____________Expressions in Song & Spirit & Social Change____________

Cole read numbers, which appeared to be random, then began discussion with someone off screen. When the camera changed position to show the person who Cole was talking to, Thorpe understood what Waite was talking about. He was looking at himself in the monitor.

Thorpe was dumbfounded. Baffled. Puzzled. Confused, and quite a bit pissed off. What the hell was happening?

He motioned to Waite to leave the room. Back in the Alcove, he asked Waite “What was that?”

“As far as we know, that is a live broadcast.” Waite replied.

“How could that be? I’m right here!” Thorpe almost shouted.

He began to pace, though there was not much space in the little room.

“How long have I been on that broadcast?”

“From the beginning, almost two and a half years.”

“That is not me!”  Thorpe emphasized again.

“You do have a strong case for that point.” agreed Waite.”But you will excuse me if I don’t accept what you say at ‘face value’.” he continued. Thorpe was surprised to see a sense of humor being displayed by one of his captors.

“How do you know they are live broadcasts?” Thorpe asked.

“One of them sympathizes with our situation,” was the response.

“Though not enough to help you escape” muttered Thorpe.

“The offer was made at one point”, Waite stated, “but I want to free all of us and lock up the bastards responsible.”, a sentiment Thorpe wholeheartedly understood.

“We have got to get more information”, Waite mused, “and I bet you are tired”

Waite and the Shovel Man talked in low tones on the far side of the room, and after a moment, Shovel Man disappeared.

“He’s getting some sleeping gear, and the keys to loosen your cuffs some.” Waite informed Thorpe.

“What’s his name anyway?” Thorpe wondered.

“Kenwhar, but we all just call him Shovel.”

“I think I know why.” said Thorpe, holding his head.

“You haven’t seen him eat.”

After a bit of rest, and a bizarre dream, Thorpe awoke to Waite entering the room.

The guard who had spoken had apparently been held captive for quite some time as his garments or lack suggested. Dress clothes, not unlike earth wear. What had once been a suit looked more like moss and mud pressed together as a type of felt, the clay and dust from the mines melding with the original color of the suit.

“My name is Waite,” he said, “and you’d best start talking.”

“Why are you here?” Waite questioned.

“What did you do to be chained?”

“What about something for this knot on my scalp?” Thorpe retorted.

“Shut the hell up”, the other man suggested, and began to swing the shovel again when Waite stopped him.

“He can’t talk if you keep slamming a shovel into his skull.”  He cautioned.

The other man snorted and threw down the shovel, which clanged and sparked along the floor, catching Thorpe’s interest as he had not noticed the floor was also made of the metallic alloy.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Thorpe.

“The obvious” Waite replied, “We are prisoners, captives, slaves.”

“Of who?” wondered Thorpe.

“You.” Was Waite’s response.

“Well” Thorpe thought as he processed what Waite had told him, “That explains the looks I have been getting”

In retrospect, a lot of events were now understandable, no wonder he had been attacked so many times since being nabbed. His two guards had now taken him from the room where he had been questioned, into a small area off of one of the larger mines.

“The daily announcement will explain some things for you.” Said Waite.

Thorpe viewed, and for the first time, deconstructed the video as the voice began the broadcast.

“Today’s weather” began the voice, followed by what looked like commercials, almost non-sense to show them to a group of people in chains, yet it was happening, and Thorpe was a witness. The commercials stopped and the usual voice began.

“You are here because you are weak,” the voice intoned.

“You are weak, we are strong, we have numbers, we have knowledge, we have power, we are power.”

During these words, images showed varied colors being broken by a shadow of a hammer, built into a pyramid, then in a moment, gone to be replaced by a face. One, which Thorpe was startled to recognize, as his friend, Cole.

His short brown hair-cut, and craggy face immediately identified him as a space marine to those who knew the look. There was a scar below his left eye which had not been there in his youth and Thorpe recognized the glint of trickster in his friend’s eyes and saw also a coldness which must have developed in battle. His boxer’s square jaw and broken nose said ‘keep away’.

