Featured Author;
Esme Ellis

You play with a few different creative mediums. Can you tell us when you first began to explore your artistic side and what this part of your life means to you?
I can't answer this without seeming to give a plug for my first ever book, Pathway Into Sunrise, by saying, the answer to that is all in there. It began back at junior school – and that was way back during the war – in fact the war came to an end just as I, an eleven year old child, was leaving to take up my place at the Junior Art Department of Sheffield College of Arts and Crafts.
I'd always loved art. My earliest memories around five years were of our teacher, round and cuddly Miss Butterworth, mixing up bowls of flour and water – nothing more sophisticated in the way of modelling materials existed, especially in wartime. She showed us how to take a lump – not too wet or it stuck to your fingers –  roll it into a ball and form it into simple shapes. We made fantastic sweets and lollipops, which, after the dough was left to dry and harden, could be painted in lovely bright colours, and put 'on sale' in our classroom shop. As we grew older we became more adventurous. I remember us making the whole village of Nazareth once, complete with flat-roofed houses, (just like Jesus had lived in,) camels, donkeys, palm trees and little people in striped 'biblical' gowns. The whole thing came alive for me so much that I can feel it, smell it, walk through it, to this day. We were also encouraged to give mini illustrated talks to our classmates. Provided with large pieces of paper we painted lively, splodgy pictures which were then pinned to the blackboard while we proceeded to enthral and amuse one another with our stories. Given the opportunity young children revel in expressing their creativity. They are open and haven't yet learned to be self-critical. They're full of wonder about the world they see about them; its colours and patterns, its beauty and joyfulness, and eager to use their imagination. However, when we reached our final year around the age of ten, art came to an end for the girls; we were separated from the boys who were allowed to paint and draw in one room, while the girls were instructed in sewing. I felt utterly cheated.
In those days we sat what was called the 11 Plus, an exam which determined whether we would go to a grammar school or a secondary modern. I described it in my book as dividing the sheep from the goats, the bright from the no-so-bright who went on to fill manual, labouring or shop assistant sort of jobs, while the selected ones might go on to better things, university perhaps, and into more professional type of work. I managed to escape both by somehow passing, not only the 11 Plus, but finding myself by a stroke of luck, taking an extra exam for this bombed and war-battered junior art school in the centre of town.
By the age of 15, a year younger than entrants from other schools, a group of us were required to sit another exam, this time to see if we were OK to go on to the 'big' Sheffield College of Art, by this time located out in the leafy suburbs. So in trying to address your question I can't say I consciously began to explore my artistic nature at any one point: it was a gradual process which only became conscious much later in life. However, it was something I never regretted, and something I always, even now, thank my lucky stars for, because being among creative people right from this early age meant that we were always playing outside society's conventions. Artists are expected to explore, discover and express their own originality. This often gets them into trouble – especially with society in general which wants them to conform, and sees non-conformity as threatening in some way. I think I've come to see conformity as a deadening force as far as creativity is concerned. But I'll go further and say that Life – living itself – is creative, and if you aren't constantly exploring, discovering, expressing yourself, you're not really living.
I don't think art school made me a free thinker; I believe I would have found my way to be that anyway. But it did give me a place in which to feel more secure and accepted.

