full to the brim :: personal & informative reflection on summer to early fall

This season is full to the brim and overflowing with goodness and learning...to the point where it could be super easy to get overwhelmed and anxious, but I'm also super excited about each event and happening! They aren't in any particular order. I just wanted to share what's immediately happening and is on the near horizon as well:

Performing at a festival (Braham Pie Day Aug 4th with Jonathan Rundman);

hosting a monthly community-building open mic at The Buzz, a locally owned coffee shop (Aug 5th) This is always a grea time!;

participating in the Youth Frontiers training for their Respect and Responsibility retreats, growing partnership with them as I'm becoming an on-call musician in their excellent work of "building positive school communities";

rehearsing & performing for a Hunger Concert (AUG 20th, Prior Lake, MN) with some great friends;

contributing music with our youthrive:LIVE! partners, to the United Against Violence Summit. This is cool: I'll be a day-long artist-in-residency, listening in to the sessions and creating a new song to sum up the conversation and the intentions we place around ending violence. You're welcome to register and attend this complimentary summit AUG 23rd;

I also get to engage high school students through music as they participate in a 3 day summer World Without Genocide Institute at the William Mitchell College of Law because of our partnership with youthrive:LIVE!

presenting music for a Public Arts St. Paul Community Caberet (AUG 25th) in The Western Sculpture Park;

lining up radio and television spots in preparation for the Storydwelling album release (Sept 13th);

persuing album reviews & blog reflections (Let us know if you want to blog or if you know someone who writes reviews - THANKS!); promoting the album release concert (and seeking to mobalize our community to help promote it so let us know if you want in!);

learning WordPress (which is more complex than I thought it would be), recreating & launching our new website;

regularly (like about twice a week) planning & contributing music to faith community gatherings as a free-lance artist; August artist-in-residency with the Awaken Community;

MUSIC VIDEO (!) taping for Home with You Continues with our terrific photgrapher/videographer friend from A Peace of My Mind;

working with our fabulous designer on posters and postcards (more promotion stuff);

hoping for the opportunity to create Storydwelling journals to accompany the album and make them available by the album release concert on OCT 4th;

wondering how we'll be able to have some great, quality photos & videos captured of the CD release concert since we have no budget for it;

ongoing networking; booking (booking[at]heatherlynmusic[dot]com);

Sample Night LIVE performance SEPT 7th; Tee-it-up for the Troops performance; Fargo, ND performance and more...;

company coming into town, house concert tonight and more, working on a long-overdo email update (which you can sign up for at our homepage) and more...

...doing my very best to not be overwhelmed, to manage my health and wellbeing & not entirely neglect my friendships, take one day, one step at a time, and, most importantly, doing my very best to be centered in the heartbeat of who we are why we do what we do.

These are just some of the things on my mind and there's more...If something caught your attention you are interested in connecting to some of the public shows, do check out our SHOWS page at www.heatherlynmusic.com and if you have some ideas for creative ideas for spreading the word about the new album that you'de be willing to head up, please email us or send a facebook message. THANK YOU!!

Much love,

Heatherlyn

Heatherlyn Contributes a Song for Mayor Ryback's Community Conference

Once again, in partnership with youthrive: LIVE!, we were able to connect in something so much larger than ourselves. Last Friday, Mayor Ryback of Minneapolis held a community conference entitled...

Blueprint for Action: Preventing Youth Violence in Minneapolis

Here's a description and purpose of the event excerpted from the city website (link above): The City of Minneapolis recognizes that youth violence is a public health epidemic that requires a holistic, multi-faceted response. Drawing on a mix of increased law enforcement and public health strategies to address the root causes of violence and significantly reduce and prevent youth violence in Minneapolis, the city, in partnership with a host of community stakeholders, created the Blueprint for Action. Goals identified in the Blueprint:

• Connect every youth with a trusted adult,
• Intervene at the first sign that youth are at risk for violence,
• Restore youth who have gone down the wrong path, and
• Unlearn the culture of violence in our community.

We weren't able to to attend the entire day, but we were honored to participate in closing the day with song. As with many of these events, Put On Your Climbing Shoes seemed to be the most fitting. Local youth, legislators, activists, youth workers, educators, city employees had gathered to learn and deliberate intentional effective steps to work together to impliment the above goals and live as peacemakers in everyday working, playing, speaking, doing, being.... There was much mental exercise and much flexing of the heart muscle and now it was time to stand together and get our groove on for goodness in the world. As I began, everyone was responding to a call to physically write and display their pledge for 24/7 peace on the wall.

