Laura Kramer, Writer/Songwriter, Tells Her Story

In an apartment, sometime in the mid-90s, a rare three feet of snow outside in Maryland, with my two young children and my husband (at the time), nebulous tension floated in the air and in my stomach. I was in the bathtub. It was my sanctuary – a place for my thoughts to be still. Or, for me to be still and let my thoughts rise like steam to my awareness. 

I spent a lot of time in baths that winter. On this day, though, in this bath, as my feelings, my identity, my life direction continued their ceaseless percolation, I suddenly understood. “I’m an Artist!” 

I remember telling my husband, a talented jazz musician, “I figured it out (my career decisions, my general restlessness), I’m an Artist!” He wanted to be nothing but supportive of me and was in so many ways – and he said, “You don’t just become an artist by declaring yourself an artist.” In some respects he was, of course, right. But this conversation was the jumping off point for the rest of my life, to date. 

I believe, yes, a writer is one who writes. An artist is one who “makes art.” And, the talent, beauty, grace, truth, wisdom, storytelling and experiential pleasure offered by the artists in this Artists Tell Their Stories blog holds a high bar for that truism.  

And, there is something inside of all of us, something about our relationship with the process of creation, the Creative Process – both when we are actively creating and producing, and when we are Being – living as experiential human beings – that defines us as Artists. My passion is right here:  swimming in my own experience of Creative Process and exploring and expanding the many contexts in which I can access that Sea of Oneness, of Possibility, of Creation. 

The peace, delight, healing and, sometimes awe-producing energetic experience of being in “the flow” as I write is directly tied to my experiences in and with Nature – and my experiences of myself as a spiritual Being. The beauty and gift for me in being (I dare say) an Artist is the interplay of those aspects of myself that are connected to Nature, the Here and Now, and All That Is.   

I write and think about this way more than I can share here – I call it articulating the intangibles of human existence. It’s my incessant need to keep licking away at the sweet tootsie pop of human experience (the human condition, what I call the “accoutrements of human existence”), to get at the tootsie roll center of pure Truth: Timelessness, God, Love, Spirit, Source, Oneness, the Loving Consciousness that Connects All of Us, the Thread of Light through All That Is, the Voice of Nature that speaks to us and through us On the Breeze of Time - in forms eloquent and clumsy.  

  

So, under my larger “Voice of Nature on the Breeze of Time”, I am Treevibes. Treevibes is my poet, spirituo-philosophic writer, performer, ritualistic, Shamanic, Creative Expresser-Self in the Artistic world (per se).   

Seavibes is a new branch of the Voice of Nature on the Breeze of Time and is emerging as a consultancy, along with Fresh Air at Work.  These are new-born venues to bring forth – in more typically professional realms – gifts, tools and less visible or tangible realms to which we have access as human beings.

Here is a video of me, intended to embody a sense of my perspective, singing a chant-song I wrote. Hope you enjoy!

I’d like to do a shout-out to the Hawk behind me in the tree out the window in my yard that winter day – telling me to record these songs, then and there.  I’d like to thank the Sun, Birds, the Trees, and the stillness of the Air that quiet January morning.  And I’d like to thank Whatever Connects Me with All That Is – for continually refreshing my intuitive awareness of that Connection.

Peace and love and thank you,

Laura

Editor's Note: 

To see more of Laura's work, please visit her YouTube channel. She is in the process of revising her website.

This is Week 15 of 52 Artists in 52 Weeks. Thank you for reading, listening, and sharing Laura's story today!