2007/07/25

Found in Translation Part 1

I sing songs from many lands and in other languages for dance. I add these to my repertoire from time to time from a fairly large archive of recordings that I used to use for dance – before I started singing them.

One such song was an expansive Greek song that had always opened a celebratory heart so I felt to learn it. “Tsamikos Ivalla - also known as Maria’s Tsamikos”

I asked a network of other dance teachers if anyone had the original lyric – and as an afterthought – any translation.

Someone did – but the translation was just the sort of thing that might have prevented me wanting to sing it! Here is the Lyric translated:

Yesterday as the sun turned - Ivalla! Yesterday afternoon They came and stole -Ivalla! The morning star They were eleven, they were 12, they were 13 All with horses, all with weapons, so they would be feared!

Up runs Botsaris - Ivalla! And Karafotias. They take up weapons - Ivalla! Against the Arvanites. And from the fighting, from the bloodshed and from the carnage, Houses cracked and collapsed, the mountain shook!

Yesterday as the sun turned - Ivalla! Yesterday afternoon They did not take from us - Ivalla! The morning star Here's to you Botsaris - Ivalla! And Karafotias, You have shamed - Ivalla! The Arvanites



The form of this is not at all initially attractive to me – but I found myself asking within to be shown what it was in its primary symbols as a story - and this is what came:

Take 1:
I see a story of having had our treasure (land/place/woman?) stolen by a greater force. They are Others. But that by courage and a bold intent and resistance and at cost of the ruin and change of the world as we know it The treasure remains with us and we stand tall against those who sought to deny us.

The treasure is a symbol of beauty and truth - expressions of the Divine. The Arvanites take the role of the feared and repressed forces that would overwhelm the seemingly outnumbered self with fear and consequent loss.

The heroes are the capacity and willingness to risk all in doing what must be done to keep connection with light in the mind though it shook the foundations of the world and all was changed. They are praised as the embodiment of a saving force that held back the darkness and kept the 'Morning Star'.

As with all stories, all the characters, roles and symbols are in our mind. "out there' is internal scenery serving as a prop for the story.

This story seems to speak of the ego's version of itself and the world. Special self supported by its symbols of the divine. Competition and conflict. Victory (and loss).

Something did not feel complete n me with this, so I asked and listened again to see what would be revealed.

Take 2:
The fear that would judge, and thus rob us, (as if a separate power), by endarkening the wholeness of mind from itself is seen in its intimidating array of force but is refused.

This refusal allows in and supports the single clear intent that is willing to express integrity even though in so doing is the foundation of the self shook and the mind and the world changed.

In gratitude and celebration is the Spirit that restores sanity and dispels the fear of loss recognised and glorified.

Notes:
This the essence is derived from the substance but the reverse does not hold true.
I am not offering any justification of conflict worldly terms. I am addressing the mind that thinks and then believes its story.

The refusal to obey fear's dictate is the seed of peace within a mind in conflict. In time and by welcome it grows to a level that has some consistency and can be discerned as the voice for truth. (Though it may still be feared as it does not fit into the status quo and the consequences of following it seem dire).

Until then it seems mixed among the clamour of reaction and yet grows to the point where the ‘Yes’ for life expresses as the ‘No’ to allegiance or subserviance to that which undermines life.

This can get messy because reaction is still triggered by seeming external events but is essentially standing FOR and WITH. It becomes clear that taking an identity against something is to give the power of your mind over to it.

By releasing all claims to power as if a separated mind that has to enforce its will, is welcome made for the power of Oneness or the expression of innate integrity.

Rather than identify as a self-made-self we rediscover Identity as a living expression of that which is alive and which we do not create.
This is the basis from which we can respond from a fresh and conflict free place rather than react with rebranded answers from the same old database of past experience.

I felt to put the whole thing like this as a reference in case anyone was actually curious as to how a warmongering horror story could be a source of inspiration and homecoming.

I read it with my heart and my mind served behind.

I was inspired to practice this way of reading as a result of reading the NTI.
The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament ~ A Course in Understanding and Acceptance or NTI ( “New Testament Interpretations") To be published next year - but freely readable online at www.forholyspirit.org

In Peace

Brian