sun guitar

i was brought to tears this morning by an emotion quite complex, something rare and unique and unusual but so very real...

listening to the following recording, the rare collection of tracks from the 1908s collected as the album oyiwane by a group of nigerian schoolchildren, induced a variety of feelings in mine chest.



i've been drawn to the sounds of niger for a little over a year, thanks to artists such as les filles de illighadad and mdou moctar (and many others found primarily through saharan-based recording project sahel sounds), and this album fulfilled many of the same searching beings within me.

aside from the monumental rareness of the circumstances leading to this recording being available for digital streaming in 2019 (the story of how sahel sounds acquired the recordings is quite extraordinary), the sheer timbre of children's voices singing atop such sparse guitar and rhythmic accompaniment is something i didn't know i would react to quite so strongly. the lyrical content of these songs deals primarily with the current political issues of the time, and served as a message to the greater nigerian population about the need for education (for all, but especially young women).

the group's song "oyiwane" (referring to the tuareg greeting "o-yi-wan") won first prize at a musical competition held in 1985 among city schools local to agadez, niger. due to this success, a generation of all-girl groups was cultivated and a popular genre was created.

for some reason this album made me think of the beauty some humans are compelled to create. whether knowingly or not, there is plentiful evidence that a decent number of humans, when confronted with life's hardships, resorted not to violence but to art and education. it moves me to see the creation of beauty in this world when logic and all things cold demand that there be nothing more than existence, nothing more meaningful in this life of ours than struggle and survival.

not sure why that got to me so, but damn!

.

which reminds me, i have been meaning to post about the following artist, mdou moctar, for a while now. i am just now becoming re-acquainted with his solo folk album, sousoume tamachek (2017), and wanted to share the experience with you.

moctar taught himself to play a handmade guitar in secret while growing up in a village where popular music was initially frowned upon for religious and traditional reasons. after making himself known among friends and neighbors as an extremely gifted musician whose lyrics were respectful and spiritual, the attitude towards creating guitar music softened and moctar would often find himself among the people in the village performing soft and intimate songs that he had written.

this album collects, years later, these initial personal songs that moctar was playing with his friends, and it is one of my favorites for this very special reason.

i think i am going to get to see him perform live in april! the closest place he's coming to me is about 6.5 hours away, but that's not too bad. it would be cool to support something like this that i am so fascinated by.

.

once a young woman said to me:

"hafiz, what is the sign of someone who knows God?"

i became very quiet, and looked deep into her eyes, then replied:

"my dear, they have dropped the knife. someone who knows God has dropped the cruel knife that too many use upon their tender self and others."

- hafiz (translated to english by daniel ladinsky)

self-deception

we, each of us, must engage

regularly

with infinity.

our thirst for it as humans demands that we work, that we toil, that we put forth hours of our time against all odds just for that sensation some might call triumph. inspiration. we work ever harder against that which pains us, which confuses us, which causes even more of our faculties to salivate for answers, because the striving and the struggle bring forth, at unexpected intervals, pure bliss.

just the smallest tastes of it.

and it's addicting.

it's maddening.

and it all seems so utterly pointless, too, when looked at under a microscope.

/

i guess i should apologize for times when i might say "all humans feel this" or whatever and it doesn't apply to you when i can only accurately speak for myself. the oversimplifier in me likes to oversimplify, to my own detriment, meh.

\

i think over all these years i'm just sort of saying the same thing over and over in a more refined and worldly manner.

deflection has been my game for years. self-deception. i finally realize how much staring into my own eyes hurts like a bitch.

but at least it's fucking honest.

at least the pain is real, and promises one very real thing:

an eventual end to itself.

i get my best thoughts while biking through the forest. i've learned to ride with no hands, and that newfound freedom allows my back to straighten, my thoughts to tend upward, my legs to pedal machine-like and steadily onward. my arms sometimes find themselves utterly stretched out, and it's almost as if i could pedal myself into the sky. i feel like i am a tiny spark of god, of bird, of more than just myself.

the golden hour is when the sun is just about to set. on cloudless days the liquid honey light is even more potent, pervasive. the warmth that spills from the sky calls me to bask, to let my face and skin become awash with light. it is in this moment, repeated however many times throughout my life, that the boundary of my body is torn away.

i wish to speak of the all -

the kaleidoscope with which i play,
in which i swim -

this magnificent swirl, this endless color-mixing.

we are suspended over endlessness,
and out of the endless are we made.

inside us are flickers of the same light
;
have you forgotten how to feel the warmth?

these words are for you, oh trembling one,
you who often retreat to the rivers in escape from storms of the mind.

there is ground in the heart and on this patch of earth is the resting place of gods.
you may rest with them.
you may rise with them

.

in search, always -
have you forgotten what you have found?

eyes darting inward, afraid -
have you forgotten how to see?