I stood in the golden sunset,
ocean water up to my knees.
The man I love most deeply
held his gaze on me longer than usual
as the words poured from my mouth.
I’m realizing…
I’m realizing….
And I’m realizing…
Am I speaking too much? Am I stealing the moment?
His eyes are alive again in my celebration.
I witness his patient faith and years come off his face as I dance in beauty.
A Part of Me Wants to Be Perfect
from the desk of CHA🍍WILDE…
A part of me wants to control everything so it all makes perfect sense and slides into place and goes smoothly and I can feel proud of my clean creation. I can somehow own it and find security in what I’ve created. I can associate myself with it. My identity is wrapped up in my creation and therefore I want it to be perfect, without flaw, effortless and understandable. I want it to have meaning. I want to control the meaning so I like it and feel comfortable with it. This part of me feels afraid of losing control. She’s afraid of letting go of the reins, releasing her tight grip on the ropes she’s weaving together. She’s afraid of the ocean. The creative ocean will swallow her and everything she’s created and carry them everywhere without reason, without meaning, without order. She is afraid to be carried away into the nothingness. She’s trying so hard to create something she can hold, to care for, to keep herself safe in her focused attention. She wants something to hold onto and she’s afraid that she lives in a universe of sand and water, everything always slipping through her fingers. She clings and claws to everything in hope. Maybe this time she’ll hold the universe and it will stay still in her palms. Maybe this time the universe will make sense and she’ll smile in the darkness, radiating the light for which she longs.
She efforts to cultivate light within herself in hope that it may be enough to illuminate the world and give her sight into whatever is happening here. She’s afraid if she stopped trying to be perfect that everything would just start flowing smoothly in all directions and life would become easier. She fears this because it makes her feel small. She would have to trust the universe to hold her. She would have to let the life force flow through her and carry her somewhere she can’t predict. The unpredictable feels terrifying and exhilarating to her. She’s been trying so hard to protect me with perfection to give me a sense of safety, something, anything to stabilize us. If she didn’t have to keep me safe, if she believed that we were already perfectly safe, what would she do? She would make a mess. She likes the idea of playing with sounds and colors. She likes being a wild artist that is just as unpredictable as the universe. She can lean into the nature she fears. Unpredictability isn’t her enemy, it is her essence. By accepting this quality of her universe she can accept herself as part of it and she can release control of her life. She doesn’t need to control her life because it was never hers in the first place. Life doesn’t belong to anyone. We are life and we have the joy of witnessing our unfolding. We, the universe, expanding. Where to next?
Planning Dance Parties (on my mind)
hello friends. ON MY MIND...
Alarm went off at 6am. I was "nah". Rough sailing from sheets to shower. I turn the water cold, jolt myself into smiles. Hello human being, wake up nervous system, clear heavy thoughts, transform in gratitude! Camera on shoulder, feet walk to the park and my arms wrapped around an old friend. Beneath a giant tree we exchange wisdom. In a coffee shop, masks. There's no such thing as going 'back to normal'. We never go back. There is no normal.
At home I zoom through emails. No nonsense. Keep moving. Ship it! Send the highest price. Done. If they say no, they say no. Move on! Stay in vibe.
Clothes off, we sweat and drink. Our living room gym is our conference room. Shall we host parties on Fridays too? Perhaps we offer a membership? I ordered samples from China. People are tricky to track down. Slacklining later this week at the park, maybe. Eggs, bananas, dish soap, feed the cat. I'm interviewing two new DJs for the studio. I feel momentum! Cancelations. Shit. She's coming! Sweet!
Five hours before doors open. Davey shaved. Handsome. I'm counting people on my fingers. I have a photo shoot this weekend. Invoices flying out from my assistant's laptop. Sunshine blue sky. I have to pee again. Am I really drinking that much water? I guess so. I'm not spending enough quality time with my cat.
Unpredictable vibe tonight. My DJing skills and style are evolving rapidly. So many new people! Stay in flow.
I'm happy we're doing this. It took so much energy to motivate us off the ground. Just catching air now. I feel the uplift and the sink back down. We are fledglings.
Salad. Frozen berries. Leftovers in the fridge. Chocolate chip cookies. Skin tight teal dress or floral? They already saw me in that one. Man, I'd love to have a constant stream of new clothes. Ok, enough. On with the day...