You began writing after a serious illness. It would have been easy to be victim to the illness yet your creativity helped you through it. What has that taught you about yourself and your creativity?
That's an interesting question. Again, I wrote at length about this in my first book, but haven't looked at it quite this way before. The illness was in fact a terrible blow. I was living in London at that time. I'd left the Royal College of Art there at the age of 24 thinking I was set on the career which I'd trained for, to be a sculptor. I'd travelled to Rome and soaked up everything that city had to offer a hopeful young artist. I'd mixed with other mature students, artists, musicians from all over the world, also present in Rome extending and continuing their studies. I met gallery owners and grand, titled patrons of the arts, and though I felt unsure of myself and thoroughly unsettled by the tumultuous revolutions in the world of art at the time, I tried to ignore the turmoil of confidence taking place inside myself about how my future would turn out.
Skipping ahead and leaving lots out, the next ten years saw me with a child and £3.00 a week to live on. I was still determined to make my way as an artist, but life was becoming impossibly difficult. So much so that in the end I succumbed to the stress of insecurity and loss of faith in myself. One night I woke with a raging fever and with the most intense pains sweeping through my whole body, beginning at my feet. By morning, when I tried to climb out of bed I collapsed onto the floor. As it turned out this was no passing illness: it grew progressively worse over the coming years until, later, for two whole years I was virtually paralysed, unable to turn over in bed, and had to be washed and fed. It's impossible to tell the story in a few lines, it involves a complete physical breakdown and a miraculous breakthrough. So many people asked me to tell them the details that, in the end, I decided to write the book. But the fact that I did write a book, including the hows and whys of it, is a miracle in itself, I think.
Out of those intolerable, never-ending days of paralysis, unable to move even my hands, one evening I began to be aware of a strange sensation like an electrical tingling in my fingers. All night long this sensation continued, little by little spreading into my palms, my forearms and upper arms. By morning something quite incredible happened: my hands (accompanied by my still attached arms, of course,) began to lift themselves up off the mattress and float lightly in the air. From my fingertips I saw streams of coloured light begin to point towards my body. I saw these streams of light focus and begin pouring into my body at certain points down the front, into my heart, my throat, my solar plexus and abdomen. I vaguely recognised there areas as chakra points. From that moment onwards, not only did this 'healing' continue day by day, and night by night, but I began to be aware of a circle of blue light a few feet away from me in the room.
All this time I had been cut off from my work, and feeling desperately depressed at the thought that I would never again hold the tools of my trade in my hands. Long hours I'd lain there, in great pain, feeling this was the end of everything I'd ever lived for. But now, I began to hear words, insistent words, lines of a poem demanding to be written down. I groped for a pencil, and one by one began to scrawl down what I was hearing in my head.

Here I lie. I can do no other – but defy.
Yet I shall run, I shall dance,
I shall swim, I shall fly.
Thought earth-weight holds me embedded
I shall spread tendrils of my hundred arms
about her curve, and among the wild stars
of all the fields of grass and daisies of the world.

I shall embrace the hills,
I shall skim the sky's edge,
and rain in glassy drops,
drop, dropping into the sea.
I shall rush falling and sparkling
down strong stony clefts.
I shall stand tall and black,
head high, breathing the sharp, dark air,
prickling with night-green needles,
crackling and sighing with the moonlight.

Further than this I dare not.
I dare not lighten or arise
burning and splendid – yet.
And yet – 'Eppure' –

The first line, Here I lie. I can do no other… was a twist on, 'Here I stand. I can do no other.' Martin Luther's defiant words to the Ecclesiastical Court where he was being accused of heresy. And the last word of the poem, 'Eppure' was a reference to the actual last words, said to be uttered by Galileo on his death bed after another such court had, under torture, forced him to recant his discovery that the Earth went round the Sun. His assertion had been viewed as shocking and blasphemous in the extreme. The Church, at that time, believed that the Earth was the centre of the universe and that the Sun and all the planets circled it, and to deny it was to defy God. 'Eppure, se muove' was Old Italian for, 'And yet, (or 'Still') it moves.' meaning, the Earth still moves around the sun, however much you may torture me. What courage this must have taken we can only guess, when in the face of death, and with the possibility, (according to the belief systems of his day,) of everlasting Hell-fire awaiting him, he was still determined to proclaim his truth as he saw it. To have enough faith in the kind of God he was about to meet, in himself and his discovery, shows his greatness, I believe.
What I think this poem was saying is that, although I'd seemingly had everything stripped away so that I would never be able to return to my sculpture again, the spirit of creativity is irrepressible. If one form of art becomes impossible, the spirit finds another way to express itself. Creativity changes its form – the heavy, physical medium of sculpture undergoes a transformation and emerges, albeit not without a deal of struggle, as weightless words. I'm not claiming this to be a great poem – but it came spontaneously – from inside. All of which takes me to your next question.

