The way that the post-midnight hours screw with our heads is always interesting to examine. It’s amazing the things you can think you hear and see in the dark, when all you’re seeing and hearing is the dark. That old house you’re in, even if it’s not that old, just groans its way through the changing of the temperatures, sounding like small explosions, like nails popping and boards breaking. It’s not hurting. It’s just breathing. The problem comes when you’re out of it, when you’ve been sleeping for a good while and something startles you out of your slumber, forces you to bolt upright, believing that SOMETHING woke you up. There must be something there, or you’d still be sleeping. You aren’t satisfied with logically deducing that nothing’s there, that you were just disturbed internally. You’d somehow much prefer there to be an outside reason for your now not sleeping – something to blame it on.

But there’s nothing, except for the various intrusions that you try to create. You fix your eyes on the perimeter of the wall, on the other side of the room, where the dirty laundry has spilled out of the hamper and is now slumped like dark shapes on the floor. You’re pretty sure you see the halting and starting of a creature there. It’s a mouse. You’re eyes are twitchy and cock-eyed. They’re sure they’re seeing something – the slightest of movements, like the quiver of that thin tail silently thwacking the baseboard. It’s nothing. There isn’t a single thing there, but you stare hard for five minutes, sure that you’re not a loon. You KNOW there’s something there with you, not just your sleeping wife in bed next to you.

It’s this very feeling of paranoid certainty that New York’s Anya Skidan has a way of encouraging out of us in certain moments during this four-song session, her first. She creates moods that make you think that something else is up. It’s as if you’re able to live outside of your sides for a second, or for five minutes, before you’re able to determine what’s real and what isn’t. She doesn’t keep suspended there for that long – starting in the darkened corners for skittering and scuttling – pulling you out of there and throwing you back into the fragrant breezes of your dreams – trading one murky moment for another, where there are no worries and only worries. It can feel like a psychotic vacation or one that was worth every penny you spent on it – perfect beyond your expectations. The tan you got was just the right shade and you’re still full from the buffet. Lingering somewhere in there, however, are the strange tingles that will present themselves again, when the house grows temporarily quiet and your head goes to rot.

There’s no end and no beginning, there is just now. Grasp the crisp freshness of now, taste its silky texture, devour the realization that we are all made of light. We are traveling lights sending and receiving signals from the source. We were split up just to connect back again but not till we go through the ages of wisdom, penetrating through the physical realms, human bodies, mother earth, father sun, big dream called life. There comes a time of the awakening. The time is now. There is no time. We are free. We are one big breath of the universe.

 http://www.thedelimagazine.com/band-interview.php?artist=anya-skidan

http://xavierguardans.com/

http://anyaskidan.bandcamp.com/album/indigo-child-2

AAAAND it’s Free!!

AnyaSkidan the band: Dan Makowski – lead guitar

Gio Kincade – bass

Vinny Kucinski – dddddrrrrrrruuuuums

Pianos Upstairs October 19th, 7:30PM

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I LOVE YOU ALL VERY MUCH!!!

Thank you

Anya

http://nyc.thedelimagazine.com/

He was a rare Siberian tiger

Hair tied up, sacred vines from his head

Tears in my eyes, my soul is fed.

Citizen humble,

Citizen wise,

Channeling energy through his eyes

Tall and strong Cypress standing along

Glimpse of hope I throw from my throne

Effortless sounds, his music is pure

Touches the hearts, meant to cure

Experienced something,

So hard to forget

Echo will linger,

Like flowers he bled.

Day that is lived in the darkness or hell

Can turn up the brightest,

Ringing truth bell.

Crushing good intentions

Stomping on your faith

Comes Babylon

Arise!

From the ashes to the sky

Crack the heart wide open

Feel the thousand golden butterflies

Fly through your soul

Up to the sky

Into the universe full of light

And back into your soul to stay

Then the last tear of happiness

Drips from the third eye

You have seen the divine wisdom

You have walked into the darkest forests of confusion

You have come out weak

You will walk into them again and again

And on the 21st time you will see

The light shimmering at the horizon

So clear, so far, so vivid

Pulsating the brightness and ringing the truth

Like the poetry of the air

You breath it

I am the definition of contradiction.

I am the angel of light and the ever learning fallen rebel spirit found by its mother

floating down the river of polluted thoughts.

