Dreams Are Always Changing

Seattle was bombed last night, in my dream. I was hiding in a boat with friends (who kept serving me chocolate truffles) as we watched the old school planes from Europe fly through our sky. Dark dots fell through the air and a part of our home went up in smoke. I kept trying to call my first husband but my eyesight was too blurry to read the names in my phone. My second husband insisted with a constantly nodding head that he really wanted to have kids now and then he announced that he was about to leave England on a business trip #worst-possible-time. A dream too real. I stood in the shower, hot water washing my dream away.

Now I’m awake and all I can think about is my new dream; my art studio, my secret society of creative women, and my record label. More to come on this later perhaps as my dreams ebb and flow.

How are you dreams changing? Are your nighttime dreams untangling your subconscious worries and wishes? Are your daytime dreams sparking joy in your eyes?

2019-11-27 12.51.00 1.jpg

Your dreams can change when you let yourself change. If you hold strictly to one dream, you may be locking yourself into one version of yourself.

I was deadest on performing at The Gorge Amphitheater because singing on that stage meant I had ”made it”, I was performing at my favorite venue, the most beautiful venue I’ve ever seen, the stage where I’ve seen my heroes perform, the stage where I first saw myself, a ghost of my future self, the possibility of myself as the musician I would one day become. It seemed magical, mysterious and impossible. It was the big dream. The dream that, if accomplished, proved that I was good enough, that big dreams really can come true, that a girl can look up to a stage and after some hard work, determination, and a few years, that girl can walk onto that stage and look out at the audience and see a young girl just like herself and say, you can too.

For me, the Gorge was a dream that seeped into my imagination and gradually took over my life until it became an affliction. Inspired and excited at first, I pushed myself to morph into new versions of myself; exploring who I must become to be the woman who performs on that stage. Massive transformation would need to take place between the conception and the actualization of this dream. Would I even recognize myself at the end of this journey? My solid commitment carried me through trying times, hours of monotonous instrument practice and sickening nerves before my first performances. It enlivened my speech and I became a sparkling motivational energy in my friend group. Everyone was excited to cheer me on. I declared from every roof top what my dream was and that it was going to happen. Just watch me. I even spent one summer running around music festivals asking every new person I met, “Do you have a dream?” and then proceeded to encourage them to keep dreaming, letting them know about my own dream and bumping fists in dream solidarity. I cringe slightly at this memory. The more I dreamed, the more my feet left the ground and I lost touch with reality. I lived in a fantasy world with magical creatures, imaginary friends, weaving my life events into a narrative plot, mild hallucinations keeping me company everyday and complete social awkwardness and isolation from anything logical and earthly.

In the end, I was bedeviled. Tormented by the chains I had buckled around myself. I had sewn too much meaning and identity into my dream. I had lost flexibility and freedom to evolve and let go. This all came to an end when my health, physical and mental, screamed at me through back pain, wrinkles, weight-gain, tears, screaming, anxiety, bitchiness, hormone imbalances, nightmares, clinginess, depression. I had been wiping myself like a mean horse jockey. Who gives a shit if I achieve my goal only to curl up in a ball the evening after my big show, sobbing from loneliness and ill health? I’m not walking into any dream with that self-flagellating attitude. No more.


I have deep intimate conversations with musicians on the Wilde Musicians Podcast and sometimes I feel their urgency, anxiety, self-inflicted pressure, to “make it”, to keep up, to prove themselves, to inspire others, to achieve greatness. We all want to change the world. This quote is always worth repeating:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
― Howard Thurman


“Most of the time we aim too low. We walk in shoes too small for us. We spend out days shooting for a little burst of approval or some small career victory. But there’s a joyful way of being that’s not just a little bit better than the way we are currently living; it’s a quantum leap better. It’s as if we’re all competing to get a little closer to a sunlamp. If we get up and live a different way, we can bathe in real sunshine. When I meet people leading lives of deep commitment, this fact hits me: Joy is real.”
- David Brookes, The Second Mountain (xxiii)


I sit across the table from musicians who inspire me. They want to prove they’re good enough, inspire kids to follow their dreams, help other people fell less alone. Their dreams are huge, the ambition and drive is even bigger, and a stressful pressure, a ticking clock, is chasing them, snapping at their heels. Something has these beautiful artists rushing, anxious, feeling small, wondering when they’ll “make it”.

