Dave Stringer and Healing Chants

Dave Stringer Performs at The Yoga Barn, Bali

An excerpt from my new article on the unifying power of chant in Newsvoice.se .  It is a feature about respected Kirtan singer, Dave Stringer, who recently performed at the Yoga Barn. Stringer discussed singing in gibberish to be therepeutic in a way that reminded me of a practice used by some shamans.

In certain shamanic chants or mantras bits and pieces of words come through in a vocal soup that makes little sense to most. Still, some believe there is a healing force that can be traced to the quality, shape and combination of the sounds themselves.

After learning about Kototama, an ancient study of sound, I was made aware that certain vocal sounds can stimulate while others sedate and that different combinations of vowels and consonants have symbolic and universal significance--it can start with how you utter your name--the name being each person's principal mantra for life.

ICARO TO MOTHER NATURE AMAZONIAN CHANT
Dairandaidrandidai
Hasto cielo mantchini cinchi cinchi medicoy

Mediconche coy na mi hapa morish vwa miquay

Dairandaidrandidai

Dairandaidrandidai

In this way, may be sounds do make up a world language like Stringer suggests--most musicians call music a universal language for a reason, and the words used in their songs don't have to make much transliteral sense.

To access the healing power of sound, there is an implied delinking of the mind involved, which is simply another altered state or pathway to the second attention.

The most interesting aspect of Stringer was his personal history and how he came to discover the therapeutic power of song. As a youngster, Dave would sing gibberish to himself—uttering a string of vocal sounds that often made no coherent sense– “it appeared and I just followed it,” he recalled.


Dave described this practice as a spiritual communication process from within, “it was the kind of nonsense that was meaningful to me,” He acknowledged there were possible shamanic elements to these non-linear vocalizations. And he came to consider them as ways to take negative emotions and to release and replace them with positive ones.

Dave discovered Kirtan later on while traveling in India... as a study and practice that gave structure and definition to the inner processes that he had privately engaged in all along. In a sense, Kirtan validated the gibberish.

“It gave my life a rich meaning—I could transform what was dark and difficult into something brighter and allow it to spread. So I went around the world singing.”

The full piece can be found here

FIRST CONTACT

An undisturbed tribe of indigenous Amazonians were caught on video this year for the first time to verify their true existence to Brazilian authorities. The rainforest tribespeople were filmed from a helicopter about 1 km away, using cutting-edge camera technology.

The reason for this exercise, according to Jose Carlos Meirelles, of FUNAI (the National Indian Foundation of Brazil), was to preserve the tribe’s lands and culture from loggers and other powerful interests who have plans to develop the land.

The intention of keeping the tribe shielded behind the trees; perfectly preserved inside its own natural bubble of frozen time is important and noble although ultimately futile. Not to sound pessimistic, but it seems unlikely to work for long. Whatever little is left of the world’s mysteries is rapidly being overturned, analyzed, and exploited by the hyperthinkers and doers who want everything figured out and turned into profit. The cost of the damage done is rarely factored and the earth’s natural harmony seems only to warrant fixing under this model.

As humanity looks to explore and conquor more physical space, the most important discoveries left to most of us remain buried away inside the psyche’s deepest wounds and greatest hopes--the inner frontiers, as poet David Whyte might describe them.

Advocates of a modern lifestyle might argue that these “primitives” would benefit from a dose of space-age enlightenment and other scientific and social advancements, which are only accessible to the industrialized person, and that they should be approached and "made better" by our ways.

Guardians of the world’s dying mysteries would say that the simple ways and practices of these people can better help them remain connected with the heart of nature and thereby the natural self, and they should be left alone.

Another cadre of people might believe that in order for both our peoples to survive, their voices and experiences ought to be heard, shared, honored, and integrated into society; for theirs is an essential wisdom that we can learn from; a wisdom that is healing and rapidly disappearing.

I belong to this last group. But the question still begs: should they be left alone? I regret that the answer is 'yes.'

In the end, the essential course of action may be to empower these people from a distance as we would a beautifully mysterious and forgotten version of ourselves that ghosts in and out of view when we sometimes look in the mirror. As you suit up to go to work, consider allowing the inner tribesperson in you to materialize today. It will help you look back at your mind’s camera mounted atop your inner observer’s helicopter with a stronger sense of wonder.

To read an article about the Tribe, visit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12325690

Avatar's Real Life Impact--

A recent NY Times article discusses Jim Cameron's efforts to engage Brazilian indigenous leaders. It's hugely important to see this Hollywood director taking action and building on the messages and themes of his film. It takes courage to work and to apply the lessons of a story to a real life situation involving real people and a real threat to tribes in the Amazon. His analogy is accurate and the surprise appearance of the snake is all too telling.

I have experienced the magic of the Amazon and its transformational powers firsthand when I visited Peru a few years ago. Nowhere had I been more captivated by nature's power and awe than there. For those in tune, the jungle has spiritual as well as scientifically proven healing properties. It gives me hope that a film like Avatar (and support from its creators) can help prevent this global treasure from slipping away from us.

Tribes of Amazon Find an Ally Out of ‘Avatar’
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
VOLTA GRANDE DO XINGU, Brazil — They came from the far reaches of the Amazon, traveling in small boats and canoes for up to three days to discuss their fate. James Cameron, the Hollywood titan, stood before them with orange warrior streaks painted on his face, comparing the threats on their lands to a snake eating its prey.

