Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

IRISH music on St. Patrick’s Day at the Apache Junction Starbucks (including a limerick contest to win a Starbucks gift card)

IRISH MUSIC — is there really such a thing? Yes, and Irish music takes you into its culture hook, line, and sinker. It’s known for telling powerful stories of resistance and sacrifice, land and liberty, love and loss; it cants of a thirst for the grog and flare for the poetic. Irish music is memorable for its strong rhythm and structure linked to true stories. Slogan: “Cead Mile Failte” a hundred-thousand welcomes.

  At 4:00 – 5:00 pm on the south facing deck at the Apache Junction STARBUCKS on St. Patrick’s Day. Gregory Ormson, formerly of The MAGEES (Wausau, Wisconsin; songs below) and FROM BIG IRISH (Kona, Hawaii).

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14 things I’ve learned from my years on the planet

1 Few things are uncorrupted by money.

2 Naive optimism, hopeioid addiction, is killing us.

3 Education falls far below its potential if if it’s solely about job preparation: good education is more than job prep, it’s critical thinking and enlightenment regarding: science, politics, medicine, religion, history, culture and art (humanities)

4. The environment is dying because of 1 and 2 above. Our great grandchildren will curse us for our selfishnes.

5. Americans appear to most of the world as the most gullible and spoiled people on the planet.

6. Rugged individualism is neither and propagating such a myth is a lie.

7. Technology turned into a sacred savior does not mitigate the need for us to hit the “off” switch.

8. Capitalism is first an alienating force; second it is an unsustainable pursuit bound to set off revolution.

9. The food sold in stores is poisoning us, especially meat and its bloated source.

10. Guns are a visible symptom of our sickness.

11. Big agriculture, big pharmacy, big technology, big industry dominate and destroy the alternatives and in the process, trash both planet and people.

12. The Gospel of Sustained growth supports the lie and myth of Capitalism: profit for the few.

13. Withouth an incorruptible center, politicians will cave to Machivellian self-interest to the detriment of their constituents.

14. International relationships are necessary to the survival of this planet.… read more...

THE LANTERN from UW La Crosse, on yoga and leather

This isn’t your ordinary biker gang.

Technically, it’s not a gang at all — just a community of denim-clad Harley enthusiasts who love to roar down an open road, and then unwind with some deep breathing and meditative poses.

“Learning to breathe, be calm, work on your body — these are all things that you practice in yoga and that can translate into motorcycling,” explains Greg Ormson, ’77, founder of the Yoga and Leather: Yoga for Bikers program at Superstition Harley-Davidson in Apache Junction, Arizona. “It’s all predicated on the notion that, if you’re at ease in the saddle, you’re going to feel better and be a much better motorcyclist.”

Greg Ormson, ’77

Ormson is a true renaissance man — a biker, a yogi, a writer, a musician, a world traveler and a student of several religions. He is a shining example of someone who doesn’t just defy stereotypes, but disproves them.

After retiring from his marketing and communications job at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau in  2012, Ormson and his partner moved to Hawaii.

But in paradise, Ormson felt mostly pain.

I saw all these signs on the street corners: yoga, yoga, yoga, I decided to try it.

He had long struggled with back issues — the result of falling off a trampoline as a child and tumbling off a roof as an adult. Years of motorcycling only made it worse.

Then, walking around the streets of Hawaii, Ormson had an epiphany.

“I saw all these signs on the street corners: yoga, yoga, yoga,” he remembers.

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Steering Our Way in Troubled Waters (video)

Steer Your Way – From You Want it Darker,  Leonard Cohen

Resist the temptation to run away, put God on it, seek to justify or find salvation. It’s our mess and we deserve it. A Pandemic killing millions worldwide; Armed insurrection at US Capitol; a President calling to overturn a Democratic election; Giant problems rolling out vaccine; Economy for average Americans failing; A crumbling infrastructure (dams, bridges, highways, small towns), across the country; Planetary overconsumption and stressed resources (water, food, land); Unfettered Earth degradation = mining and pollution (air); Climate collapse and waste/plastics/Nano plastics – even in our bodies; Injurious chemicals in our food and on plants; Overpopulation; Hunger and Homelessness; Obscene disparities in wealth; Foreign policy disasters and breakdown of international cooperation; White supremacy and hate groups; Gun violence; Attacks on education and humanities; Machiavellian leadership. . . should I go on?
 
The myth of a free republic for all seems to be a fairy tale falling under the weight of a hubris-fired dream married to corrupt ambition. This myth is fueled by a rabble chanting – USA USA USA – a prideful slog morphing into destructive action.

Diversity, nature’s fail-safe, is rejected by the fearful. The mob thinks they are losing something, but they can’t describe what it is. And how will the rise and fall of a once-great  country work?

It will work like humanity and the planet, all three evolving on the same arc where the end is written in the means. And the means of our present say something sinister and deadly about the ends of our personal, corporate, and planetary journey.… read more...

The Crumbling Temple and Rotting Mall is US

And what is the state of the state? For starters, a Pandemic killing millions worldwide;  Armed insurrection at US Capitol; President calling to overturn Democratic election; Giant problems rolling out vaccine; Economy for average Americans failing; A crumbling infrastructure (dams, bridges, highways, small towns), across the country; Planetary overconsumption and stressed resources (water, food, land); Unfettered Earth degradation = mining and pollution (air); Climate change and waste/plastics/Nano plastics – even in our bodies;  Injurious chemicals in our food and on plants; Overpopulation; Foreign policy disasters and breakdown of international  cooperation; White supremacy and hate groups; Gun violence; Attacks on education and humanities; Machiavellian leadership. . . should I go on? Do not skip to denial or optimism; rather, understand the grave trouble we and the world are in. This is no conspiracy bullshit, it’s just the truth. Don’t run away or put God on it. It’s our mess.

The myth of a free republic for all seems to be a fairy tale falling under the weight of a hubris-fired dream married to corrupt ambition. This myth is fueled by a rabble chanting – USA USA USA – a prideful slog morphing into destructive action.

