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He Sang His Ass Off and Pounded Chords on that Big Taylor
Russell Thorburn writes on “Send Dylan to the Country” Ormson rips snow-driven chords hard on his Taylor acoustic, in Gummersound’s Marquette garage where the wood stove is heating up like his vocals. A Dylan Thomas baritone jumps into the fray to describe a dog with a cigarette . . . humor for the pub. A…
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Lightning Bolts and Scars
Lightning Bolts and Stars, a word and music piece by Gregory Ormson, Russell Thorburn, and Darrell Syria, guest on electric guitar. Listen in to this spoken word piece, a precursor to the lyric memoir, Stories Emerge Like Bears, Gregory Ormson’s forthcoming book by Cornerstone Press, UW Stevens Point. Lightning Bolts and Scars, originally published online…
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Yoga’s Curriculum for Self Integration
When I started yoga, I thought it was about people bending into forms that were, at first, perplexing. But yoga moves in its own way, and I had much to learn. Yoga’s curriculum for self integration in OM Yoga Magazine At first, I practiced to feel better. Then I practiced to learn alignment. Then I…
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Speaking as Hospitality
A New Book with Sutra House I am pleased to share that I have signed with Sutra House Publishing for my forthcoming book on public speaking, service, and hospitality. It’s debut will be some time in 2027. This book has grown from years of speaking, teaching, listening, leading, preaching, writing, and standing before rooms attempting…
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If Water is Speaking I’m Paying Attention
What does water teach in Stories Emerge Like Bears? In Stories Emerge Like Bears, water is life, it is witness, threshold, mirror, and instruction. In rippling currents, it whispers a welcome and teaches with power and hospitality. Water is my most important instructor. At the river’s edge I once saw the dead released, smoke and…
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Pressed Shirt, Polished Steel: the DGR in Phoenix
The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride Riders in pressed shirts and polished steel began gathering in Sydney, Australia in 2012, when Mark Hawwa imagined a themed motorcycle ride that could gather classic and vintage-style riders around a cause larger than the road itself. Today, DGR rides take place in thousands of cities on the same day around…
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The Long Breath of Yoga Song
Yoga Song was built slowly over the years by breath, movement, roads, rituals, tears, silence, motorcycles, and practice. That practice continues, and with it, my writing at the intersections of motorcycles and yoga, spirituality and secularism, embodiment and intellect, labor and art, contemplative life and burning asphalt. What began as a personal practice slowly became…
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What Does a Loon Sound Like at Night?
A loon sound at night is not exactly terror, and not fright in the ordinary sense. But it is the feeling you get when the hairs on the back of your neck rise suddenly while resting in darkness on a northern lake. Something ancient speaks and we respond. If you have ever slept near a…
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SAGA OF A LOVE AFFAIR WITH RADIO
WOJB in smoky voice and guitar. The radio was on in my childhood home, always. A radio keeps songs alive long after they’re hits. I was two years old when Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat Song climbed the charts, but my hometown station played it for years until it lodged in my mind. Belafonte’s energetic tenor…
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Sounds Older than Sitar
Pulling the cord to start the Evinrude nothing happens. I pull again, and again, nothing. The sound of its cough, a serious protest, carries across the lake in a way that seems older than the sitar.
Got any book recommendations?