Joe Paulik Vision

Vision

My hope is to enhance the awareness of our connection to the Earth, the philosophy and skill of living with the Earth and Nature, and the process of healing through sound, music, and video.

Songwriting has always come naturally to me. From my earliest childhood memories there were songs playing in my head that I didn't hear anywhere else. When I learned what songwriting was, I recognized it as a calling, a command to remember and write these songs down. I sensed some greater purpose for them.

 I love recording. Since my first album The Road, which was engineered by Michael Monroe, I've acquired microphones and equipment and engineered and recorded my own albums and music. I am a passionate student of Nature, at times obsessed with recording extended Baseline Symphony tracks of birds, animals, insects, water, and wind, in order to learn the sophisticated language of nature, and just for the sheer enjoyment of it. Learning the ABC's of Nature's sophisticated language has been one of my life's greatest thrills. My partner Jessi Nicholson, who is a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine shares my love of nature. We heard and read about the health effects of the sounds of nature, and so tried using them at her clinic. She now often plays long Baseline Symphony nature tracks while her patients are waiting for or receiving TCM. I've also combined them with my music. Through experience we learned that listening to extended nature tracks can be quite stress relieving, and an aid to healing for patients. They also help create a fabulous environment for children growing up at home, at school, or recreation.

Rounding out my passions, I study natural healing techniques. I love plants and work with their edible and medicinal qualities as well as their ability to communicate. I record video in nature whenever something strikes me.

Education

Much of the way in which I view Nature and philosophy is a result of attending Tom Brown's Nature, Tracking, and Wilderness Survival School, beginning in 1982 and continuing to the present day. Tom often says, "teach only what you have mastered". I aspire to hold myself to this standard. In the songs, stories, and descriptions on these pages I often refer to phrases and teachings which come either from Tom or from his teacher, Stalking Wolf, the Apache elder. What I've learned over the years at the Tracker School about healing, life philosophy, communing with nature, and survival is intertwined and part of my life. I accept any flaws herein as my own, as non-mastery.

Tom is a coyote teacher, leading one to truths by offering more questions and side routes, hardly ever giving a direct answer. I know that it is not really possible to utter or write a word without teaching in some way. In writing this paragraph, I am teaching you about one of my teachers. Have I mastered this subject? No, but I've mastered as much as I'm saying about it.

Tom also often says, "if you believe me you're a fool; prove me right or prove me wrong". In saying that, he is demanding that the student question the teacher, and revealing up front that he won't be party to any inclination to view him as an idol....

Read more...