Diversity, nature’s fail-safe, is rejected by the fearful. The mob thinks they are losing something, but they can’t describe what it is. And how will the rise and fall of a once-great  country work?

It will work like humanity and the planet, all three evolving on the same arc where the end is written in the means. And the means of our present say something sinister and deadly about the ends of our personal, corporate, and planetary journey.… read more...

GET IT DONE IN ’21: forty days of austerity measures to stop the virus

If Arizona were to adopt an integrated austerity program, we could stop COVID. It would require 40 days of isolation, but without doing it, COVID will drag on and the Arizona Republic will keep limping along with no solution.

A committed public and government could “Get it Done in 21,” but my suggestions will be unwelcome to an American public driven by an outlandish notion of freedom; they will also be insulting to a governmental and industrial/technological base that has never been asked to work across boundaries for a common goal that has everything to do with the common good but nothing to do with profit.

Of course, specific steps would be the challenge here, and it would take leadership and coordination. But I thought that’s what government was about. Since nobody is talking about what to do, rather wasting energy by pointing fingers and blaming, I’ll say what we must do.

These 9 steps require coordination between Government and the fields of Education, Public Safety, Medical, Technology, Transportation, Banking/Finance, Utilities and power.

Each service sector will have to forego the safety and comfort of their tribal bubble and work together for the first time ever. If they did, we would stop COVID. This is what it takes:

  • Suspend all interstate travel except for food, medical emergencies, and bereavement travel. If someone comes in from another state, they’d be in a two-week required quarantine.
  • Limit gasoline purchases 5 gal week smaller cars 10 gallons week larger vehicles. The exceptions are official vehicles for food, public safety, and medical. Stay home.
  • Curfews for everyone 10 pm to 7 am.
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Babba, Gaia, Prana

Recorded with Audacity, Gregory Ormson lyrics and Washburn D-Series DADGAD guitar, played through Boss Acoustic Singer Pro Amp; keyboard by Randy Anagnostis on Yamaha PB125 with Focus Scarlet Gen 3 Audio Interface. One of several Anagnostis/Ormson original song collaborative pieces.

VIDEO link                      https://youtu.be/NfClYOCX3xA… read more...

Holding to Hope

My daughter returned from a study trip to Nicaragua several years ago and gave me this small painting from a local artist. Today, sunlight fell on it from behind so it appeared as if lights were on inside.

In the moment, it reminded me of  Lighten our Darkness: Toward an Indigenous Theology of the Cross, by Douglas John Hall (January, 1980), a book I read in systematic theology that expanded my apprehension of the human condition and informed my interpretations for many years.

In these years, when my developmental task is to steer a way between generativity and despair, the reminder from Hall from many years ago is to lighten the darkness in the midst of darkness.

A breakthrough by the light – no matter how insignificant it seems –  moves my hands to caress the wheel of generativity and hold to hope. A simple painting and sunlight; reminders to lighten our darkness within and without.… read more...

At the Heart of Yoga: Response

Yoga’s blueprint, passed originally by word of mouth, then written on banana leaves and now shared by books and digital media, is steeped in an elegant heritage which admonishes the yogi from seeds of an encounter with self.

This deepening with self is born in stillness and realized in the mind, body, and spirit. It’s a yogatecture, and with the application of  yoga tools: meditation, deliberate movement, breath, and ease in stress, the yogi constructs a flexible yet strong building in their body.

The process is simple, and the blueprint is clear; take a seat and start with one conscious breath followed by another. Link this to meditation and deliberate movement for the start of a makeover that each yogi embodies in their own way. Yogis build a sacred and sound structure by following this practice. It’s the physical, non-physical, and metaphysical work of yoga; it is also yoga’s therapeutic.

Builders say the most important structural aspect of a building is its foundation. When building, it’s necessary to create a strong foundation. In the north, if the foundation is not set below the frost line, the freeze and thaw cycles of Earth will crack the base which starts the slow process of destruction.

B.K.S. Iyengar spoke directly on foundational work in, Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom. “In each asana, if the contact between body and the floor – the foundation – is good, the asana will be performed well. Always watch your base: Be attentive to the portion nearest the ground. Correct first from the root.… read more...

WOJB: Radio Talk, Radio Chant (acoustic guitar and story)

Acoustic guitar and vocal response to radio talk of the northwoods.

WOJB: Radio Talk, Radio Chant

I turn the radio on and a smoky voice greets me, “Good evening everyone. You’re listening to WOJB, 88.9 FM, Woodland Community Radio from the Lac Court Oreilles in Reserve, Wisconsin, broadcasting on the Web at WOJB.ORG.

“It’s Tuesday, and I hope you’re having a good night.” The radio that’s been sitting in the same place for 40 years, goes silent . . .   then a jock speaks again to his invisible community. “It’s Tuesday, isn’t it? Wait a minute, let me check . . . oh, it’s Thursday. Ok then, well I hope you’re having a good Thursday.”

Ok then, becomes my north-land talk, courtesy of WOJB, where words break through from another world. His musical voice landing quiet on the microphone, nearly a chant, and the jocks’ idiom camouflages a humor that’s easy to miss. Dead air . . . lots of it . . . and then again he’s on, “You’re listening to WOJB, Community Radio of the Northwoods.”

I sat by the wood burning stove and noted the program change. “Good evening from the mountain state of West Virginia,” someone said. And in seconds, soft notes from a wooden guitar, played on a stage in West Virginia, melted in my ear and met me in my place of dark pines and starry skies. Warmed by fire on a cold Wisconsin spring night, I sipped my drink and wondered what the air waves would bring next.

Opening the stove door to add wood, the restless child of Prometheus took oxygen and rose with the flame.… read more...

