"The best kirtan, or devotional singers, sing the blues."
Let me say that again: "The best kirtan, or devotional singers, sing the blues. All the great kirtan singers we know have this lamenting quality in their voice. Their voice is deep, dark, heavy. It's a sound characterized bt the tamasic quality if stubborness and the kind of intense attachment that leads to addiction... In the mundane world of ordinary life and romantic love these qualities should be tempered or overcome. But when we move into the elevated world of spirit, these dark qualities take on a celestial sweetness that can result in addiction to God. To be addicted to God is to be possessed by ecstasy and boundless joy... Singer Jai Uttal says, 'When we chant we are tearing open our chests, opening our hearts to reveal our true identity and finding God there.'"
- David Life, "Jivamukti Yoga"
Moroccan leela trance musician Abdenbi Binizi feels there is a connection between American Blues and the music of Ganawi trance:
"One night I was walking down the street in New York just looking at all of the tall buildings everywhere. I had never seen anything like it before in my life. While passing by a nightclub I heard a guitar playing. I stopped for a moment and listened. I started crying because the sound was so beautiful; it touched my heart very much. I found out later the music I was listening to was called the blues. The blues gave me the same feeling inside as when I am playing my music. Blues, like the music of the Ganawa, is from the heart, from the soul."
This quote is taken from the little book I have that goes with a trance CD from 1995, that contains the 'bee zikr' recording of the Naqshbandi Sufis, Healing Trance in Morocco, and a Balinese Temple Festival. I hadn't listened to this since my mother died, but chose to relisten just before going to Winter Solstice. Once in the big tent for White Tantra, the collective voices chanting sounded to me like the Sufi recording. And it was extremely healing. So were the evening Gonging concerts...
But...so is the music I listened to this morning. All of Zeppelin's "In Through the Out Door" (Zeppelin are and were masters of remastering the blues), Maroon Five's "Harder to Breathe", The Cure's "Fascination Street", the soundtrack to "Cool World", DB Boulevard's "Believe", Moony's "Acrobats"....ah! We're acrobats looking for balance..., Plummet's "Damaged", and Chaka Khan, the Cranberries, and Macy Gray's "I've Committed Murder", which I could sing in my now relatively deep voice.
It ALL touches my soul...from Plant singing as if to his dead child Karac on "In the Evening", and Page's heroin addiction-tinged solos in the same piece. "All of My Love" feels like a love song for the universe to me. Maroon Five's song and Macy Gray's were like protests for me, and I listen to techno and dance and float in a netherworld with no need for drugs. I listen to Sada Sat Kaur's "mantra masala", and I love it as much as FSOL's "Papua New Guinea". It is ALL music...to my ears. It ALL moves me.
Why does it have to be patently spiritual? It doesn't. To me Tantra is about learning to love everything about the world, even the pain. I don't want to increase it, but I don't want to run from it either. I want to feel...whatever comes, even if it scares me. Facing my fears until they realize there is no need to chase after me, because I won't run.
Today isn't as easy to whip out Bound Lotus, and I feel a little worse physically than yesterday, but emotionally better. It's just life. The way the cookie crumbles. Some days are better than others...
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