Sound And The Messenger
Bio
John Hatanaka is a songwriter, traveler, and seeker of soulful moments. When he's not creating music or walking barefoot through new places, he writes stories that blend presence, love and memory
Instagram: @soundandthemessenger
Stories (48)
Filter by community
Solemn Kindness
Solemn kindness. What is that? Is it what we are inside? I ask myself this sometimes in the mid hours of waking between dreaming and sleeping, between thoughts and silence. It's clouds of memories that envelope my existence sometimes and give me the power to vibrate within existence. Everything is vibration. Even the candle on the table or perhaps the finger of fire that strokes the air. That too is a vibration. It creates the sound of warmth filling existence with heat. Sometimes I look deep into a fire into its blue under core, into its heart and soul. It's late at night when this can happen, when the forest is alive with a different kind of animal. The other night I sat on a rock in pure silence and sensed the aliveness of the trees around me each talking silently, each giving their breathes slowly with solemn kindness. When I feel really empty sometimes I can really feel my feet against the ground and really feel each characteristic as they hit the surface that I'm walking on like I could sink up to my knees and seep into the Earth at a thought. This thought envelops me and and makes me feel good with solemn kindness. Wind awakens the being. There are times when the Earth is perfectly still, where not even a bird chirps as if the moment is holding its breathe and then a cloud of wind comes through and puts in a shiver of warmth. I've noticed that when I've been on a pool deck on a warm summers day when the sun is beating on my back and concrete below me is warm and then a light breeze washes the land and puts a light touch to my soul. It might be solemn kindness. That can happen under water as well deep in the water or the bottom of the pool where I let some air bubbles up and watch them reach the surface, watching each bubble flop around and change before it reaches the colored sky above me and goes back to its maker. It makes me think of water in a different way right then and there. I breathe air right now and yet when I'm underwater it gains a different quality. In reality those air bubbles that I let out at the bottom of the pool are not air bubbles, but instead CO2. In that moment I'm giving effortlessly. When those bubbles reach the surface they travel to a distant tree and give it some love. We give every moment of our lives without even knowing it. That bubble reaches a leaf and touches it and the leaf takes that bubble of CO2 and it might become brighter. When I breathe in I take and when I breathe out I give effortlessly and naturally like the tree does. Yet when I'm at the bottom of the pool this is paused for I can only give when I'm laying on the floor at the bottom looking up at the wavy film above me. Time wraps around your wrist sometimes if you wear a watch.
By Sound And The Messenger3 months ago in Poets
Band Waves
An Intro If There Ever Was One As a songwriter I often wonder what I do. As a person I often wonder what I do. Sometimes sitting down and writing a song is more of a time capsule of a moment. Then again sometimes music fits itself in perfect with a scene of life. It perfectly accompanies the background of the present predicament, almost as if putting gentle icing on a part of life's riddle. The creative process isn't without twists and turns though. Sometimes you arrive at your creative workspace only to realize that you have forgotten an essential tool required for the creative process. Sometimes you're about to play a gig and the speaker fails to work. Sometimes you leave the banjo in Glenwood. Why is it always the power cord that is not plugged in? Sometimes a gig gets canceled. I don't really know where I was going with this, but I do know that I made a movie. I'd like you to watch it. I plan to make another one soon.
By Sound And The Messenger4 months ago in Art
Royal Mail
Twenty seconds more and the blinking red dot would switch to green. 24 hours before he had purchased the handheld from a nearby electronic store and here he was using it. The synchronicity of it all was quite uncanny. In that moment of that thought the machine switched over all the files downloading, seeming like all the information of the world was running though the small device in electronic form. The tiny CPU buzzed like a hummingbird. It seemed so easy! Why had no one else done this? Why would anyone else want to do this? Actually there were lots of people that we're interested. Would he reveal it? All these thoughts ran through his head. "There's a lot going on in the world, but there's more going on in my mind" He thought about the quote from the girl in "The Land of OZ" That's what they had called it. He thought about the giant coverup, the conspiracy or was it? Long the jury had been out. Then it was finished and the only result letting anyone know what had just happened was the small letters blinking in green on the device that faintly spelled out the word "TITANIC"
By Sound And The Messenger3 years ago in Fiction
ALIVE
The Find We're always seeking to find that next thing. That next product that gives us great energy, yet doesn't break the bank and it's always a plus if it's environmentally friendly. For the better part of the last six months life has found me in Arizona or I have found it, or a mix of both. To be more specific, I've been making the rounds darting in and around Sedona. It's summer now and the desert has been hot. I heat up my store bought vegan pizza at a temperature of 125 degrees Fahrenheit and it's getting up past 100 degrees on a daily basis. To this I often ponder "If you eat a lot of vegan pizza are you a vegan pizza"? We'll leave the answer to the desert wind.