I am the one who calls for wisdom,

Struggles alone,

Leaps through fires,

Pains the peace,

Never quits,

Never changes,

For anyone,

Alive…

In modern culture, plants with psycho-active properties are associated
with hedonism and irresponsibility. Indigenous people, on the other
hand, use visionary plants for healing and spiritual communion. This
peyote cactus, a sacred medicinal plant that has been used for
thousands of years for visionary healing by Native Americans, had
somehow journeyed from the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona to here,
the concrete jungle, far away from home, a rare species in this cold
and damp climate.

Fortunately for me, I happened to be inside of the tipi that night. I
have participated in various healing ceremonies before, but never
experienced the peyote one. Prior to the prayer, women are usually
asked to clean the peyote buttons, separating the roots and the
flowers. The latter is used for making the peyote tea. The buttons and
powder that’s distributed during the ceremony has a quite nauseating
taste, but you get used to it as you experience it more.
The water drum, considered to be one of the most sacred and
spiritually significant drums in religious ceremonies amongst the
Native Americans, was pounding loud. Under the influence of the
psychedelic, it seemed to me to be a rhythm that was “ridding the
participants of their inner evils”. As another effect of the medicine,
millions of sounds and bits of colorful and bright energy were
floating around and above
me. A cacophony of rattles, eagle whistles, feathers and drums, used
to attenuate and harmonize the vibrations of the experience with that
of the positive energies of the songs and prayers, were washing my
mind in a synesthesia of sounds and visions that oscillated between
terrifying and blissful.

The participants of the ceremony gather and pray around the fire all
night, while a specially appointed fire keeper takes care of it,
forming various symbols out of the coils that are sacred to the Native
American people: an eagle, a star or sun with seven rays or no rays.
The fire is the center of the ceremony and is a symbolical
representation of the sun on earth. “We sit in a circle whenever
possible to remind us that we are all equal and united in the
ceremony, and that we are sharing the medicine and the moment to help
each other,” says Kuauhtli Vasquez who has been conducting Native
American ceremonies for over twenty years now. Requests for healing
medicine ceremonies have taken Kuauhtli all around the USA including
Hawaii, Mexico, Canada, Central America, South America, and Europe.
The ceremonies are usually structured to honor the elements of life:
fire, water, the earth, and the wind, the vital energies of human
existence. The specially grown sacred tobacco is used to communicate
with the spirit of life, the medicines and each other. And of course
the plant, sacred Peyote that has caused a lot of controversy in the
past but was finally legalized in the United States as a religious
sacrament of the Native American Church. Its active ingredient
mescaline typically has a deep self-observational and healing effect
on its users. A normal feeling of discomfort and sometimes purging is
associated with the healing process and tenderly called “getting
well”.
Praised by such great writers of the last half century as Carlos
Castaneda, Allen
Ginsberg and Hunter S. Thompson, peyote has been used by tribal people
for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years and has now made its way to
the 21st Century.
Unlike the modern day pharmaceuticals, plant medicines that exist in
different forms all around the world treat causes and not the symptoms
of both physical and psychological diseases. “People are constantly
healed of drug and alcohol
addictions, past trauma including sexual abuse and rape,” adds
Kuauhtli. By taking them on a journey through the depths of their
psyche, peyote forces people to reckon with themselves, and transcend
the past. “People are freed of past guilt for crimes they have
committed against humanity, war crimes are forgiven, family
relationships are mended, almost everyone can benefit.”

As the sun was coming up hot and bright that morning and the ceremony
was coming to its end, I found myself gripped by the feeling of
sincere joy and appreciation for my life. I felt like the worrisome
burden of my stressful New York City lifestyle was lifted up and I was
free to emerge into a new more expansive reality.
The medicine gave me an opportunity to take a huge leap in my own mind
and realize the social chains that needed to be broken in order to be
a creator of your own destiny. It taught me to look inside myself and
see the endless waves of creative forces, an ocean of ideas
that not only can make me a living, but also fulfill my ever searching
soul.

Since that first journey, I have returned for four more ceremonies.
Each time, my pride in belonging to the peyote community has
increased. As one side benefit, I have noticed the medicine having a particularly powerful effect amongst my
creatively minded friends. Artists, musicians, and writers tend to
find themselves creatively inspired after the use of the medicine. Perhaps the
plant has the ability to open invisible channels of inspiration and
unblock the existing artist blocks. Whatever it may be, I’m utterly
convinced that the medicine energizes and balances the human spirit with
the rest of creation, while working on the individual aspects of each
personal situation.

We are going to be playing with new and exciting members of the band, a sitar player, funky bass, and beautiful Perla Nava singing harmonies! It’s a free show, we go on at 7PM. Hope to see you there! Pianos is located at 158 Ludlow Street on the LES in New York City!