Love,
CHA WILDE
Making Love to Music In Front of an Audience
Good morning fabulous ones :)
I’m naked in a sun puddle. Music is alive in me again. Community is blossoming with spring. Freedom!
I’m so in my body & it doesn’t hurt at all, just soft gooey tingling vibrations from my forehead down to my orgasming toes. Shall I put on some clothes, drive across town to my studio & pick up my piano? It’s a heavy beast. Will I? Shall I? So much easier to stay here in Cap Hill, brunch & sunbathe.
But last night at the party my fingers reunited with keys. I crave more. A stranger’s keyboard in an upstairs bedroom called me into flow. Humans hovered around the room to listen, whispering… “She’s amazing. She’s a musician.” What a delight; deep joy of the soul to play for appreciating ears. I include my own ears savoring sounds sent by the fingers; body parts giving pleasure to each other!
This is my victory beyond anything else I have ever accomplished. This skill in my bones & muscles they can never take from me. I have woven music so tightly into my soul, into my me-ness. When I show up, it shows up. The hours of practice pay off right here in this moment. I am free & pure in play. Not one ounce of me is striving to impress or prove. No fear, no nerves, no self conscious distractions.
You are sensually absorbed, undivided, within another human being, love making. I am this with the music. She pleasures me. I give her everything. We become one in a way no human will ever be with me. She takes me over completely, every cell in my body touched by her vibrations, the ultimate penetration as she reaches beneath & beyond. She floats in the air between my hands and my ears. Where is she from? Infatuated, I let her come through me. Mystery, she arrives, possesses and flies out again to merge with others.
Play notes into air and I’m breathing bliss. My arousal heightens to musical ecstasy as I sense the gallery of voyers. Thank you audience. In the beautiful moments, my conscious mind entirely forgets you exist but my body senses the electric pulses emanating from each heart. Thank you audience for blowing on my flames so I may tingle as a woman on fire. Because we showed up free, this music existed.
LOVE,
Cha Wilde
Music Transforms the Existential Nightmare into a Magical Miracle
I've been making mixtapes since I was a kid and wearing my headphones everywhere I go. In my young years this was just natural and with age I've made it more intentional. I realize the music in my ears keeps me safe from the unpredictable energies around me in the world. Just click play and I travel into my own universe, life feels like a movie, I'm immersed in my own energy and able to creative whatever mood I to feel. Music is magic. I've known it since I was little and now that I'm all grown up, I just want to keep going with it. More music, more magic, more spreading of love, more feeling of all the feelings, more being lost inside the sound. When we're awake, fully awake, life feels beautiful and horrible. It's miraculous and terrifying. Put on the music. It sooths the soul and helps us keep going in rhythm. It helps hold us when the existential dread nervously rattles through our bones and the bloodstream is uneasy. Phew. It's a lot. Music helps. Music helps. ❤ Love, Cha
Dancing is the Answer
Dancing seems to be the answer.
I keep asking questions.
I keep finding myself standing at my DJ controller;
dancing, singing, playing with sounds, laughing at the mess I'm making.
Watch me play on Instagram.
Come dance with me at my next show.
When I step away from the music the questions come.
How will I make money?
Where will I live?
What will I do next?
Who will I spend time with?
Will I buy new clothes today?
Will that job bring more or less stress into my body?
Will I go to sleep early tonight?
How much peanut butter will I eat today?
I listen.
Answers swirl through my mind until I walk over to my DJ controller and start playing music again….and there I find silence…delicious silence. Obviously, I'm blasting a shit ton of noise into space (good morning neighbors! RISE & SHINE!!! it's Cha's beat making time!!! LOL)… but inside me, in the space in my mind, there is silence.
Time doesn't exist when I'm playing DJ. This toy is a portal into a vortex where nothing exists except that one good feeling I long for…flow. Rhythm makes everything keep going, keeping me steady and alive. I listen to Abraham Hicks when I'm laying in the Red Light Therapy bed everyday. “The vortex is Abraham's term for alignment to Source energy.”
Watch me play on Instagram for 7min….
I just keep coming back to what feels good.
