Four days from now

"It is allowed to invent new verbs?
I want to create one for you:
I sky you, so that my wings
may stretch out
enormously,
to love you
without boundaries."

               Frida Kahlo




What does it mean to record?
Record.
Re-cord.
The word comes from latin. Re means again, cord means heart/soul.
Bringing it back into your heart, remembering it.

Today I will bring the songs out for a forest session. I often sing the songs when I'm outdoor.
That's where I get inspiration, strength, ideas.
There are multiple ways of spending time with my songs now. The story telling part, the voice technical part, the creative part, the soul-part.

A couple of weeks ago I put focus on one song per day. Now I do 4-5 songs in my practice in a day. About the same as will be done in the studio, hopefully 4 songs a day.


Eva

In five days

Don't bend, don't water it down, don't try to make it logical,
don't edit your own soul according to the fashion.
Rather, follow your most intense obsession mercilessly.

Franz Kafka


In five days I will start recording together with my dream team.
I'm happy to be part of my own CD :-)
Mattias Perèz on guitars, Anders Jormin on double base.
Petter Ericsson sound engineer.
At Studio Epidemin, Gothenburg.

Thank you guys for accepting my invitation to be part of this project!
All in all, it's a play.
We'll play.
Let's play with the thought
of growing wings.

Eva

September 2009, Faroe Islands. First lines of a song for my coming CD started here.

Lightenings in the sky over Gothenburg

It was really spot on, in connection with my Tove Jansson celebration weekend. I imagine this was the celebration for the hatifnatts.

From my balcony yesterday late dark evening.
No rain.
Hardly no thunder.
But many lightenings high up in the clouds.
Spectacular!

August 9, Tove Jansson birthday

With all my heart I want to celebrate the author and artist Tove Jansson who would have turned 100 years today. She's one of my house godesses.

Tonight we celebrate Tove and raise a glass of apple lemonade in her honour.

As a sign of my affection of her work and life I have been to the forest today and enjoyed an enchanted moment with my daugther and our little dog. Walking back home in the light rain of a summer afternoon. That we fancy rain might be one of the links back to Tove Jansson's writings. In her books the stormy and rainy weather is just making people more filled with energy and adventure.

I brought a water lily and some spicy scented myrica for Tove.

In my young years my mother used to read loud from Tove's books in the evenings. It was a casual and yet highly appreciated little reading ceremony we did every evening. Gathered around the kitchen table we sat listening to the advetures of all the creatures and animals living in Moomin valley.

Later on I read some of her other books. And books about her and her artistry. Once I have seen her paintings in an exhibition at Millesgården. Fantastic!

Earlier today I enjoyed going to the local second hand market. I found two green silk tops and a white lovely transparent blouse with embroidery on the back. The shirt is smaragd green, and that is a color for Tove, I think. In her writing Tove is very specific with colors.

I also found two tea cups of the kind my grand mother Agnes always used.

Eva

Yoda of the scythe

It totally made my day, meeting with master Birger.
We sat talking about how to cut the meadow with a scythe. All about technique, weather conditions, general advice, and how to maintain the scythe and make it sharp.

Birger went after his best scythe, the one he used in competitions as well as in daily work on his farm lands.
Carefully cutting the grass, beautiful and neat.
He also let me cut the grass and corrected my technique. The tip of the blade must be more parallell to the ground. He make half moon shaped cuttings but slightly shorter from side to side than I tried to do it before.
It was truly a special feeling to hold on to this scythe that has served so long in his masters hands. As if the iron handles had softened and transformed in the contact with human hand.
Birgers lovely wife Terese came to sit with us too and we all had a good talk in the summer afternoon.

I was suggested to go to Birger if I wanted to know deeply about the traditions. He's the elder, the knowledge holder of the traditions that passed down in generations. He had a lot to tell, I say! This is indigenous knowledge for me, connected to the life in harmony with nature here in the north. Connected to my family roots of farmers in Dalarna.

Birger with his scythe.

Birger gave me this whetstone to sharpen my scythe. An honour to be given such!

A rose that unfolded this morning in my garden.

Pure love for sounds and voices

The creative has a good soil here.
Key persons make a huge contribution in bringing the good things together. Thank you so much initiative makers, crew and leaders of this lovely voice festival, Naturstimmen - Klangfestival in Alt St. Johann, Toggenburg.
The pure love for sounds and voices made a great impact on me.
For example:
This house with a black smith on the bottom floor, powered by a water wheel. Water and fire energy steaming up in the rest of the house.
On the other floors in the house it was room after room filled with  music of many kind. Music therapy, music exploring, music to touch and be touched by. Instruments with pentatonic scales so beginners can feel the happiness of being creative with tones. And vibrations.
On the top floor Irmelin had our course every morning, sharing the songs of the north. Thank you participants who signed up to spend four whole days with us. We had a lovely time with you!

Here's Bernhard Betschart performing his pure yodel from Muotathal. Irmelin had the pleasure to perform together with him on the night out at the lake Schwendisee in the Alps of Toggenburg. Nature gave us blessings of rain and it was pure life being there listening to Beny's yodel answering in with our shepherd calls from the north.





“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

After Toggenburg I continued to Hochdorf to work with cellist Annika Dobler, a long time music partner. We were both members of Rosenbergs Sjua and have several tours together all around in many countries.
The magic linden tree in their garden. Perfect for en evening session with music in the garden.

Last concert was performed in a local church in Hochdorf in the morning, Annika and me singing away in a non-picture-only-colors-and-shapes reformert church. It was a cleansing experince and very etheric.
Then finally, time to just relax!
On my last day in Switzerland I had an afternoon & evening free. We took the train to Luzern. Annika and Alain showed me around to their get-away-places of tranquility in the middle of a city.
Seebad in Luzern.

Seebad in Luzern. My friends grandmother used to come here every day.

My first swim for this summer, in Lake Luzern.

Strolling the streets of Luzern on a summer evening.

Have a beautiful day out there!
Eva

Reflections of light and water

A sunny afternoon near the beach on a winter day.

Walk by the sea.

Blue sky after days of rain.

I've spend time with a group of youngster & three other youth leaders, totally marvellous group! Confirmand group.

Four days we shared talk, songs, playfulness, deep talk, games, movie (Matrix I) creativity, candy-eating, prayers, friendship at the youth camp.
Us grown ups enjoyed the beach walk most, perhaps.
Pilgrim walk.
To me it was one of the great parts, as I always like to be outside
with the sky as my ceiling.

The power of play is my greatest memory of this camp.
Thank you for the play!
Long live playfulness!

Eva

Vätte-hår

Så vackert det är ute nu!

På marken fann jag detta fenomen, kallat "vätte-hår". Iskristaller byggs upp till ett fluff. Förr trodde man att vättarna fått bråttom när gryningen kom och att deras hår och skägg fastnat i grenar när de skyndade sig hem igen.

Morgonpromenad med hund är bland det bästa sättet man kan börja en dag på.