“The snake kills by squeezing very slowly,” Mr. Cameron said to more than 70 indigenous people, some holding spears and bows and arrows, under a tree here along the Xingu River. “This is how the civilized world slowly, slowly pushes into the forest and takes away the world that used to be,” he added.

As if to underscore the point, seconds later a poisonous green snake fell out of a tree, just feet from where Mr. Cameron’s wife sat on a log. Screams rang out. Villagers scattered. The snake was killed. Then indigenous leaders set off on a dance of appreciation, ending at the boat that took Mr. Cameron away. All the while, Mr. Cameron danced haltingly, shaking a spear, a chief’s feathery yellow and white headdress atop his head.

In the 15 years since he wrote the script for “Avatar,” his epic tale of greed versus nature, Mr. Cameron said, he had become an avid environmentalist. But he said that until his trip to the Brazilian Amazon last month, his advocacy was mostly limited to the environmentally responsible way he tried to live his life: solar and wind energy power his Santa Barbara home, he said, and he and his wife drive hybrid vehicles and do their own organic gardening.

“Avatar” — and its nearly $2.7 billion in global tickets sales — has changed all that, flooding Mr. Cameron with kudos for helping to “emotionalize” environmental issues and pleas to get more involved.

Now, Mr. Cameron said, he has been spurred to action, to speak out against the looming environmental destruction endangering indigenous groups around the world — a cause that is fueling his inner rage and inspiring his work on an “Avatar” sequel.

“Any direct experience that I have with indigenous peoples and their plights may feed into the nature of the story I choose to tell,” he said. “In fact, it almost certainly will.” Referring to his Amazon trip, he added, “It just makes me madder.”

Mr. Cameron is so fired up, in fact, that he said he was planning to go back to the Amazon this week, this time with Sigourney Weaver and at least another member of the “Avatar” cast in tow.

The focus is the huge Belo Monte dam planned by the Brazilian government. It would be the third largest in the world, and environmentalists say it would flood hundreds of square miles of the Amazon and dry up a 60-mile stretch of the Xingu River, devastating the indigenous communities that live along it. For years the project was on the shelf, but the government now plans to hold an April 20 auction to award contracts for its construction.

Stopping the dam has become a fresh personal crusade for the director, who came here as indigenous leaders from 13 tribes held a special council to discuss their last-ditch options. It was Mr. Cameron’s first visit to the Amazon, he said, even though he based the fictional planet in “Avatar” on Amazon rain forests. Still, he found the real-life similarities to the themes in his movie undeniable.

The dam is a “quintessential example of the type of thing we are showing in ‘Avatar’ — the collision of a technological civilization’s vision for progress at the expense of the natural world and the cultures of the indigenous people that live there,” he said.

Mr. Cameron said that he was writing a letter to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva urging him to reconsider the dam and that he would press for a meeting with the president. “They need to listen to these people here,” he said.

Mr. Cameron, 55, first encountered the cause in February, after being presented with a letter from advocacy organizations and Native American groups saying they wanted Mr. Cameron to highlight “the real Pandoras in the world,” referring to the lush world under assault in his movie.

Atossa Soltani, executive director of Amazon Watch, who accompanied him on his trip last month, said Mr. Cameron lit up at the idea of learning more, saying he had grown up in the Canadian woods and had even logged thousands of hours underwater exploring the world’s oceans.

As for Mr. Cameron’s Amazon adventure, it got off to a rocky start. The boat he traveled to the village in flooded when a hose became disconnected. Mr. Cameron chipped in, grabbing a plastic bucket to help bail for a few hours in the searing midday heat, he and others on the boat said.

Many of the indigenous leaders he was planning to meet with had never heard of him before, much less seen his movie. All they knew was that “a powerful ally” would be attending their gathering, Ms. Soltani said.

So, the night before Mr. Cameron and his wife, Suzy Amis, arrived with three bodyguards, a dozen or so villagers gathered in the house of José Carlos Arara, the chief of the Arara tribe here, to watch a DVD of “Avatar.”

“What happens in the film is what is happening here,” said Chief Arara, 30.

The morning after Mr. Cameron’s party arrived in the village, Chief Arara led them on a walk through the rain forest. Mr. Cameron, almost mirroring the enraptured scientists in his movie, was calm but wide-eyed, peppering the chief with questions about the local fauna and flora and traditional indigenous ways. In seconds, the chief showed how he could fashion ankle braces from leaves to help him scale an açaí tree.

The leaders then invited Mr. Cameron to participate in their meeting. He sat at a small wooden school desk as they made speeches condemning the impending dam and the Brazilian government. Mr. Cameron seemed to tear up when some leaders said they would be willing to die to stop the dam.

Finally, Mr. Cameron was asked to speak. He stood and complimented the leaders on their unity, saying they needed to fight off efforts by the government to divide them and weaken their resistance.

“That is what can stop the snake; that is what can stop the dam,” he said.

A rush of applause swept through the crowd. When the real snake fell from the tree, the director seemed unfazed. After clearing it away, indigenous leaders thanked him with gifts. One gave him a spear, another a black and red necklace of seeds. A third, Chief Jaguar from the Kaiapo nation, one of Brazil’s most respected, gave him his headdress before the dances in Mr. Cameron’s honor began.

“It’s not like there is any pressure on me or anything,” he said, half-joking, moments before boarding the boat. “These people really are looking for me to do something about their situation. We have to try to stop this dam. Their whole way of life, their society as they know it, depends on it.”