Playing with music and dancing in a big t-shirt or a bikini feels good. Doing yoga feels good. I like how it sends huge sensations through my body when I bend into shapes. Awareness of sensations is a sign of LIFE! Cold showers feel good. Sunshine and wind on my skin feels good. Twinkle lights and petting my cat feels good. Hosting dance parties at my studio feels really good.
COME DANCE WITH ME — Upcoming Shows
I Am Here in This Blackness
Why does becoming more spiritual feel like I'm losing everything that made me cool and sexy in this world, everything that made me feel likeable and worthy of attention I craved? I say honestly i want to write and pray and breathe beneath an open sky and i fear my insignificance in society more than I fear my insignificance in the universe. I'm in the middle of nowhere blackness near some hot sunshine that keeps me alive why absolutely no idea why I'm here and all I'm worried about is impressing some other lost creatures, more lost than I it seems, into believing in my beauty and feeling touched by the magic I claim to be my own. Though i know better. It is not mine. None of this is mine. If only i could accept this and move on. I cling to promises i made myself like a railing on a steep slope and pray that I'll be enough with or without the fulfillment. Why does my heart lead me venturing out into the lonely spaces where no other human dare be found alone? It's the only place I want to be and yet I crave their company. Who else is out here looking for my company in this blackness and can we ever be together? Are we ever not? Damn this broken illusion and the time I've suffered in waste although it had been my path to this place. And I cling and cling some more. Let me go!!! Cry my attachments and I wonder what will come of me. This path to heaven is it's own kind of hell for a simple human.
CHA🍍WILDE
My Devotion to Dance with the Stars
“The secret to life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of every day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do.”
— Henry Moore, Sculptor
What more than my breath could I possibly commit to for every minute of every day? Perhaps gratitude and a good vibration? Is it only us musicians who know what I’m talking about when I say ‘vibration’? Do you know what it feels like to hold an instrument as it shakes beneath your hands, because of your hands? The vibration travels through your bones like a tickle to the soul and pure bliss takes over. The flow state we long for, we crave, we live for, sucks us in and we soak in the ripples. I could spend hours searching the internet, reading books that sober me up and remind me I’m a sack of meat with electrical currents pulsing through my ever changing live-wired brain. I can hold my own before the abyss though I cannot hide my shaking knees and why would I?I am little and scared and bold as hell and when I hold an instrument in my hand, a tool of vibration, I step into a spotlight cast upon me by all the stars of the universe and they shout, ‘Play!’ from the farthest regions. All the goddess snap their fingers and the tiny particles shiver with delight. I awaken the consciousness, blowing life into the fabric of the sky. To dance together with the stars and breath back and forth with the ocean is all I can promise and devote my entire life to.
CHA🍍WILDE
Acoustic Scales First Before Frustrating Plugins (Ableton Music Diary 2)
JANUARY 2, 2021 | Standing in the window of the loft, barefoot, wearing just a big hoodie, it’s raining outside, my tea’s cold.
Today’s lesson: Play your acoustic instruments first! They’re reliable. You can pick them up and go, start playing and drop into flow state. When I wake up in the morning, every morning, I start with a cup of tea and morning pages (my journal). Next, I play scales. Scales on piano, guitar, vocals…whatever. Doing the scales brings me into rhythm and tunes me up mentally. It’s not just finger dexterity and training my mental pitch, it’s also drawing in my focus, my concentration. It’s a form of moving meditation.
I keep my large piano at my studio and I keep my guitar at our loft. So no matter where I wake up (sometimes I sleep at the studio), I have an acoustic instrument to play. I’ve been craving piano scales in the morning so I could play along with Davey when he’s practicing his guitar but there is no way in hell I’m hauling my giant heavy Roland across town on the regular. So for Christmas, I asked Davey for a mini MIDI controller piano; aka an electric piano that weights almost nothing and is easy for me to set up in our studio loft so we can play together and I can feel free to play piano on the go. We researched real quickly, spent a few hours in Guitar Center and came home last night with the Launchkey49 MK3 MIDI Controller.
