It's all good

Over the course of the past week, I have been absolutely crushed by the confines of my apartment and the cold front that's slammed the Willamette Valley. So, looking to be productive in some way, I started going through old boxes. There I came across a journal from what must have been six years ago by now. I loved this journal because of the brown leather design; a tree reaching from the ground with twisted  gnarly branches. The golden knob and leather-string wrapped around securely have kept my pages relatively fresh and intact after countless moves.
I sat and read page-after-page of random musings that probably seemed like the world to me at the time, but now seem laughable. It all read like some angsty High Schooler's letter of disdain to his ex. As the pages ran on, my writing changed, drastically. I wasn't moping about how alone in the world I was, rather I focused on the how and why of Everything. I was looking for a sense of destiny and purpose but had no idea what to think, what I wanted, and where to look. I was certain of just one thing: I did not want to become just another suit-and-tie in the world. A meager and petty existence that'll surely be forgotten. I knew exactly what I didn't want and I effectively steered clear of it in one fell swoop when I abruptly quit my job at Netflix. I tend to forget how low I've let myself go at some points.
I look at myself now and I realize that all of the fears and questions have already been abolished. I am exactly where I need to be right here, right now. I've a wife that supports, understands, and encourages me in all my fights and endeavors, family that has become enormously closer through my tragedy, and I've come to terms with myself. I have absolutely nothing to worry about. Nothing can be worse than what I'm faced with, which is the greatest question that any being can face and I'm at peace with it. Beyond that, all I can say for myself and all those around me is om mani padme hum.

Music As Medicine

Music as Medicine

as seen at It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine

There exists three separate, but equally important aspects of being; the mind, body and spirit. And in each of these elements there lies the potential for an elevated state of being through the enrichment of music. Indian culture recognizes the extraordinary and very important potential behind the subtle nuances of music in this trilateral relationship. The emotive and complex ragas are a testament to the transcendence and healing response it can evoke in the listener. Every part of an ensemble contributes to a unified whole; a meditative release for the mind, a tensive shedding for the body and a transcendence for the soul. There is no room for conceit or overindulgence in a composition, for it would be considered damaging to its inherent nature and purpose. Compositions are as delicate as a flower in its spring bloom. They can be incredibly simple in their structure, but it is with the musicians and their unspoken extrasensory understanding that the truly mythical nuances lie, and precisely why such appreciation and pride is taken in musicianship within India. Now apply India’s time-old musical customs to the lightning fast advancements of the 20^th century, introduce the music of the East to the music of the West, and neither culture would ever exist in the same way.

I’ve always had a mad hunger to experience things, just as Kerouac valued in his classic novel, “mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time.” And even when the opportunity to manifest these urges isn’t readily at my fingertips, it’s in my experience that it can be boldly experienced through the artistic bloodletting of music. Every strum of the guitar, beat of the drum or stroke of the piano is an expression leading your mind to busy streets or barren wastelands, sometimes transporting you all within the span of seconds. Music has always been an integral therapeutic device of mine when it’s come to reaching for a better state of mind. The rhythm of the music is bound to the pulse of the earth; the heartbeat emanates from the ground up in all 360 degrees. The mad desert caravan drum beats of Guy Blakeslee’s “Valium Blues” will echo straight through the earth’s crust and core to the heart of the Sahara where visions of mad adventure and grandeur intoxicate the mind and body. It’s the poor man’s travel agent, health insurance, doctor, therapist; call it what you will, I call it medicine.

            It was with Ravi Shankar’s family history that we have to owe much of our embrace in the realm of world music, and its small sublet, “Psychedelia.” He toured Europe among dance and musical groups with his siblings at a very young age. He became acquainted with numerous traditional Indian instruments as well as taking to Western influences such as Classical, Jazz and cinema. He was forced to resign from dancing, and return home, yet the influence of the West had not dissipated. He took up study in Indian Classical under the rigorous teachings of Allauddin Khan in the traditional gurukul system (Ramchandani). It was with his chance introduction to Western violinist Yehudi Menuhin, and a series of consequential differences that Ravi would be convinced to return to the UK to perform and educate for audiences in the late 50’s. He recorded an LP in London titled “Three Ragas” in 1956, and began to garner attention for Indian Classical. It wasn’t until the 60’s that the fire burned hot for a change in the musical landscape.