I tell them that I haven’t been on social media in almost a month. I tell them that I’ve been locked away in my cave making new songs. I tell them that I’m writing songs for a very specific audience (women who want to express themselves freely). My clarity to step away from the main stream current, feels peaceful, refreshing, promising. At least that’s what it looks like when I’m talking and I see their faces lighten and soften.

Being on stage is being a leader. Are you leading people within the social norms or are you leading them where you want to go? I was trying so hard to be a leader on social media until one day my business coach suggested I get off social media if I’m not enjoying it. “For years you’ve been struggling to make it work. Maybe you can just accept the fact it’s not working for you. It’s not for you. Get off line and get creative. Build your business, serve your clients and community in person, directly, one to one. Be a leader by leading people off the social media and back into a more personal way of connecting. Lead a new movement.”

I shared this with the Portland women’s panel and the room softened. Their faces looked lighter and intrigued. We’re all hungry for someone to give us permission to rest, to do it our own way and make our own rules.

Making It Into Obscurity - John Mayer Lyrics

I’m sitting in Portland right now, at The Riveter. Five female musicians will be showing up any minute now to dive into a group conversation on my podcast. Our topic: What is it like to be an older women working in the music industry?

Today, we’re counting “older” as over the age of 30. Our biological clocks are ticking. Soon, Snapchat filters might be our only way of looking smooth-skinned and sparkly. How are we going to cross the country on music tours and raise children? How are we going to make a living creating music without selling our bodies as objects? Has our time come and gone? If we haven’t ‘made it’ by now, are we doomed to be forgotten forever? Are these concerns running through the minds of men as well? Do women face these thoughts in all music genres and all industries? Men are never told “Hey, that was a really great performance…for a guy.” The women I’ve spoken with in Seattle told me this is a real issue. They’ve been told they’re “good for a girl” and they are warned that they’re “past it.”

Pop culture tells us that we need to be young and sexy to “make it.” Experience shows us that if anything, our youth and sexiness can actually blossom and flourish to new heights with age. In fact, as artists, our years bring us into wisdom and now we’re able to write lyrics that truly speak to the depths of the human soul, places we couldn’t fathom or refer to ten years ago.

processed_2019-12-13 11.27.26 1.jpg

Male or female, we’ve all wondered if we’re going to “make it” and we’ve felt the hustle, the pressure, the rush to ”make it” as quickly as possible, before our flower wilts. I hear this story in John Mayer’s lyrics.

“Some of us, we're hardly ever here
The rest of us, we're born to disappear
How do I stop myself from being just a number
How will I hold my head to keep from going under.”

- John Mayer, Vultures

And even once he’s “made it” — Can we all agree that John Mayer has “made it” by most people’s standards? — he writes lyrics like…

“There I just said it, I'm scared you'll forget about me.”
— John Mayer, Edge of Desire

Is he singing to a girl or to his fans? What’s the difference when it means the same thing? We want something and we get it and we wonder if we would be happier with something else. Once we accomplish something, we’re onto the next thing. What does it mean to “make it”? Performing on a big stage? Being CEO? Being a mom? Performing and being a mom? There’s no one definition. More from John…

“Yeah I've got my dream but you've got family,
Yeah I've got my dream but I guess it got away from me.”
- John Mayer, Dear Marie

When you say you want to “make it” do you have a specific goal, destination, a definable, attainable, measurable moment when you’ll know that you have succeeded? You can say, RIGHT NOW, I am standing on the top of the mountain or the moon, I have made it. Everything up until now was the journey and now I am at the destination. Our lives move forward through these milestones which are totally worth manifesting and celebrating because they enrich us and give us something to do while we’re on this planet. However, if you cannot define your “made it” moment, and you’re pushing yourself so hard for some vague feeling in the future of possibly being worthy, enough or complete, then good luck. Now you’re wandering and hoping.

