Being Flowers
Don't be perfect
Hello friends,
I’d like to leave you this year with two things. The first is news that a song from Graze the Bell - a patient number called Being Flowers - is available now for anyone who pre-ordered (or pre-orders) the album on Bandcamp. This one floats… a simple melody hung on pillars of space. The tune began as an homage of sorts to the miracle of humanity that is Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, but veered quickly into something a bit more my own. It also carries the distinction of being my mothers favorite song on the album.
The final thing I want to leave you with is a brief writing I did about the title of Graze the Bell. I never intended to share it, but reading it again I feel it provides a nice illumination for anyone looking to go deeper. I hope it’s a great one out there for you and I’ll see you next year.
Graze the Bell out Jan 30, 2026 on RVNG Intl.
Release show Feb 12, 2026 @ Roulette (NYC) - tickets
With love,
David
There is no mountaintop — and no path to it. Only a hope that we may, if we’re lucky, occasionally graze the bell.
I’d believed for so long that heaven was a place on earth. I thought that there was a destination I was moving towards, and a path that led me there, and so all I had to do was find the map and walk the walk. I worried too, sometimes, about arriving – accomplishing, because what on earth could ever come AFTER you attain your goals and your happiness and your peace?
But it all feels different now. It seems now that maybe there is no promised land to get to at all, at least not in the way I’d imagined it. There could be no arrival and spending my life in service of an unattainable goal was maybe not the most spiritually rich way to live. What seems far more likely is that my path is to live in accordance with my values, and trust that if I live a life full of love and compassion I would be treated with some spectacular views along the way. What freedom.
I named the album long before I knew any of this. The phrase “graze the bell” came to me years ago out of nowhere and meaning nothing, but affixed itself to me so strongly that I never doubted I would come to understand it. Some things you carry around like that I suppose.