There are two figures I give enormous credit to. Without their mad hunger for everything on this green earth at once we wouldn’t have apparitions of Vishnu and Krishna channeled through the sitar plucking of “Love You Too” or the brittle beauty in the pained bent strings of the wayfaring “No Expectations.” George Harrison took up the Sitar, and with that he forged together two realms of existence as one; he brought the east to the west. He and Brian Jones were both men, mad to live, and constantly famished, but the paths they walked were very different, and very much defined their places in musical history; they outlined all essential aspects when concerning our “Psychedelia.”

Their mission was to be taken to another time and place through their instruments. George, Brian, and their respective bands mingled with the same relative influences, so once the neighborhood friendly Beatles and diabolical Rolling Stones hit the states they were no exception to the excesses of the fast lane. It’s hard to justify the means by which their inspiration for grander sounds was unlocked, but let’s face it; man has never been a stranger to drugs as a means of escape or even enlightenment. Peyote is testament to that. They found themselves ensnared by the drug frenzy of the sixties, which no doubt opened their eyes to an eternity. George was left empty by the vacuum of this culture his music was creating; sounds of enlightenment for deaf, ignorant ears. He continued onward with his investment in the sounds and ideas of the world, but it was no longer his gift to the world, it was a personal self-fulfilling affair that he rather allowed us into. He was never afraid of investigating the great unknown, and what he developed was a medicine for the mind that knows no bounds as long as mankind continues on as a species capable of abstract, complex thought.

Brian Jones’ legacy is far less motivating. His ambition was enormous, but consumed by excess. His path tells the better known story of what the world knows as Psychedelia. Without his influence the landscape of Rock and Roll, and its predecessors like Blues and Country wouldn’t be nearly as ambitious or fulfilled by a thousand miles, but the tragedy lies in the human condition, and no amount of enlightenment could steer him from the spectacle of being a rich artist without limits. Like Jones, the excess took many brilliant minds, and muddled the very point behind this new exploration in the curative powers of music. It’s given some very credible artists a very bad name by mere association, and it’s precisely why the Kraut Rock movement coined their motto “music is the drug” for disassociation. It would be very easy to dismiss the quite impressive artistic merit, and label a nineteen minute track of droned out instruments as druggy-rock. It all stems from, and attempts to lead straight back to the original curative properties that our Psychedelia was bred for.

It’s thanks to the friendship between Ravi and George that a massive scale cross-pollination of music erupted. Jazz took serious inspirational cues from the Raga, and especially redefined the concept of improvisation, which is so vitally important within Indian music, but differs tremendously from our own ideas. One such album that displays this influence is “Journey in Satchidananda” by Alice Coltrane, composed after the death of her husband, John Coltrane three years previous (Kelsey). It’s composed in a strong meditative mode; the title track introduced with a repetitive bass line and a drone that balances between its two essential notes while the sympathetic strings echo and elongate the growing ecstasy, finally allowing for the xylophone to ease our ears into the role of the saxophone as it teeters and tumbles over and around the shakers and percussions. The Saxophone, Xylophone and percussions balance, trade and mingle for nearly seven minutes, creating euphoria and easing tension as if the players are communicating beyond words. The album continues much in this same way, revealing to the listener a world in which the mind can rise above the body, and allow for it to heal in all the ways that our conscious troubled minds cannot through a meditative state. Coltrane was a devotee of the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba, and she continued with her studies of this cosmic realm in music until her passing away in 2007 (Turiyasangitananda).