What if, it’s not about “making it” somewhere? What if it’s about “making it” however you want it to be? You are a creator. You can build, craft, shape, cultivate, form, mold, a lifestyle that makes you happy and healthy. You can “make it” (it being your life) however you want it to be. Make a life that you enjoy, that feels good, that makes you laugh, smile, play, dance, sing, and do all the happy human things that display health. What does your life look like when you follow those feelings? Let go of the vague mountain top and the wishes of “making it” somewhere you may or not even like. Embrace “making it” right here and now how you want to be. Do not wait until you’re ready, good enough, chosen, different, or older. Your right now moment, is your life and through this moment you are connected to the next moment and the moment after that. Through a string of touching moments, you are directly united with whoever you are in the future. Time and space is one. Be fully in your moment now. You’ll never “make it” anywhere unless you’re “making it” right now.

Make yourself happy and healthy. Whatever that looks like, that is your path up and down the mountain. You do not want to do all this hard work in a direction that brings you dis-ease and disease and then one day open your eyes and scream “What the fuck am I doing with my one precious life?! I’ve been so obsessed with ‘making it’ here that I never stopped to admit to myself that I don’t want to be here unless I’m happy.”

”You don't wanna be stuck up on that stage singing
Stuck up on that stage singing
All I know are sad songs, sad songs”
— Mike Posner, I Took a Pill in Ibiza

processed_2019-12-13 04.44.42 1.jpg

SIX WOMEN AND TWO HOURS OF CONVERSATION LATER

Wisdom. Knowing what you want and knowing how to know what you want. These are gifts of aging.

We’re rushing to “make it”, afraid of slowing down because the clock is ticking. If we don’t make it by the time we’re 35 then….what? We compare ourselves to what we surround ourselves with. I feel old when I’m in the crowd at a rave full of teenagers on drugs. I feel young when I visit my grandma. I feel talented when I’m the only musician in the room. I feel embarrassed by my beginner-ness when I’m in the room with musicians who just got back from their European tours. Comparison is the thief of joy. I keep putting myself in new situations with new people; seeking new friendships, lessons and stories of lifestyles I might wish to follow.

“Everybody is just a stranger
but that’s the danger in going my own way.”
- John Mayer, Why Georgia


My dreams of the big stage are slipping away. The more conversations I have with musicians who share this dream or whose reality is this dream, the more I feel like I’ve been pushing my square peg against a round hole. When I talk about my “music career” and performing I feel lost with my words, uncomfortable, out of place, messy. I’m talking to the ceiling, my eyes fluttering around as much as my mind. My statements are adding to the confusion or causing conversational dead ends. By contrast, when I talk about my creative process, the community I’m building, the peaceful enriching lifestyle I’m making for myself through yoga, meditation and detoxing from caffeine and social media, I feel grounded, power and clarity. I make eye contact and women nod and get that “oh” look on their faces. What I’m saying is showing them a new way of being.

The beautiful artists sitting around the table with me do not need me to be lost with them. They need me to stand up in my clarity about the way I’m going. Confident leadership. We know what we want. We know where we’re going. We only get confused when we start looking at other people and wondering if we should be going where they’re going.

“Will I dim the lights inside me just to satisfy someone?”
— John Mayer, In the Blood

Close your eyes. Remember a little while ago, years ago, when you were so confident about what you were doing. What changed?

I’m embracing my evolution. I do not want to live the life of the starving artist, the broke touring musicians, the stressed out entrepreneur, the run-ragged yoga teacher, the bored housewife, the scattered, lost, doubtful version of a human that I’ve seen myself exist as. I want to live life as an oasis of nourishing energy, colorful, creating, welcoming, grounded, unattached in abundant love. I create music, host a podcast show, operate businesses, teach yoga and lead women who want to follow me in making this energy their lifestyle too.

