Photo by Karolina McLean
This week I overheard someone talking about my set at Floyd Yoga Jam and they responded by saying, "That's hopeful." Though I know they meant nothing but well, it negated my fierce pride in that performance.
Not just the fact that it defies the odds that I even exist, or am still alive despite depression and stupid decisions. (Yeeaahhhh I'm one of those people who almost fell in the Grand Canyon. Natural selection anyone?)
Not just the fact that I'm a woman in the free world who can bare her skin and soul to share her vulnerable, occasionally anti-fascist songs. (Fascism = the marriage of corporations and government. Sound familiar?)
Not just the fact that I studied and experimented countless hours, honing my craft, so that I can perform a full sound as a solo artist, and book a stage meant for a band.
But the fact that I'm forging my own path, in balance with my body and values, inhabiting a unique niche that only I could carve. When each show makes me richer on all levels- socially, spiritually, ethically, and financially - I know I'm winning.
This concept definitely dovetails with last week's concept of "making music = making it."
I think playing music with the focus being someday in the future can be excruciating. Doomed to a life of always comparing themselves to the .00001% of musicians who have become household names around the world and never feeling up to snuff.
Me, I believe in putting beauty first.
I believe a beautiful journey leads somewhere beautiful.
That's why I'm intentionally crafting my journey, embracing unusual venues and opportunities, such as rooftop yoga, creekside dance parties, radical homespun puppetry, singing with dancers on a barge in a resonant quarry (stay tuned for 2024!)... Situations that resonate with my values and brand, that will help us all create high-saturation souvenirs (in french that word means memories) we can treasure for all our lives.
I believe we each have a unique path that only we can sense, using the fine tuned instruments of our hearts, guts, and inspired minds. I didn't used to be able to feel my intuition, but as I go along my healing journey, it's been coming fantastically online, lighting me up like a glow worm in the dusk.
I believe in the power of our collective courageous non-conformity, where we boldly stay true to ourselves despite the pressures all around.
What if life is but a dream?
A dream that lives inside us like a trapped luna moth, aching to unfurl its strange soft wings and bring our breath-taking beauty to light up the moonnight.
Music helps me remember there is more than is seen.
If you want to partake of my musical ambrosias, you can catch my weekly Friday livestream at 12:30pmET at bit.ly/annabethYT and check out my upcoming Virginia gigs at Bandsintown.
I've noticed the more amazing, attentive people in the audience, the more awesome the shared vibrations are. You all are my real amplifiers! We don't have to understand it to feel it.
xo Annabeth Nc ANMARA
“…and because we simply cheated ourselves the whole way down the line.
We saw our life by analogy as a journey, a pilgrimage which had a serious purpose at the end and the thing was to get to that end… success or whatever it is.
Or maybe heaven after you're dead.
But we missed the point the whole way along
It was a musical thing.
And we were supposed to sing and dance
while the music was being played.”
-Alan Watts
