Traditional Ethnic or World Music

[Samm]

Rebecca, that is an amazing meditational piece you have found, secluded in that low-budget movie. I must say I never realized that song could be so moving. The two types of transcendence are called Apollonian and Dionysian, the former identified by quiet (or even silent) internal meditation, the kind where one attempts to shut down the senses and mental activity to contact that reality that hides beneath all such activity, abiding in the core of our being. The latter, Dionysian, means of transcendence is ecstatic and wildly sensual and active, characterized by the ritual dances of voodoo where the dancer is bathed in the blood of a sacrificial animal and dances herself to complete exhaustion to the fast, hard rhythm of the drums and music, elevating her consciousness to an ecstatic plane not accessible through normal activity. This video is a Dionysian meditation. Party down to the extreme. They won't find God or experience union with the cosmos, but they'll know something of ecstasy and transcendence of self perhaps. :-)

This tells me that music need not be intended for aesthetic beauty or meditational purpose to still have such values within it in the context of personal experience. We find music that touches the heart in many ways in many places, and music with meditational affect even where meditational affect was not intended. This "ethnic music" happens to be a gay classic that indulges the out-of-the-closet openness that many gay people long to achieve. That too is an achievement of a higher state of consciousness, is it not?

Samm

[Catchabula]

Originally Posted by Samm

This tells me that music need not be intended for aesthetic beauty or meditational purpose to still have such values within it in the context of personal experience. We find music that touches the heart in many ways in many places...

A good place to find and make music in my country is the pub, or rather the flemish variant of it, the "cafe" (read "ca-feigh"). You can have a cup of coffee there, but of course people who have a little taste will have a cellar-fresh Grimbergen, a Westmalle, an Orval or a Chimay. Or any other of the several hundreds of kinds of beers that are produced in this small country, in this place where it is truly good to live. Believe it or not but I just had a beer (a Rochefort 8°), and I wanted to share some suitable music. Drop philosophy and enjoy live. Here are a few goodies...

YouTube - wannes van de velde ik wil deze nacht in de straten verdwalen

YouTube - Walter De Buck : In Mijn Stroatse Zijn 'T Allemaal Komeren (Dutch Song)

Oh, and this is the anthem of Flanders, the dutch-speaking part of Belgium. God, how I love the place where I live and probably will die. That so many flemish feel the same about their country must prove something, no?

YouTube - De Vlaamse Leeuw

[Samm]

Catchcabula, that was about all it took. Becky listened to the music and is now looking determinedly to see what we have to do to get political asylum in Belgium. I suppose they are still staunch (?) allies of the US which could certainly complicate the process. I believe the plan for right now is to fly to Belgium by way of Afghanistan where we would stop long enough to insult the Taliban and the Ayatollah, then proceed to Belgium asking Asylum from Afghanistan. Sure it's a flawed plan, but we're desperate to settle in somewhere in Belgium before the Kampucheans find out about it and get all the good trailer park sites.

Samm