the brief
the brief
As the number of songs increased, and beyond the flavours themselves, a number of commonalities started showing up in the songs. For instance, karma and karma partners were topics that appeared across several songs, gradually being fleshed out and becoming more nuanced.
There were songs that built on each other towards a common narrative arc, and there was even one song within that arc that predicted another, much later, song in the same arc.
There were several songs that included more than one narrative'voice', and several songs that featured what I came to call evolving choruses. There was even what can only be called a genre of songs with a female narrator speaking directly to her partner. (Call it a femme noir if you like, it has its own separate tour.)
These were not 'flavours' per se, and there were a number of terms could be used, like themes or topics, styles or genres, though there was no single perfect fit. I came to use the term 'tracks' for these commonalities because they track across multiple songs, sometimes even across different flavours.
karma/karma partners
of k-osmology, karma, and karma partners
Believe it or not, not that i care what you believe or not, there is an entire cosmology behind karosongs. Let's call it the k-osmology. It involves a sentient universe awakening to its own sentience through the accumulated experience of its sparks — "you and me and he and she and they and we all" as the 38th karosong puts it. Said sparks accumulate experience by incarnating into physical lives and, guided by and through karma, strive to return back to oneness with the universal sentience. Which itself evolves from their karmic experiences.
As these cosmologies go, it's pretty run-of-the-mill. Nothing special. I've come to agree with it but it's still just a description, an interpretation by a limited awareness of a near infinite reality. I attach no importance to the description being right. It works for me, it makes sense of my experience and that is what matters.
The k-osmology was the subject of the first karosong, Transformation, which provided a rather lengthy description of the k-osmology in the guise of a hero's journey, a "tale of some terror and woe". That description was condensed into it's (many-years-later) call-and-response partner, Awakening. The two songs shared a common chorus (though not at the same time).
that we were never parted
that we are always one
that we shall be together
upon awakening
that love there truly lies
can no longer be denied
and we shall be as one
when transformation's done
— from Awakening 3.0, with Towards the Light by RH Coxon
Both songs made clear that love — the universal sentience's love for its own sparks — was the glue that connected, held and ultimately pulled those sparks back to their source.
(Further bits of the k-osmology appear in other songs, but the fullest expression of it is found in two of the five 'books' that combine to form the comic spiritual-adventure novel tHe PoEt & i. This was also a channeled work, and came during the long period between the first and second phases.
Those two 'books' within the novel are The Teachings of the Minstrel and the writer comments. Between them, they explore the k-osmology in quite a bit of detail, though from what you might call an eclectic point of view. In other words, check your spiritual expectations at the portal. This is not your momma's old tyme gospel. Or your daddy's ZatAoMM*. Epub versions can be downloaded individually.)
karma
While the concept of karma was implicit in both, those two songs were about the 'set', the universal stage where karma plays out, not about the role that karma itself plays on those boards.
but we sent you out into time
sent you out to feel the chill
to be born
live love learn grow die
again and then again
— from Awakening 3.0, with Towards the Light by RH Coxon
It's in time, the 'again and then again' where karma plays. Where it teaches its lessons, the instant karma kind or the kind that extend across lifetimes.
But what are those lessons? They are varied but always aimed at our spiritual evolution, always leading towards our growth, towards understanding our nature, towards release from the universal stage and reawakening to the vastness that we are at our deepest levels.
That's enough gobbledeegook for now. This is not a treatise on karma; it's an introduction to what some songs that deal with it say.
So contrary to the 38th karosong and much popular culture, karma is not about payback. It's about growth.
Though it does love a good giggle now and then.
don't put out
what you don't want back
cause karma's a bitch
— from Never-ending sunset 3.2, with Azul by Jesse Cook
karma partners
Along the way, we encounter karma partners, people in our current lives that we are connected to at deep spiritual levels, where we have agreed to intersect multiple physical lives and work through karma's lessons together for mutual growth.
Karma partners is not the same concept as soul mates, which is often rather-romantically mis-understood as fated lovers. Karma partners may be lovers in some lives, but will play many roles in other lives. Family. Enemy. Deep friend, acquaintance. Even no role at all in any particular lifetime.
Still soul mates was the term used the first time karma partners came up in a song. That was in the 7th karosong, Bluebirds, I think because that was the term I used at the time.
