Grayson Capps Archives -

Arrived

By Simone Lipscomb | May 16, 2022

The full moon crested the ridge, as clouds parted, at the end of an amazing evening of music along the French Broad River. I caught glimpses of the total lunar eclipse as I made my way home. An hour and forty-minute drive through the Pisgah National Forest, the rolling hills of Waynesville and finally, toward the Smoky Mountains…where I live, move, and have my being.

That was Sunday night with Grayson Capps and Corky Hughes. Saturday night in Asheville, I witnessed the magic of Will Kimbrough. All three are favorite musicians that are dear to my heart and they live or originated on the Alabama coast. I hadn’t seen them since moving here two and a half years ago. I hadn’t seen any live music during that time because of…you know, the plague.

When I moved from the Gulf Coast, back to the mountains, it had been an insane time of real estate deals falling through at the last moment (my entire house was packed) and then a miraculous deal that pushed everything into ‘go.’ The stress between the two was probably the worst in my life. So when I finally moved, there was a shattering that had taken place.

I realized last night, while surrounded by massive trees and the river and music that echoed from that time to now, that these three friends were bringing back a part of myself that simply hadn’t arrived with the relocation. Will started the delivery on Saturday and Grayson and Corky brought her home.

The other thing I realized last night is how much Nature has opened my heart during these many months spent wading, hiking and communing with rocks, creeks, trees, flowers, and the energies that reside here. Many internal barriers have been laid down as I have expanded and grown clearer, more open.

Thanks to Will, Grayson and Corky for bringing back the part of myself that got left behind on the Gulf Coast. It was time….how wild that they all showed up in the same weekend. I’m so grateful to my soul friends for providing the way.

I arrived home as the eclipse peaked. I think that’s no coincidence.

Flow Like a River

By Simone Lipscomb | October 23, 2018

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.” Rainer Maria Rilke

The manatee played with my vest, searching for something interesting to satisfy her curiosity. I kept flooding my mask as I laughed into the snorkel while holding my big underwater housing at an awkward angle for a selfie with my friend. This was a moment when unbounded joy leaped from my heart and the experience of Oneness was celebrated. I think Rilke had it right….be as a child and let life flow.

I see that with musicians, especially at venues like The Frog Pond in Silverhill, Alabama, where singer-songwriters are encouraged to jam. When the minds of musicians go into that flow, they sync and magic happens. Literally….it unfolds before our eyes.

I want to explore the world with the spirit of flow and openness. When I can be in that place within my Self, I can find holy ground no matter where I roam.

When I was in Ireland last September, on the island of Inis Mor, I allowed the spirit of flow to take my feet and surrendered to the direction it led. The path dead-ended at an ancient bee hive stone hut. Far in the distance was a beautiful white horse. I couldn’t see a way to the horse but longed to meet it.

Later that day, our retreat attendees went with a guide to the same place and there, in front of the stone hut was the white horse…waiting for me. Excitement bubbled forth as I greeted the horse. I called her Fiona. Later, when I looked up the name, I found out it means white. She and I still have a strong connection even though there is an ocean between us.

Even in my painting, I follow the muse of humor and fun. Buddy meets a dolphin….Buddy and the whales….much of my work with paint and canvas is a celebration of color, fun and life.

You don’t have to be frisked by a manatee or meet a white horse who likes to smile to connect with the flow. Everyone’s flow and presence can look different. The key, perhaps, is to open our hearts and minds to surrender, to acceptance….and then simply play.

Musicians can be excellent examples of how to be in the flow…to not force or hold back. When they are having fun…it’s magic.

What magic would you like to experience? What calls your heart? What holds you back?

Whatever you do, stop wasting time and waiting for the right moment to be in your flow. Open your heart and mind and leap into the River of Life. “May what I do flow like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.” And I might add to Rilke’s contemplation that you might find Holy Ground wherever you are in that flow.

I invite you to listen to Luka Bloom’s music and follow the way of the Sacred Child to find Holy Ground.

Paradise Right Here*

By Simone Lipscomb | August 30, 2015

It was still dark as I pulled onto the highway and turned east. There, in the lightening sky hung venus while Dreamer’s Sky, Will Kimbrough’s song on the new Willie Sugarcapps CD eased me into the morning. The last sea turtle patrol of the season begins here, in my car, with music carrying me toward the Gulf of Mexico.

