’t that fucking exciting? Isn’t that better than the other, conventional party line paradigm of diminishing returns of love as we get older? Isn’t the potential life altering expansions and experiences that are possible from the increasing love paradigm worth the risks? Fuck yeah.
       Fuck yeah.


©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

       Many spectacular mornings have graced my life. Today’s however, brought me to tears. Even before I woke up.
       So I’m hanging out with Jackson Brown, and I tell him that his songs “Doctor My Eyes” and “Running On Empty” touch me profoundly. Some of the best melodies and lyrics on the planet, I tell him. He thanks me, then starts singing……..“Doctor my eyes have seen the years, and the slow parade of fears without crying, now I want to understand……” And of course, as he’s singing, because this song is some powerful medicine, I start crying. All of this is happening in my dream. Did I forget to mention that? Excuse me. Tearing up when I’m moved by music happens to me when I’m awake, too. Except that I’m not usually hanging out with Jackson Brown. Not yet, anyway.
       In the middle of my special moment with Mr. Brown, my alarm goes off. The alarm song is “In God’s Country” by U2. More music who’s magic is so beautiful that it will often move me to emote, just as it did this morning. Have you ever really listened to the opening of that song? The electric harmonic rhythmic chugging over the simple acoustic strumming; followed by a highly echoed, hauntingly beautiful and soaring two note electric guitar pattern that rings over a backbone of bass and drums. And then, a melody that stirs mystical realms. My god. If ever I create just one thing in my life as beautiful as the opening of that song, whenever I leave this earth, I will leave with a full heart.
       So here I am, haven’t even gotten out of bed yet, and I’ve already connected to my heart so powerfully that I’ve wept twice (I count the dream cry. Yes. Yes I do.) It’s five-fifteen in the morning. I’m about to go kayaking, aiming to watch the sunrise from the water.
       After loading my kayak in the car and driving to the beach, I enter the ocean. Paddling across the bay about a half mile out, I experience a stupefying solitude. Houses and boats and all sorts of human trappings ring the shoreline, but there's not a human being in sight, and I haven't seen one all morning. I feel like I’m the only person on earth. The ocean laps against my vessel, gently splashing me as I paddle. Ospreys fly over head, snatching up breakfast from the bounty of the bay. It’s Magic Hour, the time just before and after sunrise (and sunset) when the light does things on the horizon that it doesn’t do any other time of day; that it can’t do any other time of day. It’s as though, just for those precious minutes, light is given a different set of brushes, a different palate of colors, and the sky becomes a different canvas, upon which to create. The scenes are so breathtaking, so stirring, and produce such a unique atmosphere in which to exist, that I wish all of the day looked like this. Maybe that’s what heaven is. Magic Hour. Twenty-Four-Seven.
       And, today, August 27th, is my friend Ron’s birthday. He was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2001. Today, he would have been fifty-one years old. I hadn’t remembered that this morning. I only realized that much later in the day when a friend reminded me.
       Ron somehow manages to speak to me, every year, on this day. But none louder, none more powerfully, none more evocatively, than the way he did today. With all of my heart, I know that it was Ron who gave me the gift of this magical morning. It was Ron who gave me this whole unforgettable experience.
       By the way, Ron loved Jackson Brown. And, until today, I had never dreamed of Jackson Brown. Not once. Ever.
       This morning, my meditation was my kayak across the bay at Magic Hour. Which itself was preceded by a very moving heart and soul connection to “In God’s Country”, which was itself preceded by intimate moments with Jackson Brown and his music in the dream state. All of this, nestled in the open arms of my friend’s loving reach from the other side.
       This morning, I experienced my insides so powerfully stirred that they literally boiled over, directly into this writing. Directly into my sharing this deeply personal, deeply intimate experience with the entire world.
       This is what I want my life to look like. Every. Day.
       I am filled by a burning passion to make that so.
       I am overwhelmed with the gratitude that it has happened but once.
          

©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful

Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful
For I see through you
Into the depths of your own sacred flame
I nurture your desire to express that flame
In all its ways
I cherish your vulnerability
As you let me see you for who you truly are
We create the fertile ground for true connection
Your own unique light shines so bright that it illuminates me
You are
Your Own Kind of Beautiful
You are
My Kind of Beautiful

©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Carnival

This picture is a teaser for a piece I'm writing about my annual sojourn to Carnival in Provincetown. The piece will be done some time next week. Until then, let this picture stir your imagination. Peace.

Born This Way

“There is in each of us a fire that we are afraid to let burn”
                                - Clint Piatelli

       Hearing a song for the first time can be like doing your very first ever line of cocaine. Your insides experience this glorious explosion that you’ve never felt before, and you ride this wave of invincibility. Unlike coke, however, there’s no hangover with music. And, unlike any drug, you get the opportunity to experience this magic again, every time you hear another new song that blows your heart, mind, and soul. It’s reincarnated virginity, and it can happen many times during your life.
       This happened to me the other day, and thanks to our instant society, I had the song in my collection within twenty-four hours. When discerning the lyrics, one word in particular proved pivotal, and set in motion the wheels of this writing.
       At first, I thought the word in question was “Lucky”. Then after a dozen more listens, I was convinced that wasn’t it. The word didn’t fit the rest of the song. So then I listened more, and I thought the word could be a phrase: “Love Me”. Well that fit better, but I wasn’t convinced. So I broke down and looked up the lyrics. The word was actually “Lightning”. Okay. Given the whole of the song, that fit like a fuckin’ glove. And for me it turned the whole experience of the song into something else.   
       I’ll now share the chorus, which amps the tune into overdrive right away. I love when bands start songs with an ass-kicking chorus. To wit, the song “Born This Way” by Thousand Foot Krutch:

Because I was born this way
I got lightning running through my veins
Ain’t nobody gonna stop this train
So hop on board or get out of the way

       When a song moves me as powerfully as this one does, I take a look at what the song is emotionally saying to me. I examine how its energy applies to my life.
       I believe I was indeed “born this way”, meaning that some of the essential elements of my personality where there from the get go. I’m not going to debate nature versus nurture here, because in this context, I don’t care. My story, however, is that although I was born this way, it took a long time for “this way” to develop. Because a lot of who I was deep down on the inside was completely repressed until I hit my late teens. Then it just exploded, and quite frankly, the explosion continues today. More and more of myself becomes revealed to me, to my life, all the time, and I connect more deeply and more securely to those elementals of who I am.
       Like the oak tree’s way is to be an oak tree, my way is to be my way. That means more fully living my purpose. That means more harmoniously being my nature. I do indeed have lightning running through my veins, and when I’m fully connected to that, I shine. I radiate, organically, naturally, and that light has the potential to impact others. That light, both in energetic form and in manifested action, moves people. It touches them. It dents their universe.
       That’s my way. I was born with it. And, although it is innate in me, there’s a life long process of development, of growth. A perpetual process of uncovering, of recovering. A journey down the path of self expansion.  
       We all have some kind of lightning in our veins. But how connected to it are we? How aware of it are we? What does it look like? What does it feel like? How do we manifest it? Do we access that energy, and use it to fuel our lives? To fuel our loves?
       The more I work with my own lighting, the more I discover how to help others to use theirs. Because that’s part of my way too. I want to guide you in riding your own lightning. I want to do that with my writing. With my drumming. With all my art. With my way. Indeed, with my whole life.
       Because I was born this way
       I got lighting running through my veins
       So do you.  

©2014 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart LLC, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

To hear fifteen seconds of the chorus, go to The Music Behind The Stories, and click on "Born This Way".