How has your writing evolved since this first project?
The first project being the writing of a whole book as I mentioned at the beginning. Pathway Into Sunrise: Journey of a Wounded healer, was autobiographical; the story of a miraculous healing experience. But it saw also the emergence of another voice, that of the one I came to know as Astrazzurra, my guide the Blue Light, and also of my own healing powers. Chapters of my own writing were interspersed with passages dictated to me by Astrazzurra. By the time I'd finished this venture into writing, the bug had bitten: I wanted to be a writer. My next adventure was to see if I could write fiction. I was very unsure that I could, but eager to find out. In the final chapter of Pathway I'd written a strange little story of an oak tree blasted by lightning, but which comes to life again. In one of its new branches is a nest, and in it lies an egg with a golden centre. As I finished my last sentence I felt that egg tremble as if it was about to crack open. What would emerge, I wondered. Well, actually a whole new story, Clea and the Fifth Dimension – although I'd no idea how it would unfold.
Fiction allows you to create a whole world of your own peopled with characters. Who are these people who begin to emerge and come alive, and take you on a journey? What kind of journey will it be? Will you plot it out in advance, or will you choose, like I did, to see how their nature develops and where their individual characteristics take them in the moment? What unexpected and challenging areas will your characters be drawn into, and how they will interact with one another? As author you may feel you have unlimited powers at your fingertips, but how will you handle them? What mistakes will you make on the way, and what, as author, will you learn from it all? What is it that comes into being as you take this journey into the unknown? Is there a guiding vision lighting up your path? Is it an artistic vision, or the vision of a fat cheque? What will your story have to reveal about you? The characters you feel you've invented, unlikely as it seems, are extensions and aspects of yourself. You draw portraits which may be utterly different from yourself; counter-gender, different race, decades older or younger, wandering through faraway places you've never visited. Yet, I believe, they are all drawn from some place inside yourself. The more you allow yourself to open to them, to go deeply into them, inhabit them, the more successful in engaging, entertaining or enlightening your readers you will be. I think this begins to turn into an answer to the final question.

What advice would you share with anyone wanting to write?
Do you have a vision, a passion, a dream? If you do then take it for a walk. Let it out to play. Explore, express, make mistakes and move on. Find a writing buddy to read passages out loud to, or record and listen to yourself out loud. Join a good creative writer's group, one which will be supportive, constructive, but honest with you without pulling your confidence to pieces. Read lots and broadly and find out what kind of writing draws you the most. Practice, practice, and don't give up.
I've probably answered the other question too; Do you give equal time to all your mediums or do you find one will call you to it for a while and give the others a rest?
I virtually gave up all thoughts of being a sculptor long ago when I was forced to turn my attention to writing. But writing became my passion. (Who knows what 'force' was at work here!) However, in recent years I have felt the urge to use colour again. I found myself designing the cover to my first book after inviting a professional designer to do it. I doubted my ability to produce one myself as I'd never had training in that department, but the ideas this designer came up with seemed to me to express neither the spirit nor content of the book well enough. When I was invited to show my publisher at the time my own 'rough' sketch, she was delighted and said immediately that she wanted to use just that. I was astonished. However, the same thing happened again with Clea, my second, and with my latest book, This Strange and Precious Thing. I asked the professionals to come up with something but ended up doing the covers myself, with the technical help – computer expertise – of other artists. Handling colours again however, has given me a taste for wanting to do more painting – if only I can find the time.
My most recent project is a website, and this has been a wonderful experience of artistic co-operation which worked. The young woman I co-created this with is not only a visual artist in her own right, but primarily a singer – 'progressive rock' – I think it's called. She asked me how I wanted the website – how I saw it. I didn't know. But that night I had a dream and 'saw', in vivid colours, a wonderful flowing design of tendrils, leaves and flowers. I emailed her a verbal description which she interpreted in a way which captured my vision amazingly well. It became my Home Page. Together we've managed to upload a selection of paintings and sculptures – sculptures which I created during a remission between 1976 and '80 when I thought my illness was finally getting better. (Hopes only to be dashed when it returned in 1981 with even great devastation.) But this brings us back to Pathway Into Sunrise where I started this interview…..

