Monday, February 22, 2010

We need a new ritual ~ or: Something Jimi Knew

(Written while listening to Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner pre-Obama and despite Obama. Re-posted from Writing the Energetic Body).


Jimi Hendrix was a genius. What would he think of the world if he were alive now? Where did the freedom go? He knew how to use Ritual Chaos. Not the same as the pounding fast thrash of today — the regimented “war-cry” that in reality dulls the senses, lulls us in fear and complacency. No, Jimi created a resonance, a sustain. Our National Anthem completely shredded and put back together so a generation could own it again.

I feel like I’m between generations, a generation without a meaningful song to call our own. Can’t even say punk was my generation.

MTV Top 40 Oblivion, I've never been able to swallow it.

Consume. Consume. I see fire consuming our flag, burning, this time gone, completely up in smoke (and mirrors). Our only choice is to transmute the red, white and blue.

Transmute ourselves to transmute the world. If we only believed that we are already enlightened. (Jimi knew that)

Feet sinking in mud, deep, stuck, torso contorting and writhing. I can’t move my legs, but I want to dance somehow anyway. Writhing here, stuck and sinking. Quicksand, a slow suck sink. But still, I’m compelled to throw my arms in the air and bend over backward.

Liberty, I believe in you. Freedom, you can save me.

No one could spell it out like Jimi. Distorted, contorted Freedom? Did he know that the shit was gonna keep hitting the fan?

Does anybody really know what Freedom is? Talk of Freedom is on the airwaves everyday, while most of my life I’ve experienced one form of slavery or another. I don’t know what it’s like not to work, to have disposable income, or to have a siesta without guilt. I’m just beginning to figure out that there’s no point in worrying about money because I’ll either have it, or I won’t, or I’ll owe it. No big surprises.

Freedom to me is having the ability to put my hands in cool pure dirt and smell its cleanliness, to know that I can grow food that will nourish me. Freedom is the ability to walk wherever I please without having to spend money to do it. Freedom is the ability to love and be loved unconditionally. Freedom is the ability to make choices about my body, to decide if I will have children or not, to have all the choices available to me when I need them. Freedom is not having to work all the time just to survive. Freedom is knowing what I’m eating and where it comes from (back to growing it myself). Freedom is having the time to sit down and have a delicious relaxed meal with loved ones, time to make art, to make love, to read, to write, to have meaningful relationships, conversations, to share ideas, to listen to and to make music.

Freedom is knowing that there is more to life than getting up, going to work, coming home, closing our doors to "foreigners" and "terrorists", flipping on the TV, shopping online, sinking in our fears and closing our hearts and minds to connecting and evolving and making a difference.

We need to start blowing each other’s minds again.

c 2008

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