Baseball Lovers, a New Read for You

The Twin Bill, a new literary baseball publication, is available online. Check out stories, poems, and artwork featuring writer’s takes on pitching, Cooperstown, the Babe, existentialism at home plate, and interviews along with poetry and fiction on all things baseball.      LINK     https://thetwinbill.com/

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UP 550

Living near Lake Superior, I wrote a song about Billy, the pony my daughter rode. We walked to the lake and then back to our house on the trail shown below. This week, I recorded that song after it sat in my files over 20 years. Photo below is Ashley riding her pony Midnight (left) then Billy and Briana with me holding Billy. If not, he bolted up county road 550 in Marquette toward Big Bay.

recording notes: audacity program, Washburn HG1, Boss amp. Lyrics, arrangement, guitar and harp Gregory Ormson. “Up 550”  registered @BMI.

 

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Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride 9/27/2020

Help me fill out this page by going to the URL listed below my name. #ridingforacause #dgr

I’m riding solo for the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride on Sept. 27, and I’m inviting anyone to donate under my page. You are not donating to me, but to

*MENTAL HEALTH*        *SUICIDE PREVENTION*

*PROSTATE CANCER*      *TESTICULAR CANCER*

I put the goal at $500 and right now it’s $94. Every few days I’ll recycle this just to put it in front of you, if you feel moved, follow this link to the donation page.

I’ll be sharing it, along with our video entry on social media in the next week or two.

DGR Purpose, “The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride unites classic and vintage style motorcycle riders all over the world to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer research and men’s mental health.”
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THE WORLDWIDE DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN’S RIDE

Phoenix area video including gentlewomen riders (story here)

We’re asking all our friends to share this video and share widely by liking, and promoting it with this hashtag:  #dprdapperchallenge

Putting the fun in fundraising for a good cause, classic and vintage motorcyclists from around the world have ridden on the last Sunday in September since 2012 to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer research and men’s mental health.” In the US alone, DGR has raised 24.5 million dollars over the last 8 years. Men’s Health Issues addressed by the DGR are:

*MENTAL HEALTH*        *SUICIDE PREVENTION*

*PROSTATE CANCER*      *TESTICULAR CANCER*

One of DGR’s primary concerns this year, due to COVID-19, is the effect of social isolation on mental health. Studies show those who are socially connected in a positive way share a better outlook for well-being and mental health.

Because of COVID-19, the worldwide 2020 DGR ride  – on September 27 –  will be different this year. Everyone will ride alone but share it virtually as a way of riding alone but together.

To promote this, the DGR challenged riders from around the world to submit a video highlighting the 2020 theme: “Riding Solo Together.” Randy Anagnostis and I put together a team of riders and produced this video as part of the DGR 2020 challenge contest.

Our Phoenix area video is now submitted (thanks to Randy for his filming, editing, organizing, and original music score). Thanks also to the riders, to Kyle (Eyes Across the Sky) for the drone photography, to Chris and his partners at Eleven 10 Moto Garage, and to Paul and partners at Phoenix Triumph.… read more...

Alumnus Leads ‘Yoga and Leather’ Class for Bikers

Ormson with his Harley (photo by Randy Anagnostis)
After falling from a roof and injuring his back, NMU alumnus Greg Ormson (’99 MA) found that yoga delivered both pain relief and a new vocation. He became a certified instructor in the practice, just as he had with another avid interest: motorcycling. Ormson has found a unique way to blend both passions. He leads “Yoga and Leather: Yoga for Bikers,” the first—and, to his knowledge, only—specialized class of its kind in the nation to be held in a Harley-Davidson dealership.

It may not seem a logical pairing, but to H.O.G. (Harley Owners Group) member Ormson, the two effectively complement each other and share some similarities. He said beginners in either activity benefit from the guidance of a qualified trainer.

“With motorcycle instruction, the emphasis is on developing riding skills and environmental awareness,” said Ormson, also known as Motorcycling Yogi G. “But spending several hours in the saddle and handling unexpected situations that may arise requires mental focus, strength, flexibility and stamina. That’s where yoga comes in. It is increasingly viewed as the ideal exercise to improve overall mind-body performance.

“When riders are faced with executing a challenging move like a tight U-turn on a heavy bike, breathing shallows and the body tenses, affecting performance. Yoga training can lower stress levels through controlled breathing and meditation. The stretching and strengthening poses reduce the risk of injury by keeping the joints and muscles bikers rely on—hips, back, neck, shoulders, elbows and wrists—flexible and strong.”

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Inversion

Yoga’s inward move is the great inversion of energy and attention. This inversion of heart is fully accessible to every yogi from the first timer to the decades-long yoga practitioner.

It appears as if nothing is going on and therefore not as impressive to the outside world as inversions like a hand stand; but the move from without to within is a highway to the heart, the compass for every decision, and the sacred center of every temple.

We’ve been on Earth for a while, both corporately and individually, and we know falling and rising. Aware of failure and success in life, in teaching, and in yoga, we listen when a guide addresses us with the courage to be.

Following my guide, I give myself to the moment and find my lifting gaze opens a new potential both fierce and divine. I lift my spine from behind my head and imagine never moving.

The crown of my head rises up and into an unseen sacred net of prana. I stand rooted as if I am a monument. I follow for several near-transcendent seconds where I become a living, breathing stone. Then I exhale to feel my shoulders slump setting myself at ease.

I go back with heightened awareness to calm breath. I stop traveling and arrive where my teacher’s soft words land in my ear. Her question is not judgment. It teaches awareness, “Where is your breath?” She says, “Let it go, it’s in the past.” In that yoga moment, I’m a thirsty man who’s been given water. It was all I asked of the day.

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ACOLYTE OF TRANSFORMATION: Fire and Medicine Deeply Interfused

“And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.”

