The GINORMOUS watermelon...

This is my first ever home grown watermelon. It's so amazing to watch it grow, literally centimeters  every day.

This photo is rather deceptive in that my watermelon is only about an inch and a half long (I know I am confusing those of you who believe in learning one form of measurement or the other...trying to keep it fresh people).

I know I rattle on about my garden all the time and people around me are likely getting sick of it.....in the same way people get sick of hearing about new children, or new puppies...I suspect. But in the same spirit shared by new parents and new puppy owners....I DON'T CARE!!!!

I love it. I love watching it grow. It teaches me about patience and real honest reward for real honest work. I sometimes feel like I work in a 'world' that has a skewed idea of reward....so this is a real balancing work for me. It brings me back to earth, gets my hands dirty and I feel true joy every time I get to pick something that I have watched grow for weeks and

EAT it.

...unlike a new parent...or a new puppy owner.

It's creativity in a whole new form and I feel like this year has been all about that for me. Not limiting my creative energy to just one area. It's been strange, at times scarey, ego challenging and definately has given me pause for thought many times. At the end of the day, I feel like my world is more balanced than ever in the creative...and in all ways actually. I feel calm, I feel inspired, I feel loved, I feel safe, I feel like my input is mostly equal to my output, I feel in awe and I feel energized by this world I get to dream up and live in.

And perhaps soon, I will get to have a watermelon party.

xxM

November 6th

It's official.

November 6th is the date for our live recording in Indianapolis. One night with the indy indie crew...a redux of shows gone by. A room full of amazing souls ready to laugh, sing and become part if my first solo live cd.

Put the date on your calendar now!! Will let you know about tickets soon.

Yay for us....now to dream and rehearse the show into being.

Xxm

Sunflower Envy...

Sunflowers are my most favorite flower in the world. I have them tattooed up my arm, that's how much I love them.

These aren't my sunflowers, they belong to my friend Beth. I have sunflower envy. I planted seeds everywhere around my garden and even though EVERYTHING else is growing out of control...my sunflowers are non existant.

Perhaps next year.

Until then I get to Ohhh and Ahhh at Beth's sunflowers and their 'volunteer' mates and occasionally steal some for home.

Xxm

I Believe She's Amazing.....

I watched this with tears falling down my face. The power of music and dance and beauty and good intention all together in one space. So powerful.

Read more about it and join the movement here: http://www.ibelieveshesamazing.com/

Thanks to my friend Andrea for passing it along...

xxM

The story of the whowho.

My good mate Kathleen, or KC as I have often referred to her on here, is doing a ride across Illinois this week. She is riding at least 513 miles and tell the story of why at her blog www.spokein.com if you have a minute to drop her a note of encouragement, please do, I am certain it will help a lot.

I text her two days ago to ask her if her bum was sore yet because, well you know, these are the hard hitting questions I ask. She text me back to let me know her bum was doing fine but her whowho wasn't doing so well. We got into this whole conversation about chaffing and such and as we were texting about it (kc riding on her bike the whole time), she looked up and took this photo. It was the town she was going through at the time and no doubt the universe was having a huge old laugh at kc's whowhos expense.

Needless to say, I found it pretty damn funny too.

Go check out her adventure and say hello....she has 84 miles to ride today in honor of her nephew who is a cancer survivor and I know you will do her heart, and her whowho, good to hear from you.

Xx

oh my...

It's been almost a week since my last blog post....so "unlike" me. It's good. But, it's weird. Once upon a time I use to post sometimes a few times a day. It's not like I don't have anything to say these days, because believe me, I do.....I am constantly thinking up weird shit in a *pondering* kinda way or in a *wonder if anyone else feels that* kinda way and oftentimes I think about posting it out to the world.

But then, I just get distracted.

It seems life is crazy full of amazing distractions these days and most times I am merrily humming along to myself (in a Winnie The Pooh kinda way) and then just change course for a minute and wonder what I was going to do in the first place. It's extremely nice to be distracted in such a happy and mind blowingly fulfilling kinda way.

Right now....my life is filled with this.

Ripping the crap out of our second bathroom to make it how we see it....

This is it after we ripped out the tiles, the surround, the bath, the vanity and the wainscoting. (I will show a final picture once we are done). If you look back you will see our kitchen finale picture...that was pretty impressive, if I must say so myself.

Then of course, there is this.....

Playing tennis. Keeps me very distracted.

We have started the Midwest Tennis, Sushi and Sake event that happens once a week....sometimes more. Our mate Jamie plays with an ever revolving bevy of partners that either can't keep up with us or seem to just not come back. I think because Jamie keeps losing (ha ha, had to get that in there) she secretly disposes of them.

