Sophie B. Hawkins

Hello from the cornfields of Illinois! On our way to Midway airport, the show last night was fun, however, we were the last ones standing. I have a feeling this morning that the problem of 12 to 20 percent unemployment throughout the country is to blame. I heard and saw volumes of what’s wrong with the powers that be, and I woke with a strong sense that what is wrong is that we, the people, allow ourselves to be used and don’t stand up and take responsibility for what we hate about ourselves, our lives and our country.

It’s time to stop blaming people who we perceive as stronger and more powerful or mean, and STOP MAKING EXCUSES for the people who are destructive and bitter towards others and themselves. Are you one of those people? If you are, find the spiritual strength to live your truth. It’s now or never.

I loved reading the words of Sophia in Alice Walker’s book, The Color Purple, “White folks is a miracle of affliction” when I was young. Now that I’m less young I realize that so is Black folk, so is Hispanic folk, so is all folk. You wanna say to white people “welcome to our world” now that it’s fine to say out loud how racist you are? NEWSFLASH: we’ve all been in the same toxic world for thousands of years. The people on top keep changing, but the people on the bottom remain the same.

Its time to change and be an example for our children. Its time to realize that if you are racist you are being used. You are just an ignorant pawn in the game of greed and power. Black people enslave black people to this day. Hispanics are as racist as
any group of people I have ever witnessed. And of course, the brutality of white people is well documented. Muslims, Jews, Christians, too. But the irony is, we are 99% the same. We share cultures, we share ideas, we share toilets and we share this world. You wanna watch this country fall while saying to whitey “welcome to our world”? Then you are low level. You are seething with self abuse. You are worthy of the mind that entraps you. The same goes for all of us. The high people are the folks who love, wholeheartedly, the humanity in everyone.

The high people make bridges – emotionally, spiritually and intellectually – so we can all cross, one by one, to higher ground. In fact, in America today there is an abundance of high level, generous, creative people who are immensely, IMMENSELY, successful and BRAVE. The next time you wanna put someone down in bitterness for oppressing you, think of someone who came from even lower than you who rose up and is now an ambassador to the world. Who is really keeping you down, beside your self? Be the 1%, if you dare.

Sophie B. Hawkins
Sunday morning

Hello people of the light, we are on the road from KY to IL, early in the morning buzzing with locusts, sheltered by clouds and smelling like toasted bagels. We just passed a Waffle House, how cold.

Last night is memorable for several reasons, not the least of which was Andy Andrews’ summation of what’s going on in this country, and of course, the world. “Bullsh*t!”, he cried out. Bless your heart, Andy, there is so much to say, but really more to do, so just simplify the matter in a word and rev up your engines. As Dashiell says, “vroom vroom!”

These shows are getting more and more surprising, the people coming are either new, or familiar but different, as I must be. The tension between “I don’t know these people but I’m gonna sing what I feel under threat of desertion” and, “I’ve seen these people before, I wonder how they’re gonna react to me now” makes for good stuff.

The musical is being workshopped at the end of Sept, they’re casting the reading now, I’ve started working with the MD, I’m writing and rewriting in earnest. There are new songs now to glue onto the album, I think the title should change, and when I asked Gigi when are the lawyers gonna get the deal done so I can release this mother she said, “I’ll get it closed next week. I’m going to be wild.” Good on ya, mate.

I suppose its “healthy” for Dash that I leave and he has the opportunity to feel his independent life and tap into his sense of security in the bigger, spiritual sense, which he has in abundance, it seems, and its good for me to be without him and trust he’s doing well, physically and emotionally. But it’s a struggle. Especially because he understands what’s going on when I talk to him about going away, and he seems to resolve himself to be strong. It was said to me that he doesn’t want me to be upset, which could be true, and I cannot fathom that I have been given such a great and profound gift as my child. The other thing that amazes me is when I call and talk to him he has so much to say, and I realize when I hang up that I only got half of it in the moment. Is it always gonna be like that? Am I going to think about my conversations with him and realize more and more layers? It is like walking away from a great painting that lives and grows in you, or a poem, or a being who makes you expand. I also realized on the plane that I am continuing my journey, and mine is supporting his. And so soon he will take off on his destiny and I’ll be holding onto every moment of him, as I do now. I see corn, and horses, and I have a new appreciation for excavators, trucks and buses.

