Tag / Vivid Dwells Series

by Ryan Boos

Creative Healers Hope

Vivid Dwells #3

What is this hope always present in the day? Why did it still find a resting place with him, his dreams? In the deepest places of his mind, where the dark roots of doubt came over his shoulders, pulling down, and down, and down, there was still this hope. A word sitting comfortably on a giant screen, in black, bold as the sun, HOPE. It embarrassed him at times if he allowed the negative characters in his soul to own the heart’s floor. He could proceed if that word stayed there on the screen. It would flash when the tidal waves of fear could be seen miles off shore. It would pop up on walls next to paintings in the local gallery. It would be on his son’s pillow at night while he knelt down to say goodnight with a kiss. This word was a friend? This word was his soul expressing the belief to keep moving in his dreams, to push forward in his HOPE. He knew the importance of sharing this word in other ways around his life. To not give up or give in to the temptations of doubt in center of the circle, valleys away from the edges where he was building his home. To be of service could mean to share this Hope with others, to share his story of struggle, to become a creative healer in the new spectrums of his work. Hope, not like the political slogans of the past, but further along in the soul, in the hearts playground, in the wide audience of nature. 

by Ryan Boos

Nomadic Firs – What does it mean?

Vivid Dwells #2

During my 5 am routine of body movement, resistance training, and writing, writing, writing. I got to thinking about my music outlet, Nomadic Firs. I’m about to release my fifth album this spring, and the first two singles off this record are available anywhere you listen to your music, digitally. It’s an exiting time for me and this particular piece of work. Many years in the making, many false starts and rediscoveries to see it finished. And truthfully, it’s never finished. We just realize the importance of the next experience, so the goodbye is always right there, we just have to own it, and let it go. With enough of them, you get really good at this part. It’s applicable to every aspect of your life, except your children. That’s forever, even after you say goodbye for the last time.

I can say without hesitation, this is a life long concept with very distinct points in time, all based on my experiences including romance, whether realized or fantastical. People, the human experience, mannerisms, actions, cruelty, violence, deep love, seeing birth, divorce, criminal activity, and sex. These moments have meant so much to my work in this space. The ability to evolve inside my own emotional intelligence, truth, and spotting the unfortunate and fortunate reality of humans in certain situations – spotting the tells to inform the realness. It’s taught me how to listen, and care for others, the importance of community outside of technology, with strangers and streets, and parks, we all need to take care of independently of friendships, which are important as well. This project taught me about boundaries, my boundaries, and the importance of connection that’s not based in my own opportunity. It’s taught me my value system, what I will tolerate, and where my intolerance begins.

There’s a deep place you go in creativity. It’s a religion of solitude that requires a great deal of courage to manifest such vulnerable truths in ones self. Along the way, in your love (life) movements, you’ll find confusion, and people’s general ignorance to mere facts and actuality of devotion in a space of art making, that isn’t commercial in its intention. There’s a difference between a maker who sells wares for a living and an artist who struggles and succeeds based on the whirl wind flux of life, translating onto a page, or a scene, or a sound. And actually, this reality is not what you make, eventually, it’s just who you are. The solitude is a developer of Self. The ultimate way to discovery in your truth. Now, this doesn’t mean you live there forever. You move in and out, swaying like a dance. You seek others to come in and play with you, to feed off you as you do them, then you move back into your place of isolation for a time. You can isolate around people, it’s not an “alone in the cabin” story, every time. You become the outcast to some, or seemingly “unapproachable” as one woman said to me recently, then we talked for two hours, and danced the night away. You’re the mystery, and all the words and judgments are part of what you need to move forward. You lay down a welcome mat for these cruelties. You know something they are afraid to explore, because quite frankly, this deep space of solitude with you feels as scary as it gets. You can’t hide from your soul, or your shame there. You sit in it, dwell, ruminate, express in your craft. It’s good, it’s ugly, it devastating, but you do it anyway because you’re breaking through to the other side, and it’s GOD speaking to you. And the people who never see that, believe in it, or try to understand. Those are the people who will benefit from your work the most. Crying, laughing, dancing, thinking weirdly, being in crazy love. Those are just a few of the gifts brought to you by my hard ass work in the solitude of creativity. We are tasked with bringing forth the emotion of humans. That’s a lot of responsibility.

So what does Nomadic Firs mean?

Our minds are vast and endless, practically limitless and hardly ever fixed, rooted, grounded, etc. Our bodies are limited, almost always in one place, and often staying in one area. That’s Nomadic Firs to me. It’s a metaphor for the human experience. This concept started when I was married. You start to feel trapped and stuck in a routine. I love family, my children, and being a father. As an individual with a creativity value system, my mind was an endless adventure filled with imaginative story lines, some wholesome, others not. I began to see how limited we are in life because of our bodies, and in many ways how the body can trick the mind into a stationary stasis of existence. We can’t fly, we usually live in a house or apartment, in one town, for the majority of our lives. We typically stick to the same routine or start a new routine. Even the good things are programmed. Is this a bad thing? Of course not. It’s not a matter of those old languages. It’s just a truth that’s hard to avoid. Especially as we age, slow down a bit. Remember, it’s a concept. It gives meaning to the work. It’s playful, and bigger than a song. It’s a film, my film. I’m always tinkering with it, but for now, I like where it is.

by Ryan Boos

Oyster Bar – Vivid Dwells #1

From August 13th 2022, sitting outside in the rain at my Uncle’s oyster bar, in Battle Creek Michigan.

Water is running down this tin roof outside. It’s a gray morning. Later, we bury our brother, father, uncle, and friend. By eleven the reality will set in and this will be another moment in time where we all say our goodbyes. Death brings out inner demons through grief. You can watch a person melt away in front of you. In their moment this new persona prevails, the one with less to give, more to say, and something to prove. My thoughts want not to judge, however, we are raised and praised to judge those exposing the rails of self they hide. This to some could be a simple ceremony, a simple week of going through the paces. Beneath all the streamlines and emotional numbness…there is a wild, streaking, in your face, poetry. This could look like a peaceful morning, or physical conflict. This could be as soft as a threatening message through social media, or large vats of blue tequila that turn a greenish color when stirred. In all the madness we have to choose how we will function through this space. Are we to become a vessel for others….Hidden in the words of “support” or guilted from another to control their experience? It seems easier to disengage, to not allow anyone the actions of telling you where you go, how you cope, or when to leave. 

I’ve spent decades of my life sitting in chairs because someone else needed me to. Anymore, it feels wrong to move without choice. Odd how the very characters of this story never ask much about me, or how my life is going. You can hide a wealth of sadness and pain in front of most people and they can’t even sense a subtle tinge of imbalance because they are hyper focused on themselves. I wonder how that sustains through so much territory of vitriol, and poisonous truth a tongue has been dying to convey. But we surrender to our demons the fickleness of our souls. We want to spit venoms and let people know because we ourselves are afraid, bitter, and ready for change. Fear exposes such things when tensions stir up the great sagas of a life. We are not so young anymore after loss, after years of depression, and struggle to believe. These truths shatter fantasy, they force us to want more while being disabled to produce a pathway. Why do we fear ourselves in the eyes of the public? Any public, even the community you believe has your back. Truth is, we have to sail away, alone, while looking for the new versions of our intentions. You can call it a restart, a fresh start, we can call it a crisis, we can label it something that’s terrifying, sublime, you name it we can say anything, do anything, be anything. But there’s a price and we always have to say goodbye somewhere. Always.