Gayatri – Source of Love is a collaboration with Australian sound healer and medicine man Darpan, and Norwegian singer Helene Bøksle. It also features a string quartet arrangement by Misha Mullov-Abbado, percussion and guitars by Brazilian musicians Renato Anesi and Txai Fernando, Italian bass player Antonio Moscato and the South Devon choir Glorious Chorus.
I’d like to share a little with you how this song came into being.
I’ve always loved poetry, and one of my favourite poets is Dylan Thomas. One of his poems has stayed with me over the years since I first read it a long time ago:
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The poem uses nighttime as a metaphor for death. The speaker acknowledges that death is inevitable—everyone dies, sooner or later. But that doesn’t mean that people should simply give up and give in to death. Instead, the speaker argues that people should fight fiercely and bravely, against death. Dylan Thomas was imploring his dying father to fight death and also maybe convincing himself that in “raging” he can somehow stop the processes of death.
Well, I’ve carried these powerful words with me and they have come back to me at certain moments of crisis. Fast forward to February 2022. I found myself in a situation where I was isolated, trapped and without any clear way out. My life was not physically under threat but I found myself with flight/flight/freeze impulses flooding my system. In those moments these words of Dylan Thomas came to mind, but at the same time I felt a disconnection with this image of rage and the fierce energy behind the words. In their place, these words of the Tao te Ching came to me:
Nothing in the world
Is as soft as water
Yet, for dissolving the hard and the inflexible,
Nothing can surpass it
The soft overcomes the hard
The gentle overcomes the rigid
Everyone knows this is true
But few can put it into practice
Then I softened and breathed deeply into the situation I was in. I connected inside myself to the place where the deepest wisdom resides, and I heard a new melody forming. The first two lines of Dylan Thomas’ poem inverted themselves and echoed in a new form over and over inside my heart …
Go soft into the deep of the night
Do not rage against the dying of the light
… and then slowly the rest of the lyrics came trickling through and a new song was born:
– Source Of Love –
Go soft into the deep of the night
Do not rage against the dying of the light
For the stars will come
And the moon will shine
And silver beings will guide you
On your journey through the night
Yes the stars will come
And the moon will shine
And in this darkness you will find
Your way to the Source of Love
Do not doubt or hesitate
Feel the breath each step you take
For the time for healing is here
And it cannot wait
The body will tremble, the heart will sigh
The world will give you reasons to cry
But the light of the source of love
Can never die
Radiant form of Consciousness
Finest Spiritual Light,
Shimmering, Glimmering Emptiness
Perfect, Pure and Bright
I was not in a place where I could sing the song out loud, there was all kinds of turmoil going on around me, so I just heard the song silently in my head, gently calling me to open and surrender.
And then, as if to seal the process, the words of the Gayatri mantra came to me with a fresh melody naturally flowing from the song as kind of crowning affirmation:
Om Bhur Bhuvah Svaha
Tat Savitur Varenyam
Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi
Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayat
This powerful mantra embodies the universal wisdom of the Rig Veda, one of the oldest and most sacred spiritual texts, composed about 3500 years ago. Difficult to present a definitive translation of the Sanskrit here, but as I understand it is an expression of gratitude and praise to the powers of transformation, inner growth and self-realisation of the divine radiant light.
Thank you for reading my words, I hope you appreciate this song.
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