In my last post I mentioned that I read a lot of Chinese hermit poetry, but posed the question why anyone would choose to live that way today. I was speaking at least partly tongue-in-cheek.
As Bill Porter, or Red Pine, our translator extraordinaire, discovered in his book, "Road to Heaven," there are still plenty of people pursuing the reclusive hermit lifestyle in the mountains of China -- something that has been done there for thousands of years.
Here is one young woman's explanation as to why one might follow such a path.
I am indicted by this particular little film. Ostensibly, the woman featured is talking about the pandemic, but really she's talking about something far more subtle, more essential, more crucial. The human heart. She talks about opening the heart. But the pandemic, and life within the pandemic, isolates one. Your heart shuts down, it doesn't open up. My heart has shut down for the most part over the past year. There is no opportunity to open it. One is alone. It gives me pause for thought. I've always been alone most of my life but life was such that I could live with the illusion that I wasn't. I'm more alone now than ever. Is it enough, to be alone? I read Chinese hermit poetry but who can really live that kind of life? Could you? Can I? Why would we want to?
This film posits the idea that collectively, our hearts are opening. I don't see it. I don't see it in the world at large and I don't see it within myself. But maybe -- maybe the speaker is right. There is a little voice inside that tells me to shut up and start listening. So I'm going to try that, although I'm not sure how.
I like these little films. Simple down-to-earth wisdom from unassuming, everyday folk. It's far better than all your grand philosophies -- (I'm saying to myself) --
This is another song by Kiran Ahluwalia and it represents what I spoke about in an earlier post regarding her musical tradition. This is a classic ghazal in terms of content, referring to the interior journey each human being must inevitably make, sooner or later, and the frustrations and hardships that are incurred in the process. Although the lyrics are rather traditional, the music is modern and that's what makes the song stand out for me.
With respect to the onus of "tradition," which can be very rigid in some cultural milieus, I heard an interviewer pose just that question to Kiran; whether she felt bound to the cultural constraints of the musical tradition in which she studied. She replied that no, she felt bound to no tradition at all and the question didn't concern her. I respect the freedom and independence of that stance.
To me, her answer is a pointer towards what I call "the new human beings." These are people who are born in one tradition or culture, but move into another, and seem to easily master or bridge those multiple cultural influences, being bound by none. I have often crossed paths with such individuals and I always find them inspiring. Kiran Ahluwalia was born and partially raised in India, partly raised and completed her education in Canada, and currently lives and pursues her professional career in New York City. She's a perfect and natural example of "the new human being:" -- at home anywhere in the world. That's my working definition. I find all this both fascinating and encouraging.
A rough translation of the song's lyrics follows. It presents the basic conundrum of the internal or mystic path: the way in which one becomes one's own worst enemy. Surely we can all identify with that dynamic in our lives. And it's a confrontation we all must face if we want to move into our authentic lives.
"I myself have wounded myself in the journey / I am myself an obstruction in my own path / My home is becoming more and more distant / I have been walking backwards / Perhaps my destination is inside of me / While I have been searching for it in the outside world."
Okay, now that spring is here and the warm weather has spawned the blooming wonder once again, sneezing allergies notwithstanding, I thought I'd throw this song out there too. It's from long ago, a relic of the Seventies, certainly a very different vibe than today, but there's something universal to this buzz. I defy anyone to listen to this and to not sense the playful energy of love, lust and the sheer ebullient joy of life. It's by John Klemmer and is called "Waterwheels."
Eli Morris singing a sweet song by Charly Garcia. Of course, we're all going to go the way of the dinosaurs someday. Sooner rather than later, speaking for some of us.
About ten years ago I was driving to work one day with the radio on. I happened to catch a live interview on a local station with an artist whom I'd never heard of before, Kiran Ahluwalia. They played a snippet of one of her songs and I was immediately captivated.
Kiran was born in India, in the north I believe, possibly the Punjab, but her family immigrated to Canada when she was ten. After completing college, Kiran went to India to study singing and thereafter followed about ten years of back-and-forthing between the two countries. She'd work and save money in Canada, then return to India to continue her studies in voice training. Her vocal form was often the qawwali, or the musical equivalent of the ghazal. As I've written before, the ghazal is a masterful poetic form which originated in Persia and moved with the Moghul invasion into what is now Pakistan and northern India. It is a vital and living artistic presence within the Urdu language.
This particular song is the first video of Kiran's that I encountered. She is singing a ghazal composed by Pakistan's beloved national poet, Faiz Ahmad Faiz.The central or chief theme of the ghazal is a plaint of the heart, although topical commentary is also popular and often interspersed within the verse.
When you watch this video, bear in mind that you are witnessing the artistic form of another culture. I see Kiran's movements and gestures as part of the form's expression, or perhaps a felt part of her personal style of delivery. She is accompanied by Rez Abbasi on guitar and Will Holshouser on accordion.
My last posting of John Fahey, recorded live with fellow guitar player Woody Mann in 1975 for the album "Old Fashioned Love." I'm not fond of the nihilistic materialist video that accompanies it but this particular video had by far the best sound quality, despite the fact that you can occasionally hear the scratches from the record. Epic Fahey in that he took a chant from India and turned it into yet another slice of Americana. That was John's genius. And a sprightly tune it is.
