AMERICAN PATRIOTISM

Bruce’s blog entry that inspired this telling.

“There is a something out of balance in the over emphasis of praise, and obligatory fawning over the military during invasions. Honoring warriors is a spiritual practice among the American Indian nations. I am an African Indian man. The purification ceremonies for our warriors were performed before and after war. The ceremonial approach to war, which I cannot elaborate on now, is not unique to us Indians. The ancient Hebrews purified their warriors caring for their souls after they came home from wars. My Biblical studies remind me of a period of days before warriors were allowed to mingle amongst the populace as their holy people supervised the purification rites for the men changed, and traumatized by blood-letting.

We don’t do these things. So it brings into my mind, and estimation what are we really telling our soldiers, the world, and our children? What are we not telling ourselves? What are we not willing to face? What questions and stories are we avoiding? Why do we praise and not honor? I think honor requires work, and clarity needs to be part of an understanding of why we fight. If we send our troops to invade a country that is part of the holy ground of our Christian faith without right on our side what are we telling our children about our religious convictions, about God, and life itself?

You can’t shake a stick at a mighty, and powerful military. But civilization is more complex than the military. When war is a major industry, a major moneymaker very quickly a country can sink into a morass, unable to sustain itself for long centuries as an imbalanced entity. Egypt is the only civilization that can claim longevity. Ancient Egypt (or Khemit) prospered and reigned as a supreme force for thousands of years. How they did it; how it was done is not part of our education, and why not? Why don’t we study the structure, religion, culture, and paradigms of these ancient people? Is it because they were a dark people, and we love to invade dark countries? Is it because the Christian faith has regulated Egypt into an evil status in its holy scriptures? I don’t have the answers but we need to ask the right questions.”

-Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

Native American Elders & Warriors

A PIED PIPER STORY

The Pied Piper, an American story

Naná Vasconcelos playing berimbau in Brazil

Naná Vasconcelos playing berimbau live in 1983

Melyssa Ford is an exquisite beauty

Milton Nascimento & Naná Vasconcelos

Milton Nascimento & Naná Vasconcelos performing together on David Sanborn's show, SUNDAY NIGHT was a great musical moment for me.  David Sanborn had a brilliant show. There was a house band.  Omar Hakim (drummer), Don Alias (percussionist), Marcus Miller (bassist), Hiram Bullock (guitars), a keyboardist whose name doesn't rush to the surface of my mind, and of course the great imaginative saxaphonist, David Sanborn.  David would invite an eclectic cross section of musical styles, and musicians who often would never meet on a session to play music for an hour.  Milton Nascimento is a prolific composer, and singer from Brazil.  His songs are haunting, and memorable.  Naná Vasconcelos is an extraordinary percussionist from Brazil who approaches music from some high spiritual place that merges musical styles, thoughts, consciousness, nature, beauty and love into something ethereal.  My approach was similar to his, and I felt I had met a kindred spirit when I chanced upon him on an album in the 1980's.

I have had the priviledge of playing a lot of music of different genres with musicians with incredible gifts, and insights into the cosmos of music-making.  Following the musical dreams given to me at birth is a responsibility.  The musician hears voices, sounds, and some of us see the colors of sound, and making music is the copulation between celestial and terrestrial populations of beings immersed in the sounds of music.  Being a musican is a priest-craft above every other trapping of the trade.  It is the call of spirits to the hearts of musicans who hear sounds of the universe, and translates them into funk, jazz, Arabic music, and other musics the world over.  -Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of the Drum

YOGAVILLE

The Place

Two days of prayer, release and immersion into spirit with a people on a path different than mine. Back from a dream into another I am a different man for the experience. There were no planes flying overhead breaking wind and rhythms or altering currents. The people were Yogi’s, students, teachers, masters, and spiritual people from around the globe, largely white; all seeking to balance and understand their place in the world.


The people, including the staff, were kind, considerate of each other and focused on their path and purpose. The draw for the weekend was a musician, Jai Uttal with Daniel Paul. These two men were “Drawing from an unbroken tradition of Indian devotional singing.” Jai Uttal introduced me to “the ancient practice of “kirtan” (or chanting), the heart of devotional Yoga.”


Jai Uttal wrote, “These ancient chants contain a transformative power and healing energy. By singing these prayers and expressing a full range of emotions through our voices we join a stream of consciousness and devotion that has been flowing for centuries.” This is the best way to describe the worshiping. I could not find the words.


The retreat center has some extraordinary temples on the land for silent meditations built upon an energy line in the forest beginning atop a small mountain and ending in the lowlands. There is a Lotus temple on the low land with two levels. The levels mirror each other and speak for each other in their honoring and understanding of the spiritual paths of mankind. There is sacred power here. It, itself, asks to be experienced. I could not make you see what my spirit, body, senses and emotions felt or perceived.


The puzzling and curious thing about Yogaville and the practice of yogis is their relationship with earth. Intellectually and in prayer earth is grasped, understood and acknowledged but it is a distance relative. The prayers and meditation on 800 acres of woodland is dense, powerful, and is a large circular presence that extends beyond their borders. That itself needs to be experienced.


The woods are a buffer against the world and its distractions and illusions. But it was inconceivable to those I asked that it could be anything more. There was no relationship with the Earth outside of the abstract of intellect, concept and prayer.

-Gregory E. Woods,

Keeper of Stories

November 1, 2006

AN OLD MAN'S DEATH

Al Searle died a few days ago. A subtle murky part of my being moved in his passing as if an ornate bowl was moved from one place in the sitting room to another to be viewed differently or to reflect the sunlight coming through the windows directly. The Old Man, Ojuku, my Grandfather-Teacher died a few months ago. He let go of his life, and his spirit slid playful without a care into the next realm. He watches me with a leisurely studied gaze knowing, as usual, more than I know about what I need to know, and smiling silently knowing I will follow paths that will lead me to the reality, the knowing I have been attracted to in this life will guide my path in the next.

It is a strange, no, comforting thing merging into the Unknown knowing something you don’t know in an intimate way. Strange, but it is beyond English to see the unspoken words around a dying man who has lived a long life outside of the traditions of Judeo-Christian worlds of perception to embrace the roots of existence and the texture of relationships with the mysteries, beginnings, evolutions, and timelessness. Al had spoke to me the last afternoon we had together about the Cup of Perception laying between his wife, dead a little over a year, and himself at 96, frail and vibrant. This cup was the only way the two of them could grasp in a moment and speak to the soul of the matter between them, the matter they come from and return to, and the things which matter most. This cup could alter perception the same way sunlight moving from one direction slowly to another changes the way a tree in his backyard appeared. This Cup of Perception was a merging process. His dying the other day makes this clear to me.

Reading Maria Vamvalis’ blog entry, Life’s Exquisite Promise, she quoted the author of Letters to a Young Poet. The man, Mr. Rilke said, “...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

Therein lay an answer to questions I could not ask that ached, and nudged for expression within me.

Gregory E. Woods, Grandfather-Teacher