Colloquy with a Compulsive Collector: December 2010

I first heard this story from a tape I taped from a tape in Salt Lake City Library. It was from a book called The Woman who ran with Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes Ph.D. Here is the original Inuit story followed by a presentation from youtube.

Skeleton Woman

The following is one of my favorite folk tales on the theme of the life, death, rebirth cycle and the presence of Lady Death in all relationships. I think it poetically describes the ebb and flow of all affairs of the heart. This is a modified adaptation of a live version performed by the esteemed Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., Jungian psychologist and storyteller of the old tradition.

There once was a hunter fisherman, who was fishing in a cove far from home, that he didn't realize was haunted. Looking around and seeing no other kayaks out in the water, he thought, 'I have this bay all to myself.' He dropped his bone hook over the side of his kayak and waited. And he was so hungry. And he was so lonely. And he had been hunting and fishing for days on end without finding anything to eat. And so his bone hook went down, down, down, into the deep waters.

Beneath the waters was a skeleton woman, and she lay there on the ocean floor, rolling back and forth with the tide. The bone hook, as it drifted down into the deep waters, caught in her ribcage. Although she tried to move with the currents to disengage herself, the bone hook caught all the more tightly. The fisherman above, felt a tug, and pulled a little more, and saw his fishing stick beginning to bend. 'Oh' he thought, 'I've got something really big on the end of this line that's going to keep me fed for a very long time to come.' As he pulled harder, Skeleton Woman began to drift to the surface of the water. And as he turned back around with his net to catch his 'prize', there she was - hanging off the bow of his kayak, with her long yellow front teeth, and her bald head filled with crustaceans, and sea worms dangling from the nose holes and ear holes of her skull. The fisherman was absolutely terrified! So much so that his ears turned a bright red and met each other at the back of his head. He screamed and paddled fast as he could towards shore. But she was still hooked in her ribcage and so when he paddled and looked back over his shoulder, he saw her standing on tippy-toes racing after him, over the tops of the waters. 'Oh no!' he screamed, 'She is chasing me! She is after me!' And he arrived at the shore, not a moment too soon and scrambled out of his kayak, grabbed his fishing stick and ran for his life. He looked over his shoulder every few moments and sure enough, she was still keeping up with him. The poor fisherman was running in terror as fast as he could and finally he came to his little skin house and dove inside, into the darkness.

And he thought, 'At last I am safe.' He became very still and listened...and the only sound he could hear was his own heart pounding. 'I must have out run her', he thought and after a little while just to be certain, he began to make a little fire, because he was so cold. And then, right across from him, flickering in the light there she was! She was still hooked and all in a tangled mess. Her ankles were over her shoulders and one arm was caught in her ribcage and her pelvis was tilted backwards, and her skull was hanging down below her shoulders. He looked at her and something came over him. He looked a little longer, and tried to still his fear. The more he studied her the more he felt sorry for her. She was in such a predicament. Somehow in this tangled mess she didn't look so frightful as she had before. And he contemplated her...and she did not move. The more he thought about it, she had an almost pitiful, pleading expression.

Like a father would to a child, he reached out and took her ankles down from her shoulders cooing, 'There , there, that's better isn't it? Not so uncomfortable.' He straightened and untangled her, as he sang a little song, as a father would. And soon she was all straightened out. And she had an odd little tilt to her skull that almost made her look grateful. And he mused, 'Well, she's just a skeleton hooked by accident. I'll leave her be this night and then give her a proper burial in the morning. I'll try to sleep now, because I'm so very hungry and sleep is my only escape from this hunger. And he fell fast asleep, exhausted by all the excitement and lack of food.

As often happens when we sleep, a little tear escaped from the corner of his eye and began to trickle down his face. Skeleton woman saw this tear glistening there and became very thirsty. And so very quietly, with the slightest of tinkling and rattling of bones, she got on her hands and knees and placed her mouth there and drank deeply. When she saw that he did not awaken, she slid her hand inside his chest and took out his heart. And she raised it like a great drum and began pounding on it. Boom....boom...boom...and she began to sing flesh onto her bones. She sang with the drum of his heart and long, glossy, black hair grew out of her skull and a full, elegant face and fine hips and all the things that a woman needs began to take shape. And when she was done, she slipped the hunter's heart back inside his chest and looked at him ever so tenderly. She lifted the sleeping skins of his bedding and climbed in underneath and pressed her warm body against his. And they tangled all night long. They wound up more tangled then she had been to begin with. With her legs over his shoulders and all those things that happen when people make love.