This is Jamie with Megan, a very very...most incredibly...famous sand retardist. She is really quite an amazing sand retardist I have heard....and come to think of it, I haven't seen her since this day.

Hmmm....

Ohhhhhh...and sometimes, there are things like this that distract me..:

Isn't she/he amazing? We ran into the beauty at the Irvington Farmer's market on the weekend, which is our local farmers market. They had all these awesome animals to show....even a skunk, which I was rather distracted by in a 'where does it's smell go' kinda way.

And a ferret...which I have never understood in my whole life. Why would you have a ferret for a pet?

So......many things take my mind away into many directions and I LOVE it. Life is crazy happy and full of music and art and creativity and hanging with friends and building community and working hard and aching bodies and days where it's nice to just sit and BE.

I feel so blessed by this life that I get to live. That I get to choose everyday. It's the life of my dream and I know that there will be days when I am sore from playing music and jumping around a stage, which I adore, and then there will be days when I am sore from playing tennis or renovating the darn bathroom.....and then there will be days where I just get to breath and pick up my guitar and play a sweet tune for no one else but myself.

I am in love with this life. Whoever I need to send a thank you note to, please let me know...I will make a really pretty one.

xxM

To drum...or not to drum

I am sitting in the middle of a rehearsal for the indy drumming group Ashre. They have so kindly let us, and particularly me and my non drumming ability, into their rehearsal night to learn and laugh and to continue being a part of the amazing community of them.

We have not so secretly dubbed ourselves the 'cult of divine bliss'.

I have never been very good at drumming. Usually, when the drumming kicks in at festivals etc, I excuse myself. Mostly out of fear of embarrassing myself. But there's no embarrassing here. It's an accepting group of fine musicians who patiently teach me, or let me just be. It's nice to have that kind of musical community. There's nothing attached to this other than the joy of smacking a drum and making a loud amazing noise together.

It's very liberating.

And humbling....

And occasionally 'alternatively rhythmic'....or perhaps that's just me.

Xxm

...home

 So, I know this is a blurry photo and I am a little annoyed at myself that it's the only one I actually took but it just goes to show I was 'into' my night more than I was into documenting it.

We celebrated our home over the weekend with a group of fine people who came to warm it and bring love, light and music into it. We sang, we drummed, we drank, we ate, we (well, Rachel) did lap dances. We caught up with old friends and bathed in the joy of our new friends and took a moment to stop and be proud of what we have created here. The beauty that we have surrounded ourselves with, both in our home and the amazing souls we are fortunate enough to call friends, is a blessing I can't put words to.

I feel truly honored that we have found our tribe here in Indianapolis. That we have found it and they have found us and as I sat with my old friends and my new friends, I felt blessed and lucky and honored....and home.

Tis a good feeling.

Thank you beautius ones....

xxM

perfection worth waiting for....

'..they found it..and then, they waited..'

I think it's true that the things you really want are actually worth waiting for. Now, coming from a middle child Capricorn, that is a BIG....no, HUGE thing to say. We....well, me....is/are notoriously impatient. We/I want it...and want it now, kinda deal.

But I have so learned over the last few years that the things you really want...sometimes without knowing it at the time.....really are worth waiting for.

Whether that be the love of your life, a dream, a good meal, a piece of art, tile, an idea or.....

a knob..

I know you are probably thinking, WTF Locke...you have like, totally lost it...and all. Whatever. (haha....oh valley talk is so, like, um....80's).

But it's true...........

We found this knob. We knew we wanted it. That it was like a piece of art to me and my sweet love and absolute perfection in our eyes for what we were dreaming of.

But there was one thing.....we had to wait to get it.

Like, weeks......!!!!! 

Just like we had to wait for our tile.

Just like we have to wait for the beautiful material that will become our bedroom curtains.

Just like we had to wait for each other....until the timing was perfect.

Life has a strange way of doing that I think. Making us wait.

I believe, with all my heart, that if you are clear..and open...and willing to wait but then also willing to jump when you know in your gut the time is right....that life will deliver to you EXACTLY what you ask of it.

And our knob, is the perfect example of that.

It's worth waiting for.

Now wait.....

xxM

The view from here..

Chilling in the sun under my tree.

Tis a perfect day with weary, happy exhaustion to be laying out...taking it all in.

Xxm

Beauty...and tile

I learned how to tile yesterday. It was very exciting and very empowering. This home ownership thing is cool because I do whatever the hell I/we want to our house and no one can say anything...but us.

I feel very fortunate.

And very tired...lol.

I think I laid awake all last night, after tiling our kitchen back splash, day dreaming about how pretty it was going to look...and then forgot to sleep. Doah.