See you soon,

Sophie B.

Hey there people of the light, I’ve been on Baretaria bay with Dan Sinykin, his partner and Gigi collecting oil with his sheep wool. It worked amazingly well, although there was so much toxic dispersant in the water we were chasing clumps of gooey cake batter rather than laying it over a slick.

The dispersant smells like bathroom cleaner, and it’s strange to sniff that odor in the middle of a beautiful bay. Why do the dolphins jump and play around our boats with so much crap in their water?

The fishermen were very glad we were there, so were the Hazwopers. I didn’t want to go, to be perfectly honest, there is no time as it is to be at home, relaxing and creating with my beautiful son and fur babies, but I had to take this opportunity. I just had to experience for myself WHY the oil isn’t being cleaned up. WHY aren’t American entrepreneurs working with the local fisherfolk, going out on boats, wading through marshes to try new and age old technologies for cleaning up the delicate eco-systems.

We were met with gratitude by the fishing community, but came up against the same damn barriers they are hitting. We were blocked at every turn but we managed to get out there and try Dan’s product anyhow. We were even stopped on the water by sherifs, but they were cool…I don’t want to say too much. Dan will go back to his factory/ laboratory and finesse his product. This is just what we have to be able to do, in my opinion. More later!

Sophie

Hello out there! I want to say happy belated mother’s day to everyone, because you don’t have to have a human baby to be a mother, it’s the essence of wanting to take care of another being, doing things to help them be healthy, happy, and self assured.

My greatest mother’s day moment was the evening before at around eight pm, Dash’s bedtime. We were at his grandmothers doing this and that outside and we heard a fluttering in the gutter spout, we went in to get tools and ended up using our hands to pull out a very condensed and big nest of a bird. The bird had not lived to fly away, and I was very sad until, just as we were walking into the alley to go home, there was another fluttering sound and a bird flew out and up into the dusky sky. How happy we were! And then, more fluttering and we reached in to pull out another nest, this time the bird was entrapped in the dry weave but still alive. We put the nest and the bird in a cage and sang all the way home, about nurturing the bird back to strength. We gave it Dash’s old baby food (’cause he’s so grown up now), but by the time Dash had his bottle the bird had died. The middle one lived, though, and we had the experience of saving, and trying to save, another’s life.

I’ve been so happy to meet new people at these last shows, and I’m really stoked that my next group of shows, starting with Anthology in San Diego, are giving to the Waterkeeper’s Alliance. That’s exactly what I wanna do with my music. I hope you will come to a show, and I hope you will down load The Land the sea and the sky ’cause every penny will go to saving the birds and cleaning the water in the Gulf. So much more to come!

Love, Sophie

Sophie has affiliated herself with Waterkeeper Alliance, an organization of on-the-water advocates who patrol and protect over 100,000 miles of rivers, streams and coastlines in North and South America, Europe, Australia, Asia and Africa.

The Waterkeeper Alliance are the first line of defense during the BP Gulf oil disaster recovery. The Gulfwaterkeepers on scene are FL: Apalachicola Riverkeeper and Emerald Coastkeeper. AL: Mobile Baykeeper, LA: Louisiana Bayoukeeper and Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper. Also working to clean up the ocean waters and beaches are volunteers, marine biologists, environmental advocates, and members of each of the coastal communities who have been affected.

Sophie is prepping to launch a new eco-message single, “The Land, the Sea and the Sky” which will be sold on I-tunes and at the Anthology show with all proceeds going to the Waterkeeper Alliance.

The Save Our Gulf website has been established by Waterkeeper Alliance to coordinate the efforts of Gulf Waterkeepers who are fighting to proctect the Gulf Coast. Please visit the website to learn how you can help.

Imagine the long term effects of this disaster, just because we don’t see the devastation, like another disaster we see directly and react to immediately with an outpouring of money and love, doesn’t mean it isn’t as bad. As Einstein said, we need to expand our circle of compassion. — Sophie

Phoenix is bright, the air is thin and cool like an ice box open on a hot day. I’ve never seen such contrast, that’s what the desert does. Not all mixed, like the shore where everything tosses and slops together, where salt and water and sun and sand all stick to your skin and the air clings in moist familiar folds around you all day and night. The desert is a place of peace where a cactus is a cactus and a rabbit is a rabbit. A shadow is a shadow, perhaps coming out from under a rock and slinking around the saloon with the sun until they leave together for a very important meeting, and aint nobody’s business if they do.

