Journeys of a Finger-Picking Guitarist (Jose Gonzalez – The Brilliant)

Soft-spoken yet vibrant artist Jose Gonzalez is just amazing. I find his music to be incredibly meaningful and I find it interesting that as he was growing up in Sweden after fleeing military conflict in Argentina, he was influenced by many different tastes and styles (the beatles, silvio rodriguez, bossa nova) yet his style is consistent – soulful, beautiful, and calming – each time. And his vocals! Such an oldie feeling, but they add a classy feel! As if his music had always existed! We were the ones who had never known!

When a Tomorrow is Unbelievable and a Yesterday is Slipping Away

There’s barely anyone here. Everything’s changing again. It’s that time again. When yesterday is gone – forever gone – and today feels like just crap, and tomorrow is so freaking unclear. Tomorrow is so freaking unclear. And I’m going to get a heart attack because I cant seem to stop myself. It’s that time again when all you want to do is stand under the sun in a field in the middle of no where with a tambourine and just sway, just melt into the air, and sing.

A Golden Childhood Memory

I remember when I was a child; I would visit my grandparents’ home in India often. They had a courtyard in the middle of their home which separated the kitchen from the rest of the home. This courtyard housed a well which was covered by a sturdy metal lid and no more. Whenever we wanted to bathe or use water for washing purposes, we used a bucket to pull up the water from the well. I remember peeking into the deep hole as a child, and gazing at the deep water held in the well when my grandmother was not looking. I noticed how the light pierced into the well and barely reached the water’s surface but whatever rays did reach gently touched the water molecules. The reflections of the water ripples after my bucket had splashed the water’s surface danced on my arms and my face. I remember being both in utter awe and fear at once. The well was deep, and as I gently released the bucket and sent it lower and lower, inside the water, it went deeper and deeper. How breathtaking, the thought of what would happen if I had been the bucket! Falling deeper and deeper below, with only a rope tied to me to pull me back up at someone else’s will. But I was also struck by wonder at the smell of the fresh water, the smell of dirt and minerals in water, it was strong and satisfying. I loved it. The sounds of the bucket below were amplified many fold by the walls and they pierced my ears. I was filled with questions, and ideas, and imaginative stories upon gazing into this well. I had many such moments as a child – when I was curious, interested, shocked by the world around me. I was in constant meditative thought. Life was like a trance. I was the owner, the creator of my world; I was the one in charge. Every moment was a wonder, a new experience, a chance to toy with the things and people around me, a game.

Today, some fifteen, fourteen years later, I have but completely lost this mental attitude. Sometimes, when I can take a gasp of air between running here and running there, I see a beautiful scene of a bird in flight, or an earthworm slowly inching towards its destination, a tree gently offering its flowers to the dirt below. Where has the inventive, curious, and imaginative Sruthi gone? Where has she disappeared to? Did she get lost in circumstances that did not require these abilities, thereby eliminating them altogether? Did she forget her true nature because she had succumbed to the many stresses and obligations of her modern day reality? When did imaginative thinking become replaced with frustration? When did a curiosity for the world around her become replaced with a complete disinterest and a wanting to simply sleep or take rest? When did her humanity and her strong-willed force become replaced with a continual struggle to barely keep her dream alive with the few means that she has?

What is the Value of An Education

Photo Credit: Russell Greaves using a Canon EOS 7D

The value of an education*. This has been a central theme throughout my life. What is the value of an education? Does it even exist? But who writes the textbooks? What am I being conditioned to believe, and what is the purpose? Education is boring and whatever interest I do have in modern education gets drained out of me anyway by the stress and dryness.  I am curious about my own queries, and no University can ever answer them to me – ever. But beyond that, beyond the frivolousness of my own mind and personal musings– does education have a value? The answer I have found is yes. Even if everything I have said above proves that education is pointless, it is not pointless. It serves a vital role, even if its value is constrained to only our current time and no other. In this day and age, above all, education is power. Intelligence is power. The ability to discriminate between right and wrong is power. The ability to not worry about where the next meal will come from and instead worry about figuring out how to make the world a better place is power. And I am not talking about the power to become wealthy, successful, exploit, or sustain a self-absorbed egotistical mentality. I am talking about the power to create change and happiness, to elevate oneself and everyone around one at a fantastically supercharged rate of evolution. Does that mean that everyone who is educated will become heroes or sheroes of our world? Absolutely not, it simply means that it gives anyone who does become educated the potential to become one. The choice exists – do I want to become a shero, hero, or not? Do I want to make a difference, or not? Do I want to live in service for others or for myself?

