Canvas

I've been written on with invisible paint. Ever since I entered the auditorium of Northeastern University almost a decade ago to encounter a rainbow of breakdancers, graffiti writers, DJs and MCs in the purest essence of hip-hop, my soul was soaked in colored rain. It doesn't come off. It moves with me, as does the darkness of that Mos Def song that the selector blended through the record needle that day. That day was confirmation that I'm only a canvas. I have never written a thing. I have only been written on. Any creation thought to be mine is just my unique display of the hues splashed about and around me.

 Passive, not active.

 From the impressions of the Spanish songs my sun-kissed Afro Honduran grandmother would sing while swaying her hips to the elongated conversations with Thaione Davis in Dr Wax record store about music and more, I am the composition of others. The sculpture appears as a passing moment. As soon as you blink, your eyes open to a transformed work of art that is not the same as that which you shut your eyes to for less than a millisecond. That sculpture is you and I. Enthralled with Reflection Eternal's "Memories" as I stir strange thoughts on my keyboard, I reflect on how Talib Kweli made me a rapper as I received him into my canvas. Common is my fingers, Neil Young is my back, and my father is my courage. My granddad must make up my head, because any faint flashes of intelligence that I may have are blurred copies of his universal of brilliance. My aunt tells me so. Mother is my eccentricity, her father is my aesthetic sensuality, and her brothers and sister are my creativity. What else will I become? That is left to what else I experience. She writes inspiration on my heart with a feathered quill, drawing me as close while my reality tells me I'm distant. Bu what she said in code on my body makes me believe that when I lie alone she is there. The festival of San Joaquin will see me bring devotion to the Virgin in hopes that she would delete the space between us. Her united state is a handgun pointing to the West, squeezed by some entity that writes on my loins, "seek her" in the blood its bullets steal from my flesh . That is what the universe has stamped upon me. With no agency to resist, I am at peace that the canvas, my life, is in the best of small hands, and trust that the world's inscriptions upon me will blow my wandering self to her bosom, persuaded by the wind as it whispers my name darkly.

The Yesteryear Tomorrow

On the way to LA this past Saturday, I was nearly late for the train that would set my foot on its soil just before sunset. I nearly missed the train, and took rapid strides to arrive on time. Usually, time does not matter. These trains are always late. But, not this one. It was right on time, or even a minute early. As my ticket dropped from the machine a few seconds after the train doors opened, I rushed on the train, holding many of the highlights of Western philosophy in my hand. I caught a glimpse of it as I was boarding the vessel. It called me to it. The postmodern textures of the train cars didn't suit my contemplative mood, a mood that can take me from future to past. I walked from car to car to find solace, but could not. Then, as I kept moving to the last car of the train, I really saw it.

As I walked into the ancient car, with the seats adorned with light brown fabric from a Wonder Years show, and the floors gleaming as the sun bounced off its vintage metal strips, I passed into a porthole leading to that which had already been. I recognized it though when it was present, I didn't exist. It was like going from 2009 to 1965 instantly. I saw the world differently through its windows. Through these transparent glass holes, I can see conservative Christian dogmas and Jefferson Starship psychedelia at war in the California palm trees. They almost ruptured at the conflict. This car was the sore thumb in a modern world, being made years earlier. I could taste the patriarchy in the air, as foul as the very center of Archie Bunker's infamous chair. Yet, the flower scent of the winds of change mixed with the stench, assuring me that life requires the picking of forbidden fruits semi blind, making the taste of both the good and evil inevitable. I felt neither peace nor war here, just contemplation. As I exited the train and entered the modern era again, I wondered what had happened to me in this short hour when I was between Aristotle, Governor Regan, and these memory laden seats. Yet, I felt that I was related to everything in the universe in this olden train car.  Is the car God? Maybe not. Maybe God doesn't know where God is because there is nowhere to be known but the all, which is nothing. This reflection makes no sense because the essence and existence upon which I reflect is beyond the rational facades you mask your own ignorance with . Just the reality as I see it. Selah.

