Susan Osborn: Home
Summer 2010
Photo “Kakehashi” by Susan Osborn
Welcome to my website. Here you will find my schedule as it develops, music to listen to, photographs taken along the way, some of the artwork I am following, my schedule and random thoughts. Please feel free to leave a message for me on the Guestbook page. I would love to hear from you.
It is finally summer here after a very prolonged cool spring and beginning of this season. We even had a fire in our stove as late as July 2. But now, the doors are flung open and fresh strawberries arrive in the kitchen from Dave’s garden every morning.
I am busy picking up the threads of my creative life after a two month journey to Hawaii and Japan this spring. I first spent two weeks on the Big Island, my first visit to Hawaii, with my old friend, artist Elizabeth Miller, http://alizarisms.volcano-house.com/. Please visit her site to see her inspiring work. Elizabeth lives just 5 miles from Kilauea Volcano deep in the rainforest at 4,000 ft. What a different experience of Hawaii from my Blue Hawaii paradise vision of the place! Every morning I would awaken expecting dinasaurs to emerge from the prehistoric looking, tree fern forest outside my windows. Extraordinary. And I had the opportunity to be introduced to her wonderful community of artists and friends in Volcano Village.
We then traveled together to Japan for my 50th tour of my second home. We had the chance to visit some very powerul places thanks to the generous guidance and hospitality of our hosts there. Special gratitude to all my sponsors there. Each one provided experiences that led me deeper into myself and the extraordinary culture of Japan. During the first week, we had the chance to revisit Matsushima, a beautiful small city looking out at many small pine covered islands. One of these tiny islands, Ojima, is connected to the mainland by a red walking bridge. As you approach, you can see that carved into the rock are many small alcoves. Monks from all over Asia came for centuries to carve them into the rock and to sit and meditate in these stone enclosures. The island is wild and ancient feeling. Simple, carved stone Budhas sit here and there amidst the trees and rocks. It was a deep and beautiful day spent walking and experiencing the communion of the elements, those who had gone before, and ourselves. It proved to be the perfect prelude to a profound journey. Check back soon on my Blog page for a longer piece about this latest journey to Japan.
I am currently working on compiling music for a new Best of CD to be released in the Fall as an accompaniment to the Anniversary/Kakehashi tour. Kentaro Kihara, pianist, will be joining me again for a tour of acoustic concert halls in 8 cities across Japan. We will be celebrating 20 years of my music making and teaching in Japan, my 60th trip around the sun and 25 years of marriage and partnership with David Densmore. Information about the tour can be found on the Anniversary / Kakehashi page.
Kakehashi means “bridge building”. For me, this is the primary function of music and song. They create bridges between heaven and earth, between peoples, and between human being and the rest of nature, the direct language of the soul. This ephemeral thing we call singing is not a destination, but a way. I feel so fortunate to have had this universal language such a powerful part of my life.
I am also posting some early versions of new music I am working on. "Her Heart" one of these pieces is loaded in the player at the top of this page, and features, Chama Anderson, prayer, and Ralf Illenberger's guitars. The project is currently titled “ The River” and will be all new original tunes. Let me know what you think.
These are again and continuing extraordinary times for us on the ever evolving planet earth. Since June of 2009, we have been without TV in our home. and amazingly to me, it has been a blessing. I am aware of how the media is based on a model of addiction. Our friend Angeles Arrien, a cross cultural anthropologist has made a cross cultural study of addiction and found that there are four addictive patterns underlying all addictive behavior. They are:
1. The Addiction to Perfection
2. The Addiction to Intensity
3. The Addiction to Focusing on What’s Wrong
4. The Addiction to Having to Know
I recognize these 4 elements in almost all news sources. Rarely is the news balanced by the millions of acts of kindness and ingenuity and beauty that move through all of our daily lives. For more information about Angeles’ fine and ultimately useful work at: http://www.angelesarrien.com/
Here is a poem from David for your consideration.
Blessings as you go, Susan O
TEXT ON THE ARTS AND SCIENCES
Discovery belongs to those who are willing to be lost,
and lost, stumble on the footing of the foundation of the new.
Discovery belongs to those who see the real as it is,
overlooked, errors and intermittencies, that hold the key
to the patterns of the operation as a whole.
The Cantor’s Dust peppers our lives -
Hour by hour, by minute, by split second
inevitably (if not predictably) - signal error,
random noise, cracks our choral perfection with hum.
Error, which cannot be overcome by struggle
or overpowered by signal strength is tempered
only by the redundancy of the choir itself
by acceptance of the many voices, of the lost
and the new, by fresh discovery of the score
pressed into myriad palms reaching for the door -
Celebrate those who realize they hold the key.
That marvelous error that planted foot
in soil seeded with a heart unafraid
to reach into the fluid maze.
We who look back can say
“that day solid discovery was made”.
Those certain gates now lit for easy entry
once hid the spiral equation of dragon’s breath.
Step lightly over the fissures God has woven
into the atomic sidewalk - the light - is pouring
through the concrete into the shimmering world.
We are stepping on music friends. All our discoveries
move us closer to the unveiling of this theme.
The turbulence of the heart - a strange attractor.
The goal of the arts and sciences?
To make us better dancers.
David Lee Densmore
March 7,2007