Greg Murat (mur-rah)
Singer-Songwriter Guitarist Poet
Home Shows Bio Music Lyrics Poetry Video
Journal
June 20,2022
It is a much different world than when I last made a journal entry.
I hardly know where to start. Everything on this outdated laptop is challenging. Lots of
freezes. The picture above was taken on the Cowlitz River on a fishing excursion I took with Andie's dad Noel. It was a grand day on the river. No bites.
No fish but what a beautiful view from the boat.
I don't think I will write too much this first day of revisiting the site after a few years. I will begin with the following quote:
John Lennon
"When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps."
Well I ate some Mexican food and took an hour nap. I may be a while getting back to speed writing.
The sun is shining outside my studio window. It has been so raining this season. This thing is scrolling up and down while I try to type. I was thinking it is the Apple mouse so I turned it off.
Hmm. It seems to have stopped but so have I. Until the next time.
August 7, 2019
...
March 23, 2019
You are never too old to set another goal or dream another dream. C. S. Lewis
It is my daughter Chani's Birthday today. Another year has come and gone and time keeps ticking, ticking on and on and on. I am grateful to see she realizes the her abilities and hopes and dreams are limitless. I have seen get knocked down hard and each time she rises and becomes stronger. She has learned the art of letting go in an old soul way. So as I sit in the studio on this gray spring morning I am thankful to be her papa and see her shine. I am thankful for each day and all the time I have managed to survive on the planet. I am sending out the love to Chani and everyone this brand new day.
January 13, 2019
Sitting in the studio this Sunday afternoon. I am listening to Andie and Kayden laugh and shout as they play Fort Night Video games, a great escape from the day to day. I find it is a good exercise juggling flash backs of Vietnam and seeing the joy that guns and battle brings the both of them. The above picture was taken on a day I spent on the Cowlitz River with Andie's father Noel. It was so peaceful. I never experienced war on a boat so it was just peaceful and I was grateful for the time. I didn't care about catching a fish I just loved being on the water.
Now I am looking around thinking I need to see if I can work anything in the studio. Power is out to the whole side of our home. I have been using minimal power until we can figure out what is happening. I made a long to do list but I left off "read your to do list" so I have gotten nothing done at all.
I saw a video of many musicians playing at a local venue and they were having a ball. I think that is awesome. I just can't seem to get in a space where I am comfortable being out in public playing music. It feels claustrophobic to me. I keep trying to go out there but I get anger triggers and flash backs and it seems to be getting more difficult with the passing of time. Tonight I would like to see if I can get this gear up and going and I could practice singing and writing for a bit. We will see. I hope I service the war.
Many blessings and much love to the world. PapaG
December 2, 2018
Lean into it. Breathe through it. This too shall pass.
Reflection on all the natural disasters gives one pause. A feeling of detachment is difficult to avoid as it all seems to stretch the imagination and the boundaries of reality. The photos of the fires in California are surreal, heart breaking and tragic. Now the earthquake in Alaska adds a new series of hardships for people and animals. It is numbing in its intensity. I would pray straight away in the past but it seems more and more difficult. I know we need help and guidance on this journey. We need to help one another. I feel so much the need to be contributing but feel frozen in place. I am so very grateful for the family and friends I have and the many comforts we enjoy like running water, heat, shelter, food, electricity. We are always grateful for these things and for each other. I am grateful for the outlet music gives me to be creative. I am mostly reflecting on what I have created already, what remains unfinished, lost archives, a handful of pictures from past performances.
The shadow of Vietnam darkens every aspect of my life view and I strive daily to rise from the ashes and face another day. I am thankful for the resources I call upon through the VA to help to make the journey bearable. That rucksack is so heavy but psychically attached until I find a way to lay it down and I hope I can. I hope all my fellow veterans can as well. Holiday seasons seem to bring me way down. I guess the fact that my father passed away on New Year's Ever 2015 has something to do with it. My mother passed a few days from Andie's Birthday. I am grateful for their lives and the life they gave to me.
So I am sending out the love tonight and a wish for safety, peace and healing to each and everyone.
October 15, 2018
It is a blustery autumn day in Snohomish County. Frost was on the ground this morning and a chilly mist was in the air. The house is quiet as Andie sleeps to overcome an autumn cold. Morning meditation. A drive to recycling. Breathing through flashbacks of Vietnam. The of a helicopter still transports me to Asia and sitting in the doorway of a Huey helicopter, feet dangling out the door, gut churning with the news that it will be "Hot LZ", meaning we will be taking fire as we are dropped for out 30 day hike the jungles of the Central Highlands. Time displacement is a disconcerting occurrence. Sight, senses are all bristling with a place that is burned into subliminal memory. It is ever present like a bad Ground Hog Day. And so I breathe out and in and repeat. On and on and on.
