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I have always listened to music because my mum and dad play it all the time, but what really got me into it was going to shows. Our family regularly went to music festivals and when I was three, my parents took me to a festival in Wales called Green Man. I was immersed in music all day every day, and while I can’t remember much in the way of specifics, I remember being there and seeing lots of people and hearing lots of music.

When we moved to Canada in 2012, my parents continued playing music and I was drawn to The Flaming Lips and learned all of the words to all of their songs. In 2017, I got to see them in Spokane with my older brother, his friend Sam and my dad.

It was at that show that made me decide to learn more about music. Soon after that I got my first guitar, learning to play a staple few chords and began going to singing lessons with Rachel Behan. I really enjoyed singing and even though the performing part was a bit scary, enjoyed being on stage with other people.

I had another opportunity to go see The Flaming Lips with my friend Laurali in Missoula, MT and had another great experience. Known for their flamboyant shows and audiences, I wore a parrot costume and spent the entire show at the front row. To my surprise, I was given tickets to go see them in Calgary again the next week!

At the Calgary show I wrote a letter and gave it to the tour bus driver who took it on the bus. Just before the show I shouted “Wayne Coyne” as he was going on stage and he saw me and recognized the parrot costume from previous shows! He came over and we talked with him and he got my dad’s number then went to look for the letter. When he found it, to our surprise he texted a picture of him with it, then during the show I was lucky enough to sing a bit of “Space Oddity” with him when he was in his bubble.

I kept in touch with him and while learning guitar with Ryan Mildenberger, Wayne would send me songs to learn and we would exchange ideas with Wayne coaching me along the way.

I got involved in more music locally and did some busking in town and was lucky enough to play with Keith Greninger at a benefit for Troy Cook at the Northern. I was very nervous to go on stage but once I started playing, the nerves disappeared.

I started writing my own songs and would send them to Wayne. He would work on them, and send them back with a Flaming Lips twist. It was really fun to hear the songs after they had added parts to them.

The plan was to go to Oklahoma City to Wayne’s studio to record some but then… COVID!

Wayne suggested I try to play and record a Nick Cave song called “Into My Arms” so I gave it a try and it went really well and he suggested I keep going and choose another song, by the end of September 2020 nine Nick Cave songs had been recorded, produced by The Flaming lips and mixed and mastered by Dave Fridmann. It was hard to complete the last two or three songs and I really didn’t think I could do it because he sings so deep, but Rachel Behan helped me work it out so I could sing them easier which was really helpful. The result was the album Where the Viaduct Looms, which is now ready for release and one single, “Girl in Amber” has been released with a video on YouTube that was produced in Fernie with the usual support of local go getters. The video was shot by Alex Hanson of Hipgnosis Media.

It’s been a year and a half since the project commenced and it has really helped me to decide that I want to be a musician.

I just got back from a trip to Oklahoma City to record three videos for songs on the album. The Lips work really fast and all three videos were shot in one afternoon at The Criterion.

It was super fun and also scary, but Wayne and the rest of the band helped me feel confident that I could do it. We also went to some shows and spent time backstage seeing all the stuff that goes on. I am not exactly sure what the next steps are going to be, but there is some kind of a plan to do some shows with them and also another plan to try and get a band together to perform some shows without them, too. It might take a bit of time to work all of that stuff out.

When it comes to fear, I feel it all the time but I’ve learned that when people have confidence in you and encourage you it’s maybe because they know you can do it more than you do yourself, so it’s good to give it a try even if you might fail.

Follow Nell on her journey on her YouTube channel under Nell Smith and on Instagram, @nellsmith3108.

by JESSICA BOZOKY

October isn’t the only month dedicated to fright anymore, the past 19+ months have been a tornado of unpredicted scares. I could rattle on (or rant on…) for paragraphs, but we’ve all lived through a different experience. The one thing uniting us in this everchanging world, is our fatigue. The constant change of rules from a global scale to the rules of entering a grocery store. We’re tired. We’re frightened. We have no idea what the future holds. But we’re together through it all.

Fear at its essence is from the unknown. American author, H.P Lovecraft says it best, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” If we can’t give words to what the feeling is inside us, and communicate wholly with validity, reason, and adequate vocabulary, we get scared. Words are such an important tool in helping us come to terms with, accept, and grow through fear.

Education is illuminating. The more we know, the more we understand what we can do, how we can help ourselves and others, and the less scary it feels, both internally and externally. A wonderful place to begin figuring out what best describes how we feel, is to read the words of writers. With their profound gift of communicating, describing, giving depth and breadth to stories, often their words can speak to you and your situation more than you know how to. one planned for or knows exactly how to approach. Handling this with kindness and openness is a good way forward, to alleviate the pressures everyone is feeling regardless of their personal choice. Encouraging fear and furthering the anxiety stems from the extremes of being on one team or the other, rather than seeing us as a whole unit.

The Fernie Heritage Library is a place of discovery, a safe and accessible space to educate or entertain oneself free from judgement, and in turn, free from fear. As well as connecting people to resources, we are a community hub connecting the community. We work hard to ensure our patrons feel included, heard, have access to what they need and want, and feel safe doing so. We have seen the way fear brings a spectrum of emotions out in people, and we wish to create a balanced space for all to enjoy. Together, in kindness.

