It was the winter of 2001-2002. 💙 I felt like the music I was making wasn’t good enough, wasn’t catchy enough, wasn’t poppy enough; it was too spiritual, too indie, too “me.” I wanted to write something that people would like. I wanted to be “successful.” So this was the song born of my desire to fit into mainstream music. I still think it’s catchy, it has great production, but almost every moment of it is two-dimensional to me. I have it positioned as track 5, chakra 5, the throat chakra represented by the blue color, as a symbol of a blocked throat chakra saying words and singing songs that don’t align with my purpose or soul’s expression. I put this out here as a message to myself to never again make something to try to please the powers that be, to never make art for the purpose of being liked or making money, and to always be fully authentic, fully from my spirit, no matter what happens or doesn’t happen. And so it is! 🦋

Oh the deep yearning of the wounded self. The unhealed heart center. The addiction to a person, a situationship, a fantasy. Distracting myself from the life and healing in front of me for the alleged greener grass of an illusion. I remember this viscerally. And you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to this internal world in my life lol. But hey, yearning can make great art! 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚

A lot of this time of my life is a blur, but I’m pretty sure I wrote this song in or around 2005, and performed it with my band, Bella Swank. This live recording was done at Bella Swank guitarist Kenn’s house in San Clemente, California in 2008.

Emerald Shards is the fourth song on my most recent release, Seven Seasons: a second anthology of music I recorded, from 2001 to 2009, and finally released Autumn Equinox 2024. The fist anthology was released on Spring Equinox 2024 entitled Ostara Orion. It includes songs I recorded from 1998 to 2009.

Brighter Sun! ☀️ ☀️ I was 22 years old, a new mom, living in Oceanside, California, and figuring myself out. I still am. I so badly wanted a music career, but I didn’t see anything about the music industry that would work for me or even want me and what I was trying to do. I still feel that way. But I also still feel like I have to keep doing what I’m doing. Brighter Sun is about finding your true calling, being your true self, and ignoring the surface culture that says you need to be a certain way, look a certain way, make art a certain way. May we keep shedding our layers, being brave, and shining our light to the world around us. Find your sun. ☀️☀️☀️

Brighter Sun is the third song on the album Seven Seasons. This song, along with She Is A Temple, were written and recorded in 2001 in San Diego, California with producer Anthony Smith.

Hello, my Pumpkin Fluff. 🎃☁️ This song is unabashed, unrequited love. A connection that severs before it can grow. The heartbreak of a story that ends as soon as it begins. The dashed expectations of love blossoming and withering almost simultaneously. I feel this and I see this in so many different stories now. Romantic connections, dreams or friendships not meant to be, the tragedy of miscarriage and birth stories that end lives, hopes, and dreams, the loss of precious pets, a deep yearning for something you know is possible but feels just out of reach. The universal human conditions of love and loss connect us all together. We can hold each other closer, love a little harder, communicate more authentically, and strive every day to soften deeper into a life of kindness, warmth, and gratitude.

Pumpkin Fluff became a song for my band Bella Swank in 2005. My co-writer, Juston Botello, sent me this guitar part, and I immediately felt the tender heartstrings of what it could be, infusing it with my own personal feelings and experiences. This version of the song was recorded solo with studio musicians in Provo, Utah.

In 2009 when I was writing and performing in a duo called Grapes Of Jade, I was also a single mom and an on-site manager of an apartment building. I felt spread thin but grateful to be able to provide for myself and my kids, and still play music. My co-writer Cari sent me this guitar part right around the time I heard about two separate stories of children in my immediate ecosystem that were in dangerous, heart-wrenching circumstances. I felt so deeply summoned to do something about it, and so helpless in what to do, or if it was even my place to take action. In hindsight it definitely was.

