“Love Is a Traveler”
After the event (accident or not), it was at least a couple of years before the healing pathways of creativity began to flow again…
The poem/song you will hear below, “Love is a Traveler,”—which I created and perform with my colleagues in the Naturalz—is an amalgamation of relationship dynamics and memory symbols, fueled by a desire for healing and breakthrough. In hindsight, it may also have been a prescient message about the life-altering concussion I later experienced when I fell off my mother’s bed.
This poem-song foretells a potential unbearable parting. It speaks of being at a breaking point and seeking relief. The dynamics in my relationship at the time I created this song included a feeling of unbearable waiting; the longing to find our shared rhythm and timing; a desire to understand the archetype of our relationship. The song also reflects a need to find each other’s love language and trust it—as well as not knowing, and to tolerate being in a state of limbo. To honor the state of waiting for the message means there is one. And it’s worth waiting for.
Could it be that the concussion experience itself re-wired my brain, and I was able to see the poem in “wider,”“more magical,” “expanded creative ways”?
Memories:
I think of our old family dog, Kim, in France, who waited for us when we went on vacation for a month in the summer. Each day, I was told by those who were caring for him, he would slowly walk out to the end of the driveway and wait. At nightfall he’d retrace his steps back to the house. He pined, as we all pine, for unknowable answers.
I used to greatly admire a small bronze of a girl playing a blindfold party game in a store window in San Diego. That charming image of being innocently, playfully blindfolded worked perfectly for the “unveil my eyes” bridge/verse. I am asking for my vision to be restored, and for relief.
No one else can truly know what it’s like to navigate the miasma of concussion. Each person, each injury has a unique story. I keep going and rejoice that I have the arts in my life to heal and reveal me and keep me moving. So here’s to the evolutionary/revolutionary mystery of life!
Lifelong writer, composer, and performer Holly Burke a/k/a “Nature Girl” of Holly Burke and The Naturalz writes and performs with humor and insight about the inspirations of nature, human passion, and transcendence. Holly’s been on the scene in Canada and the United States for decades, producing creative, texturally rich, and evocative music that often transcends genre. The Naturalz garnered several global internet radio play awards (Power FM Global #1, KXRL L.A#1) for their tunes “Serengeti” and “River of Stars.” Holly also shares an International Broadcast Award from the Hollywood Radio and Television Society. She has worked with the legendary Linton Garner and Clark Burroughs, lead tenor of the Hi-Lo’s, and acknowledges the influence of the late, great Paul Horn, as well as that of her multi-faceted family, including her father, writer and CBC newsman Stanley Burke.In 2015 Holly experienced a life-changing concussion. Nevertheless, in 2018, she was (just) able to write and perform a one-hour collaboration with Qi Gong teacher Jacob Larmour, called “Kozmik Keyboards” based on the imagery of Qi Gong. The Hard Rubber Orchestra commission co-written with Bill Runge, entitled “Lagoon,” followed that. Thanks to a Canada Council grant awarded in 2022, Holly and Bill were able to realize Dreamride, a collection of Twenty Etudes for the Contemporary Pianist.
Writing and doodling have been best friends to Holly all her life. At their best they’ve provided a wonderful catharsis and ongoing journey to self-knowledge. She is only now beginning to look into the thirty books of writing she’s amassed over the years. She’s surprised, delighted, and honored to be publishing her first poem/performance with Persimmon Tree magazine at age 70.
Photo credit: Gorav Ram Photography
Set during the 'forever wars' that followed 9/11, The Angle of Falling Light movingly explores the demons that survivors must wrestle with in the wake of tragedy. Beverly Gologorsky brings us a great cast of characters, at their center three working-class women trying to shape lives of their own in a world that seems to promise them nothing but deadening repetition.
Brave and faltering, they face daunting conundrums of love, care, and the pull of freedom. How do we live past the terrible knowledge that we cannot always help those we cherish the most? Are we still entitled to seek happiness? Knowing how easily disaster can strike the vulnerable, how do we dare to take the risks required for a satisfying life? Is such a thing even possible in a society hooked on war, dangerous drugs, and hatred of the 'other’?
Alongside the unforgettable trio of Nina and her two daughters (the beautiful but heedless Marla and shy, determined Tessa—barely an adult, but forced to pick up the pieces when her home life shatters), we also spend time with Rhonda, an 80-something artist whose struggle to stay independent in the face of physical limitations and family pressure complements Tessa’s quest to become a photographer.
Gologorsky’s unsparing vision of the bleakness so rampant in a nation addicted to combat and inequality only renders more compelling her portraits of these women bound and determined to make a way from no ways.
Available from Bookshop, Amazon, and your local independent bookstore.