Category: Midwest

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH: a poetry/song series for the last 8 days of April. Number 8, “Hour of the Wolf – Pilot Me.”

All those yellow lines we cross over in our sleep. This is how we are driving through the pandemic head on with the night and winter’s disguise. Here is Greg singing a Jesus song. Picture the musician with his guitar riding a bus across the Upper Peninsula and using a handheld mike to record the…

April 30, 2020
NATIONAL POETRY MONTH: a poetry/song series for the last 8 days of April. Number 7, “Lightning and Scars”

It all began on a rainy afternoon at a window inside Peter Gummerson’s house. Looking out the window, my fingers wrapped around chords on his Nord keyboard. I was recording a song entitled “8 Track.“ The original lyrics were taken from two poems and two different parts to my life—one was a runaway nineteen year…

April 29, 2020
NATIONAL POETRY MONTH: a poetry/song series for the last 8 days of April. Number 6, “I Was Afraid to Lose Her Face.”

This song is art and love, a clarinet melody from a friend; Greg’s vocals ride above these moonstruck notes tinged with nostalgia, haunted by regrets. His Taylor guitar booms as the words I wrote for an old flame keep pace with the big chords and star-saturated runs of clarinet. We kissed in that borrowed car,…

April 28, 2020
NATIONAL POETRY MONTH: a poetry/song series for the last 8 days of April. Number 3, “Radio On” Anchors of Constancy

“I embrace the certain hurt of this path. At a cabin in the Midwest, I do not feel assaulted by noise; I seek justice for myself and creation. I enter the stillness, listen, and index the anchors of constancy.” Gregory Ormson Russell Thorburn, piano; Gregory Ormson, words and voice. “Radio On,” composed by Thorburn, and…

April 25, 2020
NATIONAL POETRY MONTH: a poetry/song series the last 8 days of April. Number 2, “Mescalero Territory.”

Russell Thorburn and Gregory Ormson have worked together for over a decade writing original poems, prose, and music. Much of it happens in spite of distance and isolation. The seven songs/poems, posted for NATIONAL POETRY MONTH during April, are Ormson/Thorburn’s word/song series for the pandemic. Isolated in an Upper Midwest studio, musicians record their work…

April 24, 2020
Revisiting a Classic: ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE

Author D. H. Hickman, in a Brevity Blog, writes about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, first published in 1974. She admits that she doesn’t like motorcycles – and calls them “an annoying piece of thunderous metal.” But when she re-read the book, in silence and slow time, she captured a sense of what the author,…

October 11, 2019
ANCHORS: For Kristen and Greg on their 25th anniversary

One good thing about Facebook is that every now and then someone reaches from the past and makes contact with us in the present. This is the case from someone that contacted me yesterday and I’m glad he did. Today (Aug. 13) is Kristen and Greg’s 25th wedding anniversary. Back then, I was the officiant…

August 13, 2019
WRITING, LEADING, INSPIRING, March 7 podcast episode w/writer and yoga teacher motorcyclingyogiG

In this episode of Here You Are Wausau (click link) Dino Corvino and I discuss writing and yoga, breath, ego, truth, ayurveda, teaching, and journaling along with people and places of Wausau. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/leading-inspiring/id1078823496?i=1000431335481&mt=2 I’ll forever see you (Dino) as the weird kid eating chickpeas from a can in the UW Milwaukee student union. Click link and…

March 8, 2019
From: Yoga Script for Health and Joy. Link below Much writing in the field of spirituality has to do with this notion of intentionality, focus and bringing a new vision to life. Wayne Dyer wrote often of ‘changing our script,’ and Sam Keen passionately noted that all of us are responsible for replacing iatrogenic (sickening)…

October 9, 2018
EASTER 2017, Apache Junction, AZ.

I had a house in Marquette, Michigan. Beautiful trees populated the five acre plot, and in time I named some of them. I found shade and solace near Ulysses, Chief, and Christmas. But my favorite was Easter. Easter was a large maple, exploding with red leaves each fall. In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, that meant late…

April 16, 2017