Bob Marley’s Jump Nyabinghi, and Maroon 5’s Moves Like Jagger, have some interesting points in common, considering ecstatic dance as the direct connection between the two songs: ‘Love to see when ya move in the rhythm’ and ‘all the moves like Jagger.’ Each song also refers to the desire to be free from control/oppression expressed in the psychospiritual lyrics ‘troddin’ down Jericho walls’ and ‘I don’t need to try to control you.’

Of course, as someone said in a conversation the other day, ‘As a musician, I’m a universalist,’ and it is no coincidence that the archetype of dance is expressed completely fluently in these songs by these renowned musicians. As reported in a Time magazine article, the importance of dance, and therefor music as a cross cultural method of communication is hard wired ‘[T]he dynamic features of emotion expression are cross-culturally universal, at least for the five emotions tested here… these expressions have similar dynamic contours in both music and movement.’

While the Maroon 5 song focuses on a more personal approach, and The Wailers a social connection, each song also suggests the presence of a higher power, Jagger, obviously, and Hallelu-Jah. Personal liberation must arrive before social liberation can be achieved, is how the Handbook of Poetic Phonetics tells me to interpret ‘Everyone doin’ and they’re doing their best’ and ‘Just shoot for the stars if it feels right.’ A more somber statement that reflects these ideas from Viktor Frankel is ‘Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.’

So, have you sung today? Have you danced today? Believe in the music of your soul, and check in with your inner dance.

Til next time.

After having Maroon 5’s song in my brain for a day and a half, the coincidences seem to be stronger than just archetype bubbling through consciousness. 😉

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH9UGhm1cbI

He was still having trouble figuring out why so many of the others were giving him the evil eye. As near as he could figure, he was at the bar right next to the spaceport, and the sheer numbers of people, as well as the spaceport police ought to have provided safety. He must have been drugged as he waited for Cole. Though he could not know for certain, he believed he was in the same solar system. There was the slight hint of thin air, so it was possible that they were being kept on a planet with no atmosphere, or worse an asteroid. Until he could find out more, there was really no way of knowing. Perhaps he could get a clue from the type of ore they were mining as Cole had provided him with some details about the stellar region.

When they had reached what seemed to be a platform on a level surface, Thorpe looked ahead to see what type of equipment that they were being issued. Maybe he could use something to remove the chains. It was his hope that his experience as a mason would give him an idea that the others had not considered as a means of escape.

As it turned out, apparently the new arrivals were only given items to clean with, a few push brooms and dust pans. Thorpe would have to put his hopes of using the mining tools to escape on hold.

He was soon pushed into a large cavern with the rest of the unfortunates. He had noticed while chained to his group the range of styles in their clothing, from his functional and well-made travel attire, to actual other worldly formal wear. *** Now he noticed as they moved into the chamber that many of the other captives were still in the clothes they must have been abducted in, as they wore thread bare and dirty clothes, and all reeked of sweat and grime.

On the upper levels, perhaps the recycled air had been close enough to the source that the smells of slavery was not so noticeable, here in the midst of the mine, the stench was strong, acrid and pungent with fear, anger and desperation.

He also noticed that many of the others were once again glaring, and one or two even seemed to point in his direction, at him? His paranoia was quite active, being held as a slave, yet he believed that they were pointing at him. His thoughts were confirmed when one of the men ran towards him and swung a shovel at his head. Point of pride, he did duck the first swing.

As Thorpe awoke this time, with his head clanging more than the sounds of the mine, He was still in a bright room, yet the sounds of the mine were somewhat quieter. He was being guarded by two of the men who had been staring at him.

“What the hell are you doing?” one of them demanded.

“Who wants to know?” Thorpe replied.

Waiting in isolation was not as bad as he had remembered, partly he believed, due to his wife’s work. Technicians were now able to isolate which type of bacteria would be harmful to an environment and with a blood draw could isolate any damaging organisms within a matter of hours. Most of the wait he supposed, was bureaucratic, since scans existed which could provide preliminary results within minutes. In this age of technology and enlightenment, he had no fear of disease, and since he was visiting a space marine, the least of his concerns were pirates.

Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω

Feeling very groggy upon awakening, Thorpe could barely keep his head up. He could see bright lights, but did not feel quite like opening his eyes, He could hear a voice, loud, commanding, and droning at the same time. But was not inspired to look. He lowered his head and continued to sleep. When he next awoke, he raised his head, looked around in the cold bright room, and realized he was no longer in the bar that he last remembered. He was just beginning to wonder what had happened, when he saw a motion in the corner of his eye, a blur, a star, and blackness.

Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω

The voice again, metal clanging and restraints on his wrists and legs. As he came to, he wondered why the others on the chain gang were looking at him with such hostility. He could tell the chains would begin to chafe and cause bruising from how tightly they were clasped. Though no training was needed to use restraints, intention and cruelty were behind the pain he felt in his wrists.

‘More’, another voice through a bullhorn shouted.

He felt the chains pull and stood up with the rest of the captured people. His sense of direction told him they were moving down, and his experience as a builder let him know they were deep underground in a mine. The stairs they used were very rough, nothing more than dirt steps and a type of plywood, as they wound down, following a set of tracks, the rails of which at times looked new or used; Thorpe concluded that since tracks and carts were one of the most cost effective ways of moving minerals underground, that it would also be a good way to keep purchases for an illegal mine away from the suspicion of law enforcement. The larger spaces were walled with a type of metallic alloy, which looked much like corrugated cardboard and gave off a blue green hue where it had been polished and occasionally other a fuller rainbow would reflect as they trudged from level to level with the lights shining here and there on the tracks used to move the ore. With the combination of the noise, the hustle and bustle, and the obvious drilling, the work site almost looked legitimate, except for the lack of safety equipment, and the sound and sight of the shackles. The first voice was continuing to blare through the loudspeaker at random intervals, he supposed to distract from thoughts of slavery and rebellion which must have been occurring to everyone in chains (since there was no need to incessantly broadcast brainwashing slogans to captives.) As his faculties returned, he slowly gained awareness of what might have happened, and from his beard and fingernails could determine how long he had been unconscious.

Just to make sure we are all on the same page an archetype is ‘a very typical example of a certain person or thing.’ Bootsy has one of my favorite examples of the invisible archetype, expressed as the protagonist in his song Fuzz Face from the 1993 release Lord of the Harvest. Lord of the Harvest was dedicated to the guru behind Maggot Brain, guitarist Eddie Hazel, who had recently passed. in terms of duality. Bootsy let’s the listener know right away what’s up. ‘Don’t treat your puppy like a dog, and don’t hug your kitten like a cat.’ Which presents the imperative to limit yourself in accordance to your surroundings. As the term fuzz face implies, there is a a lack of definition, and the lyrics certainly dance around the invisible. ‘Work my fingers to the bone. / My speakers blown.’  Working because work is necessary, or because the speaker is blown?

Curiously, there are quite a few similarities between Bootsy’s Fuzz Face, and the Twenty One Pilots Stressed Out. Though Tyler Joseph names Blurryface as insecurity, that may be only the surface of the archetype with which he obviously has familiarity. The most direct comparison is between ‘we used to play pretend, wake up you need the money’ and ‘work my fingers to the bone, I’m coming home.’  As the obvious correlation between work and life, each of these artists seem to believe that today’s definition of work seems to work only against the common person, as referenced by Tyler’s line ‘out of student loans and tree house homes, we all would take the latter.’

Further similarities exist in reference to rocket ships, blurry or fuzz face, youth vs being adult and of course existential anguish, through the obvious regret of being an adult, in Stressed Out, and in Fuzz Face, the backing vocals accusing ‘we trusted you captain.’

As friends occasionally discuss, it is quite interesting to talk about certain ideas without the language to present them in proper context. This is of course one of the things that makes music so incredible, as for me as a lifetime learner, I see a direct connection to the two faces discussed here by these artists, and have discussed the connection between music and ‘The Glass Bead Game in the post Sic Semper Summa.

Having recently read I’m Your Man, a biography of Leonard Cohen, it seems that it would be appropriate to extend the blog to other types of my writing. With that in mind, here is the first installment in a short story / novella that I began writing a number of moons ago. I will continue to publish part of the story once a week, and with any luck, will be done by solstice.

