Sunday Post -Your Right Where You Need To Be
Summer Shows, Workshops and News
“The simple rose, at each moment of its slow blossoming, is as open as it can be. The same is true of our lives.” Mark Nepo
I imagine there are people who have experienced “becoming” in one great flash of epiphany and insight. Although there is something compelling about such a possibility, I’m pretty sure that my own journey is bound to be much more like the path of the rose, opening as much as I can each day.
When I ponder a rose or tree or any growing plant in the natural world, it does not appear to me that these living things get impatient with their own unfolding. A rose does not consider itself lagging or lacking at any single moment of its blossoming. It doesn’t feel that it has let itself or anyone else down by stretching only as far as possible in one day. I have never sat down and asked a flower directly, but it seems to me that a rose doesn’t view it’s time of budding as inferior or less than when it is wide open and blooming. I don’t perceive that it is anything but content to rest when the winter snows are deep.
Any gardener knows that things in the natural world grow according to their own internal clock. We can help nurture the plants by pulling weeds, picking off the bugs and watering a bit when the rains haven’t come. But we can’t pull on the leaves or tender shoots to make them grow faster, in fact such rough handling would surely tear or harm the plant.
The wisdom of the rose reminds me to see myself as whole at every stage journey. I can nuture the tender shoots of own soul, but have the insight to know that I am resting, growing or stretching as far as possible in one day.
I am all that I have been, all that I will become, and I am right where I need to be.
Question: What would happen if today you decided to give yourself the grace of a flower. What might change if you had compassion for the sincerity of your own stretching and growth?
Carrie’s New Album Release “A Great Wild Mercy” - Oct. 13, 2023
I’ve had so much fun at Airtime Studios/ The Hundredth Hill Artist Retreat this week. I’m so excited to be joined by some incredible musicians including some names and voices you’ve heard on past projects : Gary Walters, Jordan Tice, Paul Kowert, Jim Brock and Brittany Haas. I’m really looking forward to sharing this new collection of songs with you all later this summer.
We will have some special pre-release packages and I’ll be sharing more news and even some in studio sneak peeks with my Substack Supporting Subscribers. Watch for our pre-release sales!
Carrie’s Events - Summer Tour & Retreats
For more information and tickets visit Carrie’s Tour Page www.carrienewcomer.com/tour
Carrie will be a featured performer at the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Join Carrie and Gary Walters on the Washington DC Mall on July 4, 2023 to celebrate what brings us together in this country!
Announcing A Great Wild Mercy Concert Sept 16, 2023 at The Buskirk Chumley Theater
Carrie Newcomer, performs songs from A Great Wild Mercy and past albums in gorgeous string quartet presentation. Join Carrie, arranger/pianist Gary Walters & The Gathering of Spirits String Quartet for this unique blending of story and songs that celebrate what is sustaining and hopeful, reminding us of how even in divided times we are still connected at the center of the human heart. A new spin on a Hoosier favorite for longtime fans and a great introduction for new listeners.
Opening the show will be Tommy Prine (son of John Prine) who recently won The Saving Country Music’s 2022 Song for the Year for his debut single “Ships in the Harbor,” and recently receiving a ringing endorsement for the song by the CMA’s reigning Entertainer of the Year Luke Combs.
Ring Lake Ranch Dubois WY - Aug 6 – 12: Week Long Retreat
Carrie Newcomer and John McCutcheon – Dawn, Day, Dusk, Dark: A Celebration of Music as Uncommon Prayer
This session is full but please contact Alli Moore at alli@ringlake.org to be added to the waitlist.
Compassion, such a beautiful gift for myself and for others. When it takes me 15 minutes to press an elevator button that has been placed in such a way that people in chairs cannot reach easily, my face lights up brighter than the rim of the button. I have finally convinced my body to move in a direction and accomplish such a simple task. That was not a waste of time but rather a journey toward honoring the potential of my limited fine motor skills. And the people in the elevator with me who honored my request to try and clapped when I achieved my goal! I move at the Speed of Soul and I'm ever so grateful for my community of encouragement which now includes you and your music, Carrie!
As usual, GOD Bless. You are most definitely where you need to be and I’m attempting to follow you down the same path. Carry on.