And when morning broke, they left together hand in hand. Because she was from the water, they never again went hungry for she had a way of calling the creatures of the sea to her. And people say that if you are ever out when the whole land is white with snow and the sky is also stark white and nothing seems to move; if you look out into the horizon, and can see two tiny black dots bobbing gently, that is skeleton woman and her hunter.

Sorry About so long between posts but I just got a new toy, an I-pod with 64 GBs and I have been compulsively collecting and loading up my i-pod with tunes. It takes a lot to fill up 64 GB's and right now it's only half full.

I first came in contact with October Project in 1993 when I overheard a conversation in one of my favorite shops The Golden Braid bookstore in Salt Lake City. The conversation was between the clerk at the store and a patron and the clerk was raving about this new tape that they had just received in from this new band the October Project. I immediately bought the cassette from the store and when I listened to it was enthralled by the band.

October Project is a pop / rock band that was signed to major label Epic Records from March 1993 to June 1996. Their music is often categorized as adult / alternative. The members of the band during that time were Mary Fahl (lead vocals), Marina Belica (keyboard/vocals), David Sabatino (guitar/vocals), Emil Adler (piano/vocals), and Julie Flanders, the band’s lyricist and at the time a non-performing member. Urbano Sanchez, the band’s percussionist, is listed as an additional musician on the two albums released by Epic, appearing in all band photos during that period, but was not an official member of the band.

The sound was just different and the combination of Mary Fahl's strong melodic voice and the lyrics by Julie Flanders along with the ever changing rhythms of the percussionist were something unique and I have not heard anything similar since. the rhythms were unusual like 5/4 time and were really in counterpoint to a wonderful melody.

October Project was their first album. Flanders and Adler began writing songs together while still in their teens growing up in Montclair, New Jersey. Flanders and Belica met as freshmen at Yale University. In their senior year Flanders and Belica collaborated with Adler to write the musical revue, Measure By Measure. In 1981 they were accepted as a team into the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop, studying first with Lehman Engel and then Maury Yeston. Adler and Sabatino met at a jam session in New York City. At the time Adler was finishing his Master’s thesis in music composition at Rutgers University. Together with their friend, Paul Byrne, they started a music production company, Tritone Productions. In 1985 they built a recording studio in a New Jersey garage, which Adler would eventually use to produce the first demo recordings of singer/songwriter Lee Feldman and Sufjan Stevens' college band, Marzuki. October Project would use the studio as its home base during its developmental phase.
Flanders met Mary Faldermeyer (later Fahl) in New York City and introduced her to Adler in the summer of 1989. Plans were immediately made to form a band.The band spent eighteen months in Tritone's garage studio refining their instrumentation and arrangements, and occasionally changing their configuration. The initial lineup (as of October 1989) included Paul Byrne (guitar) and Mark Huntley (drums/vocals). Byrne and Huntley left after a few months. Sanchez was later recruited as percussionist and was invited to join the band, but declined in favor of retaining sideman status.
In June 1996 the band’s contract with Epic was terminated without official explanation from the label. The band members decided to discontinue their mutual involvement.

Since then Lead singer Fahl has been pursuing a career as a solo artist. Her writing collaborators have included Bob Riley, Ramsey McLean and Glenn Patscha. In 2001, she released Lenses of Contact, a four-song EP of her collaborations, produced by Jeffrey Lesser. Signed by Sony Classical, she released a full-length album, The Other Side of Time in 2003, also produced by Lesser. In 2006, Fahl recorded From the Dark Side of the Moon for V2 Records. The album, produced by Mark Doyle and David Werner, is an interpretation of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. Following the restructuring of V2,the album was not released.
Vocalist Belica has been pursuing a career as a solo artist under the name decembergirl. She invited former band mates Flanders, Adler, Sabatino, and Sanchez to participate in recording a version of October Project's single, "Return to Me", sung by Belica and produced by Adler. The cover became the feature track of Belica’s five-song EP, decembergirl, released in 2000. Belica also composed a full-length instrumental album, One Sky, released in 2003, produced by Randy Crafton and Chris Cunningham.
After working together in the studio and performing at several venues as OP(iii), Flanders, Adler, and Belica chose to reunite in 2001 under the name October Project. In March 2003, the trio released a six-song EP, Different Eyes, produced by Adler. In June 2006, a tribute album, October Project Covered, was released, featuring performances by sixteen independent artists of songs by Flanders and Adler.
October Project was inactive from 2006–2010. A new web site was launched in July 2010, wherein it was announced that the recording and production of a full-length studio album is underway.

