If you'd like to purchase my new album, "Of the Resurrection," I would love to send you a copy. It has thirteen original songs on it, as well as original artwork, and a collage of pictures. I am selling it for 15$. Shipping and handling is on me. :
Okay, here is a short (ha ha?) biography about me. My name is Anastasia Louise Spiecker. I was born in on April 24, 1984 in Rochester, NY and moved to St. Augustine with my dad, mom, and sister in 1995. The first time I realized that I was meant for music and music was meant for me was on a field trip I went on when I was about seven years old. There was a piano that we kids were allowed to play. By ear I started plucking out "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." Music just seemed to make sense and it was so much fun. (I had to be prodded a bit to give up my turn at the piano).Anyway, I started piano lessons soon after. In school I also played the french horn, oboe, bells, and violin. I wrote my first song when I was ten. It was composed in honor of our family's recently deceased pet cat, Spider, and it was meant to be played with the tip of a pencil eraser.I picked up the guitar when I was about 13. I began teaching myself to play using chord charts and my imagination. Soon I met other guitarists who jammed with me and taught me a lot more about music and life. Along with these two fellows, I began playing publically. We started with open mikes. At fourteen, I played had a steady Friday night gig at Stogies, a local cigar bar.Eventually these guys moved away and ever since I have mostly played on my own, although there have been exceptions to that (luckily, since jamming with other musicians is fun and inspiring). In the film below I am accompanied by Jeremy Kairalla who now plays with the reggae band "Da Lions of Jah." I believe the clip was filmed by Jeremy's mother in 2004ish.Over the years I have written 50+ songs, some using guitar, some using piano. And all using my voice and the creativity that flows through me. On January 31, 2009, in Arizona, I attended the first showing of Neal David Sutz' film "Human Like You" - a film about Bipolar Disorder that features 13 of my original songs. The next day February 1, 2009 (Superbowl Sunday), I checked into an emergency clinic complaining of chest pain and walked out a few hours later having been told that I have an (approx.) 6 in. x 3 in. x 6 in. tumor in my chest. I was told that I probably had cancer and should take the earliest flight available back to St. Augustine.It's been a "whirlwind" ever since. I saw many doctors and underwent many tests. It turns out that I do have cancer; a kind called Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The doctors place me at stage 2B- bulky. "B" means I'd been having symptoms [nightsweats;itchiness]. "Bulky" means its a big 'un. The "2" has to do with how far the cancer has or has not progressed. Thankfully, there are no signs of cancer in my bone marrow or below my diaphram or anywhere else in my body.So I am currently undergoing chemotherapy. The treatment I am receiving every two weeks, "ABVD," will take 6-8 months. We will intermittently be checking how much we are kicking the cancer's ***. There is good reason to hope for remission and a cure. I am young and Hodgkin's Lymphoma responds well (er...you know what I mean) to chemotherapy. There is a high success rate. And there are lots of people praying for me, including myself.I am playing gigs here and there! I'll keep the dates posted. "Of The Resurrection" CD RELEASE: May 12, 8:30 p.m. at Zhanra's. If you feel so inclined, you can hear me blab more at my "cancer blog" : anastasiascancerexperience.blogspot.com.I guess that's all for now folks! Thanks for listening and reading!Anastasia & Jeremy, thunder, "A Little Lonely" part 1
“Truly [creativity] is a 'fearful creative power,' as Eckhart pointed out. We need, both as individuals and as peoples, to face creativity and the fears it conjures up straight in the face. Naked. And learn reverence for it, a deep, divine, 'fear of the Lord' reverence. We need to befriend creativity, embrace the shadow it extends over all of us, and love it as we have never learned to love any enemy or friend in our whole lives. We need to wrestle with creativity today the way Jacob wrestled with the angel.
For if we do not, our creativity will destroys us, if not in the form of a nuclear war, then in the form of multiplication of McDonald’s hamburger stands and agribusiness conglomerates, of pornographic magazines and sentimental news broadcasts. Consumerism after all is a kind of creativity, albeit a perverse one.
Creativity, the divine power of Dabhar, is so powerful and so overwhelming in us that we simply cannot deny it, cannot keep it down. If we are not consciously bent on employing it for life’s sake, it will emerge on its own for the sake of destruction. Today it is one of religion’s most pressing responsibilities to make creativity, this 'fearful creative power of God,' conscious to all humankind and to assist all efforts at good will in humans to redirect our capacities for generativity toward goals that are worthy of our species and are a blessing to this planet†(182-Matthew Fox-Original Blessing-).
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