People should follow their feelings. You know you start walking through the forest and a certain plant stands up for you. The Indigenous Peoples would say when a person needs a plant it will stand up in the forest and start calling to them. All of us have those senses. We move and something catches our atttention in a moment of notitia, as James Hillman called it, the attentive noticing of the soul. We start to follow it and that’s like following this golden thread that leads deeper and deeper into the heart of the wildness of the world. You know the journey back to wild water is a long one, but all of us find it in our own way. And if you follow those feelings, they lead you on the most amazing adventure and you end up becoming yourself in the most wonderful way.
-Stephen Harrod Buhner. Transcribed from an interview by Daniel Vitalis
Greetings! How about that quote, huh?! Wow. I’ve mentioned Buhner before in this project. It’s remarkable how many times I’ve experienced some profound feeling, usually on the mountain, then then read about it soon after in one of Buhner’s books. His book Becoming Vegetalista, which I read earlier this year, was so on point with what I was experiencing, it was almost weird. But wow I loved that alignment.
The 28th, and penultimate, song of the Plant Songs project is called Notitia. Yes it’s true, the next song will the be last! It is oh so bittersweet. I won’t elaborate on it here. Rather I’ll save that for a final reflections post in a couple weeks.
After the last couple of songs, which were somewhat complicated, I was in the mood to write a simple-ish, country folky song. On Saturday I found a great playlist of WIllie Nelson live on Austin City Limits; just golden stuff. Willie is one of my songwriting heroes. On Sunday evening I went to write, and I came up with a pretty nice eight bars of music that sounded a lot like Willie. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. I wondered if I might fall in love with it over time. Then on Monday, just before my first student arrived, I found a progression that could be a nice introduction to the Willie-imitation bars, and this progression I loved right away.
After the long day of teaching I worked with it again, and ended up writing a melody that fit over the intro chords. Still I held onto the Willie bars. I thought they might work together. But then on Tuesday morning, I continued to work with the intro progression and was really enjoying how it was coming together. Then a bridge started coming to me, and I finally let go of the Willie bars. Word to the wise, influences are usually best kept a little distant. Meaning listen to Willie a lot now, let it soak in over time, and then let it come out organically when it’s ready. Imagine and integrate, don’t imitate.
What I ended up with still has some Willie influence, and some Lead Belly influence as well. You can tell me if you hear any other influences. But if you’ll allow me to say with all humbleness, I think Notitia mostly sounds like me. I liked playing it, and I enjoy listening to the recording. I think composing a lot is the best way to find out what you sound like, to find your voice.
I think Notitia has some harmonic surprises. There are no V (five) chords in it. I had one at the end of the bridge originally, but it wasn’t the right flavor, so I adjusted it to what you hear now. To my knowledge, all of Willie Nelson’s songs have at least one V chord. There is much in this song that points to the key of A major, but it is definitely in E major. E is the tonic.
So now, as this song is published, I sit here one last time wondering if I’ll be able to pull off one more song. Will an idea come? Will I be able to catch the idea and spin it into a song? Will I be able to learn to play it and make a recording that I can tolerate listening to? Can it all be done before the end of next week? I just don’t know. So far I’ve been able to do it reasonably well. But maybe this last one will finally get me. All I can do is show up, be open, and be ready to work.
Thanks for listening and reading and being on Earth right now.