I was walking back to my home after a bit of grocery shopping and an elderly lady walking beside me had commented on the weather after our eyes had briefly met and we exchanged a smile. Suddenly the conversation traversed to numerous other topics, including her perspective on education. She volunteers as an English teacher for non-native English speakers at a nearby University and is actively involved in education in many other ways including taking classes herself. I was very surprised. These days, my friends and I joke that we cannot wait to retire and simply worry about nothing – just eat, sleep, watch movies, and read. Here is a retired elderly woman who is taking classes and still working hard! What a coincidence?! She told me about how inspiring it is for her to meet all of the different people she meets through these activities and receiving gifts from all over the world by her students. She learns so much from them and she said to me about everything she learns, “you can’t find this in any book, this is real life, and it’s a way of experiencing it like no other.”  She told me she had attended college at a later time in her life, at around 29 – after working for a bit – and she told me how her perspective on education had completely changed. When she was young, she too thought attending school silly and frivolous, useless and boring. But after experiencing the work force, she had realized otherwise. The people you meet, the opportunities you have, the knowledge you gain, the ability to be a needed part of society, with a grand amount to give, all are found through education.

Beyond meeting my elderly friend, I had also received a similar dose of wisdom from a friend of mine from Puerto Rico. Having been given rare opportunities and chances that not many others of her friends in Puerto Rican schools had, she took her education seriously and hopes to use the power she now has to empower others at home to receive the opportunities she had to realize her own dreams.  I have found that many older students (such as my friend K who had served in the military for some time and later became a mom of two young children and now is continuing her education) also take their education, very, very, seriously. Granted, I still firmly believe we live in an elitist society and although I am treading dangerous waters here, I feel that the economic, social, environmental, political, and even health system (see article on how nutrition and what students eat significantly affects student performance and mental health – http://www.good.is/post/do-healthier-school-lunches-curb-bad-behavior/) set in place in the Western world is such that the materially significant continue to become materially significant and the materially insignificant become utterly powerless and those of us in the middle will be blinded by whatever means necessary to stop us from claiming the power that is rightfully ours and rightfully ours to throw upon the planet. Every person born into this world has a dream and potential, but not every person realizes it. I know that we do not live in a perfect world but I still firmly feel that more of us need to realize our dreams. And for the time being, an education is what will get us there. In every sense.

*My meaning of education includes both the current, known, institutionalized model of development for the possibility of stature in society and the option of significant, respected, contribution, but also the education found in general, traditional human values – respect, kindness, discrimination between right and wrong, love, and the pursuit of happiness and continual evolution. That is true intelligence.

Vive La Tierra En Paz

“The sounds you hear on the wind are the voices of our ancestors still telling us how to sing and make the music that was given to us by the bird nation. The songs of our people will never be lost as long as we sit and listen to the wind. When we need a medicine song we only have to offer tobacco and listen. Soon the wind will whisper the song we need for healing or for helping the people. Later from the grouse and the woodpecker, we learned to make the drum, and from the woodpecker we also were given the flute. Rattlesnake gave us the medicine of his rattle to scare away the bad Tokas (spirits). From many animals and creatures, we were given all the things we now take for granted. The Standing Nation (trees) is still here to carry the voices in their branches of the ancient ones as they tell us their story and teach us their songs. We are told that all the earth that is ever going to be is here, on this what we call Mother Earth. All the water is here and just recycles in this bubble around the Earth Mother. All the air is here and is recycled from oxygen to carbon dioxide in this bubble. Without these things there can be no life, on this, our Mother. As for the wind, it is also here and circles around the Earth Mother, cooling her and heating her in the seasons. In this wind there is all the sound that ever was and ever will be on this Earth Mother. The wind is carrying the voices of our ancestors so we will never forget who we are, and where we came from. Sometimes I can go and stand on a hill when the wind is blowing and hear the sound or the ancient ones playing instruments that I do not know. The sound is so sweet that it fills me with wonder and peace. Bells and flutes, horns of birch bark, rattles, drums — all of these are in the wind that flows around this sweet Earth Mother. Ocean waves are in the sound as they crash on the shores. The voices of the animals and people and birds are here in the wind. All the music until now is in the wind. The sounds of people in laughter and in pain are in the wind. All the sounds of war and destruction are also in the wind. All of my relation’s voices are carried in the sound of the wind from all the places of the Earth, making one band singing and playing in harmony. So I am never alone and I am always with my people. The wind sings the songs of our people, all of our people, in one voice, in one song for peace.”