Visit Esme's website at http://esmeellis.co.uk 
and her blog at http://esmeellis.blogspot.com

Featured Artist;
Kay von Randow

Tell us about your relationship with music. When did it begin and how is it evolving?
Music has been present in my life – in the sense that it flows from me – since infancy. My relations told me that as a very young child, I preferred to sing rather than talk, and it seems that my voice was pure in a way that strangers were drawn to listen to it - though I don’t actually remember this time.
My father died when I was two, and I remember picking out children’s tunes with one finger on his piano (which my mother sold soon after he died).
My mother bought a piano at my insistence when I was six, and I began lessons. Almost immediately I started creative experiments with sounds and intervals to find out what sounded good, and wrote my first recognisable piece on manuscript when I was nine. I wasn’t technically brilliant as a performer but borrowed music from the library from composers like Debussy so I could play the chords and find out how he produced his harmonic sound.
I used music to escape into  at school: I would go down to the basement to the sports changing rooms  and sing to myself rather than be in the playground -  which felt like a confusing, alien world to me – during breaks. The music which flowed out  resembled Baroque music ( eg. J.S. Bach ) . I really enjoyed these times - which filled me with temporary happiness. Of course, people heard me and made comments about me being odd – but what struck me was that they completely misunderstood and presumed I was singing because I was happy !
I knew that music was my life, and went through phases of wanting to be a solo pianist and orchestral viola player but composing was THE field where I was most at home, because it was my own special world. I chose a University course over a Music  Academy because the mysteries of harmony, and how music had developed fascinated me more than learning ‘technique’. And I got a wonderful preparation as a composer because my University – in Birmingham, England offered the possibility for constant active participation in choral and instrumental groups representing all kinds of (classical) music.  I was usually involved in weekly rehearsals for 10 different groups -  once it was 14 !
After graduating, I spent years in teaching, but composing was always central to my  enjoyment.
What has become increasingly obvious to me, is that it was always ‘feeling’ which spoke to me, and I was largely disinterested in performers’ instrumental technique. This meant that I felt very much on the outside during regular discussions after concerts - without knowing why - because the topics were like ‘What was the highest note the First Horn player managed before he cracked a note ?’ I love the French Horn and have written much music for it- but I always just let it flow out on a torrent of feeling and the ‘technique’ just took care of itself – not always the case if you don’t play the instrument yourself !
Because ’feeling’ is the most important aspect for me,  when I choose music CD’s to listen to they’re more often  Soft Jazz, Celtic, Klezmer or Crossover than Classical, because I like music where the performers let rip and just throw themselves into the performance. I spent so many years rehearsing and playing music scores where the conductor insisted that every crescendo was minutely kept to, so that in the end however great the music was, I felt as though I was playing in a corset, imprisoned by someone else’s interpretation of the black lines in the score and not able to put ‘myself’ into the music.
Now- I feel so happy when I’m composing. It’s the most wonderful feeling I know, to be in the flow.

