Music, Sex and Poetry

So once more we are gathered here on earth to celebrate Jesus birthday, which I believe is about celabrating LOVE.....Its a beautifull day here in California walking on the trails of the Santa Monica Mountains, I have a feeling of the magic all across the universe. I believe today we celabrate "Peace on Earth" . Peace of course comes from within, from our compassionate selves. So my recomendation for Christmas day even if you are alone....spend a moment feeling the abundant peace and harmony in your soul, its there even when you feel its not.....get out and feel the sun on your skin...play some classic rock..and dance like crazy...forgive someone it has been hard to forgive...most all revel in yourself the life creator or god has given you is a precious gift. Forget the expensive gifts and all the expectations of the perfect christmas. Just scream "Its beatiful to be alive"....more than this feel how beatiful it is to be alive on earth today.....Love you all madly, Have a great one Zoe

I have realized that a lot of people confuse these two words. Especially in Los Angeles. yet I would say they cannot be further from each other. What I have observed is that people who are celebrities have a talent for being glamorous and beautiful and posing for the cameras, living on TV. To be an artist, I believe, you have to have a talent for finding magic. Yah...tapping into the real magic and delivering it to your audience. To be a celebrity is to be very talented at conveying a beautiful facade. To be an artist, you have to develop a talent for tapping into the real. To celebrate the REAL in life. To be a celebrity, you're gambling on a moment. Yet, to be an artist is a lifelong journey. It's not something that happens when you're 21 necessarily. I had some confusion about that until a great artist came to my house, sat down on my sofa, and said "Zoe, at what point did I become an artist? Was it after the first film, the second film? Was it when I did this or that? Just get on a write music!" For me, the road less-traveled is far more interesting than the fast burn of instant gratification of one moment of celebrity. I guess there is a place for celebrity. It kind of entertains and distracts us from our real lives. Thumbing the pages of "US" Magazine. Hey, maybe the beautiful people DO have something over us? But if our real lives were not such drudgery, and so geared toward making a buck, if we were all tuned in to our own magic, would we really have any need for celebrity? If we could each find what inspires us and makes us shiny happy people, then would we invest any energy in the illusion of celebrity?
I recently spoke to a very honest Italian journalist who told me that in all the years of interviewing celebrities around LA, she had not met a single happy celebrity couple. What, I ask myself, is wrong with this picture? Is it really all that much of an act? What I personally feel is that we really all need to find the real, where celebration and not celebrity, is for each one of us.

I feel that what we are all looking for in the end is the sacred. What resonates with the sacred within us. Sacred love, sacred friendship, a sacred space and sacred words. Like vows. in a world which puts a price on anything, and on a marketplace where we are all reduced to the mean, it can, at times, become a desperate pursuit for a human soul to find something sacred. We are all in competition in the marketplace. It is purely survival of the fittest. Of course, in songs like John Lennon's "Imagine," we imagine a world in which each soul is free and love is the underlying truth. It would, of course, be great to live in a society which values each human soul for its special gifts. When I get out of the city and travel to a place in the desert where I find I am able to tune into my sacred self, everything takes on new meaning, and I take on a lightness of spirit. Soul connections, in terms of friendship and love, are the essence of human existence. The more I live, the less I'm willing to waste time with anything that does not have substance. I find I have a natural thirst for the sacred and the real. That which is unreal just seems to confuse me, and leave me feeling a sadness. The people who I have experienced who I would consider enlightened are people with an incredible consciousness. It seems each moment, each day, is sacred. Life takes on a whole other meaning. Of course our first sacred connection is to our parents. And this can be one of the most challenging relationships because it is unavoidable. And although I have rebelled against my parents many times, I also realize the profound gifts they have given me. As it has just been my birthday, I do consider this a sacred time. I consider it a power time for me. And you can only feel so much gratitutde for another chance at life. For me, nature is profoundly sacred. For me, nature opens doors. It heals and inspires. With Christmas coming up, it's a good time to ask "what is sacred" for you? On the marketplace it's a crazy time. We've got to buy more than we ever bought before, and eat and drink more than we ever have before. In some ways, this seems like madness because Christmas should be a time of really getting in touch with the sacred. So I'm thinking of trying to go on a journey through Christmas that would really get me in touch with that. I think I would simply just like to walk on the earth, and get in touch with all that is. Ya...maybe I'm gonna walk, and walk and walk this Crhistmas, and get in touch with my sacred self.