I loved the show last night, a kid named Christopher sang soulfully from the audience on” As I” and I held the mic for him, what a wonderful duet, in the spirit of the desert night, that’s what its all for, the living life of a song introducing voices, stories, in concert, by accident or on purpose. I am full of appreciation for the details of my life, and didn’t expect anything from this gig except that I’d leave the children and my projects, get on a plane,perform, and come home. And yet a new world opened up, being invited to a new place of vivid, joyful colours, sitting on that rock for hours watching the bunnies and the nest overhead, birds coming and going with food and building materials. I wanted to paint, I bookmarked the desert as a place to return to on that other journey, when the musical is on it’s own, my new cycle of songs is out, when it’s that time.

On the plane home now, the only time off is travelling. But I don’t need time off, I need a life time of health to bring all these desires to fruition, desires that keep having babies, that doesn’t seem like allot to ask.

See you soon, Sophie B. Hawkins

Hello everyone, we’re flying home now, after a day and a half in Vermont. We slept where Robert Frost sleeps, his dust, anyhow. Vermont is peaceful, quiet as the snow that preserves it. There’s a place for every stage of life, every personality, every endeavor. I always thought I’d be in one place for all my existence, and essentially maybe that’s the way it is. We adapt, but do we really change who we are? That’s how a mother knows her child from the moment of birth, and what she does with the knowledge says allot about her, because the child will be who the child was born to be, who the child is.

I loved this pre-new song cycle stint, it was a great adventure and a tremendous lift, musically. I had such a good time meeting some of you and I am grateful to those who showed up, even in spirit. I will be touring allot soon, with the new stuff, so keep your ears peeled and coats buttoned up to be ready for a sloshy, splashy, rebirth this Spring.

Sophie B.

Tonight I did something I never thought I’d do, in fact, I think I said I would never do it. I ordered a Pepper Mushroom wiz wit from Pat’s on Passyunk. And I ate it all. They even pushed a costumer aside to hand Berry some chopped steak, who ate it on the bar outside with the rest of us.

A fine end to a fabulous evening with my Philly friends, I also walked around before the show and discovered Olde City Coffee. Now I’m set to come back in the spring. Jimmy Paxson is playing drums with me on this tour, and Ed Roth is playing keyboards. What a musical reunion, so alive and creative, and playing with Stevie Nicks seems to have let Jimmy tap into a whole nother level which he’s bringing to these shows.

I feel we’re going new places every moment, I’m excited on stage, and comfortable ’cause that’s where we should be, securely on the edge. The road is lovely, dark and deep, but we have miles to go before we sleep.

See you in Maine, Sophie

At Pat's Steak

Hello everyone, how art thou? We are on the smooth road from Connecticut to Philly, no ice just the wind on our backs. We had a great show at the Mohegan resort, I felt the presence of the Native
Americans, I got messages looking up at the clouds, me and Berry casting shadows between the birch and pine trees. One was how we pay for our meager comforts with an abundance of stress and anxiety. I felt animal skins wrapped round my shoulders, me and berry tracking a warm blooded animal to cook with our tribe, teepees to go in and out of, fires, good smokes and dream rich sleeps.

I read in National Geographic about the Hazda (or Hadza-dont have the article with me) an ancient tribe still around in Tanzania. The long and the short of it is, they work 4 hours a day, have a loose social order, almost no sickness and disease, excellent health, incredibly well developed seeing, hearing and intuitive faculties, no stress, no war, (well channeled aggression) and they leave no footprint. Back to the Native Americans, if they had so much art, such a developed spirituality, so much skill and respect for one another within the tribe, elders who mattered, and taught the first Europeans and British so much about farming and tracking and survival, well then I could survive if our society was obliterated. In fact, the people who could re-adapt would survive better, with a higher consciousness, less stress and more creativity.

I imagined beading by the fire and getting sleepy, having a tribe to help raise Dashiell instead of paying my life savings for these Nannies (who I am very grateful for and adore) and hunting and fishing instead of paying bills for not so good services. The thought made me warm inside.

More later, Sophie B