   This sense of something “far more deeply interfused,” of which Wordsworth wrote, surrounds us; yet existing within the deep heart’s core there’s a divinity which shapes our minds and sets us to ponder with wonder a sinking sun or rising tide.
   When we are focused on ourselves, the mind can pick us apart. This self-criticism distracts us from experiencing the sublime sense Wordsworth knew and wrote of when describing sun, ocean, air, sky, mind, motion, spirit, and the Spirit which impels objects and subjects of thought.
   Yoga’s manifold program is designed to heal the human in all thought and motion. When the yogi steps onto their mat in true presence the fire of yoga is applied to their minds and bodies as medicine.
   And what is the goal of fire? Fire wants to burn. In the case of yoga, fire burns up the rubbish that is unnecessary and unhelpful.
   What is the goal of medicine? Medicine wants to cure. In the case of yoga, entering into true presence provides more than we can imagine.
   Aiming for a presence to know, we do our work and kindle the inner fire. We pay attention to our constant, deliberate movement, and pray for an endowment of constancy:
   • Let me be truly present in my asana
   • Let me be truly present in my decisions
   • Let me be truly present in my mediations
   • Let me be truly present in my service
   • Let me be truly present in my emotions
   “Crying out loud and weeping are great resources,” Rumi penned in a classic truth from the 13th Century.
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How bikers and yogis can get their zen (and their maintenance) in yoga and on the bike.

Thank you to Om Yoga Magazine for covering Yoga & Leather (May 2020 issue) on how bikers and yogis can get their zen (and their maintenance) in yoga and on the bike. Teaching yoga in a Harley Davidson Motorcycle dealership in the American South is not common but OM published this story of an uncommon yoga outreach. Read all about it here, or see the video link at the end of this post.

See the May issue by going to pocketmags.com., where a free digital issue can be yours, or by ordering a subscription for the hard copy magazine. Yogainspirationals number 97 by Gregory Ormson,… read more...

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 old and the other a twenty-three year old in love with an older woman. Derrell Syria visited gummersound and laid down guitar throughout the three separate suites in the song. R. Thorburn

My words explore a soul’s stretch toward a white star emerging from lightning; a blending of  Michigan & Wisconsin land and water into a memoir piece I have been writing – on and off – for 15 years. Thorburn gave me advice for selecting edits from two long stories, here melted down to this four minute word/music offering. G. Ormson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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, our nights sliding under the tires like a Chagall, the violin tuned to a blue we painted inside out.

Then the goat floating from under our bed, its horns pricking a shined-up moon, in that lower harbor room. Driving out of town in a borrowed car, there were always ghosts crossing the road, like a Marc Chagall drawing of a peasant couple walking hand in hand, or a farmhouse with glowing windows. She said keep to the left as if the white line were a child. R. Thorburn

Gregory Ormson, music, guitar, and vocal; Russell Thorburn, words; Mike Bjella, clarinet. Mixed @ Gummersound, Marquette, Michigan… read more...

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH: a poetry/song series for the last 8 days of April. Number 5, “When I Get Back to Marquette”

For 12 years I lived close to Lake Superior in Marquette, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Two of my children were born there and all three spent their early years there. But my will to survive its brutal winters faded as the economic pinch turned mean and took a bite from my hide. I had to move.

While living in the U.P., I learned of the Finnish people in the late Nineteenth Century, sailed across the Atlantic to establish a new life. Many of them moved to the U.P., and had been there long before I was in 1998; so were the French Voyagers, and the Anishinaabe before them. They brought little, but their most important resource was sisu, or guts. They also brought their 1000 year old family-bonding mantra: sauna on kuma! Sauna is hot!

I grew to love my sauna and associate the best of my life’s hot times in the coldest of places. I built a sauna from  scraps and tin roof panels I scavenged from a junkyard. Somehow, I found $173, to buy windows, a door, a stove and stove pipe. Preparing my sauna the first time, the roof caught fire. A friend was there and we managed to put it out with buckets of water. In time, I made it work.

It was a gathering place for poets and writers. We’d steam together, and afterwards, I’d concoct white Russians in big blenders and pour them into glasses held by writers, musicians, filmmakers, and friends. I’d watch them melt into their chairs as poems oozed from boiled bodies.… read more...

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH: a poetry/song series for the last 8 days of April. Number 4, “Silver Beatle.”

“Silver Beatle” came from a series of poems written with John Lennon in mind—and working with Gregory Ormson, I saw the potential for a song. We all want John Lennon to visit us in our back yard these days. To have him sing for us and tell us in his usual sardonic method we just might make it through this pandemic.  R. Thorburn

In 1970, after my senior year of high school, I hitchhiked out to Berkeley and was at Winterland in October when it was announced during Quicksilver Messenger Service’s set that Janis Joplin had died in Hollywood. That night was October 4. I had spent my last three dollars for that concert which opened with Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead followed. When I returned to the Detroit area I formed a garage band, worked odd jobs and barely escaped the draft.

We are all creating new markers to anchor these days—in the hopefulness of rebirth and artful ways to live. R. Thorburn, Marquette, Michigan

“There were no flies on Frank that morning—after all why not? He was a responsible citizen with a wife and child, wasn’t he? It was a typical Frank morning and with an agility that defies description he leapt into the barthroom onto the scales.  To his great harold he discovered he was twelve inches more tall than heavy. He couldn’t believe it and his blood raised to his head causing mighty red colourings.” John Lennon, from In His Own Write

Gregory Ormson, music, guitar, vocal; and Russell Thorburn, words; recorded & mixed at Gummersound, Marquette, Michigan… read more...

“Earth Teach” from a Ute Prayer

Video of wild Mustang grazing in the Arizona desert, filmed by Randy Anagnostis and accompanied by his original music and keyboard playing. We collaborated on a project which asked for a reading of Earth Teach fitted to a natural scene.… read more...

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 a memoir by Ormson; mixed @ Gummersound, Marquette, Michigan.

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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 for “Mescalero Territory.” A sitar introduces the fever of an injured and isolated outlaw, holed up in a barn where Billy the Kid fights off rats and nightmares. The poet reads this story of “Mescalero Territory” to original sitar accompaniment.

