5'23" condensation of Ione's 25th Annual Dream Festival dreaming in the New Year during the Overnight for Dreaming Avatars in Second Life. The event was held over a span of 12 hours and included Avatars located across 9 time zones, from Central European Time to Pacific Standard Time. Sounding was occurring throughout triggered by virtual instruments and included sampled excerpts from Pauline Oliveros' Ghost Dance and Crone Music, sustained singing bowls, and Norman Lowrey's In Parallel: Dreaming into Alternate Universes. January 1, 2020.

Winter morning on a walk in local woods, Mount Tabor, New Jersey. January 8, 2020.

Fish meets up with Coyote and they have a glossolalia jam session. January 9, 2020.

Down at the pond in Mount Tabor, NJ, January 11, 2020.

In such a crazy world with so much suffering and inequity, I know I am so very fortunate to be able to pursue my joy in making these little instruments things, evolved from my Singing Masks. It makes me happy if they can bring pleasure to anyone else. Bird and Dragon were commission/requests from a friend made after my making the decision to offer these things on some kind of sale basis. January 10, 2020.

This one an automaton. February 1, 2020.

Realized at Carole Ione’s 25th Annual Dream Festival Marathon of Dreamers, 0202-2020, Fair John Art Space and Music Salon, Kingston, NY. Video by Gloria Waslyn and Norman Lowrey.

DREAM SHADOWS DREAM
for Singing Masks, Automata, and Electronics
By Norman Lowrey

First presented with Caleb Lowrey for Ione’s 18th Annual Dream Festival, October 27, 2013 in Kingston, NY. Our version now is dedicated to the Deep Listening Dream Shadow Dreaming Spirit Pauline Oliveros.

All present are invited to join in this dreaming: listening, sounding, moving. All are welcome to play with shadows in Deep Listening joy.

What do shadows dream? Are shadows dreams? Are we dreaming shadows? Do shadows dream us? What is the source of the light casting the shadow Dream? What do shadows sound? How do shadows listen? If Pauline Oliveros is a source of light for us, are we her dreaming shadows? Or, as the objects on which her light shines, are we mindful of the shadows we cast? Are we dreaming this?

Yet another dragon. What??? Trogdor the Burninator! To what depths will I descend? Well, it was a request. Yeah, right! February12, 2020.

A different kind of dragon. February 18, 2020.

At the pond, Mount Tabor, NJ, February 22, 2020.

Dream bird shadow box, made at a friend’s request, shown here with a couple fish companions with Arduino synth sounds, transforming into newest version sounding samples of struck singing bowls accompanied by some synth string sounds. February 27, 2920.

Longshadow walk, forward and back, March 1, 2020.

Wind chimes, chattering birds, shadow, snowdrops. March 4, 2020.

Amelia the Cat joins the shadows of Fish and Bird. March 6, 2020.

Shadows, found objects, variances of light controlling soundings, gestures... Moving on from crudely fashioned fish, birds, and dragons, here’s the first of an intended series incorporating found objects. This one was a birthday gift from a neighbor who knew I’d like it. She thought it looked like a headless person with arms raised. It reminded me of a moose. I’ve obviously gone for that interpretation in this video. March 12, 2020.

Mid-March morning walk meditation in Northern New Jersey. March 15, 2020.

Another found object critter. I think I should call these chatterboxes. March 18, 2020.

Down by the pond in Mount Tabor, New Jersey, March 21, 2020.

How about a little found object Unicorn Chatterbox, accompanied by some bells, to join in our solitudes on a somewhat snowy/rainy Spring day? March 23, 2020.

In the hope of bringing a moment of calm, as it did for me, here’s another local sign of Spring in Mount Tabor, NJ, March 24, 2020.

Tabletop found object chatterbox with Spring green video inlay made March 27, 2020.

Magnolia buds on a drizzly day in Northern New Jersey, March 29, 2020.

Assuming the character of the Masked Crater Inspector, I participated along with a few hundred others in an extraordinary production over Zoom of:

FULL PINK MOON: Opera Povera from Quarantine

A Worldwide Fundraising Live Stream of Pauline Oliveros’s Open Form The Lunar Opera; Deep Listening For_Tunes

Tuesday, April 7th (the night of the Full Super Pink Moon) 2020

FULL PINK MOON is presented by the University of Chicago’s Richard & Mary L. Gray Center for Arts & Inquiry and California Institute of the Arts.

Pond life, Mount Tabor, NJ, featuring two duck decoys, a turtle, a robin, a willow tree and accompanied by vociferous white-throated sparrows and robins. April 12, 2020.

Skunk cabbage and a little stream seen on my walk, April 16, 2020.

Staying close to the earth. April 20, 2020.

Another take on staying close to the earth, for Earth Day. “In Wildness is the preservation of the world” -Henry David Thoreau -April 20, 2020.

Backyard treescape, with Greenman. Kingston, New York, July 5, 2020.

Rose of Sharon, with cicadas sounding nearby and a butterfly making a brief appearance. Kingston, New York, July 22, 2020.

Very brief and a bit jerky (ah, bandwidth), but still somewhat meditative and representative of a welcome adventure of the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse in Rio de Janeiro. August 30, 2020.

It’s been awhile for a new Singing Mask to join us. Not sure where this came from, but I think 2020 had something to do with it. September 14, 2020.

Hearing is believing. Two times through a brief clip of birds in a tree, taken on my evening walk. The second time through is at half speed. They are in there somewhere. September 20, 2020.

Brief meditation on beginning autumn. September 27, 2020.

Autumn miniature. Kingston, NY, October 19, 2020.

Autumn tree poem. Kingston, NY, October 22, 2020.

The leaves, they do fall. Kingston, NY, October 23, 2020.

Autumn 2020. First snow, Kingston, NY, October 30, 2020.

Going to the root. Kingston, NY, November 4, 2020.

Tree Mushrooms Jay Coyote. Kingston, NY, November 11, 2020.

Feeding time. Kingston, NY, November 14, 2020.

Autumn 2020, full on (rather, full off). Kingston, NY, November 20, 2020.

Full of thanks. Trees in backyard, Kingston, NY. Thanksgiving, November 26, 2020.

Exploring the stump in our back yard. Kingston, NY, November 30, 2020.

First big snow in our new home in Kingston, NY. December 17, 2020. A friend described this as “this almost feels like a novel...a long, beautiful story compressed into two minutes and nine seconds..”

Winter trees, sky and clouds. Kingston, NY, December 29, 2020.