As your consciousness has evolved, how has your composing also evolved?
Years ago, I’d feel bad-tempered and restless for several hours, often with a headache and sometimes I even had a high temperature before I’d sit down at the piano and start to compose. Afterwards, I felt better, though strangely enough, it took me years to connect the symptoms with composing.  It’s well-known that Beethoven was often in a really bad mood and I can perfectly relate to this. At this time, composing was difficult: at the end of a day I’d perhaps have 4 bars which satisfied me. I jokingly once said that each new piece was like a birth, with all the pains and difficulties, and it truly was a laborious process for me.
At some point, I became aware of two male figures which seemed to be present when I composed – they called themselves Sebastian and Mr. Brown. They were just there with me, and one function which I  was aware of was, was that they produced a warm pink feeling at the back of my neck and shoulders to let me know when to stop. I knew that if I carried on, I’d get exhausted. Then, some years later, they stopped coming, and since then, this warm pink feeling has only occasionally come – perhaps once a year.
I’m aware that the music I compose flows from a source. That is, that I have ‘helpers’ on the other side of the veil who channel it to me. I recognised Tobias and Kuthumi’s energy but usually there isn’t a distinct personality there. I’m quite happy with this and don’t need to know who/what/how ?  I’ve come to trust what comes, and the feelings of love which accompany the music are enough reference for me !
Tobias took on the role of teacher while I was working on my Returning Home song, in that he presented me with editing problems and possibilities so that I really learnt how to use parts of my software which I’d never even looked into, before !  He ’walked me’ through this, and was a constant gentle and loving support. It was really like a crash course - an amazing experience - because  the answers came from inside me,  and one which has put me on a whole new level of accomplishment because I have a much more intuitive connection to using the software now.
Something really beautiful which has developed is that now  there are no barriers between me and the music; I’m ‘a package’ so-to-speak, because, the music is in me, it flows right out of my centre, without effort. It can - and does - come anytime, and anyplace. Tobias showed me that I shouldn’t mentally set up  restrictions (like feeling I have to be in my music room since this is the proper, designated place for composing to take place !) by sending me music (actually, for him as ‘Sam’) while I was waiting at a supermarket check-out !   Can you imagine how startled I was – in the middle of all the shopping and shoppers, to be getting a download?
I’m also increasingly open to any possibility. I live in the country with woods just one minute from our house and since 2006, I’ve been conscious that the trees which I pass daily with my lovely cocker spaniel, Tessie are not only aware of us Beings, but are looking for openings to communicate. Two in particular – one carries a feminine energy and calls herself Evi, and the other is masculine and is called Borrie make contact with me. Evi communicates when I  breathe with her, and Borrie offers a sort of cleansing through singing - I lean against his trunk and just let whatever wants to come out, come. It’s very effective for getting rid of the days’ stress!   And as I continue on our walk, very often melodies come into my head and I sing as I walk. These have a particular ‘flavour’ – often using Gregorian modes – and I identify the energy as coming from the trees as a whole.  Next year, I plan on releasing a CD of this music.
In another case, the Lily on a particular website (Norma & Garret’s New Breath  site) sent me music!  So life is really interesting since I don’t know what’s - musically speaking – round the next corner. But the key is to remain open ………….. maybe a building or ??  would like to send me some music.
My most recent surprise was to receive a download from Kuthumi ……  a fun piece !
I also feel that composing is for me a way through which I continually evolve; it isn’t just a fun activity but when I’m writing, I really ‘know me’ and feel in touch with other dimensions of ‘me’ though these are still shadowy.  I don’t go into a trance or anything, but remain well-grounded, but have this amazing feeling of ecstasy. In this state, I can also be detached and ‘observe’ myself playing and often, answers to questions I have about certain areas of my life come to me.

Do you go back and adjust much as you compose? How do you know when a piece is complete?
When the music flows the first time, I either write it on manuscript paper or – more usually - record it directly as I play (piano) into the computer where I have a digital music studio for editing purposes.  Since there are moments where I’m adjusting to the energy, there are moments in the music where I’m sort of ‘treading water’ in the sense that I stay in the same place, harmonically, and between sections I ‘fill in’ till the next part of the ‘download’ flows. So afterwards, these ‘treading water’ sections are removed. The actual melodies are complete and don’t need changing, but I only sketch in the harmony so I fill this in later. I often alter the Tempo of a piece because when the music flows it comes with such an energy that I play at a break-neck speed; afterwards I feel into the energy and find the ‘right’ tempo. And I often alter the pitch of melodies, to suit the feeling of the person,  and of course in particular, if I add digital instrumental samples (I use the Vienna Symphonic Library).  
I prefer to write short movements – symphonies were never interesting for me – and I know when these are complete because – well, I just feel it. It’s all on a feeling level, without intellectual interuption.  But there is always a perfect order for each piece and I’d like to illustrate this: when I wrote my Mass of Benediction in 1981, I didn’t write the movements in the order in which they appear in the mass. Years later when I was asked to give a seminar on my music, I thought I’d analyse the Mass, as I’d learnt to do at University, and  was astonished to find that the movements had a perfect harmonic relationship to each other AND that the Mass as a whole had a distinctly recognisable overall structure. None of this had concerned me as I was composing it, and I’d remained unaware of it since this side hadn’t interested me.