 

 

Poem/song notes for number 2, “Mescalero Territory. ” Writer and reader, Russell Thorburn. Sitar, Gregory Ormson, Mixed Peter Gummerson @ Gummersound, Marquette, Michigan.… read more...

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH: a poetry/song series the last 8 days of April. Poem/song number, 1 “Whale Song.”

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 eight songs/poems posted over the next 8 days of April will close out NATIONAL POETRY MONTH for 2020.

Russell Thorburn plays “Chelsea Hotel,” a composition he wrote to celebrate Dylan Thomas. The hotel is similar to a whale swimming through the Atlantic humpbacked Ocean of New York City, and lives are certainly made of vibrations, artists and poets who swam through the hallways and never reached shore. In the song Dylan opens the door to Death wearing a Fifth Avenue gown and black gloves; he is there at his typewriter to finish the last pages of Under Milk Wood.

Substitute Thomas for Ormson’s memoir and corners of eternity, and don’t answer the door. “Chelsea Hotel” was performed at the Beaumier Folk Series Concert in 2014, Northern Michigan University. I was on piano and mumbling the lyrics. Here is the basic piano track in another gummersound recording. R. Thorburn

Free diving in Hawaii opened me to a whale song’s sonic jangling my synapses and brain cells. It came to me from deep down and far out. Sounds swam through the water and past my cochlea until my inner ear caught humpback aria as it rearranged maps in my head.

Under the waves, I heard the ecstatic; it was accompanied by sweeter-still unheard melodies of which John Keats wrote. Years later, I’m still trying to make sense of it all, like the yellow-robed priests: Mayan, Incan, or Egyptian, who crumbled into the dust at such otherworldly ditties. … read more...

Yoga and Leather: bikers get their zen on

Bikers: Covid-19 has paused everything.

It’s a gift given to us, a rare break in normally busy lives to think about things and even make plans to do something new. “Yoga and Leather: Yoga for Bikers,” is for you. This is not gymnastic yoga where your goal will be to nail a handstand or accomplish the splits. Yoga for bikers is for motorcycle riders showing up to a space apart for breathing with simple movement; and it’s a settling down in one place for a few minutes.

Doing a yoga class doesn’t mean you give up your identity, or that yoga makes you stop doing what you do. But yoga will lead you to experience yourself in a different way from what you ever have before. That’s it. Anything and everything else is your choice.

The story of yoga for bikers – in the OM Yoga Magazine May issue is for you. It’s now free to read because OM Yoga Magazine will not be printed for the month of May.

Take a moment to read how yoga benefits bikers. It’s all right here, the story of Yoga and Leather at Superstition Harley Davidson.

Here is your link for a FREE issue of OM Yoga Magazine:  www.primeimpactmags.com

And if you want to see what Yoga and Leather looks like, follow this link to a YouTube video of our class from February, 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opNRRVg8O_M&t=185s… read more...

EXCERPT: setting the table to release old-fashioned hierarchies and mobility obsessions

An entry point to yoga often begins with quiet meditation or breathing exercises. We set our intentions and enter into our dedications with mindfulness. Through active imagination, we create positive mental space enabling us to move in every direction.

We may practice with others, but each yogi sets the table for their yoga banquet according to their capabilities. Setting the table well serves to elevate our mind/body readiness and prepares us to carry it through the session.

At the end of a one-hour session, I was moved when the teacher said, “Release into savasana.” This was a new phrase and a fresh way to enter the savasana moment.

In Living Your Yoga, Judith Hanson Lasater wrote that savasana taught her to dis-identify from mental storms and go within. “I learned to recognize more quickly when I had abandoned the present moment once again, and I learned not to judge myself when I had done it for the millionth time, and not to dance away so quickly with my thoughts.”

In a larger sense, releasing into savasana means to loosen my grip and to take a break from managing the persona, known as the outer image we construct, identify with, and project to the world. It’s important to get a grip on our lives, but it doesn’t have to be a stranglehold.

Perhaps this is why participation in yoga is growing. Many of us long for a place to release our grip – and we desperately need moments when the noise dissolves. We thirst for moments of freedom from the grasp of our ego, and are satiated by savasana as it leads us to soften investments in this life shaped by old fashioned hierarchical structures and obsessions with upward mobility.… read more...

EXCERPT – tapas

We’re all flat on our backs in a liminal place, fired by tapas and its heat of transformation. I’m listening as a guru points the way, and slowly my doubt is burned by fire and sent to the trash bin of insecurity.Heat and gravity are my honest teachers, and they’re worthy companions delivering an exacting curriculum of change. When I insert my ego into the moment and rough-hew its curriculum, I mute the shining fire of tapas branding me in this container.

The tapas of yoga is not of my making. It doesn’t heed my objections, or accept my charges to change or comfort me in the twinkling of an eye. In fire, I am only left to breathe and positioned to trust; by my simple presence and trust I participate in the yoga economy of rebirth out of the flame.

This economy doesn’t just subtract or burn away, it also adds, multiplies, and divides certainty into millions of shades. Yoga’s economy is Gandhian in its disciplined core, negative in its spiritual logic, countercultural in its teleology, and hotly shamanistic in its strategy.

In this season of our discontent, our wiser revelry may be composed of welcoming close the sublime inside a spoonful of shaman, holding forth with a pinch of subtraction for division and discontent, riding with attention on the coattails of science, and supping together with a cup of cheer for our endings not yet defined.

#Kilauea, #breathnotes, #satsong, #gregoryormson, #amwrititing, #yogainspirationals

Writing on yoga, music, and motorcycling @ https://gregoryormson.com Tweet@ GAOrmson… read more...

EXCERPT

The land was drunk on money and the illusion of freedom fired the Westlanders’ imaginations. Yoga’s eight limbs twisted in the creative chaos of post-modernism and strange ideas whispered in the wind. Gurus saw it all and wondered where the surf boards came from.

