Friday, November 27, 2009

Some times my mind is too fantasyful!

I am coming from Iran as you might know. Iran for me is still a land of poem, carpet, dance, fruite, sunshine, wine and music.

I was trying to play Berimbau properly the day before yesterday. I closed my eyes and tried to listen. Zarina and Cruja were trying to sing at the same time they were playing.
For me, Voice of human being and body's movements are the most genuine and beautiful pieces of art.
We get the result directly without any parasit in between. Human voice and the movement are the best ways for expressing what is going on in the inner world.

Other arts such as cinema, painting, handcrafts or even music, there is something in between, some tools, some device. I even donät like it when they place a microphone in front of the batteria.
Any way I wanted to do a comparison for you. I really hope I can make it. It comes deep from Persian poetric history.

Maybe you have heard of Rumi. (http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalal_ad-Din_Muhammad_Rumi)
In the following poem that is kind of long, deep and ofcourse affected by being translated (think about Capoeira songs lyrics being translated to English and how they loose their meanings through this translation, but still make some sense) I was thinking about Berimbau instead of reed that is a kind of natural make flute as an old iranian musical instrument.
I think Capoeira music is natural and calming, it sitts in the soul and the musics and musical instruments come from nature, from where we come from and go back to.

I don't like Panderos made from plastic and metal.

In the following poem, as I said one can imagine reed as any Capoeira musical instrument, weeping can be considered as doing any Capoeira movement, the emphasis on gathering can be the importance of Roda and keeping groups such as happy and sad or men and women as audiances of the reed can be a point to the fact that now Capoeira is not just for a small group of special people.

But my main point is the part number 6!

Each befriended me for his own reasons, yet none searched out the secrets I contain.

This is what all Capoeiristas talks about Capoeira look like, any body has been doing Capoeira for her/his own personal reason and now in this poem the reed is nagging about not being completely comprehended, nobody has asked him what he axactly wanted to say with this loud sound, maybe it has been the shout of anger and the message of freedom before for the slaves but now?

The other parts I just kept them there to be loyal and not cut the poem in the middle.
I would like to invite you to pay special attention to the parts number 18-19-20-21 and 27-28 as well.
I am happy sharing this with you. I hope it is not too boring.

1. Listen to the reed and the tale it tells, how it sings of separation:
2. Ever since they cut me from the reed bed, my wail has caused men and women to weep.
3. I want a heart that is torn open with longing so that I might share the pain of this love.
4. Whoever has been parted from his source longs to return to that state of union.
5. At every gathering I play my lament. I'm a friend to both happy and sad.
6. Each befriended me for his own reasons, yet none searched out the secrets I contain.
7. My secret is not different than my lament, yet this is not for the senses to perceive.
8. The body is not hidden from the soul, nor is the soul hidden from the body, and yet the soul is not for everyone to see.
9. This flute is played with fire, not with wind, and without this fire you would not exist.
10. It is the fire of love that inspires the flute. It is the ferment of love that completes the wine.
11. The reed is a comfort to all estranged lovers. Its music tears our veils away.
12. Have you ever seen a poison or antidote like the reed? Have you seen a more intimate companion and lover?
13. It sings of the path of blood; it relates the passion of Majnun.
14. Only to the senseless is this sense confided. Does the tongue have any patron but the ear?
15. Our days grow more unseasonable, these days which mix with grief and pain. . .
16. but if the days that remain are few, let them go; it doesn't matter. But You, You remain, for nothing is as pure as You are.
17. All but the fish quickly have their fill of His water, and the day is long without His daily bread.
18. The raw do not understand the state of the ripe, and so my words will be brief.
19. Break your bonds, be free, my child! How long will silver and gold enslave you?
20. If you pour the whole sea into a jug, will it hold more than one day's store.
21. The greedy eye, like the jug, is never filled. Until content, the oyster holds no pearl.
22. Only one who has been undressed by Love is free of defect and desire.
23. O Gladness, O Love, our partner in trade, healer of all our ills,
24. Our Plato and Galen, remedy for our pride and our vanity.
25. With love this earthly body could soar in the air; the mountain could arise and nimbly dance.
26. Love gave life to Mount Sinai, O lover. Sinai was drunk; Moses lost consciousness.
27. Pressed to the lips of one in harmony with myself, I might also tell all that can be told;
28. but without a common tongue, I am dumb, even if I have a hundred songs to sing.

29. When the rose is gone and the garden faded, you will no longer hear the nightingale's song.
30. The Beloved is all; the lover just a veil. The Beloved is living; the lover a dead thing.
31. If Love withholds its strengthening care, the lover is left like a bird without wings.
32. How will I be awake and aware if the light of the Beloved is absent?
33. Love wills that this Word be brought forth.
34. If you find the mirror of the heart dull, the rust has not been cleared from its face.
35. O friends, listen to this tale, the marrow of our inward state.
--Version by Kabir Helminski. From "The Rumi Collection: An Anthology of Translations and Versions of Jalaluddin Rumi" (Putney, Vermont: Threshold Books, 1998), pp. 145-46. This is a revision of earlier versions ("Love is A Stranger," 1993, pp. 50-52; "Ruins of the Heart," 1981, pp. 19-20).