May we all do our part to cultivate courageous kindness and justice that finds its full consummation in reconciliation & restoration rather than retribution. May we be mindful even of our violent thoughts and subdue them with peace - which must be cultivated within to be perpetuated without. I know I can't do this alone. We are all in this together.

Building Blog Buzz for the Storydwelling Album

Blogs (short for "web log") from friends of Heatherlyn Music have been popping up, making kind mention of the Storydwelling album. We are grateful and honored to see a variety of folks taking the time to reflect on the music from each one's unique voice, vantage and vocation. As these thoughtful posts are shared, my hope is that readers and writers alike might find yourselves engaging in a bit of 'storydwelling' in practice. Show these bloggers some love by paying their posts a visit and leaving a comment in response to their reflection, espcially if you've heard some or all of the new (yet unreleased) album.

Much love and gratitude to the following for their kind words and questions.

If YOU decide to post a blog about the Storydwelling album or create a facebook note about it, please let us know, so we can read it and share it too! GRATITUDE, Friends!

OK...here you go...storydwell, read, enjoy, comment, create your own blog post...

Author: Sue Leibnitz - theology student, mom, community leader

Blog: SUEPRISES

Post: "What's so special about Heatherlyn?"

Quote: "This CD will touch your heart.  It stays with you, not like an earworm that wiggles through your brain evolving into a mere annoyance.  Rather, her music lingers with you like the feeling that lingers in your heart after a great experience with a good friend."

 

Author: Lindsey Lewis - award-winner blogger, retreat center founder and yogi

Blog: Joy for Life

 Post: "music is love: heatherlyn music ignites, inspires and elevates" 

Quote: "This self- and accurately-described soulful, rooted, rockin', guitar-playing singer-song-artist, poet and storydwelling traveler has a voice and impact about 10 times her small but very strong size."

 

Author: Matthew Boltz-Weber - outdoors enthusiast; plays various wooden, stringed instruments; spiritual leader; dad

Blog: hikerrev

Post: authentic music

Quote: "As soon as Heatherlyn started singing, I was hooked. But beyond the music, what grabs me about this album is the idea behind it ~ that through music, we can share deep parts of our own story with one another, thereby healing relationships and creating community. And it's not just the idea ~ the music is good."

Post 2: Story and Music

Quote: "The stories we tell ourselves tell us who we are. Do we want hollywood to take on that role, or do we want to tell ourselves true stories of who we are, and who we will be becoming? What would it be like if we turned off the televisions (and other electronic media) so that we could sing songs and tell stories together?"

Author: John C. O'Keefe - recently published author, friend of 'misfits'

Blog: a conceptual mind in a conceptual age

Post:  storydwelling

Quote: "To give you an idea of how I like the CD – it has not been out of my player since I received it. Because I am drawn to the story, even the idea of the title “Storydwelling” spoke to me – the idea of dwelling, living, in the story set the mode for me long before I put the CD in my player, and to be honest I was not disappointed."

 

 

www.heatherlynmusic.com

Storydwelling to be release onto iTunes, Amazon.com, independent friendly record stores that we can connect to and more 09.13.11.

Spread the word!

 

Enjoy tracks as we stream them on http://heatherlynmusic.bandcamp.com!

 

 

 

 

 

Fri, Jul 22, 7pm :: Loring Theater

Heatherlyn with Stories of Glory (Minneapolis artists including Hypel and Youthrive LIVE artist Mike Dreams).
Info link up at www.facebook.com/heatherlynmusic

IMG_2254.MOV Watch on Posterous

Peace to you and yours,
Heatherlyn

Singer. Song-Artist. Poet.
www.heatherlynmusic.com

10 Second Dance Break ~ brought to you by this jammin' lil' dude (& yours truly but mostly the lil' guy)

VIDEO0093.3gp Watch on Posterous

"We had your CD playing the other day, and my son just started jammin' to it. We thought he was going to have lift off. He loves it. Thanks so much for your words of hope and grace"

We get to thank Matt Dobyns from Pheonix for sharing this little jem of joy with us this week. We always hope that the music itself will get your body grooving and the heartbeat of the songs will keep you moving as you go about your lives being the change you want to see in the world.

Peace and One Love, Friends!

Cheers!

 

GENERATE MAGAZINE features the STORYDWELLING Album!

See the full gallery on Posterous

Thanks to our friends at GenerateMagazine.com for including the Storydwelling album in their latest edition. We were quite impressed with this review and hope Generate Mag readers pick up an autographed copy of the album on our website www.heatherlynmusic.com!
Read the article in the photograph. It's pretty sweet! Thanks again, Generate!

Peace.