I suppose I'm beginning to sound like a broken record because I'm going to bring up Jack Kerouac yet again.
For many years my go-to book when I can't sleep has been Kerouac's work journals from when he was writing his first novel, The Town and The City, especially in the years from 1947 to 1949. It's interesting to listen to his frustrations as he was trying to learn, to teach himself, how to write. This would have been his mid-twenties. Ever the auto-didact, Jack had already written several unsuccessful manuscripts by then, and before he was done, he'd have over 1,000 pages for T&C, all written laboriously in pencil. He'd usually work from around midnight until dawn or thereabouts. His father had died of cancer in 1946 and his mother worked in a shoe factory. Jack never really held a steady job. Writing was his work and his life.
As a teenager in Lowell, Massachusetts, Jack was a reclusive reader and writer, but he was also a gifted athlete. He was a state champion as a sprinter and a star running back on the local high school football team. He first won a scholarship to a private school, where he shone again at football, then got a full ride to Columbia University on a football scholarship. As fate would have it, he broke a leg playing football but his coach didn't believe him and made him run on it for a week before Kerouac quit in disgust. It was then he decided to become a writer.
Although he served in the Merchant Marines during WWII, he also had enlisted in the Navy. But during drills one day in basic training, he threw his rifle onto the ground, walked to the library, sat down and began reading. For this, the Navy considered him mentally unbalanced but they did give him an honorable discharge so that after the war, he qualified for GI Bill funds and that partially kept he and his mum afloat while he labored away at his novel.
His journals, published as "Windblown World," have held my interest all this time because so many of the themes that played out in Kerouac's life were already in evidence: his interior spiritual obsessions, his early troubles with alcohol abuse, and his problematic relationships with women. But I don't really read Kerouac's journals because I'm driven to understand him more deeply. I read them because, as I've said before, Jack Kerouac talking to himself is far more interesting than Jack Kerouac -- or anyone, for that matter -- talking to someone else. He's just an interesting guy.
I'm going to attempt to read his first novel this spring although I haven't really read fiction since my late teens. When my next oldest sister would return from college with her literature textbooks, I would read them all. By the time I got into college myself, I had no more interest in that. Instead, I was on to philosophy, primarily eastern, middle eastern, and ancient philosophy. I was pursuing the big questions. In a way, I've lived my life backwards. While everyone else was busy trying to start their life, and maybe a family, I was doing what most people leave to the end of their lives: trying to figure out what it was all for. To me, life seemed quite meaningless unless I could find workable answers to those questions. Even in my twenties, I realized I was living life backwards. But I didn't really have any choice. That's just how I was made.
As the spring progresses, and if I can wade through T&C, I'd like to see if I can draw some parallels between Kerouac's journals as he was writing this book, and the book proper. If I have any interesting observations to make, I'll post them.
On an unrelated tangent, I'm going to post another John Fahey song. John had his own struggles with alcohol and spiritual questions. He also looked to the east for his answers. But that isn't really what this song is about. It's really a wistful and musical look back at America around about the time we all realized America was going off the rails. This is one of the few recordings Fahey ever did on a twelve string guitar.
Beyond the lilting, delicate beginning to the song, there follow several bars of what sounds like delta blues, and then later on, about three minutes in, John takes off into an excursion of American musical roots. I even think I can hear Native or First Peoples influences in there. All in all, just a beautiful song.
It was recorded on January 31st, 1971, so it's just a mite bit over fifty years old. But still worth listening to. And so....
For over forty years, Jayadev Payeng has daily been planting a forest on the island of Majuli in the midst of the Brahmaputra river, in northeastern India. Majuli Island is the largest river island in the world. However, in the past 100 years the island has lost half its land mass to erosion.
This is the story of one man's endeavor to save this island. By planting trees every day for decades, Jayadev Payeng has begun reversing the process and reclaiming lost land.
If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the deforestation and plundering of the world, whether those forces were human greed, exploitation, and avarice -- or simply nature itself, such as monsoon flooding -- and you think there is nothing you can do to stem the tide, perhaps this story might inspire. A single man took a simple step every day for forty years and rejuvenated a lost part of his world. We may think him naive, but it's this very innocence that has allowed him to succeed.
The interview with him, and the specifics of his own story, begin about 5 minutes into this documentary, which was narrated by nature photographer and journalist Jitu Kalita, who discovered Jayadev's forest one day and who has helped bring his efforts before the public eye.
An older piece from Elizabeth Morris's 2008 album, "Nazca," still my favorite work of hers. Echoes from the netherworld of the Andes and those mysterious lines on the ground which you can only discern from the air, enigmas from a long-forgotten age.
Today is Good Friday. Although I don't profess to be a Christian, I have good friends, whom I love, who do. What I do admire is spiritual sincerity. It's not so much what you believe as the sincerity of your heart that counts.
The Christian faith hinges upon the belief that Jesus willingly underwent the Crucifixion -- surely one of the most cruel forms of punishment ever devised by man -- as a sacrifice for all humankind. But then, the Christ does that every time he comes.
This song, written and performed by Leon Bridges, is an expression of humility and longing, the two qualities which make one open to healing. That is what touches me in this performance.
