[herstory}
On the morning of March 8th, 1997 just two days before my nineteenth birthday my best friend Erin Muckle died in a car accident. She had just turned 19, and I hadn’t seen her in 3 months. Senseless. I remember the absolute guttural pain when I heard, and just the reflex in my hand causing me to drop the phone. She was the absolute closest person in the world to me. Everything went into slow motion, and my tongue was broken. Then came the angry tears….It’s 5 years ago, and it’s yesterday.
Erin and I were fast friends, we first spotted eachother through the patio doors of our childhood houses. At just 3 Erin had pointed at me through the glass and told her mother that I was her best friend. This, before we had even met. She was right. Funny thing, she was always right. Erin had a beautiful carefulness about her, she just felt. She was a brilliant presence and sometimes when I realize how rare that is in the world. I mourn for her all over again.
She was discovery to me. Everything I remember about being a kid involves her, every smell, detail, laugh triggers a memory of her. She and I spent most of our time together laughing.
It has been 5 years since her untimely passing. I am five years older, every year on my birthday I am reminded of how incredibly fragile it all is. I want to thank her, for giving me the courage to do all of the things I’ve done in the past 5 years. The will to stand up for what is right and to speak on behalf of what is good. For giving me the strength of will to try harder at everything I do.
They say that no one ever really gets over someone dying. Funny, i’ve never felt that our relationship was over, I just felt it had changed. Erin, i write this memorial for you in thanks.
Memorial.
You live in this place in my heart where rivers run so deep that th water is black. The sky rushes red with stormy electricity and everything you touch just slips through your hands no matter how tightly you clench your fists. The soil is like memories that just keep fading with each second that passes. This thing, the thing that I can’t begin to understand. This feeling I get where I feel so unbelievably sad, that I just close my eyes and feel that feeling again. Of sheer anguish and pain, and love all at once. That feeling that you never want to have again… I wonder, if I have become a bigger person since or only half of one. I look back at this defining moment and just close my eyes and try to make sense of it.
There are times when I feel you, like you’re yelling at me through glass, as I pass you on the street. I hear you, but it’s muffled I feel like you live in a world surrounded by a membraneous shield. Where you can see me, but you are still healing. Your eyes are new and I am just outside.
Talking about you feels like the first bite of a Godiva chocolate, it keeps you alive, keeps you close. Remembering the details is like an ice cold drink on a hot day. Whenever I laugh it reminds me so much of you.
I made you promises, and they kept me honest. You have taught me more in the past 5 years than I ever hoped to know.
You have helped me to live my life better, you are an experience of my soul.
Thank you for that.
[ t i m e ]
I figured it was about time for me to write something insightful. Much to my dismay I discovered this month that my favorite promoters, the ones who made Toronto what it is today, are having some problems keeping things going. Perhaps due to funds and whatnot or the changes brought about in the scene. Dismay? Their dedication to the cause through the years to keeping the scene here brilliant, brings tears to my eyes….How will the loss of such a groundbreaking company affect Toronto? Syrous. This all made me think, debate, ponder. What can I do? I feel as if the ship is going down and I am the only one bailing out the water….with my hands. Everyone else seems to be just standing around picking lint off of their clothes. For the first time in a long time, the future of things here seems uncertain. I suddenly feel as though all my dedication has been flushed away into the hands of some negative adversary….Although today I received the announcement, that the show will go on. With a 4 year anniversary party in Toronto September 20th. If you are near, or can afford to be in Toronto for that date, the fate of Drum and Bass/Jungle promotion depends upon your existence that night. Perhaps the company will change hands, but will it ever be the same. Deep Blue changed my life. But that’s not really what I want to write about. I want to write about, those lint-pickers that i mentioned earlier. Those ‘passengers’ just standing around enjoying the scenery.I have recently become more worried with the fate of this subculture that we’re a part of. I feel as if i am handing my baby to a pack of wolves. Handing down what we’ve all tried to hard to build to a crowd who could care less about what things are to become. That saddens me for some strange parental reason. Now with the decay of huge organizations like Syrous, due to lack of funds, and support…..What have things become? Taking things back underground seems inevitable, but what are we to lose in the process? With all these thoughts looming in my head, and with my return home, I seem to have a different perspective. I suppose all this time has felt like an investment to me. Maybe what i have invested in is slowly losing it’s value. Yet i am struggling to come out of it all with a profit, as well as to keep things brilliant so that those who come after will be able to profit and learn as well. Maybe i am putting all my eggs in one basket here, but time has never felt so precious as those moments when i have stood face to face with destiny, and felt the music inhabit my soul. I want everyone to feel that. But will they? I suddenly feel like it’s up to me, to make it happen for them to provide the next generation with a wealth of experience to draw from….but is it? when is it time to walk away….for me…not now, not a month from now, not ever. I have had the priveledge of having this music branded forever upon my soul. I will remain with it, continue to invest my time, energy and emotion….but will you?
[ c o n v e r s a t i o n s with the u n i v e r s e ]
Life is presented on this galactic platter for us to live, to paint with. Angels are not mythical creatures. They are advanced souls living in the forth dimension. One full of energy and nothing else. No excuses, explanations, or wrong doing. Just purity. I suppose the second that one becomes coherent in this world, is the second one realizes thier capability. Human destiny. Full of potential, inner nature. It’s really bizarre to think of how little we as a civilization really know about ourselves. Distinction of “us” from “them” has never been a problem, it’s the distinction of oneself that has become viral. Never a dull moment on this planet. Always something to be doing, never usually anything to better humanity. Just something to better one’s place in the universe. Without knowing who the self is that you wish to ‘better’, self exploration becomes selfish. Everyone has that selfish drive within themselves, what varies is the amount which occupies one’s soul. Everyone claiming that they’re working towards something or other. Then taking off into oblivion along with the rest of the world. Life is lessons. Education. That is the secret of the universe. Life is one big school, and like school some students are willing to listen, some distracted, some don’t even understand the concept, and some can’t be swayed away for even a moment. Sometimes some students will require extra help, some enrichment, and so goes life. You know each one, the rarity? The scholar? No. There are plenty of scholars out there. The teacher is the rarity. The teacher that resides deep within oneself. Deep inside the scholar is the teacher. Forever teaching and forever learning. Yin Yang at it’s best. Two parts of the human self.. Teacher and Scholar. Combining to create the soul. The electrically charged force behind each of us. The principle reason why we are, the way we are. No interpretation. It just is. Goes without accessment. And well it should, and so the learning begins as a new soul is created by the powers that be. Thrown together, the map laid out, electrically charged, matched with a container to hold it, and born unto earth in the human body. The new soul has lessons to learn, mistakes to be made, rules to break, just a test run of the new parts. Finally ending with the completion of the first tier of it’s fate. Kindergarten if you will, and if all goes fairly well, graduating to the next level. Level 2 begins, similar, new rules, perfecting some of the lessons already learned and continuing on , until one day the soul has a self realization, self actualization, suddenly all of the souls lessons and days start flooding back. The soul becomes farmilliar, the soul graduates to the next dimension. Sometimes soul’s are “held back” in this school. Not yet ready to realize their journey, coming back to school again and again, until one day reaching true enlightenment and finally the Advanced soul gives back to the Universe what the Universe so selflessly gave to her. This change, this knowledge. This opportunity to become a part of this brilliant universal galactic machine with it’s infinite wisdom and worlds. While the lessons of life on earth continue on somewhere else in space and time. Those who have advanced, create. Bringing different elements to the Universe that never would have existed without their creation. The completion of several sectors and continuation of life and all it represents, spinning on it’s ever widening axis. That is distinction. ………