The pollination wasn’t exclusive to artists of the West by any means. The influences went both ways. Ananda Shankar, the nephew of Ravi Shankar, was well renowned for his fusing of East and West (Ramchandani) as well as the fusing between different ethnic styles from within. He displayed not just an understanding, but a very deep and great appreciation for the various young and budding genres that made Western music increasingly unique. His travels to Los Angeles in the late 60’s found him collaborating with greats like Jimi Hendrix, and releasing his first self-titled album. It featured original Indian Classical compositions and two covers of modern titles, “Jumping Jack Flash” and “Light My Fire,” both very spirited interpretations of some now-staples of Western music. His understanding of sitar and the tabla crossed with the very Western moog synthesizer (which he puts to full use), and the interaction between is fascinating. The instruments don’t sound as if they’re caged within a studio, but instead given free roam to expand as vast and far as their nature could imagine.

It wasn’t until 1975 that Ananda really put on display the truly epic powers of musical fusion he had at his will. “Ananda Shanker, And His Music” starts off with “Streets of Calcutta” and leering Moog tones. Right away the drums kick off with a fast and furious beat, tipped with a prancing Moog melody glazed straight across the top of the lower Moog tones. Then the electric guitar kicks the door down with a funk driven line that leads Ananda and his sitar plucking fingers away. The moog even seems to vocalize with the sitar and the guitar in various exchanges throughout the song; drums communicate back and forth between tabla and mridangam. The album pushes on borrowing generously from the West in forms of Funk, Jazz and Rock. He seems to have even oriented a sitar riff into his track “Renunciation,” which also features electric guitar, the source of The Riff in the West. Roles are dealt differently in Ananda’s work. His final album “Walking On” was released in 2000, a collaboration with London DJ State of Bengal, which saw his music taken into even more progressive Western territory with Break Beat and Hip-Hop.

Not all fusions were based on instrumental aesthetics. One very important aspect of Indian music is lyrical delivery, which can be meditative, healing, and increases one’s karmic standings with the spiritual world. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was considered a vocal master in his native Pakistan; he was a singer of Qawwali, a devotional music of the Sufis. His vocal range, passion, and sheer mastery could silence auditoriums or lay waste to the world if he so chose. His message was a voice behind love, peace and understanding. For this reason he collaborated with nearly any artist who approached him about using his voice for projects dedicated to such a cause. He starved for a world of understanding and co-existence. Thanks in large part to Peter Gabriel and his Real World label, Nusrat’s voice expanded well beyond his Qawwali family’s party with several collaborations, bringing him to international status. His message of peace and love was finally getting proper recording treatment, and finding the ears that needed it.

Something must be said, however, for Michael Brook whom produced Nusrat’s music under the Real World label in the 90’s. The album “Night Song” in particular; the purpose of the recording isn’t clear at all. The recordings are so over-produced and Westernized that the raw spiritual quality and gusto of Nusrat’s voice is completely lost. It’s as if he’d been reduced to a whisper with Western instruments and pop stars (like Eddie Vedder and Alanis Morissette) to back him. As long as the music found its audience and inspired the right ears, the point is moot, but it simply shows that all music is absolutely susceptible to the hollow production aesthetics of the West. To this day, rare and unheard recordings are being pulled together and released to honor Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, one of the very finest vocalists in the history of recorded music.

I believe very much in the healing powers music has over the mind, body, and spirit. I had the privilege of a brief dialogue with Jón Sæmundur Auðarson of the Icelandic band Dead Skeletons on his battle with Hepatitis C, and the healing influence that traditional Indian music, more specifically the Mantra, has had over him. Nonni’s fascination with the power of the mind over the body took him to boundaries that medicine simply couldn’t reach, specifically with Eastern medicine (Auðarson), which emphasizes visualization of the body in its healing (Shayhorn). “Sá sem óttast dauðann kann ekki að njóta lífsins” or simply “he who fears death cannot enjoy life” is the mantra he has abided by, repeated in three different languages over exotic instruments and repetitive drumming rhythms for over eight minutes.  The concept behind this track alone has kept him on a road of transcendental purity for ten years, and thus cheating what was his supposed “expiration date” by leaps and bounds. “’The Dead Mantra’is my battle and healing song, and it works very well!” he proclaimed, and so it’s with the healing, meditative and spiritual powers of the Mantra and music as a whole that Jón is absolutely convinced he is still alive today. He aimed to pour this same foundation of healing he found into his 2011 album “Dead Magick,” tapping into the nuances of what makes Indian music such a powerful force.

