Ian Byington

Posted By admin on November 23, 2011

Have a good one...

Dear friends –

I hope this is a great day of thanksgiving & full heart for you, and I hope even more…

I hope this is the kind of day you have every day, not just once a year. Once an hour & once a minute is OK, too…the world around you glows in the light of your gratitude.

I hope you get a chance to sing a song today which fills your heart, and you know what it’s like to be kissed back, by a song.

I hope you are with friends & family & people who love you, and that you get the chance to tell them your love for them.

I hope that if you get enough to eat, you remember our brothers and sisters who need more, and that you make plans to give them a hand. The need is great, and many sharing hands are needed.

I hope that if you feel good today, that you feel even better as you check in with friends who are healing, so your words & your love can give them a lift.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, and to those around you.

All good things to you –

Ian

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By admin on June 1, 2011

My friend Shann posted this with her profile, from a trip to Vancouver Island…

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By admin on May 27, 2011

Couple of days ago, a friend of mine said she was living “in the moment,” which I thought was pretty cool. I asked her what that meant, and she basically said that the past was meaningless & the future is unknown, so the only thing you can really rely on is this moment right here.

This echoes the basic idea of mindfulness (I think) in the Buddhist tradition and listening to the small still voice within in the mystical Christian tradition, if it IS possible to quiet the noise attending looking through the scrapbooks of our lives in the past or the flurry of hopes & dreams that shape our sense of the future.

Think I’ll give it a try. I’ll let you know how it goes…and let me know how it works for you.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By admin on April 6, 2011

Can you see...more?

Some days, do you get the feeling you’re missing something?

This is a story a friend of mine told me:

I was walking down the sidewalk on a busy New York City day with a friend who lives in the forests of Brazil. He stopped, cocked his head & said, “Listen! I think that’s a robin.” And sure enough, we looked up and there was a bird on the sign above us. I said, “Wow, how could you hear that, with all the city noise here?” My friend said, “You hear what you are trained to hear,” and took a handful of change from his pocket and scattered it on the concrete at our feet. Immediately, people turned and stared, and bent over and started picking it up; the sound was not even as loud as the bird’s song in the city din. “See?” he said. “You hear what you hear.” He smiled.

Seems to me there are plenty of songs going on around me, that I miss because I listen for coins, not bird songs.

Sometime the song is a smile from a friend that I miss because I’m too worried about something; sometimes it’s something blooming on the bush when I’m walking & thinking deep thoughts about things that aren’t blooming; often I miss a song from today because I’m focused on something that happened in the past.

The guy in the story above says, “You hear what you are trained to hear,” and I think it’s possible for us to re-train ourselves. This week I’ve looked for & found a new song each day – something I hadn’t noticed that is right around me, but that I couldn’t hear or see or taste or smell or feel because of the head-din in the city of my mind. I stop, I breathe, I listen, and there are new things all around.

And it makes each day new.

Try it & let me know how it goes for you.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 7, 2010

Sometimes we forget there’s so much more than we can easily see…gotta stick our necks out & look below the surface…

This is by Randall at xkcd.com (click here for bigger version):

Look deeper...

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By admin on September 6, 2010

I’ve had this stuck in my head all day, and here’s a quote to go with it:

Any culture that destroys its own life support systems and calls that progress is totally insane.
John Croft

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By admin on August 22, 2010

When I first moved to Friday Harbor in 1994, we went to the San Juan County Fair for the first time that year. It was the beginning of a sense that this really was a great place to land, a great place to raise my sons, and a good & nurturing place to grow personally.

The County Fair for 2010 ended last night with The Clumsy Lovers providing high energy hybrid Celtic/bluegrass dance music (you had to be there  – it was awesome!), then ended an hour later when the rides closed down. It’s a great gathering of the tribe, and a great way to head into autumn, and school, and the end of the summer season.

See ya there, next year.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By admin on August 9, 2010

Just spoke to Steve Keys – he’s been hosting an acoustic night on Fridays at the Peppermill in Friday Harbor this summer. He asked me to play this Friday (August 13th) – the gig is from 6-9pm, with him playing the first part, me the second, and we’ll play together for the rest of it.

Come on by – I’d love to see you!

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By admin on August 9, 2010

That's Mary & Ian, reunited at Island Studios for a couple of sets...

It was awesome to have Mary Tachibana (and her husband Dennis) come to the island last weekend…Mary & I sang together as Mary & Ian back from 1988-1994, after which I moved to the island and we had to settle into our lives in different states.

It was great to see them, and great to play again – we sang for a couple of hours at Island Studios (who also sells my cds), and it was like old times. Great to get the chance to visit with a dear friend….

Here’s a song of ours from an album we made in 1992 (it’s called the Lemonade Song – you’ll hear why!) – see what you think!

Category: Uncategorized | Comments Off
Tags:

Posted By admin on June 9, 2010

The head was broken away; the neck was in splinters...

When Cameron returned to San Francisco for school in January, we shipped his guitar to him…and it got there looking like the picture to the right.

And now – it’s whole again. Here’s the amazing story.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags: