* DREAM SONGS *

My dreams are at the center of my art practice. This is especially true in my songs and is only made more explicit in the lyrical content, which draws upon dream imagery or more generally celebrates the unconscious. My dreamwork* revolves around a set of nine dreams, each developed into archetypal meanings with which I spin myth and nurture an inner archive of inspiration. The imagery associated with these nine dreams causes my songs to be filled with various animals, insects, minerals, and more--as they have come to me in my dreams. These dream songs often co-evolve with related visual imagery through drawing and painting.

* Dreamwork is a personal psychological practice, closely aligned with spiritual alchemy, which seeks to consciously regenerate inspiration through unconscious imagery and symbolic engagement. This is different from classic dream interpretation by which one seeks a one-to-one interpretation of symbols, e.g. via dream dictionaries, often for prophetic or practical content. I am drawn to dreamwork to nurture the Mystery, not to master it.

I don't have fantastic dreams all the time, nor am I interested in lucid dreaming. Rather, I have returned to the same nine enigmatic dreams for many years now (the earliest having occurred when I was 20). Again and again, I meditate upon these dreams. I actively re-enter and dialogue with these dreams. And over the last few years I've devised a geometric system of meditation (the "Wondering Stars") to continually relate to these dreams from a different perspective. The figures and symbols I focus on are the voices and faces of one Spirit. And each of these dreams is like a guiding angel to me, collectively, "subliminal seraphim." They are fundamental aspects of my psychology and art, as well as my spiritual practice. I find endless inspiration, insight, and wonder in this work, which is never fixed in stone, but wonderfully liquid, always alive and changing. Singing about this work is nothing less than prayer and nothing more than heaven. A song is a song is a song...