I feel nervous around female musicians, looking back at myself wondering if I belong with them. They’re all performing and touring and practicing guitar. I’m producing on a computer, rarely perform, and pour a lot of energy in podcasting and building community instead of or in addition to the actual craft of music. I want to fit in because that feels good…at least I think it does but guess what? It actually doesn’t. Fitting in doesn’t feel good when it’s with the wrong bunch of people. Better to walk alone until you find the tribe who blasts your favorite music around their campfire. And if you never find a tribe, better to explore who we are fully in our own direction. Wearing shoes that don’t fit is more dangerous than walking barefoot.

“Don't be scared to walk alone
Don't be scared to like it.”
— John Mayer, Age of Worry

We can talk about “making it” in the music industry OR we can talk about “making it” how we want it to be. Making “it” whatever we want it to be. Making life the way you want it to be. Making inevitable obscurity and death acceptable rather than offensive or terrifying. Making the rules. Making, design, creating, manifesting, building your life to be whatever YOU are and wish to become. This is “making it.”

Love,
Cha

Exploring the World of Abstract Music

Hello beautiful friend :) There is something so deliciously wild about abstract art. The freedom to make a mess and call it a masterpiece!

Cha Wilde Paintings - Drip Me Dry in Dawn - October 2019-8_WEB.jpg

Words have become almost useless to me these days. I sit down to write to you and I can't help but think that whatever I wish to say would be more effectively communicated through sound, music, than words. I never thought I would feel this way. I mean, my computer sits on top of two giant Oxford English Dictionaries, there are at least three dozen ink-filled journals beneath the couch in my music studio, and my phone holds hundreds of lyrics and voice memos that will never see the light of day. I used to think that words were the most powerful way to express how I feel but now I've learned to speak with abstract sounds and suddenly words fall flat. My beloved lyrics are standing on the sidelines wondering when they will be used again.

Carolina Grunér-Ashcroft https://www.instagram.com/carolinagruner/ is one of my favorite painters. She paints, in a pink-fill studio in Finland, following her intuition, an unexplainable sense from deep within guides her seemingly random brushstrokes. She paints "Landscapes of the Soul" and when she talks about her painting, I could copy and paste her words and use them to talk about my music. She wrote this the other day,

"I had such a great flow painting yesterday, and caught myself thinking this thought a couple of times, straight away feeling how I began pulling away from the flow. Got back on the wave though, and decided no one actually cares if the work is ready or not, or what it even looks like if and when it’s ready. It’s just ready when it is - and I’ll just *know* when that is." --
Carolina Grunér-Ashcroft

Can you relate?

There is something so deliciously wild about abstract art. The freedom to make a mess and call it a masterpiece! You’re not trying to replicate so you don’t have to control yourself. You’re in a big open field of nothingness and whatever rises to the surface, that’s your abstract. That’s the truth you find and share. You can swirl colors on a canvas and you can swirl audio waves on the computer.

When I started painting in my garage in 2017, I told myself to go crazy with it. There are no rules, in fact, the more messy and off the rails you go, the better. Where else in life can you be so reckless? Paint something and ruin it. See what it feels like to destroy and create in cycles. When I started making music in 2015, I thought I had to follow all the rules. I bought a Music Theory book on Amazon. I practiced scales for hours everyday. I learned traditional “song structure” which goes something like VERSE - CHORUS - VERSE - CHORUS - VERSE - CHORUS - CHORUS. But what if you don’t do that? What if your song isn’t a pattern? What if it’s linear?

Women, Come Run Wild with Me

Women, come run wild with me. Do you spend time with yourself? Do you enjoy your time together? Do you stare yourself in the eyes when you look in the mirror? Do you answer your mother when she speaks in your head? Do you remember the way you felt before you cared about where you were going? When you're quiet in a room can you hear your ears creaking? When you fell asleep last night where do you go?