They didn’t understand what had happened to their movement and some of them lamented the loss of yoga’s mystical heart. They questioned the roots of atman and were agitated by vibrations from superhighways.

In time, yoga prospered, and people realized the teachers had brought good medicine. It seemed to help prisoners, alcoholics, those suffering pain, and even angry youth –  but many feared it  – especially the counsel to sit alone in silence.

Power brokers were terrorized by the nightmare of employees chanting Namaste and yoga threatened stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry.

Westlanders didn’t want gurus, they didn’t read books, they didn’t meditate, but they did compete. Soon the gurus were silent, confused by what happened and haunted by memories of peace and stillness. Some gurus returned to the source, giving up their mission.

One day, all the gurus were called to an ashram. They lamented the hubris of culture and false prophesies of comfort through technology, money, and convenience.

One reminded them of the illusions in misdirected ambition and they became silent. At the ashram, a yogi read a passage from Shelly.

“Life, like a dome of many-colored glass

Stains the white radiance of eternity.”

The gurus wept, and a world opened like the many petals of the lotus in a soft rain. A light from the crown of their heads went out to the dark and returned as eternal light in a deep, dark night.… read more...

EXCERPT

In shadow and in light, we yoga, and our teachers observe. Together we’re co-creators in a new architecture – a yogatecture – and celebrate moments when a yogi gives shape to an old blueprint written on a banana leaf.

Everything is prepared as I enter yoga class where the nexus of a new identity is continually reforming me. I step into the room and hear the soothing melodies of dahina, tabla, and harmonium. Their compelling sounds pour over me like waves from the ocean. A pause . . . then class begins.

I’m present and following directions, but then mentally, I become unhinged for a moment. I try to concentrate on my pose, but my mind tracks the music, so I follow the sound like a rising cobra hypnotized by its flier. My reach aims for the sky, but my imagination takes me to a Hawaiian beach where I’m preparing for a dive.

My training reminds me of a breathing routine: a deep breath in, calm hold, and a slow release. Breath is my vinyasa, and for a moment, my yoga-pose rides side-saddle. My heartbeat slows, awareness creeps closer, and I focus on every sound.

I’m still in class, but I’m also down in the deep blue of the Pacific. I pine to hear the whale, and imagine the sound from its massive heart. I leave my imagining, rise to the surface, and open my eyes where I’m back in the yoga room and yoked once more into my corner of eternity.

Yoga moves me to imagine a long line of yogis fed by the garden and connected to source for nourishment.… read more...

” Murder most foul,” . . . and life’s unpredictability.

IN this rare photo, 16 year old Bob Dylan and a friend, Dale B, pose with Dale’s Harley Davidson in 1956-7 on what is now called “Bob Dylan Drive,” in Hibbing, MN. I’d bet they wouldn’t have guessed that 63 years later Bob would release yet another song that once more would be a mindful mirage for the world. Released yesterday, 17 minutes of “Murder most foul.” Incredible Link below

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/hear-bob-dylan-absolutely-mind-051952162.html

 

 … read more...

“Clearing Space” or social distancing. YogaInspirationals from #motorcyclingyogiG

Thank you @omyogamagazine April issue, for publishing “Clearing Space,” #yogainspirationals number 96. It’s appropriate to our situation as the virus is doing its best to make us do the work of the niyamas. In “Clearing Space,” I cite the writing of San Francisco based yoga teacher, musician, and leader @janetstoneyoga, who spoke of this work as being an inside job in her newsletter from December, 2019, “Unwrapping Your Gifts, Healing Family Wounds.” “Buckle up, it’s not for the faint of heart,” she wrote. In the US, we have lots of buckling up to do. Friends . . . Clear Space, and do it now before its too late.

… read more...

Social Distancing and Sacred Space

And here’s an example of how we use this space for renewal. Dave Swenson, brother of my long-time friend Lee Swenson, couldn’t gig tonight for St. Patrick’s Day, so he did a 40 something minute concert from the porch of his home in Iowa and streamed it to people in the US and afar. This is something to like about people: developing ways to renew self and others in the social distance space we’ve suddenly fallen into. Way to go Dave Swenson.

Here’s a link to Irish and Scottish music from fiddler Dave in Iowa. .https://www.facebook.com/dave.swenson.33/videos/10221681855654385/UzpfSTExOTQ1NjA2NzQ6MzA2MDYxMTI5NDk5NDE0OjEwOjA6MTU4NTcyNDM5OToyOTUyNTUyMzcwNDg4ODU5MDk3/

 

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BENDING: a reflection on sitar

“There was something about the way he played his Stratocaster that made it seem otherwordly.” –Eric Clapton on Jimi Hendrix

My sitar flows in 19 bands of light: their names are baaj, chikari, and tarab. Its journey to my hand is a mystery, but its music-medicine came to my doorstep from an old land, gripped me from the eons, and pulled my soul into its orbit. It’s a path unlike any other, bending more than notes. A musician friend and professor said, “Its all angles.”

Saraswati dances, sitar bends, and because I’ve heard its music and felt it in my chest I participate in its step. This step is toward the depths and from them rises a watery siren-song of the fathoms.

Sitar music is a never-ending river, shepherding me to a place close and yet far away. My teacher speaks in common tones and offers up clusters of daring: “Consistency, consistency, consistency,” she says. Her words; the kernel of all learning, teaching, and the core of every guru’s curriculum.

I’ve seen the rivers of India, but I can’t put myself and my sitar on their banks; but once at dusk, on a hot July night, I made my way with this rosewood, gourd, string & steel riddle to the banks of the Salt River in east Phoenix to listen. There, I realized sitar will not accompany me without shepherding along a river of souls.

Looking to the Salt, I could almost see a funeral pyre float past; a desert inspired mirage bobbing with the current, like a lazy raft ablaze in flames, scented smoke and grief trailing behind.… read more...

Final tracks in late January for “Mescalero Territory,” by Russell Thorburn and Gregory Ormson

Hear  “When I Get Back to Marquette,” and “Mescalero Territory.”

