Turnings

Prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light. It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold.

—Anne Lamott (from Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers)

Welcome to the latest installment of the Fog Chaser newsletter.

🎵 This month’s piece is in B major.¹

The note on the prayer wheel that I came across in the woods by the sea — located not far from a weathered Tibetan bell hanging from a tree — advised spinning the wheel and offering up the following:

“May everyone be free of suffering.”

Commonly used in Tibetan Buddhism, prayer wheels typically hold prayers inside their cylindrical casings (whether inscribed or written on paper). When spun, the prayers are sent out into the world — you don’t need to say a word.

So I spun the wheel. I also recorded it, perhaps negating any good karma that was coming my way. Regardless, I tucked the recording of the prayer wheel into this month’s song, which means that you, too, can offer up prayer(s) as it turns (listen for the squeaking as it rotates).

You’ll also hear the aforementioned bell, which looked as though it simply emerged from the tree it was hanging from, clad in bark, worn by time, battered by coastal storms, prodded by idiots like me.² I played the bell by hand and branch and stone, reawakening its tone for nobody but myself and the trees and ferns that surrounded me, wondering how much time had passed since its resonance last floated through these woods.

Everything, it seems, is a turning. A turning toward, a turning from. Prayers, in and of themselves, are turnings — turnings to someone or something for some hope, some help, some love. In this piece, the main melody turns around on itself, over and over, with slight variations — reflecting the turnings of the wheel, the earth, the self.³ I hope you enjoy it.

the weathered bell

📷 This month’s photos were taken with a DSLR on Whidbey Island.⁴

I invite you to sit with this month’s song, photos, and poem and make them a small part of your day, whether that’s your morning ritual, afternoon break, or your evening wind-down.

As always, if you feel like it, let me know what you think in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

Thank you for being here.

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Ancient Language

by Hannah Stephenson⁵

🔈 A reading (by me):

If you stand at the edge of the forest
and stare into it
every tree at the edge will blow a little extra
oxygen toward you

It has been proven
Leaves have admitted it

The pines I have known
have been especially candid

One said
that all breath in this world
is roped together

that breathing is
the most ancient language

pines + half moon

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Listening to

• All You Can Do by Bess Atwell (Listen)

  • 🎧 I put all the songs shared in the newsletter into this Spotify playlist

Reading

• The Known World by Edward P. Jones (Bookshop)⁶

• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (Bookshop)

Sharing

• I had the chance to contribute some instrumentation and mixing on a piece for

  Ben Wakeman
  ’s new novel Departures.

• My interview with

  Ryan Egan
  from last month: Read it here.

• Last year at this time:

  • July 2023:

    Meditation 023 | Slow Bloom

1. Turnings in B major / Written, performed, and produced by Fog Chaser

2. According to The Herder Dictionary of Symbols, the bell is “a symbol of the connection between heaven and earth and calls people to prayer and calls to obedience to divine laws. The ringing of the bell often symbolizes the cosmic harmonies…It is a widespread belief that bells ward off misfortune.”

3. Theory notes: The B section of this song has some borrowed chords, but what I primarily tried to explore in this song is melodic variation. I used techniques like repetition, sequencing (changing pitch), inversion (flipping the motive around), interval contraction and expansion, and imitation (an echo, essentially). There are so many more things you can do with melody, but I enjoyed the challenge of trying to keep the melody interesting throughout.

4. Foggy Bluff / DSLR (ISO: 400 / Focal length: 55mm / ƒ/11 / Exposure time: 1/250s)
The Weathered Bell / DSLR (ISO: 400 / Focal length: 18mm / ƒ/5.6 / Exposure time: 1/80s)
Pines & Half Moon / DSLR (ISO: 100 / Focal length: 33mm / ƒ/8 / Exposure time: 1/100s)

5. Taken from Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems (2017 / Grayson)

6. The Fog Chaser Bookshop is hosted on Bookshop.org, where over 80% of gross profits are distributed to independent bookstores. As an affiliate, I earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.