CHA 🍍 WILDE

Cha Wilde - Paintings - November 21, 2019-7_WEB.jpg

Oh, How I Pray I Blossom Before I Wilt

I’m afraid to sing about aging because then you’ll know I don’t feel young. I want to believe in myself - that I can do what needs to be done and that I will be able to enjoy myself while doing it. I have started to fear hating working or feeling forced to work in a way I don't want to or fearing that I'll work so hard and not see any reward, at least not financially which is extremely important. I want to feel balanced as I receive as much as I give and we go in beautiful circles and waves. I want to see beauty in myself as I change. I fear feeling like a washed up business woman drowned by the passions of my art that set me on fire, a life fueled by foolish youth fast on course towards Wisdom’s horizons. Oh, how I pray I blossom before I wilt.

CHA🍍WILDE

Cha Wilde - Paintings - November 21, 2019-5.jpg

When It's Time to Cha-Up and Do the Work

I want to pick up my phone. NO. Make music.
I want to post on Instagram. NO. Make music.
I want to search for that thing on Google. NO. Make music.
I want to swipe on Tinder and make plans for tonight. NOOO. Make music.
I want to blog about focusing on music. No. Make music.

There are hundreds of thing to do, what’s the ONE THING that wins. That’s the one thing that’s going to get done. Big project, life projects, masterpieces, the great work of your life, is the one thing that deserves your attention the most, yes? It is going to take the most time, the greatest gift of your energy and focus, and it’s going to get done in the little moments of time you can gather up in between feeding your mouth, washing your body, laughing with friends, crying at funerals, pouring another cup of tea, and paying taxes. You may never get a solid year of time to dedicate to the project. Maybe if you’re lucky. But what you will always have is choices. You can do this or you can do that. You can fill your time with entertainment and silly little things that keep you company and distract you from the fears and doubts in your head. OR you can do the fucking work. Wade through the work the way you hike up a steep hill, try and run fast in a dream (but the dream makes you feel slow), and go to work even when you feel like you’re dying inside. The work must be done despite how you feel about it. You can talk about the work all day, analyze your approach, your reasons for doing it and for not doing it. You can talk all day and at the end of the day, what do you have to show for yourself? Where is the work? Tomorrow morning will you wake up where you are today or will you be one more day forward? Even a shit day with little progress is essential. The shit days are mixed in with the good days. You can’t wait for just the good days because you don’t know which ones they are. Sometimes the days that feel shitty end up shit and visa versa. Stop asking yourself what you want to do. Start doing the work that will take you to the end of the race you want to finish. What do you want to finish? What is your finish line? Your goal? Your vision? Run towards that. It’s going to suck and be hard. Run through it. Go go go. Make the music. Do the thing. Now, I’ve just spent 15 minutes writing this blog post. Enough. Time to go do more work. Bye. — Cha PS: if you need more help, read Stephen Pressfield, you’re welcome.


“Cha-Up” is the new term for put your head down and get your damn work done, according to my buddy Spence Hood.