Russell Thorburn, NEA recipient, is the author of four books of poems. His last book, Somewhere We’ll Leave the World, was published by Wayne State University Press. Currently he is producing and directing his one-act play Bomb Shelter for Black Box Theater at Northern Michigan University, where he teaches composition. It will premiere March, 2020, and includes original music for the end of the world that never happened in the sixties. www.russthorburn.com

Gregory Ormson, writer and musician living in Arizona, has collaborated with Thorburn over the last decade on word and poem projects. He writes on music, yoga, motorcycling, and landscape.

“Mescalero Territory” Lyric and voice, Russell Thorburn. Sitar, Gregory Ormson, engineered at Gummersound Studio, Marquette, Michigan.   https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7CJeFLGYOO8YVB0NjFQSUFhR0dJV09kSjlVZ2daTk5uYU9Z/view?usp=sharing

“When I Get Back to Marquette” Russell Thorburn, Marquette, Michigan lyric; Gregory Ormson, Mesa, Arizona, music, guitar, vocal, and lyric adaptation; Mike Bjella, clarinet, Montreal, Quebec; Peter Gummerson, Marquette, Michigan, sound engineering. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CiqMkl6W9OOuS82qWe-LASo3ytH_FNLw/view?usp=sharing

 

 

 

 … read more...

You have a question about yoga and spirituality?

I’m pleased to have an invitation from OM Yoga and Lifestyle (magazine) Colchester, UK, to be a regular contributor, specifically, the OM Spirit section dealing with the spirituality inherent in yoga.

As a lifelong researcher of spiritual perspectives from around the world, I practice an ongoing evaluation of the esoteric. I’ve learned to be critical of every spiritual perspective yet remain open to the testaments of everyone’s perspective.

Theologians evaluate spiritual grounding by looking at the context of any spirituality. They call this discipline hermeneutics, which is a questioning and critical posture regarding: religious assumptions about humanity, spirituality’s inspirations, its leadership, and its goals.

But the most important aspect of critical thinking is that it can deliver us from the trap of believing that my culture – or my perspective – is the center of the world. This may open us to see both the wisdom and folly of our religious or spiritual background.

A hermeneutic evaluation means one is always suspicious of the texts and traditions from any school of thought. It leads one to dig in and find out what the text or tradition is really saying to the individual and the community, and then to ask if it squares with the entirety of what one knows deep down in their bones.

Hermeneutics questions every spiritual perspective and what it says about culture, religious leadership, and society. You have a question about yoga and spirituality? Send it to me, I’m looking for ideas to write about for OM Yoga and Lifestyle.

 … read more...

Thank you to AZ Rider Motorcycle News (now in the 21st year) for your summary on YOGA & LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers in your October issue https://tinyurl.com/y6g5ak66

See it here: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/8041e482-b91f-40a8-bf08-bb36cb780cad/downloads/YogiG_Yoga-Leather_1019.pdf?ver=1570396386788

With appreciation for your summary of YOGA & LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers (Starting Oct. 9th)

” . . . to improve the health and wellbeing of motorcyclists.” Yep, that’s it!

If ANY OF  YOU have interest in Yoga for Bikers, a program at Superstition Harley Davidson now in its third year, here is a reminder of October’s yoga and bike events:

Wednesday October 9, 4:30 pm in the Eagle’s Nest

Wednesday October 23, 4:30 pm in the Eagle’s Nest

Sunday October 27, 10:30 am starting in the West Parking lot at SHD

Each year there are slight changes. This year, we’ll focus on a breath-centric class and slow movements in ease.

The “STRETCH RIDE” will take place the LAST Sunday of every month, starting at 10:30. We’ll ride a short distance to a green or desert space and there spend 15-20 minutes in breath awareness and quiet. Then we use the bikes for a few “stretch poses.” Motorcycles are perfect for this, they are stable props but also transfer us from place to place. The “stretches” are portable too.

What you do in Yoga for Bikers:

This beginner level class is offered to riders to stretch the areas where we feel tightness: hips, shoulders, back, and neck.

The purpose is to keep riders in the saddle longer by working gently toward flexibility and balance. This means longer at a time, but more importantly, longer for life.

The side benefit of all yoga is learning to be at ease in the midst of stress.… read more...

Yoga for Riders starting again this month

YOGA AND LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers begins its third year in October at the Eagles’ Nest (outdoor second deck) at Superstition Harley Davidson. Two Wednesday’s a month, riders and anyone interested will gather for simple movement and breath work. This beginner level class is open to all. This is offered to riders to stretch the areas where we feel tightness: hips, shoulders, back, and neck. This year we will work more with breath and movement in ease.

The purpose is to keep riders in the saddle longer by working gently toward flexibility and balance. This means longer at a time, but more importantly, longer for life. The side benefit of all yoga is learning to be at ease in the midst of stress. This happens through breath work and deliberate movement.

Here are the dates for October yoga and leather at SHD in the Eagle’s Nest (a large outdoor deck above the dealership)

October 9 at 4:30 pm

October 23 at 4:30 pm

The “stretch ride” will be held October 20, at 10:30 am. You’ll hear more about that soon.

PUBLISHING NEWS RE: YOGA AND LEATHER

The AZ Rider Motorcycle News (now in its 21st year) will also include a short story in October via Internet link (issue number 239), where you can read more about Yoga and Leather. Thanks Betsy and Bruce!

July’s issue of YOGA Magazine from London featured the Yoga and Leather here at SHD in its cover shot and in its feature story with a five page coverage including photos.

HOG Magazine (Harley Owner’s Group) will be covering this story in their November issue.… read more...

The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, 2019, Phoenix (the ride for men’s health)

I took part in the world’s largest charitable motorcycle event for owners of classic and vintage styled bikes on Sunday September 29th, 2019. This event, called the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, brings together over 113,000 well dressed riders on sweet, small bikes raising 5 million dollars in 700+ cities for men’s health across 110+ countries.

