This album is based on a one-man show I designed through a grant to develop a storytelling performance. It is structured on my reading of Taoism, Buddhism, New Testament Theology, and a close reading of Thomas Berry's book, The Dream of the Earth, as well as the deep influences of the natural world in my life. I am a steeped in the blood romantic (with a small 'r') and view the body/mind as a continuum. To this extent I believe everyone has the capacity to reintegrate the body's intuitive wisdom into their individual practice of living. I believe Cartesian thinking essentially set the stage for the creation of a materialist manifesto, which cheapened human heritage and has prevented the development of our more integrative capacities: cooperative, communal, and synergistic. To this extent, the biographical performance that accompanies this recording provides a kind of grounding for it's new age qualities. The central theme of that story is that growing up alienated can breed the development of transcendent understandings of the universe and one's place in it. To that extent, conflict and loss are envisioned more as the dark side of the moon--the necessary price of brightness. Essentially we are Apes & Artists, if only we would Act like it. Berry's point is that we need a new story to feed our sense of consciousness and being. This album, and it's accompanying story, are in complete agreement with that.
