Not working for personal gain

When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind or sees two targets –
He is out of his mind!
His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him.
He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting–
And the need to win drains him of power.

Translated by Thomas Merton (19:4, p. 158)

A new landscape
A forgiving of all the universe
A movement from
The world of shame, regret, guilt
Anger and violence.
A gentle light
A candle burning in
The corner of the room.
A new reason to make love.

The growing plants in the window
Friends I recognize through the
Patterns of their leaves.

An old man with loving eyes
Drinking red wine
With a young woman.

There is no need to struggle anymore.

On a train heading South and West
Its the direction on home
With a sea in between
I’m on my own again
A. hopped off yesterday in York
So its me and my instruments
South
And West.
Back to where we hit dry land
Running late
And started this tour.
One more show tonight
In Cardiff
And I’ll get to see my dear friends
Lois and Junior.
Phillip Glass has been with me since Sat.
I keep coming back to string loops
To kick off the shows.
And the wisdom of the opera
To stay focused on the path
Through success and failure
Pleasure and pain
Riches and poverty
Acclaim and ignorance
To forget these worldly prisons
(As each of them is)
And to sing - even in the face of death.

Leeds
You rock
Thanks to Charlie Bath
And to Bex
And Pat the bouncer
And his 5.5L Merc
For Driving us to the party

In York
The warm homely ways of this town
And its people Jem and Louise
Who fed us and made us loved
Before we wondered off to put on a show
In a basement under the big screen
Near two clocks.
Tom Adams band The Mountaineering Club were opening
And since Dec (when we last played together)
They have switched things around
To guitar, vocals, two laptops and a video projector
So so so so good
I was loving the new show
And all that they do.
Check them out, you’ll love it too.
After championing my home-built electronics all tour
At 7.20pm in the soundcheck in York
My foot pedal keyboard gizmo just said no
And stopped altogether.
It all looked like it would be fiddle jigs and reels for my whole set
However Jonny the promoter found us an old mac keyboard out the back
And it was a swift pulling of teeth
And reprogramming things
And onto stage
To find all was grand so.
Thanks be to the universe.

No time for small talk
It was up at 7am in Scotland (not a usual time for tour mornings)
And onto the train to good old Newcastle
To run some workshops at Newcastle College
Coffee first
And then some great discussions
Trying to get rid of blocks
Focus on the journey rather than the destination
And much interesting talk about how ipods and adverts
Have trained us not to listen to the wide arc of a song
All this skipping skipping to a new track
Certainly one reason why I put this new one out on vinyl
42 minutes is the human concentration span
12″ at 33RPM
With a nice 20second break half way along to clear the ears
With the silence as you flip the record
After that it was straight to the Cluny for a beer
A wee breather
A sweet soundcheck
Hang some black curtains
And then the crowd showed up, including some faces from way back.
Seems a pattern is developing on this tour
Time is dissolving
Here are two bearded brothers

In an effort to cut down my carbon
I now do all my tours on public transport
Its not much, but its a little to keep one less car on the roads
Plus I can read and write and think
Rather than stress stress stress traffic petrol tyres parking lost in town one-way
The trouble is, with this new record out on Vinyl
There’s a lot to carry around
Along with my instruments and electronic stuff
All this came to a head at a train change on the way to Edinburgh
We had 2 minutes to change
And it was under the tracks
So running down the concrete slope with my violin, guitar, pedal case, backpack and wheely case full of 180g vinyl
The momentum was gaining
Too fast for me to control
And at that pivotal moment
Everything came crashing behind my heels
And I flew and went head over said heels
Scraping along concrete
Bit the dust big time
Feeling blood and dust I lay for some seconds with my head on the floor
Then an old lady behind me shrieked and came rushing over
I dragged my sorry self up
And suddenly in my head was ‘TRAIN!!!’
So I ran - UP- the slope this time
And jumped on
Shaking and breathing fast
To feel the blood staining my torn jeans
My hands torn on the palms
And my poor violin with one cracked tuning peg.

Well, here are some nice shots of Edinburgh.
I survived.
And bought a 20quid suit. The Edinburgh reviewer called me ‘Dapper’
If only he’d seen me on the concrete…

Back to my childhood home
And the house I grew up in
Its empty
There’s no-one here
And I’m playing at Junction2
Where I used to go see bands as a teen
And then came back as a man
When you look back on 10 years
You realize that you’re living way more than you ever dreamed
Maybe we’re limited by our dreams
Certainly God has her way of blowing apart our ambitions
Took the number 18 bus to Hills Rd and set up at the venue
The workshop with the students was great
And the lads in the support band were cool
Two of them were in my class at school
And my music teacher from school was in the crowd later at the show
It seems like some nights your past comes and blesses you
With gentle time.
2 years married today and we had a wee picnic in the dressing room
Future and past
Are all present, contained in this flesh and blood
In these songs
All that we’ve loved and lived and dreamed of
And more will come
Step out into the river with hope dear ones.