Yeh everybody its my Birthday on Friday 30th of November....I'm so happy because I am A Sagatarian...yes the Horse with the Bow and Arrow..So the coming year think its gonna Rock...Its beautiful to be Alive. We take it for granted but what a gift. Think of all the amazing things we can do in this world. I went to a slide show the otherday of someone age 80 years old, he had celebrated his birthday climbing " Mount Everest". So I will be celebrating my Birthday...by performing with a bunch of friends...in a special evening called "The Night Of The Jaguar" to celebrate my Birthday......what do I want for my birthday Freedom Love And Peace...and hey if my man could show up and sweep me off my feet that would rock....do men do that anymore...sweep a woman of her feet....he...he...well anyway continued health and another year of seeing all that is..AHo

Of course we all have a million ways to avoid feeling pain, dissapointment, loss and grief. Life is always full of changes. When I was in my 20's, my way to avoid pain ws to run from it...change country, change lover, change friend. I was the great chameleon. But then certain events in life happened that forced me to face myself, and my out-moded survival mechanisms no longer served me. For someone, maybe it's a health issue or a love story that goes wrong, but one day you can't run anymore, and youre forced to just sit and face the pain, and this is definitely a right of passage. The tears have to be cried. For an artist, you really cheat yourself when you run from your feelings, cause feelings, and being strong enough to face them, are what is going to fuel your creativity. to be present, we really have to face what holds us in the past, or even what fears make us project into the future, rather than being in the here and now. Easier said than done when you're feeling the pain, it's just going to anhialate you. I've gone through big break ups. Grief comes in waves. One minute you feel fine, and the next minute you're floored. But there's no way around the feelings. They are the flesh of our lives. I would not reccommend inviting bad feelings. I would not reccommend dwelling on them, but there is no avoiding the feelings, and they have to go through you. YOu have to process them in order to learn the lesson, and for the feelings to evaporate, and they do in the end. They clear. I guess the worst bit is when we're in extreme pain, and we just don't know why the hell this happened to us. But it's like a child when they burn their hand on a fire. The period for the burn to heal is the time to reflect on what you did to get yourself burned. To become clearer. it's when the universe says "well, did you get it? and are you going to do it again???" I am a very passionate person, and this is probably why I am an artist. I have been given a gift of sensitivity to express my feelings through music. There are times when I've definitely gone too close to the flame. I've gotten burned, and had to face the pain. But I've learned a healthy way to do that as well. I dont want to leave peices of me behind, and I also don't need to run now. Being passionate is who I am. I have learned through facing the pain that the unreal should not be confused with the real. This, for me, has been my greatest lesson...the jewel in the pain is the wisdom. Find a safe way to face your pain, and wisdom and new revelations will come.