A turn south and another song, another turn east and there’s Venus again with Anthony Crawford‘s song, Love Be Good to Me, sweetly sung by Savana Lee Crawford. The planet of love and these lyrics…..”Love be good to me, Fill my heart again. Love, can you still hear me calling out to you?…..Everything happens in its own time.”

Another turn south and more wonderful music. Grayson Capps, Love, surrounds me with soulful words and notes. And finally, a turn west at the beach and the full moon hangs in a perfect square notch in a massive cloud as Will Kimbrough’s, Paradise Right Here, begins to play. For less than a breath the moon is cradled by the towering cloud and then it disappears.

The words of the song touched me deeply the first time I heard it at the Frog Pond. Tears streamed down my face as I listened to Will’s lyrics. Today, they touched me again as I thought of daily abuses to our planet that take more of the paradise away….the paradise that literally is in the palm of our hand, as Will sings. It is totally up to us if it remains or is destroyed.

I reach the beginning of my sea turtle patrol at the edge of the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge and grab my camera as I exit the car. The full moon is still bright in the sky and the sun not yet risen. As I reach the water’s edge my faithful dolphin friend swims up and we journey east, toward the rising sun. He, swimming just offshore, and me, walking close to the water’s edge. The past several Sunday’s we have shared the sunrise together and the thought of not seeing him next Sunday saddens me.

The sky is in full sunrise celebration with crazy clouds and colors of phenomenal beauty. Joy leaps up within me as I frolic along the shore which seems to excite my cetacean buddy. As Will sings, “I’m glad to be alive and I’m thankful for this paradise right here, paradise right here. Right here, by the warm inviting water, right now with my bare feet in the sand, right here share it with your sons and daughters, paradise in the palm of your hand. Paradise in the palm of your hand. Paradise in the palm of your hand.”

So grateful for the paradise of this shoreline, the Alabama coast and the greater Gulf of Mexico….all life here…and hopeful that we can make it even better with efforts to be good stewards and approach our walk on this planet with love and compassion for all life.

The end of my walk neared and I saw two of my teammates approaching from their section. We celebrated the beauty of the morning and a successful patrol season and sea turtles. We remembered our loggerhead friends who lure us out each Sunday morning from May 1st through August 31st to chase the sunrise and re-discovered paradise…in the palm of our hand.

*Paradise Right Here is Willie Sugarcapps new CD title and the title of Will Kimbrough‘s fantastic song. Check it out!

The Face of Love

By Simone Lipscomb | December 8, 2014

The sand is cold from a night of darkness. Starlight is still embedded in the crystalline grains. It lingers as the gathering orange orb peeks from behind dark, gray clouds. Lunar fullness…madness… seeps into my bare feet as I walk along the shore, chilled from a wintery morning.

The pre-dawn excursion gave me time and space to freely open to the creative impulse working within and through me. I came away with a synthesis of revelations of late.

Recently, in my morning meditations, I have asked for one-sentence seeds of wisdom to begin the day. Yesterday it was this:

Throughout the day I contemplated this statement and felt a deeper opening in my heart…and a Buddhist story came to mind. It goes something like this…

An abbot of a monastery sought a replacement. The test given to monks who applied for the position was to stand against hungry ghosts…legions of them. Bravery, courage and wisdom was needed. One by one, they were defeated as they wielded weapons and used defensive maneuvers. Finally, a monk calmly stood ready to face the test. Rather than hold weapons or stand in a defensive posture, the monk remained calmed and opened himself, allowing all the hungry ghosts to pass straight through. By not holding on or clinging to defensiveness, he passed the test and thus possessed the wisdom to become the new abbot.

It’s possible, while trying to maintain an open heart, to become defensive and protective of it as there will be those who are threatened by such joy, such happiness and they will make attempts to put down the light being emitted. Yet those ‘hungry ghosts’ have nothing on which to attach if we remain open, undefended, allowing pure joy and love to flow through.

As Pema Chodron wrote, “To experience something that liberates us from the narrow minded-ness of our biases and preconceptions is truly wondrous.”

“Don’t worry about results; just open your heart in an inconceivably big way, in that limitless way that benefits everyone you encounter,” wrote Chodron. Yesterday’s meditation included a vision where I climbed through a castle onto the top of it and went on the high roof. As I stood in the winds of this sacred place I saw a light approaching from the distance and heard a deep voice in my mind. Light the beacon, stay open, I am coming. So in the vision I took a torch and lit a huge light and knew that in reality I was lighting my heart’s light..and it would be my task to keep that sacred light burning brightly. There was no other task necessary.