Cha Wilde Paintings - October 2019-6_WEB.jpg

When No One Shows Up to Your Event

I could slow down and carefully design a dope rave bra or I could rush through it and just tie some fabric around my torso, or just go buy something on Amazon. I could write a thoughtful article or blog post and carefully edit it, or I could just write with reckless abandon and figure that if anyone actually reads it, they’re have to appreciate the waywardness of the run-on sentences. I could craft emails to potential photography clients and establish a steady stream of income for myself or I could just stick with my current client list, giving up on grow. I could book music shows and pray that people actually show up or I could just put off performing until a future date in my life when the audiences are guaranteed to be bigger and my disappointment will be guaranteed to be smaller. I can announce a yoga class and rent a room but that might be a colossal waste of money when no one shows up. I could go LIVE on Instagram and have no viewers. I could put my paintings up for sale and no one could buy them. I could actually go on a Tinder date and feel sadly nothing when we meet and it’s an awkward waste of time and bad vibes that I have to scrap off my body for days. I could invest a lot of time doing things that nobody shows up for and nobody buys. All a waste of time. I live in a reality where things are difficult to manifest. They take so much energy and rarely pay me back with reward. It feels safer to hide in my garage and make artwork that I don’t sell and tell eager beavers to wait for my next show which will be coming soon in the distant never to exist low pressure future. I could live in this reality. Or I could return to a reality where I bubble over with enthusiasm and orchestrate the community events that fill me with light, connection and growth. I could return to the reality that I lived in before those crushing moments in college when I sat in a room, waiting for people to show up to my events, my fundraisers, my yoga classes and nobody ever did. I road my bike home in the rain with ten unused yoga mats on my back. I switched the lights off in the room and dropped my unread handouts into the recycle bin. My zest for event planning and bringing my visions to life turned its face down to the ground in shame, believing that I wasn’t good enough, no one else cared enough, I was alone in this and I could either continue to spend my energy and have my little heart broken in the empty rooms or I could just never rent an empty room again, never dream or expect that I could fill an empty room with people. Whatever I’m offering, they don’t really want it enough to come. Whatever I’m writing, posting, creating, isn’t enticing enough to win people’s attention or money. So i’ll play it safe and just work with the clients who have somehow hired me again and again. They keep coming back, probably because it’s easier for them to return to familiar company than to seek out someone better. I could do so many things if only I didn’t care if people showed up or not. I could do so many things if I understood how to get people to show up. Back then, when my heart was crushed and my illusions were shattered, and I tasted failure, I was naive in believing that all you had to do was put up a poster and the crowds would appear. A poster became an Instagram account and a Facebook post. That’s all it would take right? Sad face, wrong. I have learned through this decade how to make people show up. It is through personal touch. A direct text message or handwritten invitation in the mail. I call each person by name and speak with the word “I” and make it abundantly clear that the event is happening and that we are making it happen together. They are wanted there. Their presence at the event is important and they will be missed if they do no show up. I express my vision for the event and why it is going to be a valuable experience for all who attend. I share with them until their enthusiasm is as great as mine and they see themselves there already. We both see ourselves there and we will both be there. When you are racing to make something happen as quickly as possible and you want it to be a HUGE big success with lots of people, quantity and speed are going to slow you down, possibly all the way to a halt. Stop dreaming of the big conference and the hoards of attendees. It’s better to have one or three people show up and really connect with them then to be sitting in that empty room alone. Take time to actually connect and invite one person at a time. It feels slow, painfully slow, at first. Then, once that one person is on board, it’s easy to get them to come a second time. The second invitation requires less effort on your end. Eventually, all it takes is a Facebook post and the masses show up because you took the time to build their bond with you and the cause or activity. They will feel so connected to the experience that you’re offering that they will even seek it out. Just like exiting a freeway, slowing down in a high speed world can feel sluggish and requires some adjustment. velocitization is the concept. Force yourself to slow down and focus on one person at a time, one event at a time. One by one, it grows and we will crawl out from the empty rooms that crushed us and walk into rooms brimming with vitality.

we have a track list

FRIDAY, SEPT. 6 2019

  • this week’s video is a highlight reel of my life in August 2019 (scroll to bottom)

  • I've got the track list of the songs that will be on the next album! Here’s a sneak peek from my journal (see below).

  • I want to release the album by the end of the year - maybe for New Years! This goal can be achieved if I'm able to produce a song every two weeks. The songs are already written and can be played on piano and performed acoustic live. Now I'm producing the electronic versions of them, bringing them to life.

  • I'm exploring my style -- I'm still relatively new to making music so we're experimenting with faster tempos, slower tempos, using my own voice for percussion, recording acoustic instruments vs. using samples I find online, making the songs very complex vs. very simple.