The goal for the once a year DGR is to raise awareness and funds for prostate cancer research – and men’s mental health – on behalf of charity partner the Movember Foundation. Next year, I’ll see if anyone wants to join me for this worthy cause and fun ride through Phoenix. A few photos tell the story of this event, which started at Four Till Four Coffee in Scottsdale with 218 registered bikes. It ended at Sazerac in downtown Phoenix.

REASONS to ride, or to donate:

It feels good to contribute to a good cause.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, taking 307,000 every year.

75 percent of all suicides are men too, taking one every minute (510,000) each year, most of them in the 20-39 age range.

Why don’t you get your CAFE RACER out of the barn and join me and over 200 others next year as Distinguished Gentlemen and Gentlewomen ride for a cause!  AND . . . if you don’t have a cafe racer or vintage bike  . . . rent a scooter 🙂

… read more...

thanks to OM YOGA AND LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE.

(Colchester, Essex Co., UK) for including “Conducting the Awesome,” in your October HOT YOGA special.

This magazine is ‘with it.’  Last month, they celebrated their 100th issue, and have published extensively on inclusivity, body positivity, yin yoga, retreats, men in yoga, Western Yoga, and breath training as the new yoga.

Breath Training is what I do, having just completed two yoga workshops in Wisconsin and Michigan on “Yoga Breath, Breath of Life.” Breath training is a new – but very old –  emphasis growing from the needs of Westerners. By engaging the breath, we learn to calm ourselves in a conflicted world. My workshop is integrative: meaning it includes philosophy, linguistics, biology, mobilization of prana, execution of the bandas, the embodiment of asana, a practice of mindful release, and attentive work on drishti.

At my teaching site, Superstition Harley Davidson in Apache Junction, AZ., when motorcycling yogis focus on breathing, when they hear sitar gently pinging above the roaring big twin engines, and when they receive my final salutation, breathe deep and exhale a final OM, it begins to look and sound like something not heard or seen before; indeed, Western yoga is changing (practice at a HD dealership proves it) and slowly taking on a unique form and function. For me, it starts with the building block of it all – BREATH.This fall, I’ll bring even more breath training to my teaching at YOGA AND LEATHER (Superstition Harley Davidson) in October as we start year 3 of Yoga for Bikers.

If anyone wants to learn more about this focus on breath, I’m ready to conduct a two hour workshop for you – with original music on sitar and guitar –  “Yoga Breath, Breath of Life.”… read more...

ONE BIRD, ONE STONE, AND ONE COB OF CORN

A memorable month on the home ground to see many family and friends. Two Wisconsin trips with Marquette, Michigan in between sweetened by literary frosting. The last nine days, Debbie came north to share in the good times.

Thanks everyone for food and drink, word and music, for yoga and breath. Until next time, namaste to all you birds in the cold north: Bree Ommon, Ashley Prinsen Jason Prinsen, Brian Ormson, Tamara Kay Ormson, Laurel Gyland Kieffer, Robyn Bretl, lightbodY, Paul Zollver, Eric Schubring Russell Thorburn, Amy Howko, John Howko, Dylan Trost, Peter J Gummerson, Jennifer Taylor, Nathan Taylor, TuliVesi Yoga Paul Lehmberg James C Daly Tee Chuppie Daly Jon Shea, Nick Hoen, Chris King Karla Lodholz, Michael John Brancato Natalie Rodehaver, Melinda Rodehaver, and people off FB: Tim Ormson, Mitch Ormson, Chris Howko, Jonathan Johnson, Ken Baker and Martha Bush, EG, and Riley.

Many thanks again to Jennifer and Nathan of Tulivesi Yoga in Marquette, to gummersound studio in Marquette, Russ, Johnathan and Dylan at The Crib, and Robyn Bretyl at LIghtbody Yoga in Wausau!!!

Photos: Marquette, Michigan, Wausau and Spooner, Wisconsin. To Daly’s of Wausau, thanks for the blues music by Minneapolis based Joy Ann Parker band and Michael Charles, Chicago blues band.

 

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipO-JyAvr5KK6sJKHM-WPqoLzhyBnfSNFAkIUATuLlsLLXVAPTYN6hv9jUmAJAmk8A?key=Mk5tZUVkaTliZV9HbmVlUEhrWGJGU3BHeDA5aXBn… read more...

BACK TO MARQUETTE

Soulful Music and Poetry: Back to Marquette 

August 30, 7 PM @ The Crib

With Dylan Trost and Greg Ormson, singer-songwriters; Russell Thorburn and Jonathan Johnson, poets

MUSIC

This one-of-a-kind event features the eclectic energy of Dylan Trost, in his brand new compositions, which include “Strangelight” and “Where Is All the Dust?” As well as other Americana-like grinders of the human spirit you will want to hear in a coffee shop setting.

There is also the original music of Greg Ormson on acoustic guitar and sitar, formerly of The Magees, from Wausau, Wisconsin, an innovative Irish-American band. Greg provides fiery vocals in his deep baritone range, and his guitar work sparkles with the Irish tunings. Sitar reflects his meditative nature as a yoga teacher who currently lives in Phoenix. He has come back to Marquette, and sings of it in a newly recorded song.

POETRY

Dylan and Greg will provide guitar background for Russell Thorburn’s poetry from

Somewhere We’ll Leave the World, Wayne State University Press, and selections from his new work, including poems from the recent anthologies of Undocumented: Great Lakes Poet Laureates on SocialJustice—and Respect: The Poetry of Detroit Music—both Michigan State University Press. Greg has collaborated with Thorburn on songs recorded for a forthcoming CD, including “Back to Marquette.”

Jonathan Johnson, Eastern Washington University and Cheney, will read from his recently published memoir The Desk on the Sea, Wayne State University Press, and May Is an Island: Poems, Carnegie Mellon Press. His work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry, published widely in literary magazines, and read on National Public Radio. … read more...

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