On my first album, Womanspirit Rising, you'll find piano-based music that explores, in musical language, pivotal aspects of my life's experiences, not just as a woman and a human being but ultimately as part of Original Mind. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, one of my heroes: to have music, one must first create the universe. To quote Zen Master Dogen, another one of my heroes: “That you carry yourself forward and experience the myriad things is delusion. That the myriad things come forward and experience themselves is awakening."
Each piece on Womanspirit Rising is available for download or streaming in two versions: (1) piano-only and (2) arranged with other sounds layered with the piano. The track listing is as follows, and I'll include a brief description of each track:
1. Bambury Cross -- my face before I was born
2. Self -- me as a shifting, dynamic process, not a static edifice
3. The Road Not Taken -- life on the byways in lieu of the highways
4. Searching for Avalon -- squinting to see through the fog of delusion
5. Double Star System -- incomparable dance of love, giving, sharing
6. To an Athlete Dying Young -- death and subsequent release of expectations
7. Teacher -- alchemizing struggles and delusion into spiritual gold
8. Ancient One -- realization of Original Mind, the true Self
9. Sunflower Smile -- inspiration from a Bodhisattva and paying it forward
10. Womanspirit Rising -- phoenix rising from the ashes in every present moment
All pieces written, arranged, performed, and recorded by Thomma Lyn Grindstaff.
Cover art by Steve Ferguson.
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