2019-09-06 12.28.39 1.jpg
  • One year ago, I was learning to make music on the computer for the first time and it felt sooo hard. I was literally crying with a headache forcing myself to learn all the buttons. Now, I fly around the program fast and joyfully, expressing feelings in the form of sound. Music has become my #1 most effective way to describe/show how I'm feeling. It's so accurate. Music literally is how feelings sound. I can play something for you and show you this is exactly how I feel... not just talking about it in words but actually showing you, giving you the feeling. It feels wonderful and liberating to be able to express myself so clearly.

  • I've started playing guitar again (I took a break for a couple months) and I'm touching the piano most days and singing into the microphone at home. I've learned it is ESSENTIAL to play these acoustic instruments daily. When I only make music on the computer I start to feel stale, robotic, drained. When I play acoustic instruments, my body is involved and I feel alive and connected to the sounds....duh, they're coming from my body and not just from my head.

  • That said, the electronic music on the computer makes it possible for me to articulate my feelings precisely, as I explained above. I can create ANY sound which means I can express ANY/EVERY feeling. Guitar just can't do that. It can't give me the sound of a bird squawking as it dives through the air and splashes into water....cuz ya, there will be a moment when my soul feels exactly like that bird and thank god for Abelton (my computer music software) when that day comes. I can bring that sound of my soul to life!

    :) cha

When You Need to Stop Thinking Negative Thoughts

Cha Wilde - October 31, 2019-15_WEB.jpg

You are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are a pathway you are choosing to walk down; a mental pathway that can be beautiful like a stroll through a park or dingy like a smelly alleyway. If you don’t enjoy where you walk with your feet, would you not turn directions? Why no so with your mind? Catch yourself thinking down a dirty scary wormhole in your brain and you can almost immediately change course and skip through flowery mental meadows. I’m not suggesting we avoid walking through grief, trauma, sadness or pain. I’m talking about the unhelpful, rotting, festering thoughts of doubt, fear and self-loathing; the thoughts we feel shame for thinking. The thoughts you wouldn’t dare speak to another human. We reassure our friends it’s good for them to go through the pain but it is not good for them to go through post failure self-flagellation. Love. Think thoughts that are loving. Sometimes love is tough love but it is never causing more hurt in a downward spiral. Love can push us through ourselves, painfully like splinters pushing through skin, working their way out. Love doesn’t push the splinter back in, deeper. In your mind, are you walking down a path of beautiful trees or rotting garbage? These paths ARE NOT YOU. They do no exist inside you. Mental paths exist outside of us and we meet on them. We all have the same thoughts, the same feelings, the same kinds of ideas. We get so excited when someone discovered a new path and tells us about it; when a genius see the forest in a new way and suggests that we walk in a new direction that in unexplored. There are no new ideas. There are no new parts of the forest. There are just new pathways we carve through it. This reality we live in has many layers; physical layers we walk through, invisible layers we think through. In conversation, we can walk down a pathway together and we can lead each other down dark dangerous roads. Why are you leading yourself or others down roads that are not beautiful, enjoyable, inspiring or peaceful? Why do you continue to walk down the same ugly path everyday; a path that is full of rocks that cut your feet, branches that block your steps, mean animals that keep pooping on you or snarling in the bushes. Your strong spirit and resilience will help you survive these dark roads when you must pass through them in life, but you certainly do not need to condemn yourself to a life lived entirely in these spaces. Choose the beautiful paths as your default. Fill up on good vibes from the beautiful landscapes and restore your energy so you can handle the dark turns. You are not your thoughts. Watch them. Choose them. Turn them off. Feel your body and how it reacts to your thoughts…the same way it reacts as you walk through the physical world we share. Your hair stands on end and your chest feels tight when you walk in the shady parts of town….and when you are thinking shady thoughts. Your thoughts are fluid and fleeting and they have physical impacts if you allow them to take root; stress that leads to disease that leads to the end of your fucking life and happiness. So, how would you like to spend your life as an artist? You are creative and capable. Where are you going to walk with your mind? Where you walk is the landscape that will inspire the art you’re creating. I see a lot of skulls and dragons at EDM concerts. Death death, bass in the face! After Bass Canyon, I was worn out and inspired from the darkness. It’s a powerful place to explore. I can hang out there but three neck breaking days in the desert was enough for me this summer. Now, I’m back at home waking up early to go swimming in the lake each morning, laying in the grass beneath the glowing green trees. This lake-side-start to my morning this week has filled me with beauty, peace, happiness and strength each day. I’m physically putting myself in a location that feels good and leads to more good feelings. When I’m lying in the grass, it’s easier to fill my mind with equally beautiful thoughts. I’m choosing where I’m putting my body and where I’m putting my mind. It’s all choice. In every single moment, you may choose life or death, light or darkness, left or right, this pathway or that pathway. You are not your thoughts. They are pathways, wormholes, train tracks you explore for a moment. Collect something from those paths, use them, travel them as routes to new places and then get off the fucking path and once again just BE. Being in the moment in very important because it’s only here that anything can be experienced, enjoyed, and changed. Do you enjoy where you are physically spending time? Are you putting yourself in the park or the smelly alleyway? Do you enjoy where you are mentally spending your time? Are you thinking uplifting, encouraging helpful thoughts or are you thinking thoughts that are beating you up inside worse than you’ve ever been beaten up on the outside? Choices my love. You have them always. You are so powerful. Use your power. Change your mind. Walk your feet and your mind in a new direction.

