Rites of Passage along the Journey (New Song)

Hello Good People,

For the Hero's Journey to start there needs to be a catalyst. Mythologists and Depth Psychologists such as Robert Bly and Michael Meade often stress how there needs to be an event that transforms the innocent into the orphan. It is a painful but necessary process for a person to reach individuation and to understand what their bliss is. In fact, many tribal cultures engage in a painful rites of passage ceremony to initiate teens into adulthood. Where a boy or girl must go through a process to realize their adult identity....

The seeds of this song were planted in Bellingham, Washington. I taught a spoken word poetry class at Options Alternative High School. My heart was touched by all the youth who shared their childhood scars in their poetry. From there I took a train to Los Angeles. In L.A. I spent a weekend performing poetry on street corners, selling my poetry chapbook. At night, I couldn't afford a hotel room, so I would stay up all night walking the streets and talking to street youth, I kept hearing similar stories of Childhood trauma. I heard many stories of childhood wounds that needed to be healed. After LA, I got on a train for Chicago. Along the way, I kept thinking of the youth who I had met and at some point a burst of words came, words that told my story and told their story. Words that were meant to help youth reach the other side of the initiation process (It is quite sad and a sign of how unhealthy our culture and society is, that we don't often practice serious rites of passage processes.)

Concerning the Orphan, Carol Pearson wrote, "His or her accomplishment is to move out of innocence and denial to learn that suffering, pain, scarcity, and death are an inevitable part of life...After the fall comes the long and sometimes slow climb back to learning to trust and to hope...The Orphans task eventually is to learn self-reliance...We return to Eden and Innocence understanding that it is safe to trust ourselves, others, and the universe."

I know personally it took me many years to heal these wounds, and on some level, the process of healing is ever-going. However, I know that many songs and poems inspired me along this part of my path, hopefully by telling my story I can help others on this part of their path, So hear it is!

Listen to Rites of Passage.

Also if you like the song, please donate to my Indie Go Go campaign, I have yet to raise enough money to realize the project.


Peace, Love, Joy, Wisdom...
-Plaedo

Answering The Call to Adventure (New Song!)

Every Story must have a beginning. For the Journey to Start the hero must answer the call to adventure.  Thus my album, "Learning Adventures in Love and Revolution" begins with the song, "Morning Mantra." Allow me to explain...

I graduated from College with a general studies and philosophy degree at the end of 2008,  around the time Obama took office and the Recession set in. There were no jobs. And I didn't have a clue, what I wanted to do. I lived in Moscow, Idaho and had already tasted the 'big world out there' as I had spent some time living in Bangkok, Thailand a few years earlier. I knew that as much as I loved Moscow, I needed to get out of that town. I needed to explore...

So I took my meager savings, about 2000 dollars saved while working as a barista at a Food Co-op and I bought a cross country train ticket. I booked a little spoken word poetry tour, packed my bags and hit the road. The next few months were spent performing poetry at little coffee shops and on street corners, meditating in Philadelphia, Partying at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, hanging with Street Kids in Los Angeles, visiting family and sorting through generational baggage in Bellingham and Seattle Washington, washing my face in both the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, and exploring DMT and altered states of consciousness in between. Along the way, I was given a book, "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell.

This book made me realize, that I was on my Hero's Journey. Somewhere, Somehow, I got the idea that I wanted to tell my Hero's Journey in the form of a hip hop album. But first, I had to live that journey and I had to learn how to make music...

After I traveled the country for 3 months and visited 38 states, I came back to Moscow. I tried to live in Moscow. But I couldn't. I felt crazy. Something deep within was unsatisfied, I had the feeling that I needed to leave Moscow, it was spiritually a life or death situation.

So I moved to Seattle, Washington. Upon arriving in Seattle, I was quite isolated. In retrospect this was good for me, and upon further studies I realized that all Hero's Journey's include a period of isolation or separation from the known.

When living in Seattle, I would wake up every morning, do 10 minutes of yoga, say 22 positive affirmations in the mirror, than practice music for a few hours before I would go explore Seattle looking for jobs and opportunity.

The following song represents that era to me. In fact, this song was written in Seattle (making it one of the oldest songs on the album.) It is a song that represents answering the call to adventure, the quest for enlightenment, and an unknown white trash alien turned activist and family man MC walking through the city, inspired to make a change. And while it is not my favorite song, nor the obvious hit single, it is where the album needs to start: So here it is, track 1, Morning Mantra. I invite you to come with me on this journey...

This song is also the first song I have paid to be mixed and mastered with donations to my indie go go campaign from people like you. 

Click here to donate.

Peace, Love, Joy, Wisdom...
-Plaedo