An image taken today of my friend and teacher Michael practicing Sarangi (An Indian bowed instrument) on our day off on tour.
Thoughts on fasting
My friend and Brother Michael and I are touring from Boston MA to Chicago and back at the moment. Mainly playing house concerts. Michael is fasting for Ramadan and I’ve joined him for this tour. Muslims at this special time of the year do not eat or drink anything from sun up to sun down for one lunar month. I’ve been finding it an inspiring experience. There is the discomfort and fear of course; will I be able to play a good concert with low blood sugar levels? Is it healthy to tour and perform and fast? (a good question!) Things I am noticing; there is less energy for excessive talk or show when one is fasting, we are quieter, more still, more likely to listen than speak. It’s a very basic form of training; it strengthens ones will and clarity to not eat. When that most fundamental activity of getting and eating is gone, the gift of life has been clearer to me. It is a gift to be alive!
I woke with a fun song in mind from a nap, I was thinking about the delights of intimacy with my darlin and the lyrics:
Your a fun phenomenon, your the funinest
Came to mind, a playful hip hop tune. That wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t fasting I think. Out of that emptiness come songs, essential insights and strengths. Seeing Michael out practicing in nature today, devoted to playing his music, following his path. It spoke to me. These parts that are of our higher selves, exercising the finest capacities of being human, making beauty, and studying beauty, making more space for that and less for consumption. He just sent me the below Rumi poem which I love, and which speaks differently to me whilst fasting. Here’s to the mysteries of the worlds traditions that we don’t dip in to till we try.
“There’s a hidden sweetness
in the stomach’s emptiness.
We are lutes, no more, no less.
If the sound box is stuffed
full of anything, no music.
If the brain and the belly
are burning clean with fasting,
every moment a new song
comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and a new
energy makes you run up the
steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like
reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with
the reed pen.
When you’re full of food and drink,
Satan sits where your
spirit should, an ugly metal
statue in place of the Kaaba.
When you fast, good habits gather
like friends who want to help.
Fasting is Solomon’s ring.
Don’t give it to some illusion
and lose your power.
But even if you’ve lost all
will and control, they come
back when you fast,
like soldiers appearing out
of the ground, pennants
flying above them.
A table descends to your
tent, Jesus’s table.
Expect to see it, when you
fast, this table spread with
other food better than the
broth of cabbages.
–Rumi
06/13/17
(A photo of My Nan and Aunty, curious of Andy Holdcroft)
The Ole TV
The ole TV
How central you were to our lives
Watching news, snooker, and pop stars
Formula one, chat shows, cartoons and soap operas
With Whiskey wine beer and tea
“Would you look at that Ejjit!?” Grandad would shout at the TV
‘He makes me sick!’
I’d cuddle in to Grandad on the Sofa
A love of connection between the two of us
He had a warm heart beneath all his scars
It was like falling back in to the sweetness of the ancestors
Thank God for our parties
Where we danced and laughed and sang together
where we talked around the fire Grandad made
Where us children invented plays and dance routines to songs
Where Nan would ask for ‘The Creole Girl’ and ‘Dublin In The Rare Old Times’
These sweet returnings to the village, from out of the smog of TV nation
Lets gather the clans friends
The nations need each other
And I need to be awoken by your song
And yours by mine
04/08/17
MLK and folk music
I’m reading A
collection of Martin Luther Kings Essays called ‘Strength to love’
I’m finding it
challenging inspiring and brilliant… His intelligence, decency, and spirit
shine. I was reading his essay on conformity earlier and he writes
‘When we refuse to suffer for righteousness and choose to follow the path
of comfort rather than conviction, we hear Jesus say “Blessed are they which
are persecuted for righteousness sake: for thers is the Kingdom of Heaven”’
‘Kingdom of Heaven’ to
me speaks of infinite possibility, and being in right spiritual relationship
with life. This challenges me, because I like comfort! And am very easily
seduced by it. I could sit in all day with tea and chocolate and good food in
the warm watching YouTube… Or perhaps more productively (but almost as
solipsistic) I could happily stay in all day practicing music, studying,
reading, cooking, then hanging with my girlfriend, and never producing actual
goods for humanity. I have a tendency toward the dreamy, gentle, sweet side of
life, and an unconscious aversion to the ‘be productive’ get out there, do the
weeding, water the plants repair the fence visit your sick grandmother, get on
with it work of living a whole life…
King challenges me to
be productive, and specifically to be productive in service of a more just
world. I got inspired to be a singer-songwriter by growing up in a family where
folk music was a sort of religion for us… Our soul food. And also by spending a
lot of time with my Grandad and Dad, who were working class immigrants, and by
nature, and heart: warriors, internationalists, and socialists.
I heard Rory Mcleod
live and my life changed. The best gig I’d ever been to (Well it’s between him
and Paddy Keenan) and none of my friends had ever heard of him. Radical,
brilliant, productive brave, an anarchist folk hero multi-instrumentalist who
was funny, sexy, and could really lay down some beautiful grooves and get
people dancing.
His principles, his
quality of not being for sale, his integrity… Just made every main stream
artist seem like clowns in comparison… He was singing about real things,
eloquently and beautifully and forsaking riches and fame, and I’m up for that
too. That’s why I do this… To feed peoples souls, and mine too!
So back on the trip
toward great folk music, music from and for the people and planet. And here’s
to building community while we do it too. And here’s to the right balance
between giving and receiving. I don’t want to be burned out and broke, and I
don’t want to be comfortable and selfish… But generous, honest, real and
supported by a community that feels the same way.
Here’s a video of Rory back in the 80’s when I first heard him .
02/26/15