Bluebirds 1.0, an all-original karosong with Jeremy Sagar
A ‘love you but goodbye’ to gordon’s first wife Leanne, the bookend to Proposal. arc03 /recorded Easter, 1994 [8]
I didn't know when it first started, but Bluebirds was my goodbye song to my first wife Leanne. We'd had a challenging marriage, but for many reaons I had always understood that she and I were 'soul mates' brought together in this lifetime for . . . well, karmic work.
bruce and leanne
it's your destiny
to walk upon the stars
the path to love
But even then I found the lyrics walking back the forever-bonded, forever-happy gibberish around soul mates. No it would not all be romance and wonder. Much of it would be shit. And success was not guaranteed.
but there's nothing says
it will be easy
and there's nothing says
it will be fun
fact there's nothing even says
it can be done
this time around
The song was both a realization and an acknowledgement that sure, we may be karma partners in this lifetime, but the experience is not set. Being karma partners means nothing except what we make of it. Even when it fails. Especially when it fails.
And the circumstances of the experience can and will be repeated as required.
soul mates, yeah that's what we are
bluebirds on the winds of eternity
our task to live our job to learn
our joy to find some lifetime
we'll be together again
to try it again
That insight became a foundation for three much-later karma partner songs, one in the 3.2 set and two in the 3.3 set. During the period the latter two were coming, I felt strongly to change "soul mates" to "karma partners" in the 2.0 version of Bluebirds.
(There was another 'karma' song in the first phase, though the word karma does not appear in its title or lyrics. But it's about the actual mechanism of karma, which is basically hitting you over the head with the same lesson until you finally figure it out. It's called The nightmare run .)
The nightmare run 1.0
There are no recordings of this song from the 1.0 period. This arc02 recording was made many years later in 2016, in the period between the second and third phases. [7]
(It's the same method life uses to teach you self-awareness if you're into that form of self-abuse.)
(No it ain't much fun.)
in fact i'd sooner swallow a gun
then chew exlax and have the runs and
not have the buns to make the dun
i mean it's the shits
Karma partners per se didn't reappear until that already quoted 38th karosong, Never-ending sunset 3.2 (with Into the Dark by Jesse Cook). The song is specifically about karma partners making the choice to undertake what it calls "the karma dance" together.
and we don't know how many lifetimes
we'll be lovers, friends or family
how many lives strangers in the night
or even less as we dance with other partners
I first thought the song was for Leanne, but came to see it as my deeper being speaking to the deeper being of any karma partner, not just one in particular.
Never-ending sunset 3.2 with Into the Dark by Jesse Cook
A song on karma, karma partners, the deep nature of the universe and our role in it. arc06 / recorded mid November 2021. [7]
and we don't know what the lessons will be
until as we proceed
but we can be sure they will be as needed
and as agreed
As well as building on the karma partners concept, the song added to the descriptions and detail of the k-osmology, in particular with a very budhist definition of the eternal now.
no, not a moment frozen in time but
always coming, always leaving
never starting, never ending
the only moment there ever was
the only moment there will ever be
now
The song seemed a complete statement on karma partners at the time. So I wasn't expecting there'd be another song on the matter. Never mind two.
Long stories told on their song sheets, the first of the two (karosong #37) started even before Never-ending sunset (#38), but the second (#42) started and finished before the first. And I only knew the first was also about karma partners just as the second was finishing.
Karosongs can be like that.
Finicky.
The second but first to finish was also the second asynchronous collaboration with music by Govi, his wonderful Tears of Joy in a 3.3 karosong called No plan 'B's. Though I was not expecting one, I knew it was another karma partners song as soon as lyrics started coming forward.
I know we've only just met
but let's go out tonight
take a walk down by the lake
find a place to eat
And then I saw that of course there are as many karma partner songs as there are karma partners. Like they say, there are a million stories in the naked karma. This was just another one of them.
No plan Bs 3.3 with Tears of Joy by Govi
arc05 / recorded early January 2023, Vancouver. [7+]
This particular song explored the idea that it's not just meeting the right karma partner, but meeting them at the right time that matters. Karma partners may cross paths but not be meant to connect at that time.
later we'll walk the winding pathways
under vincent's starry twilight
among the myriad possibilities of time
and sure in some of them of we'll be lovers
who can say what else in the others
but for tonight we'll say goodbye
before the twilight's done
And that's okay.
I was thinking a lot about karma partners while No plan 'B's was coming in. Thinking about the roles they play in our lives, in our growth. Thinking about the hurt that so much karma entails, hurt between family, hurt between lovers, between friends. Hurt that I've inflicted on others. Hurt others have inflicted on me. And thinking about the purpose of that hurt, what role does it play in our spiritual growth?