This morning, after writing in my journal I went straight for the laptop and electric MIDI keyboard. MISTAKE. Right away, we had technical difficulties and troubleshooting. This was the roadblock stopping me from my morning scales. I wanted to play piano scales but I realized that stress was building (I caught it so quickly because I’ve been through this before!) so I shut down the computer, walked away and picked up the guitar. Play the acoustic instrument first, it’s guaranteed to work. I locked myself in the bathroom and turned on the hot pink LED light so I felt the vibe. I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub beside the toilet but the whole room was glowing pink and the metronome was clicking by my side so it took a few minutes and then boom, I was in the peaceful focused little flow of guitar scales. Happy. Clearing my mind. Connecting with music.
After finishing my scales, I felt ready to tackle the new instrument and computer challenges. Challenges are a fun part of the music making process but it’s soul crushing if they’re the first thing I face in the morning. So my lesson today and for all artists is to connect first with the easy love. Sing, hum, dance to some music, do something that easy quick, easy, reliable, fun, awakens your energy, gets you inspired and excited to create and then…only then once your enthusiasm is here and you remember WHY you’re here and WHY it’s worth facing these challenges do you step up to the big scary MIDI controller. ;)
Also, we installed the Addictive Keys plugin into my Ableton so this MIDI controller will now be programmed to sound like one of the world’s most beautiful grand pianos! Also, Davey stepped in to help me (he’s my tech & troubleshooting hero) and he reorganized my entire plugins folder on my computer because apparently I had installed everything incorrectly…years ago when I was wondering wtf a VST was…still not entirely sure. A quick Google search tells me….
Virtual Studio Technology ( VST) is an audio plug-in software interface that integrates software synthesizer and effects in digital audio workstations. VST and similar technologies use digital signal processing to simulate traditional recording studio hardware in software.
CHA🍍WILDE
Returning to Ableton, Finding a Groove with Splice Sounds (Ableton Music Diary 1)
JANUARY 1, 2020 | Sitting in my window seat in Seattle with a cup of Yerba Mate
Happy new year :) This morning I'm starting my Ableton practice again. I took a break over the holidays and I've been preparing the cover art for my new album which I'll release next month. So it feels really fresh and exciting to be back in Ableton. I'm reminded of this important mantra for those of us on a hero's journey -- 'don't quit, take a break'. Before the break, I question if I seriously still want to produce music. After the break, I'm like FUCK YA! Let's go! I produced for 45min and live streamed the entire session on Twitch. I'm not talking you through this. I'm just letting you watch me work.
My approach this morning was to listen to sounds in Splice...just enjoy listening and finding new sounds. Sounds stimulate my imagination. I don't have to know what I'm going to create or have a plan at all. Splice is a wonderland of inspiration. I just start clicking on samples and I close my eyes and listen to what I hear. What images pop into my mind? What mood does each sound spark in my chest? Could it go somewhere?
When I find a sound I like, I drag it over into Ableton. I keep searching until I have a few sounds layered on top of each other and I'm starting feel a pattern or a groove emerge. This morning, the pattern showed up at 90 BPM in C#m. I was inspired by the chill vibes of low-fi music which I've really enjoyed working out and flowing in yoga recently. It's so relaxing and energizing at the same time. I also loved the tight snap and snare sounds that gave me a feeling up snapping along and dancing. And of course, I integrated some female vocal samples that sound like birds screeching in the desert sky which makes me dream of music festivals and feel free! I'll come back to this later and probably record my own vocals and write some poetic lyrics -- either later today or tomorrow. Now it's time to go do yoga.
CHA🍍WILDE
rainbow to honey
When I was in my late 20s, my soul, the celestial landscape of my inner world, rippled fields of shimmering rainbows and golden sunsets. As I move into my early 30s, I transform. Listening, I realize with delight I am becoming a pot of warm honey, glowing and oozing sweetness again, sweetness I haven't tasted in a sticky handful of years. I remember ancient fields of clover and little birds on a summer breeze. Just on the other side of that hill.... they tell me it's Glastonbury. What goes on down there? Future must have smiled on me in that moment, hiding her secret beyond the horizon.
CHA🍍WILDE
Staying Focused; WHAT IF writing is part of my music calling?