Jon Turk’s eloquent and enlightening opening words offer us further insight into the natural reaction of fear, and the power it can hold. His latest book Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu, which was released in September, will have its official Canadian Launch at the Fernie Heritage Library’s Booked! Fernie Writers’ Series event on Thursday 28 October at 7pm. Keep an eye on our social media for further details.

Illustration By Pruthvi Harshan. Visit ferniefix.com to find the full size black and white illustration to colour in!

We would love to see what words speak best for how you’re feeling, from the words of a book. Send us quotes that feel authentic to your personal situation and we will post them (anonymously) to our socials: information@fernieheritagelibrary.com

by MICHAEL HEPHER

An old friend of mine used to talk about what he called ‘true myth.’ It was his way of describing what teachers have known for millennia: that a story can carry truth way deeper into our hearts than a rational argument. We can hear something and know it intellectually, but until we feel it, we don’t truly integrate it. When true myths resonate, they are imaginary vehicles that scoop up wisdom and unload it at the core of our being.

On October 22, director Denis Villeneuve will release his epic interpretation of the science fiction classic: Frank Herbert’s Dune. I’ve never really been into sci-fi, but I read Dune as a teenager and was captured by Dune’s distant but believable world. As Tolkien did for fantasy, so did Herbert for interplanetary fiction. Dune weaves dynamic characters, a great story, and rich landscapes around a pillar of universal human truths. Rather than stifling those truths, he let the deep wisdom and philosophy seep out through the cracks of the story making it something more believable and poignant.

One of the tough topics Herbert tackled was the idea of fear. We all know it. We all feel it. Our scientific understanding of fear tells us that the brain produces a more or less binary response in our amygdala. Sometimes called the ‘lizard brain,’ it’s the oldest and most basic part of our grey matter—tasked with keeping us alive. When we feel threatened, our rational brain hands the keys to our body over to the lizard brain to make the decisions where it really only considers two simple options: run or fight.

In Dune, the main character finds himself in an existential predicament—if he moves, he dies. To overcome his fight or flight response he uses a mantra to pull the keys back from his amygdala into his rational brain:

Illustration by Michael Hepher Even as a teenager I recognized the real truth hidden in that bit of fiction: fear can teach us many things about ourselves, but only if we are willing to stare it in the face, allow it to pass through us, and look at the path it followed. When we wrestle the controls back from the amygdala, we can unlock a third kind of reaction—to feel the fear and proceed with caution. This middle option is an expression of our best self.

As far as I know, we aren’t facing intergalactic threats on a daily basis, but let’s face it: right now being alive is terrifying. I understand that desire to cut and run, or to dig in my heels and fight, because my instinct is to survive. My rational brain, however, tells me that survival is not enough. I want to truly live, and so I try to face the fear and examine the path it takes as it passes through me.

As a society we are all running from an invisible enemy—one that floats around in the air and harms people indiscriminately. Of course we are afraid, and of course our brain keeps us primed for a response. Covid-19 has most of us living in a perpetual state of fight or flight. I can see it in my family, my neighborhood, my volunteer interactions, and all over the news. We are letting our lizard brains win by making decisions that are out of character and using words that are designed to keep us alive, but don’t they sound foreign even as they come out of our mouths? Is this how we want to live? I desperately want to believe in the good of humans, but the dust of conflict and chaos feels like it’s swirling around me and it’s hard to see the people behind the comments and accusations. Instead of telling each other what we should or shouldn’t do, maybe we could tell each other stories—a bit of true myth—to give each other a peek behind the curtain. Everyone has a story, and if we give each other a tiny measure of grace by choosing that third option—not fight and not flight—we might just see the real person across from us. In turn, we might see how much like each other we are: just a bunch of humans afraid for our lives and trying to survive.

by Sadie Rosgen

In this present age of languish it seems as though our modern world has paralyzing effects, leaving us stagnant and incapable, frightening our very states of being. This type of fear and separation is not new in our history but perhaps to me or you, therefore my quest for enlightenment must continue...

When I first met Julia Rigaux, I was a second-year theatre student at Red Deer College. I remember her relaxed nature, her songbird falsetto, and her dedicated Buddhist practice. Chanting her way through life and into my heart, she soon invited me to her family home in Calgary where I would meet Jack and Susan Rigaux, her loving parents. Together they would teach me all about Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism and as I scrambled my way through the ancient Chinese and Japanese Sanskrit, they patiently ushered me along on my journey to achieve enlightenment. As my practice strengthened, Jack built me a butsudan, an ornate wooden cabinet that I later hoped would house a Gohonzon, a sacred scroll that you chant to, once in the morning and once at night, everyday.

Recently I travelled to Vancouver to accept my Gohonzon at the Nichiren Shoshu temple, the only one in Canada. After 20 years of knowing Julia and about 10 years of chanting, I would finally receive this sacred text to enshrine my butsudan. I am preparing and continuing on a journey of enlightenment. In this dis-ease I march steadily in the vibration of my power, dispelling the haunted nature of this life, this death, this breath, this fear.

Face East and chant with me: Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo

By Sadie Rosgen

an opera of emotions staged and lit poised for action

humbled and exalted

the lines between us are blurred and decaying our very relationships, swinging in the balance

humbled and exalted

I’m being emptied out make space for nothing and everything

every second permeates

humbled and exalted

sublime honour ancient mantras collect my appetite the bell awakens

humbled and exalted

coming home in the quiet now uneasy and free satiate my vibration I am as you see me