At 7am this morning, I walked out of my room and headed off across the desert. The sand was still cold with the night. A tractor had plowed great trenches in the sand, and I walked in the sandy tracks. I sat down on this cool sand in the early light. The sand was a beautiful soft carpet of beige, glistening. The beauty of the Mohave desert has hypnotized me since I arrived in America. Sitting there in the chill of the early morning, I felt cooled by the sands. I'm interested in the process of breaking on through. For me that doesnt involve drugs. For me that involves time and space. Whether it's in a studio during the process of recording a song, or writing the truth, or breaking through to a new understanding of a friendship or a love story, the truth comes slowly for those who move too fast. But out here I can finally move slowly enough, and the truth comes automatically, like miracles of inspiration which wash over a cooler mind. The themes of illusion vs. truth are often sorted through out here. Things that I have become too engaged with, I disengage with, and recover my center. I've found so many secrets of the sand. A space and place where all my raging city thoughts evaporate. And I am at last at one with myself and the nature all around. I sing and the sand listens. I walk and the sand receives my footsteps. I lie on the sand and the sand holds me. The sand represents so many things to me: a blank canvas, a place for me to unwind, a place to hide away from the world, a place to discover my internal world. The nothingness is so mezmerizing, and yet so abundant. Sitting on these sands, a coyote came up out of the bushes and stared at me in the early light, and then ran. When I get stuck in my own illusions,dragonfly beckons me out to the desert. Leaving it all behind, as I walk the sands, I am reborn a more conscious version of myself. Every trip is a gift out to the desert for me. I feel like it receives me generously, however tattered and beated I am. I know I will be fine, and all will be revealed in the secrets of the sand.

Waking up as the light is rising in the desert is a gift. The sands are pastel beige, and mountains gold. The silence out there as I walk barefoot is Godly. Life has this grace. Every day really is a chance to clean the slate and live in a new way. I love wandering barefoot in the early morning out here. It just seems so perfect. These sands represent a continuim to me. life has it's ups and downs, but the sand is always here. And whether I felt elated or sad and lonely, these sands have been here for me, like some magical carpet laid out in front of me. During my walks across them, I have discovered so much truth. Like the snow, there's something virgin about them. You feel like youre taking your first footsteps on them. And they scream out to me "ok, wipe the slate clean! Learn the lessons you have been taught and heal! Walk these sands until you understand the message Creator is dealing out to you. " Yeah, every day is a brand new day, a chance to learn more, love more. The secrets of the sands are many for me. They are a divine space and place where I can be reborn. LIke a phoenix rising from the ashes, I rise from the sand. The sand gives me the time and space to return to who I am. Just a soul wandering against the landscape, playin' my guitar, feeling the love and abundance of this universe. Yeah, walking the same sanding roads I've traveled so many times before, my rights of passage from girlhood to womanhood have happened out here on these pathways. I've faced myself and my shadows often out here. For me, that's an easier and healthier choice than losing myself. These days I'm not so scared of my passion and pain, but when it all gets too much, the sands are here for me. And I will be reborn. For every day is a new day and a new chance.

On this beautiful fall evening in California, I am trying to feel so much gratitude for all the love in my life and all the beauty in this world. I headed out to Malibu Canyon yesturday where I actually lived for 4 years to see friends after the fire. It was a stressful week last week for all of us in California, waiting to here the damage reports so I have so much to be grateful for sitting out in Malibu Canyon...fortunatly none of my friends lost there homes. It is wonderful to be lying out in the sun on a fall afternoon in Cali...you know London is pretty dark and cold, by this time of year. Here in California its still so wonderful and warm. When I get down when I feel a little sad... I try and think of all the things I am grateful for my health, my home, my music, my friends...the beauty of being alive. All the people who arrive with such precious gifts, each day is full of new insights....and we are all Angels in disguise. I feel a lot of gratitude for all the Love I have around me, So many friends that make each day beautiful.

Thanks to everyone who made it to the Go Girls Festival in Los Angeles on Saturday! It was great to be playing, even though the bronchitis was still lingering a bit... I really appreciate this show's support. Thanks to my band. It was blustery in the courtyard of the Maude Carin Gallery, but it was beautiful to be singing under the moon! We played an acoustic set which was refreshing and it was a very jolly atmosphere. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Thanks to the organizers, Go Girls...I hope it raised lots of money for the cats! :) I personally sponsored one named whiskers.
I was wearing a white, silk 60's style dress, and with the wind blowing and the moon shining, someone said it looked just like a video.
Thanks to my sister, Victoria, for singing backups, and thanks to EVERYONE who came from as far away as San Francisco.

Love y'all!
Zoe