Thorpe’s Last Run

Thorpe had always enjoyed cationing, staycation, laycation, Californication, vacation, he had tried them all. Currently on his way to what would be his personal vacationing long distance record, Thorpe had neglected to consider how much time there would be while traveling to think about her. The slender brunette next to him, an attractive woman who payed attention to detail, with a tan that complemented her burnt beige toga type dress and woven sandals, was nothing like his wife. Ex-wife? Dead-wife?

Thorpe had become a widower nine months ago. After two weeks of mourning, he had returned to work for three weeks before he agreed with his friends and co-workers that the mud was no longer in his blood. So, after spending a few months wrapping up his affairs, saying goodbye to his friends, and selling his staycation and vacation homes, Thorpe booked a trip to Titan.

He had been there once before, and since it was the hub of inter-stellar travel for the Milky Way, he had decided that from there he would plan his last voyage. He wasn’t really a veteran space traveler, or perhaps he would have remembered the stasis medications provided on long trips did not seem to work as well on him as it did on the other passengers. Once again, he glanced around the cabin, at the others frozen in slumber as their ship hurdled through space at light speed and faster than light speed. He suspected it was the change between the two states that always seemed to awaken him, yet there was no astro-biologist around for him to discuss his theory. Not that his vocabulary would be up to the task, not nearly as well as his wife, a neuro-astronomer. She would have relished the conversation.

He could picture the glow in her eyes as he imagined her passionate interest in the symbiotic relationship between space and cellular structures. Her dissertation had in fact helped to name the study of neuro-astronomy, as her research regarding the similarities between molecular structures and constellations began to provide insight into neuro-transmitters and began to prove psychology as an actual hard science.

She certainly would have appreciated the imagery that the screen was providing as there was essentially a 360 degree view of the area through which they were traveling. Rainbows of colors, shades of grey, blue hues to make Picasso piss with envy. He wondered if his neighbor was seeing similar sights in her dreams.

Neighbors: Cole, Thorpe’s childhood friend had become a Marine after graduation from O.A.S.I.S. The Orbiting Academy of Stellar Incursion Strategies, and had only returned to Earth twice in the last twenty five years. As a matter of fact, it was the Vermillion Vincent image that Cole had sent which had helped him to decide to visit with Cole after all these years.

As the cabin began to awaken, Thorpe felt a small twinge of regret for the three or four months he had aged during the days he had been awake. He briefly wondered again why such an Ωwoman would be making such a trip by herself, and decided she must be traveling to marry, since an agent would be traveling on a military transport. Thorpe snickered, realizing in spite of his wife’s years of patiently pointing out sexism and how insipidly it had become part of the culture, somewhat amused that he had thought of his fellow traveler only as an agent, or bride. He then laughed at the thought of GI Bride. Had he really skipped over business woman, scientist (as his wife had been), or even a solo adventurer?

As their ship begin to dock on the moon of Braugliian, Thorpe began to feel excitement for the first time since his wife had passed. He remembered some of his first adventures with Cole, and imagined that his old friend would now have stories which would make those of their first adventures of camping, fighting and becoming men seem relatively tame.

Music is my Albatross,
Pulling on my neck, dragging down my soul.
Through the orange yellows of Dante’s inferno.
To the steel blue fires, the true gates of hell.

Until the heaviness weighs on my brain.
Until, Under Pressure,
adding one note and rhyme,
To beauty created and calling it mine.
Eyes accustomed to the eerie glow,
the lies I believe it’s not touching my soul.

My hair, my face, my vanity,
I clutch with all might believing it’s me.
My clenched fist straining,
last strength waning.

The angelically wrought gates show their true face,
as blue fire burns cells inside and out,
from where, I can’t say, a word enters thought.

Mitochondria.
The powerhouse of the cell.
Poetically meaning the fear of might.
The fear of true power, the fear of true sight.

No wonder the Light Bringer lives here in hell,
not feeling creation became scared of himself.
With itching and squirming,
began to swallow his tail.