He took this stone he was handed, and clutched it until it bled gloriously. He is now heading a record label of likeminded musicians and inspired artists, collaborating with groups like The Brian Jonestown Massacre (an infamously respectable collective), spearheading his own band, The Dead Skeletons, and selling his artwork, inspired by his fight, on a massive scale.

Music in itself is curative. Setting the entire psychedelic fustian aside, doctors are now agreeing that music can “not only help lower your blood pressure and slow your breath, but could actually assist you in battling serious illnesses.” It’s a practice that’s been exercised in some of our most ancient cultures, but hardly recognized at large. Research of “sound healing” has established a scientific link between music and its ability to impact the body at the cellular level based on 1990’s research studies conducted in Lincoln, Nebraska. Critically ill patients that listened to Mozart sonatas required less sedation, had healthier blood pressure, and left with overall cleaner bills of health than those not subjected to music.

It’s Jón’s album that influenced me in my fight against Glioblastoma Multiforme, a type of brain tumor. With his music’s influence, and now broadening my horizons with investigation of my own into the healing powers of music, it has provided a sort of gateway beyond self-pity and misery; transcendence, acceptance, and embrace beyond the quality of living that even those with a clean bill of health could ever touch. Therefore if I may make a personal voucher, the cross-pollination of musical styles and ideas between East and West goes far deeper than cultural enrichment. The benefits of embracing the sounds and ideas are positively mystical. George Harrison, Alice Coltrane, Peter Gabriel and Jón Auðarson all seemed to have recognized this, their lifestyles forever changed when they looked down the rabbit hole, something I’ve only begun to glimpse into.

What is it about music that creates this insatiable desire to escape the body? Are the imperfections of our own personal reality so much to bear? Be the reasoning what it may, there is a corridor, and walking down you will find a door of every size and shape. And when you find the door that meets your needs, walk on through and it will surely take you miles far and away if you let it. That, to me, is the power music has over the mind, and in the mind there exists the potency to heal stronger than any medicine a doctor can prescribe.

Auðarson, Jón S. E-mail interview. 09 Oct. 2011.

Kelsey, Chris. "Alice Coltrane on AllMusic." AllMusic. Web. 31 May 2012.            .

Ramchandani, Indu. "Shankar, Ananda." Students' Britannica India. Vol. 1-5. Google Books.                   Google. Web. 31 May 2012. .

Ramchandani, Indu. "Shankar, Ravi." Students' Britannica India. Vol. 1-5. Google Books. Google.             Web. 31 May 2012. .

Turiyasangitananda, Swamini A. "Swamini A.C. Turiyasangitananda, Spiritual Director, Sai Anantam Ashram." Swamini A.C. Turiyasangitananda, Spiritual Director, Sai Anantam Ashram. Saiquest. Web. 03 June 2012. .

The Life of The Mind

The Life of the Mind

Words are mystical unto themselves. To the untrained, unappreciative ear they are just solitary utterances that hold no meaning unless paired with a mate of two or three. And even that is just the beginning of what we are taught. As we grow older, we are coaxed into a world of complex structure with prepositions and predicates, compound and complex sentences; then the formidable paragraph! All of that, just to convey one solitary thought process before moving on to another knot of words, compound and complex sentences. But I admire a world beyond our perplexing stratosphere of language where, much of the time, words are used for no rhyme or reason what so ever.

OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ

PRAISE TO THE JEWEL IN THE LOTUS

OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ

PRAISE TO THE JEWEL IN THE LOTUS

OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ

PRAISE TO THE JEWEL IN THE LOTUS

OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ

PRAISE TO THE JEWEL IN THE LOTUS

When I was young and began learning the versatility and complexity of language, my mind was enchanted; I was bound to the mastery of this new realm with mental word exercises I created for myself. It involved counting syllables with right-left-right foot taps. Odd-numbered syllabics were most important and balanced; even-numbered syllabics left me feeling at odds, as if I was one foot tap away from being at peace with myself. It was such a potent force in my mind that it could only be described as an orphic mental Feng-shui, which I would later learn is a school of thinking in terms of balance. Modern Feng-shui focuses on the Qi (ch’i) as environmental and systematic awareness; essentially finding “the perfect spot” (Bennett). Without this balance, my mind would burst into anxiety. If I had a right foot-left foot-right foot, I needed to follow up with a left foot-right foot-left foot. There! Perfect balance. My yin and yang. Therefore, it became important for me to have a resource for substituting words with others that suited my needs, but were equally as efficient.

The word in itself is composed of various components that are capable of altering its purpose if used unwittingly. These components are syllabic, punctual, and karmic. The languages of the world have intertwined so heavily and broadly that cultures throughout history have inherited words, or parts of words, and with this, they also inherit the spirit of the word; as a part or a whole.

Nothing is without meaning. “No-thing” is very much in fact some-thing. There is something within everything and that is Kotodama; “the soul of language”.

OM TRYAMBAKAM YAJAMAHE
SUGANDHIM PUSHTIVARDHANAM
URVARUKAMIVA BANDHANAN
MRITYOR MUKSHIYA MAAMRITAT

WE MEDITATE ON THE THREE-EYED REALITY

WHICH PERMEATES AND NOURISHES ALL LIKE A FRAGRANCE.

MAY WE BE LIBERATED FROM DEATH FOR THE SAKE OF IMMORTALITY,

EVEN AS THE CUCUMBER IS SEVERED FROM BONDAGE TO THE CREEPER.

My muse; my undying love; Roget’s International Thesaurus. With each additional edition my adoration blooms. There is no word that can fully convey the feeling of this book resting in my lap and the power at my disposal. It is my morning coffee and my evening tea. Twenty-something bookmarks protruding the top of the book, sticky notes of every color; worn and flapping as I skim pages (none of which dare skew the thumb-index that is so vital to me). Roget’s was the unattainable object of my affection for many-a-year until I took the leap and made it entirely my own. It’s funny how something so fulfilling and inexpensive could slip my mind once adulthood paralyzing fist struck me down. It took me eight years of life in the real world before I would take up my pen, strike paper with ink, and thus remember the object of my affection, and it’s necessity.

My wonder never ceases in browsing its contents to satisfy that cramping need for balance in my skull. My Roget. My dharma.

No two syllables stand together by mere coincidence. “Some Japanese hesitate to pick up a kushi (comb) dropped on the street because it is associated with picking up both “ku” (suffering) and “shi” (death)” (Hara 125-160). It is, however, a matter of personal belief that allows these words to come to fruition and manifest destiny. “’A language synchronizes with the actual things or ideas it represents’ as those who hallucinate can see ghosts. In such sense Kotodama ‘exists’ as the pathologic phenomenon of hallucination ‘exists’” (Hara 125-160).

Man creates his own truth.

SÁ SEM ÓTTAST DAUÐANN KANN EKKI AÐ NJÓTA LÍFSINS.

WER DEN TOD FÜRCHTET KANN DAS LEBEN NICHT GENIESSEN.

HE WHO FEARS DEATH CANNOT ENJOY LIFE.

SÁ SEM ÓTTAST DAUÐANN KANN EKKI AÐ NJÓTA LÍFSINS.

WER DEN TOD FÜRCHTET KANN DAS LEBEN NICHT GENIESSEN.

HE WHO FEARS DEATH CANNOT ENJOY LIFE.

SÁ SEM ÓTTAST DAUÐANN KANN EKKI AÐ NJÓTA LÍFSINS.

WER DEN TOD FÜRCHTET KANN DAS LEBEN NICHT GENIESSEN.

HE WHO FEARS DEATH CANNOT ENJOY LIFE.