October 2, 2018
Pictures from Vietnam by Mark Melnick
June 24, 2018
In the world of make believe we would be landing in Kauai tonight but
it did not come to pass. I need a change and I need it now.
June 17, 2018
Morning meditation at 20 minutes.
Thoughts flowed in a steady unfettered stream.
There was very little effort to curtail them. I think that is the idea. I did feel a strong sensation that reading about the Vietnam War and watching violent movies are not good for me. Those ideas and thoughts loop around my head. I remember near the end of my time in the service that it was pointed out, but to to me, that I never really returned from Vietnam and the war never really ended in my mind. The same is true today. There is a filter I used to survive there and it runs subliminally, independently and ceaselessly. It creates the idea that everything in my environment it a hostile force. This part of the brain is wired for survival and was formed in the mind of my 18 year old self. It was an essential skill in a combat environment but a debilitating reflex in day to day life that continues both waking and sleeping. It occurs to me that I have a desire to help others who are suffering as I do. It also occurs to me that some kind of effort, a return to Vietnam or some involvement with the Vietnamese community would be good. Any sort of involvement in anything thing seems very threatening however. I find myself withdrawing further and further from this life. It is my hope that prayer and meditation and music will help me to survive the desire to leave.
Sending out the love.
June 16, 2018
I began to meditate on May 29th in Palm Springs California. I was visiting with a friend I knew in Vietnam that I hadn't spoken to or seen in 47 years. He introduced me to meditation in form he has been practicing since 1996. It is interesting to stumble and fumble through 20 minutes twice a day. I had to back it off to 15 minutes twice a day. The flash backs of combat became so intense I could function even less than I have in the past and that is not much. There are at least 22 war veteran suicide casualties every day as a result of post traumatic stress from combat. There are all kinds of residual effects that haunt people veterans all their lives. I find myself thinking of the losses suffered by the Vietnamese people as well. Although we lost over 58 thousand people the Vietnamese losses were in the millions. In conflict with the French back the the '40's there was an an ambush by Viet Mihn resistance fighters that resulted in the death of 20 French soldiers. In retaliation in nearby villages over 6,000 Vietnamese were killed in artillery bombardment. These thoughts are are my mind this morning after I finished my meditation. Meditation was rocky this morning and there was virtually no stillness at all. Just flashes, breaths, bits of songs, breaths, random thoughts, flash backs to combat. I felt agitated at the end and frustrated with the day to day here at home. I am just trying to begin the process of writing down these feelings and this probably is not the place.
So breathe out and in and repeat again.
Leave the gun locked up some other place.
Look for the good in each and every face.
Seek stillness and slow this ceaseless race
Pray peace and patience be not purloined from your space
Seek forgiveness for all real and imagined sin
Breathe out and in and repeat again
June 9, 2018
Anger: Liver
So somehow or other is already June of 2018. I am at a loss over the rapidity of passing time. There are times when the past and present are indiscernible from one another. I still fear I am a casualty of Vietnam.
I lost my youth and sense of hope there but hang on to life although it seems so futile at times.
I find myself at a time when the war is in my face more than ever. Soul wounds. So much cocooned away for 47 years.
May 30, 2018
Brief entry today.
I haven't written much these days. I haven't done much of anything.
Be grateful and pay attention. Happiness is a choice. blah blah blah. :)
Talked to brother Paul today and he gave me a reminder to wake up and get out there and help heal people. "You make people feel better just by showing up." Thanks brother Paul.
Letting go seems to be the continuing them in my life. I am working on letting go of anger and negative thinking. Sending out the positive and feeling the feeling of finding inner peace and being grateful.
There has been so much inner turmoil.
I had an experience with Texas people that has been like waking from a dream. And the filter slaps over my words. It is amazing how many experiences are deleted from our view by our attitude.
And I no longer feel like writing. It is time to renew my website.
Should I bother?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Greg Andie Schedule History CDs Photos Lyrics Poetry Flash Poem
Home
Greg Murat (mur-rah)
Singer-Songwriter Guitarist Poet
Home Shows Bio Music Lyrics Poetry Video
Copyright Greg Murat 2003-2022
to infinity and beyond