October 18, 2023
This morning I was reflecting on
where the idea for the
Shadow / Light journey came from.
As I’ve talked about in an older post,
I had a religious upbringing.
Within that religious upbringing there was
always an emphasis on embracing the light,
to the point that there was
almost a fear instilled within me
of what would happen if I didn’t have
that light in my life.
It wasn’t until I started exploring
spirituality on my own
breaking away from
organized religion all together
that I started finding benefits
in things like meditation.
A few years ago, I was meditating
when some words quietly entered my mind.
They said, “You need to embrace the darkness.”
This initially took me by surprise
because my whole religious upbringing
instilled in me to avoid the darkness
at all costs because it was “evil”.
As I further explored that concept though
I realized that darkness wasn’t “evil”
but only helped me appreciate the light
that much more.
I know I’ve gone on
about this in earlier posts,
but there is a part of this
I haven’t talked about.
What I think those words were
meant to teach me was that
when life gets rough (darkness)
that I should not run from that feeling.
Embrace it.
So often when things get rough
I run from it so quickly
in order to find something else
to make me feel better
(I guess I could call this ‘false light’)
aka dopamine hits lol
And in a world full of things that
give really quick & easy dopamine hits,
running from the darkness becomes
all too easy to do.
So what happens then if I
don’t run from shadow?
What happens if I sit in it?
What does that look like?
What does that feel like?
I’m still exploring this tbh…
One way in which I’m doing this is
re-writing my “Open Your Wings” song
which will be on the
Songs-in-Progress page shortly.
I originally wrote “Open Your Wings”
about 13 or 14 years ago.
Yikes that’s a long time lol.
Here’s the original song content page
for the original “Open Your Wings”
from the Shadow / Light journey
in case your choices in the story
didn’t take you to it.
I LOVED the angsty, dark verses
but a part of me felt… guilty (?)
for writing a song so dark
and angsty-sounding
so I came up with choruses
and an epic bridge/ending
that were super inspirational.
Don’t get me wrong,
I LOVE the inspirational
and uplifting feel of
these parts of the song too,
but over the years
I guess it always felt like
an itch never scratched
to take that song
in a whole different direction,
an approach of ‘sitting in the shadow’
the WHOLE time, thru the WHOLE song
instead of just on the verses.
What would that sound like?
What would that feel like?
I’m still exploring this now
as I revisit this song for my upcoming
“Beautiful, Terrible” album.
I’ve only got part of the verse re-recorded
attempting to make it even more angsty than before.
It’s been fun to explore this new approach.
I hope you enjoy it as much as
I have been putting it together.
/n8
“Fenwick & the Futures