Mercury

In accordance with my intent to find new music this year, I bought a Spotify membership a few months ago to easily access all them tunes. It's also given me the opportunity to check out older favorites' newer albums...it's seriously been YEARS since I caught up with some of these artists. One of them being Ryan O'Neal's one-man band Sleeping at Last.

Grey's Anatomy has put his stuff in the spotlight a ton lately, which is probably great for him but always kinda sucks for listeners who like to secretly cherish their music without it being sold into the slave trade of mass media. He seems to be relatively low-key still. There is hope.

The last few days I have been enchanted by his newest album Atlas, full of songs titled by planet and ocean names, lyrics full of wrestling and wonder, music full of strings and piano. I always find the music I need in the seasons I need them. It's a blessing I always try to be aware of and intentional with.

We're all in-process. I bet you anything you'd listen through this album and find a song that sings your current season, rain or shine. Probably a few, even. Ryan has a gift.

I recently had a breakthrough experience in seeing myself, an incredible "light bulb" moment where some of the most hurtful patterns I've willingly put myself through were finally visible to me. I've been a different person in really important ways since then. I've never, EVER, felt more at peace with myself. But again, we're all in-process, and working through this new realization will take time and effort. It addresses fears that are weaved into some of my earliest hurts and memories. It confronts lies I have operated out of my whole life. My whole life. Cloaked in the guises of courage and vulnerability, what I thought was good has actually been eating me alive. An entire inventory check has to be done to my thoughts and values, catching the foxes that have lived in the vineyard and ruined the harvest time and time again. I want to do this work so badly.

But if humans are anything, they are resistant to change.

Enter this Atlas album, and Ryan's music about this very idea of processing our connections and our purpose. I've clung to one particular song of his as a prayer through this new work, called Mercury. It says in a few verses what I have trouble saying with an unlimited amount of space. Check out the music for yourself, and give these lyrics a read to get your feet wet.

Rows of houses, sound asleep

Only street lights notice me

I am desperate if nothing else

In a holding pattern to find myself

I talk in circles, I talk in circles

I watch for signals, for a clue

How to feel different

How to feel new

Like science fiction bending truth

No one can unring this bell

Unsound this alarm

Unbreak my heart new

God knows I am dissonance

Waiting to be swiftly pulled into tune

I'll go anywhere You want

Anywhere You want

Anywhere You want me

I know the further I go, the harder I try

Only keeps my eyes closed

Somehow I've fallen in love

With this middle ground

At the cost of my soul

And I know if I stepped aside

Released the controls

You would open my eyes

That somehow, all of this mess

Is just an attempt to know

The worth of my life

Made of precious metals, precious metals

Precious metals inside

I'll go anywhere You want me