“If you’re not growing, you’re dying.” – T Harv. Ecker. Interesting #tower#tarot concept when I listen to #thework by @riversofnihil – so much of this album deals with doing work, the work. Job work, relationship work, inner work, and I feel my interpretation of #thetower, regardless of #deck, fits this with #change and #growth. So many powerful #lyrics to illustrate this #welcome#destruction.
There is #magic in doing #thework as the work itself is magic. Most of us are too busy being caught up in the drastic changes to observe the beauty of the #fires forcing a crumbling of the tower and all of crap that we miss what happens when the last of the embers stop smoldering and it’s time to move on with what’s left, what’s still strong, what’s become stronger and what we’ve gained.
Even more, some of us are too distracted that we can’t ask for others to “Do the work with me.”
Not FOR me. That’s a subtle, but powerful difference.
This lyric, while so subtle, is just as powerful as the chorus. But we often miss it.
“Are we really who we’re meant to be?
Slow down, just do this work with me.”
This was a (modified) post from my Instagram (get it girl!) some time back and it’s becoming the foundation of my being as I grow older. The song itself talks a great deal about all of the work we must do. Daily. I talked with a fan at the Fallujah show back in Sept who happened to be at the Rivers show too and we’d had a good, solid discussion about the album as a concept, as a life lesson, even as the band has their own interpretation of what they wrote.
Fascinating.
Writers are the same. Just like Briggs and Utterly wrote “This is a look back asking if we’re happy with what we’ve done.” {sic}
We write our books with blood, sweat, and tears (in many cases, literal on all fronts) and on a purely artistic path, “our work is never ending.” There’s always stories for us to write. Always tales to tell. And if you look at the song structure, the frantic beginning once our vocals kick in mimics a LOT of writers.
Many of us have odd sleep cycles. I’m still on mine, despite not being a night writer at the time of this writing. Some of us have demons that can’t sleep, won’t sleep, won’t let us sleep. And we’ll stay at those keyboards unable to stay awake, but write anyway, only to find the next morning that what we wrote wasn’t total shit.
He’s right. Winter isn’t forgiving.
Back to change and “The Work.”
The Tower crumbles, you’ve seen it all before. You see those cards on my shirt are all Tower cards from the decks I own, all of which were gifts from past and eternal love. From top Left’s Spiral Deck, that Tower is crumbling among a mass of destruction, hell fire, brimstone, bodies falling down from the Highs. Top Right, our 78 Mythical Tower is aflame, burning. Did you ever imagine you could set stone on fire?
You can.
That stone tower should have been the strongest, at first glance, right?
Our Spanish (Rider Waite) Tower is again being struck, desecrated by the Higher Ups, and people are falling out of windows like it’s the 1987 Crash (Oct 19th was the anniversary…) and when we finally come to our Dark Wood Tower, made again of the strongest stone, we find it engulfed in flames. All of this I chose to surround “The Work.” Es importante que veamos el fuego de vida limpiando los desechos innecesarios incluso cuando no lo quermos.
You know I’ve been wearing this shirt off and on since the show and I JUST noticed the fucking burning tower in the distance? Fuck me, LOL! Standing in the cold distance in an uninviting landscape that just happens to have a frozen cottage in the distance where it appears light and warmth may reside. Off beyond our safety cottage and our burning tower lies, what? Openness. The Universe.
When we’re doing that work, because it never stops, we’re growing. It’s painful. Our Towers have shown us, death, decay, destruction. All for what?
You’ve been following me, you know my old musical mantra. “All for the High.”
But what if that’s not enough?
What if there’s something more?
What if, in reading, in my love of death metal, in my love of attempting to bring these feelings to you, these thoughts, so they’re coherent, rather than my angry yelling and drunken rage, you’re getting the message I’ve been preaching since I figured out I was wrong once?
What if you’re finally buying the hope I’ve been selling you?
He’s a broken ex-spy who survives by not getting involved. She’s a high-profile singer who needs his protection.
Puma-shifter Derrick is plagued by nightmares from his days as a spy. Still struggling to cope with the traumatic memories, he throws himself into work to stay sane. But his latest gig protecting a gorgeous death metal vocalist has all his worst demons screaming with desire. Worse, she’s his fated mate.
Sonja is no stranger to ominous threats. With a voice that can control shifters and humans alike, she knows she’s a powerful weapon… in the wrong hands. And tired of always looking over her shoulder, she’s happy to put her trust in her sexy new guard and do her best to ignore their red-hot chemistry.
Intent on defending the stunning singer and her unique magic, Derrick’s past mistakes come back to haunt him when she is kidnapped. And when Sonja finds herself at the mercy of the dangerous Anti-Shifter League, her only way to save everyone’s skin could lie in the power of her magical songs.
Can Derrick and Sonja pick up the beat and drive hard to the ultimate happily ever after?
Protecting the Siren is the thrilling first book in the Shifter Spies Paranormal Romance series. If you like smoking-hot attractions, wild women, and broody heroes, then you’ll adore Sascha Illyvich’s luscious tale of unexpected love.
Paranormal Erotic Romance by Sascha Illyvich 