The Track listing for the tape is as Follows

Bury my Lovely Some say this song is about child abuse and its ramifications. I can see that

Cover the mirror, Hide in your dreams
Forget what they told you,Forget what it means
A picture worth a thousand lies, The mem'ry and the mirror
Nothing but what came before, Nothing but a closing door

A picture worth a thousand lies,A thousand words,A thousand eyes

Bury my lovely, Hide in your room
Bury my Love, Forget me soon
Forget me, Forget me now
Forget me not

Cover the madness, Cover the fear
No one will ever, Know you were here
A figure in the hallway light, Returning like a ghost
Something that was left behind, Something like a child's mind

Bury my lovely, Bury the lies
Bury me under, A thousand good-byes

A shadow from another time,Is waiting in the night
Something happened long ago, Something that will not let go
Ariel (the name of a prankish spirit in Shakespeare"s the Tempest)

My name is Ariel, And I want to be free
It is your sorrow that has made a slave of me
Forgive me, Forgive me
But you are all I know, Forgive me for leaving

The day is breaking now,It's time to go away
I'm so afraid to leave, But more afraid to stay
Forgive me, For leaving the sadness in your eyes
Forgive me

Let the wind and ocean water wash across your hands
Wash away a thousand footsteps, Wash us all away like sand

The sky has fallen, now the earth is dry and torn
I know you're tired from the violence of the storm
I love you
I love you
But you are all I know
Forgive me let the wind and ocean water
Wash across your hands, wash away a thousand footsteps wash us all away

Let the wind and ocean water, wash across your hands
Wash away a thousand memories Wash us all away like sand

My name is Ariel
Where you are (I think many of the songs are about the state of modern relationships. Here is one of separation and after experiencing a couple of long distance relationships I can understand these lyrics.)

Floating in the summer sunshine we are flying
We are blue, falling like a summer raindrop
Like a teardrop like the dew

Nothing but a blue horizon all around us like a glove
Feeling it go on forever, far below us, far above

Where you are do you know I think of you
Where you are do you know
I hope you do

Shining like a summer rainbow we are colors
We are bright vanishing into the sunshine like a river made of light

Floating in a summer memory I can see you in my mind
Knowing it goes on forever far beyond us
Far behind

Where you are, do you know
I think of you where you are
Do you know
I hope you do

Falling in a summer daydream I remember what I knew
Nothing that I can't hold on to or return to
Even you

Where you are do you know I think of you
Where you are do you know
I hope you do

A Lonely Voice

I keep looking back
A lifetime back across the desert
In a desert where no one can explain
You tell me God is dancing in the rain

I can hear the echo in a maze of words
A lonely voice behind a door
Can you hear me calling from a world away
A lonely voice behind a door

I keep looking back,Traditions back across the centuries
In a century where no one can explain
You tell me God is dancing in the rain

I can hear the echo in a maze of words
A lonely voice behind a door
Can you hear me calling
From a world away a lonely voice behind a door

As I stare ahead, a dream ahead across the ocean
Cross an ocean where there's nothing to explain
You tell me God is laughing in the rain

I can hear the echo in a maze of words
A lonely voice behind a door
Can you hear me calling from a world away
A lonely voice behind a door
Eyes of Mercy (I think in our time there is this constant need for sanctuary and a safe place to land. Relationships often provide that for us)

Hush, close your eyes and I'll keep you safe
Allow you to weep and sing you to sleep

Don't be afraid remember I'm here
The noise in the street will soon disappear

When the soft face of mercy is lost behind a veil
I will stay with eyes open, stay here with eyes open to watch over you and take away the sadness and the fear

Hide in my arms and dream golden dreams, forgetting the world of men and machines

When the soft eyes of mercy are blinded by the dark
I will stay with eyes open stay here with eyes open to watch over you and take away the sadness and the fear
I'll be here

Return to Me (another separation song. I wrote a similar song about a relationship in which we were separated for months called Travelling Home. The Lyrics go: Travelling home, someday you'll be, crossing wide water back home to me)

You rise like a wave in the ocean and you fall gently back to the sea
Now I want to know how to hold you Return to me
Return to me

You shine like the moon over water and you darken the sky when you leave
Now I want to know how to keep you return to me
Return to me

Turn to me, Return to me

Everything I tell you has been spoken and everything I say was said before
But everything I feel is for the first time and everything I feel, I feel for you

I am here calling the wind
I am here calling your name
I am here calling you back return to me
Return to me

I know what it means to be lonely and I know what it means to be free
Now I want to know how to love you return to me
Return to me

I am here calling the wind
I am here calling your name
I am here calling you back
Return to me,return to me