The word of the Lord from the God.

 

Track 3 'Sophia'..Gilead7's thoughts

IF YOU HAVEN'T HEARD THE SONG OF THE WEEK, GO TOHTTP://WWW.MYSPACE.COM/ADVENTISHERE TO LISTEN TO IT.

I'm writing this from the back of Cafe Florian on 57th St. Sitting with my laptop (peace to 2nd thought, who came through with the goods). Got a lot of songs in my ITunes library. This makes it hard to decide on what I should listen to. The collection of songs overflows with creativity. So much creativity. This is really what the 3rd ADVENT song 'Sophia' is about.

We're gonna go with Simon and Garfunkel's 'Scaroborough Fair/Canticle for now. On to 'Sophia." It's a hard concept to describe (at least for me), so theologians reading feel free to add or correct me.  In the book of Proverbs, what has been translated in some English versions as 'wisdom' comes from the Greek, 'Sophia'. The original Hebrew word is 'hokmah'. Sophia can be translated as 'God's creative agent in the world.'In the Gospel of John, the term 'logos' serves a similar function (thanks in part to Philo, a Jew who had become Hellenized, and spoke of wisdom as 'logos', or that through which all things come into being) with the author of this Gospel asserting that Jesus is synonymous with God's creative agent in the world (and the 'logos' was made flesh). Sophia can thought of as the life giving and life sustaining force of the universe; the ultimate guiding reality that humanity should strive to encounter and emulate. That's what this song is all about. Hendrix's 'The Wind Cries Mary' is blaring through my headphones right now btw. 

I haven't told you anything about the song. Irresponsible me. I.B. and I are at a point in our artistic lives where our creations need to to be recognized by a wider audience. Not just on some fame shit. We believe that our music has a significant contribution to pay to the world, with all of its joys and ailments. We have a lot to learn from Sophia, this endless ultimate creativity that impregnates the universe. So, we're not gurus who have something that the rest of you don't. We're on a journey with our lives and our art to pursue as much as we can handle with our 'feeble ass minds' to quote Reverend X The Spirit of Truth. This song is simply our speaking openly about a journey that all of humanity is on, and we 'glue our hearts to the millions, to the children that walk /their own path to find out they really wasn't lost'. That is the background of the song. 

The 'text' of the song reflects just what I've said, Let me point out some ways how. I should probably listen to Susan McKeown's version of 'Johnny Scott' while I type this part. Let's click that up. IB speaks about in the 1st verse about how his situation is '..portholes jammed,' and also references about how artists who take the road less travelled and create authentic art are overlooked. He also implies that those who chase after passing fads of music and urban culture (like many commercial musicians do) were on the path toward Sophia just by being alive but they have become sidetracked by what corrupt record labels and cultural norms have told them they should be. He says,' the gat that you raise is just a flag/you can wave it all you want, but what it mean if you don't last?' I B assures us that following the organic nature of the universe, the creative agency of Sophia, the energy of the universe, is to a large degree innate, and we can get there by not keeping up with the Jones', but following our heart. Many times, this is what leads us to that wisdom, that wisdom that is so powerful it changes in ways that allow it to give answers to whatever historical period its seekers find themselves in.

Let me take it home while playing GZA's 'Beneath The Surface.' My verse hosts me reviewing my career. You'll hear it. But simply, I planned to be a lot further than I am in my creations, like overseas, on tour, etc. But where am I? I'm '...in holes in walls where I hold the steel.' As I find Sophia, which is a never ending process, my passion to spend my life doing art for the audience of the world and contributing to a harmonious universe become one. This is a level when you can't tell where Sophia ends and where I begin.

Briefly: The DaVinci Code samples at the beginning of the track simply enforce that Sophia comes in a variety of forms from Christian to Atheist, Masonic to Pagan, etc. Sophia is NOT any of these forms, but transcends them. Also, Sophia is very closely related to divinity in the Christian tradition. Much of the tradition would say there is no difference. Sophia is a female personification,  and coincides with how God is referred to as female throughout the record. Go Bahamadia. Listening to Respect The Architect.