I do that sometimes.

Our mate Dawn came over to guide us in our tile learning and was an extremely wonderful teacher. She even smiled warmly at me when I dropped the huge heavy ass tile cutter machine thing. Ahh, such a good mate. She made it fun and less scarey...and also very arty at the same time. She has been doing tile since she was seven years old (and boy, is she tired....haha...insert sound of slapping own knee here) and it really shows. Her ease and comfort with the process balanced our frantic 'ohmygodwhatifitdriescrooked'-ness.

So this is our beautiful work....the three of us created this using granite and glass tiles (that we found randomly one day and had to wait two months to get in...) and it was a lot of fun to create something with my hands, other than music. It's very zen, and balancing, and unique and....ours. It's a reflection of who we are individually and together and that's the best kind of reflection to have in a relationship, I think.

Ahh, sweet love.....and tile.

ohh...and spaghetti squashes with faces drawn on them

....insert cricket sound here....

or a photo

How the hell am I ever going to eat them if I keep putting faces on them??

I ask you...

xxM

This weeks...

Colour.

Every week it seems a new colour of this flower pops up in our garden. It's an amazing thing to experience the wow of new beauty and I have very...very...small moments of feeling bad for the woman who use to own our house and planted all these plants that we get to witness now.

So if any of you meet a dentist in Ohio called Helena...tell her we love her garden!! (But not so much the dog hair we keep finding everywhere...).

Xxm

fasting...schmasting...

That's all I can say.

It's one of those things that I got into the habit of doing once a week or so, you know, just to give my body a rest. But shit, when you haven't done it for a while, it really takes some getting use to.

And I am not use to it.

I feel all crabby and annoyed. And I just want to eat a big cheeseburger. Mmmm...cheeseburgers.

I know...I know...

I will feel better for doing it. I know. Already.

My girl is doing it today too. Which helps, but I think she wants to cut someone right now.

My mouth is watering at the thought of a cheeseburger. Oh great. See what you started??

Insert photo now...

gardens gone wild....

I think "gardens gone wild..." would be an extremely sexy video series. I wonder why no one has ever thought about it.

My garden grew about 5 inches higher in the 4 days that I was away. I am quite astounded and felt a little scared when I first saw it. I figured the organic soil I paid lots of money for wasn't working and surely there was some secret growth hormone in there (yes I know, it is working and things are thriving); or the over abundance of coffee grounds was working. I even had a moment of feeling overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of it all and in a moment of guilt declared to the universe that I would use the excess to feed all the poor.

I realized yesterday as I stood there and looked at it all that I have very strange emotions around a garden.  After a number of years of not even having to be responsible for an indoor house plant I figured I had probably 'done something wrong'. Like my garden growing to extreme levels was some how my fault and terribly irresponsible.

I know, sounds bizarre, right?

But it is what it is and it was what it was and I just watched the emotions and the feelings gently and then laughed at myself.

And then got to work weeding and staking and giving things room to breathe.

That's a big thing in my world..

making
sure
everything
has
room
to
breathe.

I have learned a lot about that idea in the studio. Recording songs and laying down instrument parts and vocal parts and always being mindful that everything has room to breathe, to stand on it's own, to be allowed to shine and exist on and IN it's own right. And I know I have translated that idea into my daily world.

Whether it be me or my sweetheart or my friends...or my songs, or my guitar playing, or my art.....or my home or my body and yes, my garden too. I believe EVERYTHING in this world, alive or not, needs to actually have room to breathe...to have air around it and in it. I know that air is what sustains us and my garden, but I believe it actually sustains everything. 

Giving a beautiful piece of art enough space and air to shine makes that piece of art look completely different than it did a minute ago on a wall filled with a hundred other pieces of art crammed together. Music takes on new life when given a minute to exist, our bodies and our minds change when we take a moment to breathe air deeply into our lungs and release, truth comes out when air is blown through a lie, fake people fall when they are breathed upon and gardens produce and dance like super human 5 years olds when given air.

I might not have done a great job with what I initially planted in my garden, I may have planted too much all at once because I was excited. But really, whose to say? The proof will surely come in the pudding as my mumma says....or in the case, it will come in what gets produced and I will learn for next year...and the year after...and the year after that.

But for now, me and my garden are giddy 5 year olds.....

xxM

The view from here..

This was my view this morning out the back of our friends Suz and Kel's house. If this was a fully interactive blog you would be able to hear the bazillion frogs in this lake. It's a very bizarre sound but one I always associate with a relaxing space. The first time I stayed with them I was giddy like a child at the noises and would sit out here and laugh every few minutes at a new sound they would make. I love the way nature has the ability to make us feel so many emotions. Well, at least it does me. I sit in awe of it often.