I love that you do Soul Songs which you describe as musical portraits. Can you tell us how you create these and any stories on how the recipients have responded to them.
The Soul Songs were a complete surprise to me - not something I set out to do but an aspect of composing which really fascinates me !  As I said, being open is important. The first few Soul Songs were for friends - it had to be this way because this possibility was being introduced to me, and this was the only way I would recognise that the energy of the music was the same energy as a person.
When my ‘helpers’ told me that I could choose to offer this on a commercial basis, they stressed that only by the person committing to this,  in essence making a contract with me, did I have ’permission’ to tune into the person’s soul and then let the energy flow out and through me as music. Several people have offered me their own services in lieu of payment but I know that this is not the way it has to be. 
So I just breathe a while, think of the person, and let my consciousness merge with theirs for a while, without trying to focus in any way or ‘make’ a connection.  Then I completely ‘let it go’ and go about my daily life. At some point in the next couple of days, I feel the energy of the person right beside me – as though they are indeed physically present - and I know ‘Aha - now’s the moment’ so I go up to my music room, sit down at the piano, breathe if I remember (though usually I’m too excited at the energy which is surging through me)  and let the music flow.  It comes in one session, and can be anything between 5 and 30 minutes.
While the music flows, I feel a lot of ‘what’s inside’ the person – which is the reason why it’s important for to have their  permission to connect up. This isn’t something I could, or would want to do out of curiosity with just anyone ! Often, exact words come into my head and I know I need to write them down to relate to the person whose Soul Song I’m channelling. If I later compare these with the music, I can see a direct correlation. It often happens that the music presents aspects or qualities which need looking at  !  So there is a therapeutic value as well as the satisfaction of having a musical portrait of yourself.
This is so new, that most people are simply overwhelmed, and astonished that this music is them ! Every response has been positive, and in every case the people could recognise the qualities of themselves in the music. In order to protect individual privacy, though, I don’t want to go into more detail here.

How do you see music evolving with the new energy?
I see it becoming much simpler …..just pure feeling. The music will be without dramatic contrasts, and without complicated and thematic development. I feel that the whole weight of music will change, away from any connection as an intellectual activity.
And I feel that the melody – on solo instruments - will again carry the feeling of a piece, without the need for complicated harmonic experiments, or masses of instruments  to ‘give interest’  The voice is a wonderful instrument which we all carry with us the whole time, and I can see people turning to the voice as an instrument – without words. Of course, this isn’t new – it’s well-known in the jazz sphere and from certain composers such as Villa-Lobos.
If you remember Gregorian Chant - which to me is very close to Nature – the original form  was pure melody and then composers started making it more complicated and inventing strict rules. This is also tied to the evolution of duality since the basis of classical music in the Western tradition is drama and contrast – duality pure !  I’ve been unable to listen to much of the music I used to love, because it now strikes me as disjointed  - no flow- and too dramatic. I’ve also found  many individual occurrences of music with what I recognise as New Energy, embedded in the mass of ‘duality music’ as well.

I’d like to thank Marisa for  offering me this opportunity to talk about my music, and I feel proud to be included in such a ‘quality’ newsletter. You can read more about me on my website www.innerspheresmusic.com
I will soon be uploading some audio clips to my site so you can hear samples of my music.