Michael Bevilacqua

Originally published at Bevilacqua.us.

BYOC

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Originally published at Bevilacqua.us.

This has been one of the most spiritual summers I can remember, yet, I have only participated in a few large ceremonies. It was through my actions though, my daily actions, that I consider this to be one of the most spiritual times of my life.

As is with any spiritual ceremony commencement, there is a sharing period at the end. Since I already share with my journal at spirituality.bevilacqua.us now, I figured I’d share with music instead.

This is a mix I made for a friend of Elizabeth’s. She was over one day when I had Kettel’s Volleyed Iron playing on the speakers in the house. She was interested, so much so she brought it up a second time when I had forgot to answer her question a few weeks later. Yes, could this be a new true ambient fan? I sure hope so. And I hope this mix puts her on the right path.

I did this mix with that intention. I also did this mix with other meditations in mind, some very deeply spiritual, some worldly and chaotic. This is also the first time I’ve ever used Audacity to mix an entire release. No need for a mixing board, just my Gentoo Linux laptop and headphones. Some of this was completed out in my backyard using the wifi while smoking my pipe. Can’t beat that work environment.

Summer Meditations Part 1 By Michael Bevilacqua

http://bevilacqua.us/01-SummerMeditations-ByMichaelBevilacqua.mp3

2 hours in length
111 MB download in MP3 format
Seamlessly mixed, volume level normalized

1 Steve Roach, Kevin Braheny, Michael Stearns - Flatlands
2 Kettel - Wim Hoffman
3 Stars of the Lid - Humectez La Mouture
4 Vangelis - Blade Runner Blues
5 Michael Stearns - St. Francis
6 Patrick O’Hearn - 3 Circles
7 Thom Brennan - Afterglow
8 Ishq - Bhakti
9 Vidna Obmana - Mellow at Heart (vocal reprise)
10 Steve Roach, Patrick O’Hearn, Vidna Obmana, Stephen Bacchus, Vir Unis - The Eternal Expanse
11 Aphex Twin - Stone in Focus
12 Jeff Pearce - The Hidden Sky
13 Harold Budd - Little Heart
14 Aloof Proof - The Ghost Ship (excerpt)
15 Darshan Ambient - Azure Day
16 Brian Eno - An Ending Ascent

Originally published at Bevilacqua.us.

I attended a Shamanic Drum Circle the other night for the first time in a long while. I needed to do some group-interactive meditation and Jim Frank’s is a great place to do this at. We did canoe-styled soul retrievals for two of the others in the group. We also did some hide-and-seek journeying. These activities revitalized me and now with my head pain and hip pain at near minimums I’ve been spending more time in the garden and doing regular at home meditation.

So today I cleaned out the left raised herb/veg bed and dug out some black gold from the bottom of the compost pile, sowed some green bean seeds, fertilized and let the rain do the rest. Before that I cleaned up around my beautifully growing nugget hop vines.

Originally published at Bevilacqua.us.

Hops have started growing early this year and are already a foot tall. According to what I’ve read it takes a year or two for the roots to form and from there they get stronger and grow better.

Originally published at Bevilacqua.us.

My nugget bittering hops are starting to grow their bracteole (leaves) of the hop cone. Harvesting should be just around the corner. If all goes well we'll be drinking Bevilicious Wedding Celebration Ale for Octoberfest.

w00t! 

Originally published at Bevilacqua.us.

Elizabeth and I put on our boots today and did some much needed sping yard work including cleaning up leaves we didn’t get from the Fall, moving the remainder of stones from the front yard to complete the circle around the pines, climbing the pine tree in the front to trim around the house power wire main and most importantly, watching Caligula chase chipmunks in the middle yard.

Completeing that circle around the pines has spiritual meaning for me where I’m pretty sure it didn’t when I first started that project last Spring. This represents a very wonderful shift in my world view and really brought my spirits up even higher than they already were today.

Tune in to the 13thHour tonight at 12am Eastern for a Spring ambient special. Lots of tribal, morning ambient and upbeats. Should be a great show.

For now though, I think we’re going to get a bite to eat and a beer over a Sly Fox. I really could go for a Pils.