When People Clap for You and It Feels Awkward

Cha Wilde - October 31, 2019-9_WEB.jpg

Applause, how strange. It seems a completely normal act when you’re standing in the audience and yet from the stage, how uncomfortable and somehow wonderful. Why are they clapping? Should I wave, smile or say thank you"? Attention and praise is a bright light shining straight into our face and we almost squint away from the dark faces. They’re impressed, perhaps on the verge of worshiping. I don’t like this applause from the consumer who does not produce. From other artists, the claps are welcome; they’ve earned the ground they stand on as creators and like recognizes like. Artists watch each other work and flow and we see ourselves in our comrades. We know what it feels like, what’s going on inside the mind and body in this moment we’re observing. When we clap, we know what we are clapping for; the hours of practice, the tears of frustration, the biggest dreams we build and hold on to, and the doubt and fear that through which we drag our determined feet. We clap for our friends and we clap for ourselves. We clap for the artist who creatives despite everything. This feels good. We’re cheering each other on and how else can we show our acknowledgement than the sounds we can create from our own physical bodies.

The claps from the soft spectator, reserved critic and self-critic, too-shy-to-try kinda audience member who thinks we have magic in our veins, who thinks we were born special, that we can do what they cannot. They clap and laud and gush. They say things like, “That was amazing! You’re amazing. i wish I wish I wish I could….” YOU CAN! I want to scream in their face because saying it to their face never gets through. Maybe I ought to try whispering in their ear; the whisper speaks louder than the scream. I’ll try that next time. So far though, no luck in getting through; correction…no luck in breaking through. When we encourage each other, we always have an impact even if it’s just adding one more person to the list of people who believe in them. We might not be there for the break through moment but we can add a straw to that camel’s back. Often, breakthroughs come in solitude. The woman who watched me sing on stage and wishes she could be a singer too, she brushed off my encouraging words, but they made it into her mind, somewhere deep in there and when she sits alone at home one night, fire will grow in her belly and she’ll step in front of a mirror and say to herself, “I can do it.”

So, the applause… i want acknowledgement for what I have done. I do not want praise for who inexperienced people think I am. Who I am is in my work. Praise the work. I am the person who did the work. I created something that I wanted to exist. I let the powers of creation take over my being so more could come to be in this universe…because it felt good to do so and I was curious, compelled, called….obsessed. How could I be anything other than obsessed after magical forced took over my brain and promised me superpowers of being able to reach in and touch other people’s souls on one condition…I had to do the work. That’s it. You can be that person too and I will clap for the work you have done. LOVE ❤ CHA