- Cante Ohitika Hoksila

The wisdom of a people nearly entirely demolished by Western civilization still stands strong admidst its decendents and its admirers. The indigenous people of this land have discovered great truths of life and the great spirit, and in their stories and their visions remain hope for the upcoming generations. As humanity discovers its need to leave the gun and television set and return instead to the root of all creation, la Tierra, la Madre. – SB

Evolution and De-Evolution

 

I know that although I am consistently evolving, there are roadblocks trying to stunt my growth. I know that through evolution – there is resistance. Although a bit overstated and a bit over-emphasized, this can be clearly understood in the book “The War of Art” – by Steven Pressfield. But even just beyond that, it is entirely human nature. It is innately known. No-one needs to read a book to realize it (unless, of course, you are like me and wish to read a book on it anyway, if only for the sake of re-realizing it). Evolution and de-evolution. The battle of the two rivals. Who will win? How can we tell? There is only one obvious winner. Even if, for every step we take ahead, we fall 2 steps backward, there is still only one direction that the spinning ball moves towards – the center. Is that forwards or is that backwards? It’s neither! It’s a different direction altogether! It’s not even a direction, it’s just the fundamental nature of existence. The spinning ball moves towards the center, and the center is in the center of our hearts, and that is evolution. I once read somewhere that there is only one thing: love*. Everything that is unpleasant is still love – it’s just distorted. Anger is love, it’s just distorted love. Pain is love, it’s just distorted love. Envy is love, it’s just distorted love. How true this is! At the end of the day, true human fulfillment isn’t found in fortune, or status, or fame, or even success  – fulfillment is found in the amount of pure love one experiences/has experienced/has yet to experience. Each moment is just a varying degree of love or distorted love. How much distortion can we break out of our system? Isn’t this the ultimate human goal? The search for the cures for all diseases, the recipe for alchemy (purifying gold), the desires of a better life – better anything. How apparent! We are wired for fixing things, for making things better (although some of us – the most distorted of all – are quite good at the opposite), for purification. We are wired for evolution. We are wired for breaking out of the deteriorating aspects of ourselves and merging into purity instead. We are wired for happiness – for true joy. People keep saying “happiness is a state of mind, it’s a mental thing.” It’s not. Happiness is not just a state of mind, it’s an awakening. So be happy – and awaken – and enjoy your journey of evolution, into a purer state of being, into a life filled with perfect love.

Right now, I feel a bit scared, a bit nervous. I have a headache, and I notice tension all around my head. And yes, I admit – that right now I am experiencing a combination of both distorted and undistorted love, but atleast I know, at the core of my being – that even though right now I am a bit anxious, everything will be okay. Everything will work out fine. It always does. I will get through this week and the next, I will finish my two 12 page papers and my Chemistry exam, I will figure out my summer plans, and I will say goodbye to all the seniors I will miss terribly, and I will grow. I will  play my guitar, and I will be  fine.

*Just to clarify, my idea of love as I refer to in this post is not just a love with respect to families, friendships, relationships – it’s also a peace – a sort of deeply comforting feeling wherein the  feeler, if only for a moment, discards everything unpleasant, and smiles from within.

New Music!

It’s finals week…and the year is coming to a close. And I have no summer plans as of now.

 

 

 

 

To Serenade Your Own Heart

Sometimes we need to stop

serenading our worries and our fears

Our sadness and our anger

and instead

start serenading our lullabies and our smiles

our starry-eyed dreams and our worn-out hearts

because maybe then

just maybe then

the light that reflects the glow of the moon on the mountain summit

will peirce its way to the fears that plummet

down

down

down

the depths of the abyss

known as the heart

and collapse into an

awakening

- Poem by Sruthi

as she sips tea and waits for her laundry

An Uncompromising Matter

When the air succombs to a suffocating fog

and the mind becomes hazy

with matters uncompromised and un-succint

When the rain clears into a pattering void

a gentle thud followed by another followed by another

And the space between silence widens

Climb, o gentle one, oer the stars above and the skies below

Because only then

will you find

that your dreams are within your grasp

clung tightly to the palm of your hand

They are yours and yours only

And only you can realize them

- A Poem by Sruthi B

Ma Africa

Ulali with Mahotella Queens

The intro of this song produced as a result of a collaboration between three Native American ladies (Ulali) and three South African ladies (Mahotella Queens). The divine exchanges and the interplay of their voices leads to a most uplifting and enlightening forms of sound. Years later, 1 Giant Leap never ceases to impress me.