We are still a few hours away from home after a wildly successful weekend in Milwaukee. It was one of those weekends where you work your ass off and feel like what you got back was equal....very rewarding and inspiring.

Now we have a bit of time to relax, play with our mates at home (licking my lips as I think about ginger margaritas) and get creative all over again. I have two new songs in the works, d is trading djembe lessons for drum lessons, my garden is growing so insanely fast that I am certain to pluck something from it this week and we have a whole slew of custom orders to make.

I live in a constant state of gratefulness and wonder.

How is it that I get to live this life?

How is it that I get to sit and listen to frogs?

Xxm

The Adventures of One Little Aussie - Episode 12

Oopsey...someone just reminded me that I actually forgot to post this video here, to my blog. Doah.

So here it is. The last installment. Another one will hopefully be up soon!

xxM

What awaits...

We are driving home in the rain after a wet weekend in Michigan. Seriously water logged and weary. We were at the Mt Clemens art fair in Michigan this weekend and after a long four days, we just want to be home.

Especially since we were sent this photo of what awaits us. We have this fantastic group of people we have fallen in with in our neighbourhood. Artistic, cheeky, warm, kind, belly laughing funny and generous souls who do things like pick the cherries from our tree and then make us cherry pies.

Like this one.

Our friend, and master drummer and maker of all things with cherries in them, Jamie, sent us this.

A photo of our soon to be cherry pie.

I can't even tell you how happy this makes me feel and how much more it makes us want to be home NOW.

Never mind the fact that they are all just starting a margarita throw down that we are also trying to get home to partake of. We havent been a part of their.community for very long but miss them all already.

Life sure doesn't suck when you are blessed with such people.

Xxm

a stage and it's story....

I think every stage has a story to tell. Oftentimes I need to stand on one for a long time while I sound check and sometimes that time is spent just waiting....so, it gives me time to look around and have a think.

I often think it's quite beautiful actually.

There's something about a stage being marked out that inspires me, excites me, makes me realize I am not alone. And of course, it's just pretty.

This was the stage at Virginia Women's Music Festival on the weekend and as you can probably tell, it was pretty organized. A great crew of women took great care of us. You know it's good when hours before performance someone asks you if you need 'room temperature water' and 'towels'. Seriously, these things make a difference to a show. Especially an outdoor one in the middle of a hot day.

Such a good crew of people out there and I always feel so in awe of the work they all do....and feel so honoured by the chance to be looked after by them.

So thank you, it would have been shitty without you.

xxM

ps....the Lilith competition is still an unknown right now. We moved from #1 to #2 to #1 to #3 all within 12 hours. Still means we have a shot at being in the running for a performance and we are visualizing like mad.....see us performing there!!! Please, it will help!!

Help...

Here we be. In the middle of Kent Store, Virginia. It's 92 degrees.90% humidity. We are sweating our asses off.

And its the final 12 hours of the Lilith Fair competition.

We are in the final top 10 and keep moving from #1 to #2 and back again...and need your help to get us back to #1.

http://www.ourstage.com/contests/3995-lilith-local-talent-search-indianapolis

Set up an account, takes a minute. Hit the judge tab. Listen to 15 secs of each artist only once. Click through the votes until my cd comes up and give it the highest score you can. And keep voting, as we will come up more than once, through all 45 rounds and know that we send you abundant thank yous.

12 hours left. That's it.

Xxm

....finding a way to live differently

"radically bring about a transformation of the mind...to not accept things as they are...but to understand it, to go into it, exact it, give your heart and mind into finding a way to live differently. But, that depends on you...and not somebody else."   Zeitgeist: Addendum

I started watching the movie below this morning over a cup of coffee. I couldn't sit and watch the whole thing because of time but I know I am going to want to sit down and watch it fully, to understand it. The whole BP fiasco is pissing me off on a whole new level and I just don't want to sit around and wallow in the thought process that nothing I do will make a difference...that its too big and too scarey or that nothing ever changes. That kind of thinking creates complacency and is exactly what the powers that be would love. That way, they can go about their dirty business and we will all keep quiet...letting them line their pockets with the blood of our earth, with the sweat of the people who have gone before us and the people that are out there working for them...sitting in their fucking gold lined offices, probably smoking cigars and laughing it all off.

Hell is too nice a concept for those people.

I am a believer that conversation and engaging with people helps us create change in ourselves and so am grateful that this movie was suggested to me. To at least keep me learning and open and aware and to give ideas about what I actually can do on my own 'martine level'.

It's two hours long but hopefully a lifetime of change will come from that two hours.

xxM