I’m feeling ‘called’ into writing more. I’m learning through experience that the feeling of a ‘calling’ is an easy decision. It’s the action that feels so natural and peaceful within. It’s what I want to do with all my available energy. It might not make any sense to me logically or fit with my plans but it’s a deep feeling of ‘this feels good’. By comparison, other activities, other pathways I try to walk down feel shaky, full of analysis and doubt. When I’m doing whatever I feel called to do, I’m usually not thinking about anything else. By taking action in the direction of the call, it’s like water flowing down a pipe with gravity. It just goes and it’s beautiful. Lately, I’ve been feeling like writing. All day long, I just want to write in my journal or write on my blog. I start questioning if I should be writing articles to submit to magazines and other media sources. I can use their audience to build my own. Marketing thoughts take over my mind. I slap my hand away from writing and point myself to the piano or Ableton — “Go make music!” Stop getting distracted. Stop taking the easy way out. You’re full of creativity and instead of channeling that creative energy into music and becoming a master genius of the sound craft, you’re going to widdle away your energy on simply little pleasures like writing stories and dairying your feelings. Procrastination! screams the watch dog in my mind. I daydream about compiling quotes from my many years of journals. Perhaps I could make my own “Meditations” book(s)… just like Marcus Auralius. Surely, I’m just as wise and gifted with words. I can publish my writings on Kindle, feel official, and maybe even make some money. A couple hundred dollars a month from Kindle sales would be appreciated passive income. But no. There’s a roadblock there too. And then I feel this little tension in my chest…Songwriting. SONG = music and WRITING = writing. I’m totally staying on course and focused on music when I’m writing because I’m a songwriter. I play many different musical instruments and I write in many different forms.
I repeat this quote often in my mind — “I’d rather do something that’s an inch wide and a mile deep than something that’s a mile wide and an inch deep”. I’m so full of creative energy and I can spread it out in all directions and at the end of the day feel exhausted and unfulfilled. What do I have to show for it? When I control my mind and focus like a laser beam on one project, I see it through to the end and feel the delight and satisfaction of completion. It’s more challenging work and brings me more peace and fulfillment. So when I feel this pull to write, write, write I have two options.
Option A) I can freak out and be full of fear; afraid that I’m going off course. Afraid that I’m losing focus on music. I can pressure myself to focus harder on music even though it feels so stiff and forced in my body sometimes. I can put on the stiff blinders and slap my hand if my eyes look at any other passions or possible paths. Writing isn’t music so you can’t do it! Stay focused!”
Option B) Trust. Do I trust my own inner compass? If I believe in myself to know the way through intuition, to make decisions based on what feels good in my body, then why am I fighting? What if… is the beautiful question. What if writing is a critical part of my music journey? What if the reason I feel so called to write in this moment is because I’m on the brink of expressing the most beautiful powerful lyrics of my life. I could be on the verge of a songwriting lyrical masterpiece! Instead of blocking myself off from writing, what if I following the call in that direction and cleverly identified HOW it ties in. I’m assuming the only way to “make music” is sitting at the piano. What if I acknowledge the beauty of each phase of the entire songwriting process? Right now, I’m entering into a deep writing phase and once the new lyrics arrive on my paper I will happily, easily step up to the instruments and bring them to life!
So I’m reading through my old journals with a highlighter. My first thought was to type up these writings and publish them as a book of poetry and musings. What if we go deeper with it? What if the first step was writing in my journal, the second step is highlighting my favorite parts, the third step is converting these parts into poetry and lyrics? The journals are the fertile ground, the pages are fields of words I can harvest. We don’t need to eat the harvested food so raw. I feel enthusiasm bubbling in my belly as I write this blog post, realizing that my next album is going to have incredible lyrics and this ‘highlighting old journals’ technique is the next stepping stone. What if is the simple phrase that turns my mindset from painful stressful contraction into open expanding possibilities. I can follow my calling into writing right now because it is part of my greater calling to make music. Of course, everything fits together like this. Life is just layers inside layers of stories weaving together. And the blog posts are helpful too because they help me feel ‘in flow’ with words. I’m letting all the words flow out of me freely right now so I’m so comfortable with them. This reminds me of practicing piano every single day. When I play SO MUCH, it’s so easy to do. So if I’m entering into this writing phase then I must write SO MUCH if we’re going to uncover those golden lyrics!
LOVE, CHA🍍WILDE