SimoneLipscomb (16) — *Doobie and Bucket understand the value of basking in the sun…it’s where most of their wisdom is gleaned.*

Yesterday at The Frog Pond Sunday Social, a gathering of musicians and music-lovers who come together to create community, I basked in the winter sun as the musicians warmed up. As I faced the sun and closed my eyes I reflected back to the meditative vision and allowed the light of my heart to meet that of the sun and heard the deep voice in my mind once again….stay open.

After over half-a-century of exploring what love is and more specifically what it is not…I have come to realize that love is the only ‘thing’ that matters. It’s not romantic love or sexual love…although that can be an expression of it…it’s the stuff that comes from having an open heart that breathes-in love, exhales love and in the middle finds a way to experience sheer joy and compassion just for the experience. That’s what I’ve gotten to thus far.

This is the face of pure joy, pure happiness….this then is the face of love.

And this is the face of love……

“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space. Your world seems less solid, more roomy and spacious. The burden lightens. In the beginning it might feel like sadness or a shaky feeling, accompanied by a lot of fear, but your willingness to feel the fear, to make fear your companion, is growing. You’re willing to get to know yourself at this deep level. After awhile this same feeling begins to turn into a longing to raze all the walls, a longing to be fully human and to live in your world without always having to shut down and close off when certain things come along. It begins to turn into a longing to be there for your friends when they’re in trouble, to be of real help to this poor, aching planet. Curiously enough, along with this longing and this sadness and this tenderness, there’s an immense sense of well-being, unconditional well-being, which doesn’t have anything to do with pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad, hope or fear, disgrace or fame. It’s something that simply comes to you when you feel that you can keep your heart open.” Pema Chodron, Start Where You Are.

May we all be the face…the embodiment…of love.

On Being Real

By Simone Lipscomb | October 28, 2014

Masks make me uncomfortable. Not costumed masks but those invisible masks humans create to hide the truth of their being. I suppose that’s why my photography has almost exclusively focused on nature and wildlife…until a couple of years ago.

A conversation with fellow photographer and Frog Pond Sunday Social attendee about photographing musicians made me laugh and understand something about myself. I made the comment that I was much more comfortable with animals and nature and had never photographed people too much until I began focusing on portraits of musicians. His reply–“Well, they’re not that different from animals you know.” He said it to be funny and we had a good laugh but what he said is very true.

When musicians are really in the creative groove and are connected to their source of inspiration, they appear to be in an unmasked state of being. They seem to invite the audience to witness their journey and meet them in that place from which they bring forth beauty…and magic.

SimoneLipscomb (15) — Will Kimbrough, Corky Hughes & Grayson Capps

I’m basically shy and much more comfortable alone in the woods or underwater with my cameras. I discovered, while listening and photographing Robert Randolph, why I like photographing musicians.

I connect energetically with musicians when they bring forth their gifts through performance. It’s as if I can see beyond the outer appearance to their true essence and meet them there through my photography. It’s as if we make an unspoken agreement to share that space of truth.

When I photographed Robert, I squirmed my way to the stage to see the energetic and amazing performer who had a huge crowd of people dancing. He was channeling lightning, or so it seemed. He is a pedal steel guitarist and bringer of a dynamic force to all in attendance willing to meet him. Me? I stood there with a huge smile on my face. How could I not? His smile rocked the festival. As the intensely-loud music bounced through me (I was in front of massive speakers) and I focused on him with my camera, I understood my love of photographing musicians while they are playing.

Live music is one of the rare experiences where we can see humans engaged in the creative process. Musicians that are truly in their happy place allow their masks to fall away to expose a truer self. That’s probably what separates the really great musicians from the good ones…a willingness to tap into a higher expression of who they are in front of an audience. That’s no small thing. And that’s probably why I think of these same musicians as being like ministers….leaders who invite us all to a deeper yet higher place.

When I am standing in a river photographing elk headed straight for me, I feel a similar emotion as I do when photographing an expressive musician. I am much more comfortable with elk and other forms of nature but that’s because I don’t create a mask when I’m in nature or surrounded by animals.

Musicians are teaching me to shed my masks and meet them in the truth of the moment, where music melts walls of division and creates harmony of spirit.