I was writing this last night, while it was still Monday. Let’s just say it was a very long Monday in my world. Now it’s Tuesday, and too late for the Music Monday post. But I’m a poet, since when do I follow all the rules? What’s love got to do–got to do with it? Wait. That might not be a related question. We’ll get to the Tina Turner part in a moment.
It’s been a while since I made a Music Monday post, but usually these differ from the Saturday Song features in having a bit of poetry, or poetic explication to go along with the song. Sadly the word “tune” doesn’t have that same connotation, or connection to poetry that the word “music” does, but it’s all I’ve got to work with tonight. And personally, I need this post right now, and can’t put it off until next Monday, so Tuesday Tunes it is for today.
The last couple of weeks have been so hard. From the slaughter in Orlando to the killings in the streets of citizens and police officers alike. And one little paragraph, or even ten or twenty won’t be enough to count the sorrows. Bombings in Bagdad and Bangladesh. Brexit, and Trump, and a thousand other worries all over the planet. Many of us have been avoiding social media and the news, and for our mental health that is probably for the best. There is only so much of a load our battered spirits can take on. It’s okay to take a break. But this does not mean that we are, or that we should hide from evil and pain. We need to face it and confront it.
I have more than once recently explained why “Black Lives Matter” is not an exclusionary phrase. To make the point I’ve shared this little comic (click the image to go to the original) which the artist wasn’t going to post anywhere but on his patreon page, but it got tweeted and quickly became his most shared cartoon.
A tweet by someone else mentioned that when one talks about breast cancer, there is no need to scream, “But what about testicles!?” It’s a focus group, not an man-hater club. And who has ever burst into a Chinese restaurant screaming, “But what about tacos? Tacos matter!”
While I have made such arguments myself this week, one must be careful trying to take on all of the angry, hostile comments on the internet. Remember what I said about peace of mind and mental health.
There are other ways to confront violence, and opposition though. My niece shared this video from CNN (Please take a couple of minutes to watch it!), in which Black Lives Matter protesters decided to go talk to some counter protesters. It ends with them all hugging and praying, black, white, police officers, all of them. It brings to mind the oft quoted words of Martin Luther King Jr., “Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
I am not a religious person, but I can get behind this sort of solidarity, this kind of unity. I feel something, call it spiritual, when I walk in the woods and admire what others call creation, as Richard Dawkins might say, the apparent design, the beauty and grace of it. I feel peace while watching the birds from my porch, and I feel connection with other humans through a look, a touch, or a word. We can call that spiritual, I think. We don’t have to believe the same things to agree on most matters of the heart.
Certainly some beliefs, dogmatically and literally taken, can cause, and absolutely have caused a world of pain and suffering. I contend that one can feel wonder through science, through discovery, through exploring and understanding the real. I am also a big fan, as you know, of poetry and metaphor. For me, that is what religion is, or should be, not a literal dogma to exclude, or to control.
And so a sort of meditation for us all on this Tuesday. I’ll be posting some more poetry readings this week and next, and many of those poems could be called mindfulness poems. I’m all about being mindful, being present, especially if that involves being kind and being good to each other, and taking care of the world we live in.
The following information is from the Tina Turner Blog and the YouTube video description. More about the practice of the mantra here.
Video clip for the Hindu Mantra recorded by Tina Turner, Regula Curti & Dechen Shak-Dagsay for the album ‘Children Beyond’ released in 2011 and available on Amazon (See links at the bottom).
Clip created with footage from the “Children Beyond” documentary.Video: Xaver Walser
Music: Regula Curti & Roland Frey (NJP Studio Zurich)
Videoclip Editing: Benjamin Degrèse (TinaTurnerBlog.com)Origin: Hindhuism
Language: SanskritOm Om Om
Sarvesham Svastir Bhavatu
Sarvesham Shantir Bhavatu
Sarvesham Poornam Bhavatu
Sarvesham Mangalam Bhavatu
Om, Shanti, Shanti, ShantiMantra’s Meaning:
May there be happiness in all
May there be peace in all
May there be completeness in all
May there be success in allGET ‘BEYOND’ (2009): http://goo.gl/uYccFZ
GET ‘CHILDREN BEYOND’ (2011): http://goo.gl/vfrDek
GET “BEYOND ‘LOVE WITHIN’ (2014): http://goo.gl/hiuNOGALL RIGHT RESERVED BEYOND FOUNDATION
David J. Bauman 
If ever there was a survivor, it’s Tina Turner.
Perhaps Jonathan has Wallace Stevens’ blue guitar? “A tune upon the blue guitar / Of things exactly as they are.”
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Of course, you and I are in sinc here. I did record “The Man with the Blue Guitar” by Wallace Stevens, and yes, absolutely used this photo.
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It looks like there’s a broken image (the Picasso), but here’s the post and video from 2012 when I was recording a poem a day for National Poetry Month.
https://dadpoet.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/day-29-30-days-30-readings-from-wallace-stevens-man-with-the-blue-guitar/
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Wow! pretty much covers my feelings about this post and Tina Turner’s video!
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After watching the video last night, I dreamed I was singing with Tina’s voice while crossing a very high and frightening bridge. Talk about symbolism, eh?
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