Is this legend boring? Or you bore us!
A leg only ends when you can’t feel the toes,
‘Yours are getting closer.’, whispers Albatross.

The Weight, The Band, sinking still,
Approaching faster the far end of hell.
Leaving the blue, into the candle,
the brightness could only be heaven’s mantle.

Thoughts flowing faster
than humming birds sing,
Sheer momentum alone
could break fix anything.
A camel’s back, a crystal glass,
a guitar string.

Now baffled, confused, at a loss,
at the truth revealed through my Albatross;
No longer buried, no longer dead,
ascending all heights
with the Treble Clef!

More than a few of the conversations I had this weekend were quite lively. I was rather intrigued by one, where it was discussed that opposing sides often considered you on the enemies side, if you were not on their’s. Since some have just celebrated Easter weekend, and others have celebrated Ishtar’s fertility. As someone who has been searching for quite a while, I wanted to take the opportunity to point out the symbolic unification of these supposedly ‘opposite’ forces through the use of some of the worlds most well known symbols.

The Star of David is representative of two forces, equal in strength and brought together in balance. Through direct comparison, it becomes easy to allow one of the triangles to represent the feminine, and one the masculine. Though I have not been a student of the Torah, it is somewhat amusing that the Star of David which has been found to exist as early as the 6th Century B.C.E., is a many faceted symbol representing a faith which is known for שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד – “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.” – Deuteronomy 6:4. Curiously, since most Christian churches refer to the trinity, is their a possibility that Christian ritual is acknowledging the complexity of divinity while not necessarily recognizing the balance?

The Tai Chi, is another symbol which presents duality in one symbol, thus creating a visual understanding of togetherness, oneness, motion and flow. Since these energies must work together to create balance, they are most often pictured with the yin beginning within the yang, and the yang beginning within the end. There are myriad possibilities of interpretation of each of these two designs, yet, by sticking to traditional and visual references, I believe that the recognition of balance is able to be communicated, thus the musical as well, No Religion and In The Garden, each a Van Morrison song, and each insightful into today’s duality.

Initially, I was going to post about the roots of the word humus, based on the phonetic connection between human, posthumous and hum. While looking up the etymology, it seemed that most of the roots were already in common knowledge. As I was ‘surfing’ through other research on the net, a Fela song was in the youtube queue, and the similarities between the two songs being analogous of people and elements became the idea instead.

I suppose technically, that The Human League’s song doesn’t compare people to earth, except through the etymological root, though these lines are very very close: ‘I’m only human of flesh and blood I’m made, Human, born to make mistakes (I am just a man, human).’ Fela, on the other hand is using water as directly analogous to human society, specifically, Nigerian people. After using extremely strong examples of how water is a necessity to human life, ‘T’o ba fe se’be omi l’o ma’lo If you wan cook soup, na water you go use’ and ‘T’omo ba n’dagba omi l’o ma’lo If your child dey grow, na water he go use,’ summing up brilliantly the end result of warring with water. ‘Water, him no get enemy!’

Interestingly, the use of paradox illuminated by Fela is mirrored in The Human League’s song Human, ‘I just needed someone to hold me, To fill the void while you were gone, To fill this space of emptiness.’ Both of these then draw attention to the duality which exists, while using the duality by combining sound and space to create music, that is beautiful communication. There of course is a reason while there has always been a strong correlation between the elements and humanity, just as there has always been a strong correlation between humanity and the archetypes of ancient religious deities.

Those of us who listen to the muses are perhaps a little more in touch with the creative side of these forces, while being able to take care of our daily needs based on the societies we have created. My own take on how we are earth and water, one and many is probably best summed up by some lines from one of my poems, called First Rhythms.

‘Is there a prayer for those who are prey?
For strength and sinew create not courage.
Fierce vision enhanced with need to feed,
Set fires aglow with ancient urges.

Strange how atomic attributes
Atrophy into carnivorousness.
Cleaving spirit from sanctified flesh.

This dream, this vision, this portent of death.
Offerings to gods unmade and manifest.
Land and Breath, Motion and Blood,
thrown and shaped and tossed in the kiln.’

The dance will always be, whether we are there to watch, the great mystery.