Another long story told on its songsheet, I was at the same time trying to connect with a song that had named itself during the 3.2 period, more than a year-and-a-half before. The phoenix must burn would be karosong #37 in the official count, and would be an asynchronous collaboration with Oasis by Kitaro, but it had gone no further than a lyric phrase that included the likely title.
and just as the pheonix must burn
before it can rise from the ash
so the heart must first break before
it can heal and be whole
It was a powerful image but I didn't know what it would be about. Most of two years had passed before the song started active channeling and I 'got' that this would be another karma partners song, but with a difference. This would be a duet between the deeper beings of karma partners who are about to start another physical incarnation together.
the first time i saw this 'you'
i knew we'd been together before
i knew we'd spent ages and lives
exploring karma together
and i knew we'd been many things
each to the other
mother, brother, wierd uncle, confidant, rival
and not to forget lovers
and i knew as those lovers
we'd broken each other's heart
over and over and
over again
In the song, the karma partners alternate discussing the many physical lives they've shared, and the hurt they've each caused the other, in particular as lovers. Both search for and try out similes for the purpose of that hurt in our spiritual growth. For the first partner it's the phoenix rising from the ash. For the second it's the process of turning raw gemstones into shining jewels.
just as the stone must be cut
before it can shine as a jewel
the heart must be shaped
so that love can shine through
I was finishing off No plan Bs when this song finally started active channeling, and I don't think the timing was coincidental. I don't know why it named itself way back when it did, but I think Phoenix then waited its turn while Never-ending sunset and then No plan Bs (which deal with karma partners in the physical here and now) were coming forward. Then Phoenix added the perspective of the deeper beings behind the physically incarnate.
The phoenix must burn 3.3 with Oasis by kitaro
arc02 / first more or less complete version from the Vancouver sessions March 2023 [7+]
it seems we're running out of time
though we have all the time in the worlds
but it's they have to get on with the show
it's their play not ours
just the same if this turns out to be
one of those lives where i break your heart
well i hope you'll forgive me
as i will you if you break mine
because the more I've grown and
the more i've learned
the more i see it's
it's all about the forgiving
And that is the karma track to October 2021. Will there be more songs in this track? Time may tell.
* ZatAoMM — Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
greed
the greed track
As the name suggests, eco/poli-flavour karosongs deal with both ecological and political issues, much of the time because those aspects are so intertwined they can't be separated. However, there are two tracks that run through this flavour.
One of those tracks is classic political protest, exemplified by the so-far-unfinished City on the hill 1.3, a song for large crowds and protest singers. Similar in tone but more biting, Turtle McTurdle 3.3 takes a crowbar to the anti-democratic hypocrisy of today's right wing politicians.
Turtle McTurdle 3.3 with To the Horizon by Jesse Cook
Taking it to the streets in the Black Lives Matter era, an anthemic protest against hypocritical rightwing politicians undermining democracy, and a vow to change the future. arc02 / recording from mid November 2021. [7]
The other track, the greed track, winds through and unites several songs. These are songs about how structuring a society on greed — on neoliberal capitalism to be precise — is no longer compatible with our long term existence as functioning human societies.
The climate crisis and the COVID-19 vaccination debacle show that greed is a death machine every bit as malevolent as HG Wells' Martian landers and their deadly energy beams. Greed perverts people and societies. To structure a society on greed is to create a society run by and on behalf of sociopaths. By the very people least able to act on anything but their own narrow interests, no matter the consequences.
That's what neoliberal capitalism has achieved. A system that not just enables but lionizes the worst human behaviours as 'rational' and 'responsible' when they are in fact myopic and destructive. A system still barreling towards climate breakdown because short term profits are everything and the greedsters have no interest in the long term stability of the climate and society.
The greed track started in the second phase with the Away is no longer there 2.3 (with November Sky by Yanni). Unlike the 1.0 version of that song (which took a lyrical, even slightly optimistic approach to sounding the alarm), this new version was not just more direct. It was blunt, scathing and demanding.
And if you're looking
to the leaders and systems got us here
and you're hoping they're going to fix it
well let's be blunt, let's be brutally frank
that's just the same as away
it's just a dream, just illusion
nothing's gonna change
unless we make it so
That bluntness made it a difficult song to channel. My own background in television news and educational media made me uncomfortable with the emerging lyrics. The lyrics often felt 'wrong' but they were insistent.