I am here
Return to me
Wall of Silence (In relationships we often build walls of silence. One of my favorite paintings is a Pre-Raphaelite painting of a woman smelling roses on a wall. I often imagine her being kept in by the wall, a wall she built by silence)

I've seen that life touches us with pain
And we change becoming strangers to our friends
Tell me what happens along the way

I thought of us,hard to talk these days
Did we change or were we strangers all along
Tell me what caused us to turn away

There's a wall of silence miles across
A wall between us holding back, holding back our loss

I moved ahead thinking you'd be there but it changed and now we're strangers to our past
How did I lose you along the way

There's a wall of silence miles across
A wall between us, holding back, holding back our loss

I've seen that life touches us with pain
And we change becoming strangers to ourselves
Tell me what happens along the way how did I lose you along the way

Take Me As I Am (There is a yearning for being taken as you are without any questions and complicating factors. Just the freedom of uncomplicated connection)

Take me as I am, someone you don't know even in the dark you may not be sure
Take me while you can, I can see you standing in the smoky entrance giving up your good intentions

Leave the shadows dancing, dancing on their own
Let the moment free you now and leave it all behind you
I'll know where you've gone, let the world go on

Take me as I am, I may disappear, fade into the night lighter than your thoughts
Take me while you can, never knowing who or what you are until you're living with the unfamiliar

Leave the shadows dancing, dancing on their own
Let the moment free you now and leave it all behind you
I'll know where you've gone

Let the world go, there's a place where fear won't find you, where your secret dreams remind you
This is all you have to know and this is all you have to go on
Everything you have inside you, everything you need to guide you
This is all you have to know and this is all you have to go on

Take me as I am, someone you could know even as we speak you could change your mind
Take me while you can ,even if you shine a light into the mirror you won't see me any clearer

Leave the shadows dancing, dancing on their own
Let the moment free you now and leave it all behind you
I'll know where you've gone
Let the world go on

Now I Laid me Down

Out of the silence into the blue you finally remember where you've been
You finally remember who you are and you remember the light

Out of the spirit into the flesh
The animal heartbeat in the chest, the naked desire, the appetite
But you remember the light

Now I lay me down, now I lay me down
Now I lay me down to dream

Out of the fire into the night
Communion of body into smoke,human and sacred the sacrifice
You will remember the light

Now I lay me down, now I lay me down
Now I lay me down to dream

Now I lay me down,now I lay me down
Now I lay me down to dream of light
To Dream Of Light

Always (Ah the joys of modern relationships without Expectation. Always wanting not to demand but yet yearning for connection and commitment)

I have come to know you over all these years
We've seen many days come and go after all the time we've shared all the secrets told
Will you ever say I love you

If you gave me nothing nothing more than this I would have the mem'ry to keep
Let me make this simple wish as we fall asleep, let me wake with you by my side, always

If you have to leave me, leave me with a kiss, tell me how you feel without words
Are you so afraid to stay,must you be alone
Let me wake with you by my side, always

Paths of Desire (Anther longing song)

I have traveled the paths of desire, gathering flowers and carrying fire, raising a grave to the reasons behind me
Looking for strength as you live to remind me I'm drawn to you, I'm caught in you

I am the fly who dreams of the spider, the path to the web becomes deeper and wider
I dream of the silk that is tangled inside you and know that I want to be somewhere beside you
I'm drawn to you, I'm caught in you

In your eyes, All of the promises, All the lies
Will you keep all the promises in your eyes

I am crossing the bridges of sorrow,empty with yearning and full of tomorrow
The river is high and the bridges are burning
I know I've been hurt but I keep on returning
I'm drawn to you, I'm caught in you

In your eyes, all of the promises, all the lies
Will you keep all of the promises in your eyes

I have traveled the paths of desire, following smoke and remembering fire
The night is falling, the path is receding
I don't need to see it to know where it's leading

In your eyes, all of the promises, all the lies
Will you keep all of the promises in your eyes
Be My Hero ( There's a wonderful tale told by Clarissa Pinkola Estes called the Skeleton Woman about the fear of commitment and she explains the fear of commitment is often a fear of the death of the relationship which is part of the "Life, Death, Life cycle in long term relationships)

Sleep with the window open, sleep till tomorrow, be my hero

Be, without being lonely, try to open
We try to open hoping for a hero

I want something, I want everything, I want nothing
Nothing else
I want someone, not just anyone, be my hero

Keep what is secret, secret
We can believe it, be my hero

I want something, I want everything, I want nothing, nothing else
I want someone, not just anyone be my hero

See how we measure feelings from a distance
See how we measure people into zero

I want something, I want everything, I want nothing, nothing else
I want someone, almost anyone