By Sound And The MessengerExclusive • 3 years ago
Where The Gigs Start
Saying Things They say life starts when your best made plans take a break on the side of a highway somewhere between Moab and Sedona on the reservation in the middle of June. They also say that none of these things really matter. You could've lived in Japan, played music in Australia, kayaked many rivers, climbed many peaks, but really life spits out "who cares" at you around every turn. That's why playing music and making art is important. It really jumbles everything together and plops you down in a coffee shop so you can pretend to write and enjoy your favorite brew. That's why you're doing that in that precise moment. No one really knows what brings you there and with time you learn to not care about that either. Now that doesn't mean that everything's not sacred. Not caring and being sacred as it turns out are two very different things. The answer to why this is requires lots of contemplation and few words and so it's better to refrain from any true answer. Any true answer really gets away from the answer or it becomes a fake answer or something in between. It can be kind of compared to the smell of coffee versus what coffee actually tastes like. You're the one writing in a coffee shop though so it seems linked up to write this down to explain things. You're the creator in every moment and at the same time not at all.
By Sound And The Messenger4 years ago in Beat
The Drawing Out
She was always a little scared when they went on the buffalo hunt, yet she was proud of him as well. Five days they were usually gone. The wind blew across the desert plains during this time and occasionally the sky would grow pregnant in the afternoon. It would then wash the land soon after, transforming everything from dry to wet and then low hung clouds would leave the tall canyon towers misty and fresh. She liked to take walks occasionally after the storms, as the sage was especially pungent after the rain had been with it, small raindrops clinging to the plants green flowers, seeking to hold onto the remnants of the storm for a little longer. Sometimes the thunder rolled deep in the night, droplets drumming on her sinew tepee and deep rumbling from closer and farther away mixing with the pauses in her heartbeat. She'd wake up, wet as the rain pouring outside on many of these kinds of nights and without him, her hands would dig deep under the furs. She'd soon find both of her legs moist and she'd sigh as she found her opening with soft fingers and imagine the way he could touch her slowly.
By Sound And The Messenger4 years ago in Filthy
Start Off Your Morning Spring
As some of you may know if you've read some of my other articles, or if you've seen me on Spotify and listened to my music, or if you've happened to find me on the web, I find myself jumping around in many different professions during this time of my life. Mostly, for the winter I've been a massage therapist at a wonderful spa here in the high Rockies of Colorado. As a result I have found it imperative that I have good energy when I start my day. About a year ago I stumbled upon Robin Sharma's book "The 5 am club," which I committed to for 90 days and then proceeded to throw out my back and so that practice quickly went on the back burner. However, recently, I've dug myself back into into that practice, staring up into those mystic Colorado stars at 5am as I head out for my 30 minutes of running insert Isabel's Paige's "Oh my gosh Wowww" exclamation. Lately, however a key part of my routine has been what I put into my body first thing in the morning and one of the key players is this green juice company that I discovered.
By Sound And The Messenger5 years ago in Longevity
Mantra is to Affirmation
When I returned from India at the turn of 2017 into 2018 I was called to go see a hand reader. By visiting her I think it definitely shook up my life and my perception. A few months later I would end up moving to Rifle, which was a decision I could've hardly fathomed at the time. By moving there I was able play some music gigs in nearby Grand Junction, made a connection with a girl whom would then become a great friend into the present day and also this would cause me to probably put my money in on a loop pedal, which was a purchase which I haven't regretted and has surely added to the creative spark in the times where all creative sparks can go out. Apart from these external positive externalities, I also was left with learning about the power of numbers and specifically the belief that the Universe, "The Divine" "your higher source" is always looking to speak with you, but doesn't know how, therein comes the presence of numerology.
By Sound And The Messenger5 years ago in Motivation
Two
Jose Cupertino sped down Highway 133 in an old busted up 1985 Toyota pickup truck. He had been driving for days, weeks, hours. Time didn't really register to him anymore. His main last memory among his numerous other thoughts was of a woman handing him a black notebook. He could remember the look in her eyes as she handed it to him. It was an expression of fear, tired, lamentable fear. He was the last person anyone would suspect and that probably had been the reason of why he was chosen. He was a postal office worker in the little town of Medillin. It was a town that had transformed from a peaceful village to one of civil unrest. Killings and gunshots were now a part of everyday life. In the black book was a short plea to hide the pages secrets and stuck into the bookend was a passport, his photo imprinted in the middle of it, perfectly as though it had always been there. He had never been to the U.S. He found it somewhat ironic that now he was being forced there that night. He had barely known the woman. She had been a regular customer of his, an international customer, and later there had been a light friendship, but nothing more and now he was headed up north to meet relatives of hers that she had never seen and he had never known apart from the envelops that he would deliver to her doorstep every couple of weeks. It seemed fitting for the times, yet surreal to reality at that moment. It was under the cover of darkness that he had left Medillin with its deep green hills and humid breeze. There was a guard post just outside of the village and he was stopped, but no one paid much attention to the run of the mill postal worker. Soon the green hills were at his back and night sky were in the windshield before him. Two hours later he had made it through customs at the Metropolitan Airport. The passport had checked through, a modest business man he appeared to be in the photo and then he was taxing on the runway with another 150 passengers headed for Houston, Texas. As the wheels left the tarmac two words popped into his brain and he wondered why they would be those two words, but also partly understood and then the plane banked upward into the black space of the Columbian night sky and disappeared into the low hanging clouds that only a jungle could command and contain.
By Sound And The Messenger5 years ago in Criminal