Away is no longer there 2.3 with November Sky by Yanni.
arc04 / remastered in whole/full karo vox late October 2021 [7+]
Still, even in that much tougher version, the underlying issue — the reason for the liars, deniers and myopic corporations — was not named.
It’s time to call out the liars
It’s time to call out the deniers
It’s time to call out the corporations
won’t see past the quarter
Yeah. Like Voldemort.
There was a late two-line addition to the ending lyrics, long after the song was otherwise finished.
And it's time to occupy the future
to face the facts, accept the truth
look at the choices we gotta make
and get on with it
or be forever remembered and cursed
for our shortsighted lives
At the time, I thought it was a nice bit of rhetoric. It was more. It was a prediction of a much larger narrative arc, a 'to be continued' that only became clear after another three songs.
The first of those was Got to get back 3.1 (featuring Yanni's To the One who Knows). I first thought it would be a sas-flavour lament about blinkered thinking (a key concept in the self-awareness taight by the meditation). Almost three quarters of the song had come before the emerging lyrics finally revealed it was actually an eco/poli song, a condemnation of neo-liberal capitalism.
And this time, Voldemort was named.
Got to get back 3.1 with To the One who Knows by Yanni
A moody blues-ish meditation on the roots of the planetary, political and societal crises in neoliberal capitalism. arc04 / recorded mid November 2021. [7]
i bring this up because we are facing
a fatal fold in our reality
for behind that fold we've created
a fairy tale economy
based on a happy myth of endless growth
except there's no happy ending here . . .
on that myth we've built a casino of greed,
ecological ruin, and the exploitation of the many
by a tiny ruthless elite
NeoLiberal Capitalism, late stage. Terminal.
Even then, my own struggle with the lyrics had not ended. They pushed against my still-residual inclination towards "journalistic balance". But they persisted.
and because that system refuses
to accept carbon reality and the limits
of a planetary existence, that fairy tale economy
is killing everything it touches
leaving an increasingly dead world for our heirs
it can not last. it will not last. it must not last.
That struggle continued into the next eco/poli song, Along the old Silk Road 3.1, a not-quite epononymous collaboration with Kitaro's masterful Silk Road.
Along the old Silk Road 3.1 with Silk Road by Kitaro
One of the most literary karosongs, a bitter condemnation of our current environmental folly from its future survivors. arc03 / recorded mid September 2019. [7]
It was a song that at first seemed to be an adventure tale, perhaps another mythic hero's journey in the style of Transformation.
the old silk road is a long lonely trail
a peril-filled trek through lands of dust, ruin,
where you can trust no one — nothing —
other than your own wits
But it was altogether more. It was a warning from the future, from a world devastated by global heating and environmental destruction. Not a warning to our time, but to the survivors of that catastrophe eking out their lives in a barren "denuded world". It was a warning against greed, a warning coded into oral tales dispersed across vast distances by traveling story tellers, not myths but history.
they are the history we suffer daily
the history we bear in the misery of our lives
on this blighted barren world
the history of a monumental crime
letting greed run the world while
denial and deception destroyed the threads of life
even long after they knew better
The song took more than two years to channel. The lyrics were brutal, direct, unflinching. By the time they finished coming, my inner struggle with journalistic balance had simply ceased.
Towards the end of the song channeling, I remembered that late addition to the lyrics of Away is no longer there 2.3, the warning that we in our time would be "cursed for our short sighted lives".
Along the old Silk Road was exactly that curse.
no we don't honour our ancestors. why would we?
we spit on their memory and with these stories
maintain their memory just to spit on it longer . . .
to be our ozymandias in the barren
our reminder who we must not be
By the time the next eco/poli song started (# 40, Ah humanity 3.2 (with Jesse Cook's Azul), I was no longer an impediment to the lyrics. They simply came. The song was a 'letter' from mother earth, and she did not mince her words.
ah humanity . . .
your greed simply knows no bounds
and your cruelty even to your own
is simply unfathomable to me
it's as though some dark stain
has taken your soul
and now there's a monster
rages across the countryside
Ah humanity 3.2 featuring Azul by Jesse Cook
A letter from mother earth to humanity. Not a good letter. You might say maw’s a tad ticked with us. arc06 / recorded early January 2023. [8-]
See gordon's blog ruminations for further thoughts on this and other topics.
The various recordings on this website are not for download or release. They are just low resolution demos of the songs gordon has channeled into this existence. They long for a real singer to release them from their idiot musant prison. Interested parties can contact gordon @ this website.
