There Is This Tree
A tree can hang us or block our sun, or shelter and heal us; like the other ideas in this song.
There is actually a real tree that is ‘This Tree’.
It’s a silver birch that affects me, from which this song emerged quickly early morning 19th Oct 2021.
The tree was and is something that can hang us or block our sun, or shelter and heal us; like the other ideas in the song; although as the song grew it became much more about hope and light and love.
For me also the tree is something we can accept or blame, and this is like the other relationships in the song; including the relationship we have with our self.
I can choose to accept what I cannot change externally, and instead focus on what I can change internally, and get on with my life and try to make good of the dark.
The song is just my first rough vocal and a double-track of my Spanish guitar, playing the basic structure of the song, engineered by Rick Willson in his studio in Anstey, Leicestershire.
‘There Is This Tree’ is song number 8 at AlanChapman.com/music, and is among many other songs of mine in various stages of development, written mostly since the suicide of my partner Liane Ashberry in April 2015 (whose story is partly explained in the album of original songs I wrote and recorded with Liane at RudeAngel.co.uk - which was also engineered and co-produced by Rick Willson).
The long playout of There Is This Tree is space for meditation, even just a few moments of mindfulness, for contemplating your feelings via the lyrics, and space for other instruments when and if the song is developed further.
Whatever, I hope there’s something helpful for you in the song as it is offered here, if only the seed for ideas of your own, and the connecting with deeper energies of the soul, and what our life on Earth actually is.
Liane was a great believer that our soul is like the candle flame that may be passed to a new candle when we die. I have this faith: an ever-increasing fearlessness and power of compassion - a wonderment and grateful abundance - an infinite love that we can channel and show and share - for free - that Liane’s suicide continues to teach me, even now over eight years since Liane’s transcendence.
Footnote:
Incidentally song number 13, ‘Just A Kiss’ at AlanChapman.com/music, I wrote in 2016, from emotional seeds in April 2015. It’s about kissing and touching my partner Liane when I visited her in her cardboard coffin at the undertakers. It took until 28 June 2023 for me to be able to write about this song, and its part in my own healing. Antidepressants cause some women to grow little moustaches, Liane told me, when I began to find it difficult to kiss her. She loved kissing. This was a few weeks before she hanged herself in her Mother’s garage, in April 2015.
Like most people bereaved by suicide, I didn’t see it coming.
We are in denial about the possibility of someone we love killing themselves so traumatically and suddenly, until/unless we experienced it.
Liane was among those who kill themselves very secretively; they have a plan, and keep it to themselves, and people fail to spot the clues, and dare not ask the questions.
Parents and schools do not teach this sort of thing, and doctors and other supposed ‘health professionals’ are generally ignorant - except what pharmaceuticals to prescribe - about depression, inflammation, nutrition, physical exercise, daylight and sunshine, nature, friendships, childhood traumas and addictions (notably sugar, as the gateway addiction to all others) and cosmological factors all connected with healing or with human destruction be it directed internally (suicide) or externally (homicide) or both.
Most people are terrified of death, and much more so, are unable to engage with the realities of suicide, and frustratingly, how surprisingly easy it is to save someone from attempting or completing their suicide.
Breathe. Get outdoors, walk in nature. Start eating and drinking real food and real drinks (stop consuming sugary high-carbs ultra-processed poison products). Smile and help others. Love amplifies and rewards you infinitely. Change your physical situation and movement and change what you put into your body, and everything else starts to change too, for good beyond your wildest imaginings.
Anyway, thanks and love,
Alan
Wow Alan.
"Thank you" is so inadequate to describe my gratitude and awe at your courage in sharing this.
As messed up as this world can be, the burdens and blessings of daily life can be overwhelming.
Just leaving this message as confirmation. You are not alone.
Warm regards from Japan.
steve
Awesome playing and key structure my man. And what a beautiful message. X