PS. The waitress in this joint is beyond beautiful. Beyond goddess. So be it.

WE'LL SEE YOU AT DARKROOM FOR THE SHOW ON THE 23RD>>>>2210 W. CHICAGO...FIRST OFFICIAL UNVEILING OF THE ADVENT IDEA

'Sophia' Gilead7's thoughts

I'm writing this from the back of Cafe Florian on 57th St. Sitting with my laptop (peace to 2nd thought, who came through with the goods). Got a lot of songs in my ITunes library. This makes it hard to decide on what I should listen to. The collection of songs overflows with creativity. So much creativity. This is really what the 3rd ADVENT song 'Sophia' is about.

We're gonna go with Simon and Garfunkel's 'Scaroborough Fair/Canticle for now. On to 'Sophia." In the book of Proverbs, what has been translated in some English versions as 'wisdom' comes from the Greek, 'Sophia (translation of the Hebrew 'Chokhma'. Sophia can be translated as 'God's creative agent in the world,' or the order of the universe. . In the Gospel of John, the term 'logos' serves a similar function, with the author of this Gospel asserting that Jesus is synonymous with God's creative agent in the world (and the 'logos' was made flesh, though logos was articulated as more male than female). Sophia can thought of as the life giving and life sustaining force of the universe; the essential pure and good reality that humanity should strive to encounter and emulate. That's what this song is all about. Hendrix's 'The Wind Cries Mary' is blaring through my headphones right now btw. 

I haven't told you anything about the song. Irresponsible me. I.B. and I are at a point in our artistic lives where our creations need to to be recognized by a wider audience. Not just on some fame shit. We believe that our music has a significant contribution to pay to the world, with all of its joys and ailments. We have a lot to learn from Sophia, this endless ultimate creativity that impregnates the universe. So, we're not gurus who have something that the rest of you don't. We're on a journey with our lives and our art to pursue as much as we can handle with our 'feeble ass minds' to quote Reverend X The Spirit of Truth. This song is simply our speaking openly about a journey that all of humanity is on, and we 'glue our hearts to the millions, the children that walk /their own path to find out they really wasn't lost'. That is the background of the song. 

The 'text' of the song reflects just what I've said, Let me point out some ways how. I should probably listen to Susan McKeown's version of 'Johnny Scott' while I type this part. Let's click that up. IB speaks about in the 1st verse about how his situation is '..portholes jammed,' and also references about how artists who take the road less travelled and create authentic art are overlooked. He also implies that those who chase after passing fads of music and urban culture (like many commercial musicians do) were on the path toward Sophia just by being alive but they have become sidetracked by what corrupt record labels and cultural norms have told them they should be. He says,' the gat that you raise is just a flag/you can wave it all you want, but what it mean if you don't last?' I B assures us that following the organic nature of the universe, the creative agency of Sophia, the energy of the universe, is to a large degree innate, and we can get there by not keeping up with the Jones', but following our heart.

Let me take it home while playing GZA's 'Beneath The Surface.' My verse hosts me reviewing my career. You'll hear it. But simply, I planned to be a lot further than I am in my creations, like overseas, on tour, etc. But where am I? I'm '...in holes in walls where I hold the steel.' As I find Sophia, which is a never ending process, my passion to spend my life doing art for the audience of the world and contributing to a harmonious universe become one. This is a level when you can't tell where Sophia ends and where I begin.

Briefly: The DaVinci Code samples at the beginning of the track simply enforce that Sophia comes in a variety of forms from Christian to Atheist, Masonic to Pagan, etc. Sophia is NOT any of these forms, but transcends them. Also, Sophia is very closely related to divinity in the Christian tradition. Much of the tradition would say there is no difference. Sophia is a female, and coincides with how God is referred to as female throughout the record. Go Bahamadia. Listening to Respect The Architect.

PS. The waitress in this joint is beyond beautiful. Beyond goddess. So be it.