Having a limitless companion of words at my side, the entire world is my oyster and I will no longer live within the dark shucks of a yin without seeking balance; my yang. The world of language is becoming all the more fascinating as the days progress. The numerous variances of words I thought I had known are wiping clean my verbal slate. Looking back, I am surprised. I thought I had a handle that was exceptional but I was merely a novice with high hopes. My respect for the complexity of the word is much more profound. I see just how important every stroke is. There is no such thing as a useless word. There isn’t a mark that does not demand respect. There is a distinct arrangement for everything that will lend absolute precision to a complete meaning.

It is with this same strict, extravagant, all-inclusive ideology that the mantra is put to use. It serves as a sacred link to The Gods and a means of achieving higher understanding. It allows man the means to alter his sense of being, and shift destiny within the oneness of all things. Through repetition of chant, sacred prayer, or even song, the mantra serves to “[create] not only a sense of spiritual quietude and goodness but also captures the cyclic nature of time, an important attribute of Hindu cosmology” (Alves 139). Many of these mantras are thought to be handed down from Buddha himself. They serve as pleas for wisdom or peace of mind, and bravery in the empty face of death and tragedy.

Man creates his own truth; his actions are a direct reflection of his moral truth. He creates his own destiny with karmic goodness and good will, thus he has no reason to fear his future.

AKAL, MAHA KAL

UNDYING, GREAT DEATH

AKAL, MAHA KAL

UNDYING, GREAT DEATH

AKAL, MAHA KAL

UNDYING, GREAT DEATH

I have come to a crossroads at this point in my crusade of the mind. As I read; research; study; seek-out, and learn, a faint glow grows nearer to me with each passing day. My mind's cogs turn tirelessly; contemplations for which I shall not mention, but with these considerations the strange glow swells. While dissecting and coming to terms with life on a daily basis, this is my salvation; the gentle humming light. It is my answer to life's great riddle. It is the spirit of the word. Our wavelength to the Gods. The life of the mind.

OṂ BHAI ṢA JYE BHAI ṢA JYE MA HĀ
BHAI ṢA JYA SA MU DGA TE SVĀ

OṂ BHAI ṢA JYE BHAI ṢA JYE MA HĀ
BHAI ṢA JYA SA MU DGA TE SVĀ

OṂ BHAI ṢA JYE BHAI ṢA JYE MA HĀ
BHAI ṢA JYA SA MU DGA TE SVĀ

MAY ALL BEINGS BE AUSPICIOUS!

I MAKE MY PROSTRATION TO YOU WHO DESTROYED
THE ENEMY OF NEGATIVE LIFE CYCLE CHANGES,

WHO HAS THUS GONE TO THE STATE OF
ENLIGHTENMENT LIKE OTHER BUDDHAS,

WHO PERFECTLY ACCOMPLISHED THE QUALITY OF
THE BUDDHA,

THE SUPREME PHYSICIAN WHO IS FULLY LIBERATED AND AWAKENED,

THE ENLIGHTENED ONE, MEDICINE BUDDHA. BEDURYA, KING OF THE PHYSICIANS.

It is with the utmost sincerity that I believe our words bind us to everything in all of creation. We are but mortals on this earth and we have just an inkling of understanding for the power of the mind. It is an instrument that we take for granted in every single one of our smallest moments; it is not until we understand the power of word and the cosmic ability it wields that we could possibly appreciate what it affords us.

HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA

KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE

HARE RAMA HARE RAMA

RAMA RAMA HARE HARE

Bibliography

Alves, William. Music of the Peoples of the World. Boston, MA: Schirmer Cengage Learning, 2010. 139. Print.

Bennett, Steven J. "Patterns of the Sky and Earth: A Chinese Science of Applied Cosmology."Journal of Chinese Science 3 (1978): 1-26. Print.

Hara, Kazuya. "THE WORD "IS" THE THING: The "Kotodama" Belief in Japanese Communication." Dokkyo Working Papers in Communication 21 (2000): 125-160. Print.