These lyrics are from the perspective of someone in great need. Someone pleading to be seen, to be heard, to be helped. This feels painfully relevant in our world today. May we reach out to those in need. May we not cower in self-doubt. May we act with courage and be of service wherever and whenever we can. ♥️🙏

A big thank you to Lis Viegas for her percussion prowess on this recording. What a gift you have an what a gift you are. 💎

This was one of my favorite songs we did in 2005. I wrote the lyrics as a note-to-self because I felt like I was shying away from my goals and dreams, and I was truly asking myself the questions: Where are you running to? Is that your plan to hide your head in sand your whole life through? Whatever happened to your carpe diem attitude? Is that passé now that they found a pigeonhole for you? You gotta let yourself GO. 🐎🔥🔥🔥 There have been plenty of times since then that I have found myself asking the same questions, and this song always reminds me to be brave and take action. 👊🐎⚔️

Bella Swank was a rock band that formed and played around Southern California in 2005. 🌞

Vocals - Summer Brighton

Guitar - Kenn Nicol

Bass - Rikki Sterling

Drums - Juston Botello

This song is for the moment you're standing in front of your significant other wondering should I stay or should I go, and something wells up inside of you and says: So many days, so many nights, so many minutes, so many moments all wrapped up in you. The day we met, do you remember? And when we fell, do you remember? Please believe in us.

Bella Swank was a rock band that formed and played around Southern California in 2005. 🌞

Vocals - Summer Brighton

Guitar - Kenn Nicol

Bass - Rikki Sterling

Drums - Juston Botello

I'll always Remember you guys! 🥲🤘🎶

Picture it: It's 2005. You have a RZR flip phone 📟 and a Myspace account 👤. These things are central to your life. You see on Myspace that the band Bella Swank 🎸 is playing a show near you. You put on your True Religion jeans 👖, Abercrombie shirt 👕, and Paris Hilton fragrance 🧯. Your chunky highlights are gleaming ✨. You walk into the venue just as they start playing Undone 🎤🥁. I wave at you from the stage 👋. I was hoping you would come 💓. You feel so alive. Let's rock, let's rock today. 😎🤘

This was recorded live in my living room in Murrieta, California in 2005.

Bella Swank was a rock band that formed and played around Southern California in 2005. 🌞

Vocals - Summer Brighton

Guitar - Kenn Nicol

Bass - Rikki Sterling Drums -

Juston Botello

Thanks guys, for this awesome time of life! 🤠🎶

This song is about reconnecting with loved ones after death no matter where they are or what they become. I think it's my favorite song I've ever written. The first line in the chorus is from Sufi poet Rumi's line: We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.

In 2009, I was in a duo called Grapes Of Jade with an insanely talented acoustic guitar player named Cari. I haven't been able to track her down, so if you know her, please reconnect us. I will be releasing all of our material soon, but this song was my favorite, and it fits perfectly with the vision of OSTARA ORION.

I wrote this song around 2004 after I heard a story about a girl who sent her husband off to war and he never came home. It’s infused with my own feelings of yearning and longing for a love that feels like home. I performed this song with my band Bella Swank throughout 2005, and then recorded this solo version when I thought going solo was a better, safer option. Whether that was right or wrong, it’s what happened, and now I am piecing together all the music we made together and apart. Sometimes the story of the music writes itself.

Lyrics and music by Summer Brighton, produced and recorded in Provo, Utah in 2006 at June Studios.

The vacuum of emotion between love and the disconnect. The vast and lonely in-between of needing someone who no longer needs you. Of needing a version of myself that hasn't been forged in the firmament yet. The limbo of wondering where I went off course. This is the empty space and time of floating in the visceral nothingness of hanging on, letting go, and learning to flow. Welcome to OSTARA ORION.

empty space and time Lyrics:

the pages are turning our story feels cold faded and torn

I'm weary of wandering while you just move on how could you move on

I can feel every ache awaken won't you make me stay away

I'm crying out from somewhere I'm dying to be nowhere

Calling out for someone I'm falling down for no one

walk away

Recorded in Los Angeles, California with Daniel Lenz in 2007.