Mirabai Ceiba's latest release 'A Hundred Blessings'
I asked Markus and Angelika to share some of the story behind making their new release 'A Hundred Blessings.' Here are some of their responses:
In Markus' words:
"It was about one year ago around my 35th Birthday, we lived by that time in a wonderful place in Mexico, called Tepoztlan. One morning a dear friend of mine sent me an email saying "Good Morning, have a Rumi for breakfast" followed by the poem 'A hundred Blessings'. The incredible words just went straight to my heart and I could feel its music. I also knew that if I would like to find this music , I should not force it, I should allow it to unfold itself whenever the time would be ripe. I carried this song several days with me, breeding. And then suddenly in one moment, while tunning my guitar it just came, " suddenly it taped under my window" it came as a blessing from "it's nest of silence"... and became song in less than ten minutes - without thinking."
In Angelika's Words:
"At dusk, the birds all shared their goodnight songs, and thousands of sounds of crickets and frogs welcomed every magical fireflies night, and in such a moment we recorded the song to Rumi's poem "A Hundred Blessings". It all came so perfectly together in that moment, that we could not possibly attempt to try recording it again, it is of those moments that all subtle energies come together in the same time to serve for one purpose, and that moment becomes unique.
Every time I sing this song I reach to a very soft and vast place inside of me. If there where words to describe it, I would say it is the possibility to deeply experience the smiles of my children for an infinite instant."
Creating the video from Angelika & Markus:
"Shooting the Video with Corwin Bell, was another deepening in the relationship with the song. He as a filmmaker came with his point of view and his questions.
What are the words really saying? What is the "story"? We started working much closer with the meaning of the words...the freshness, the smoke , the holy mountain...and for two days while shooting the video we lived a fragment ( lived an instant ) of our story of the song, realizing, that there are as many ways of living the story of this poem as human beings are on the planet...and that there are no words to describe the wave of love coming out of the silence.
When I sent the video to the friend who had sent me the "Rumi for breakfast" a year ago, he replied " It is like a snapshot of your life.""
And about their RA MA DA SA track
In Markus Words:
"When my oldest daughter became a teenager, she was going through a very sad and fearful process of leaving childhood and facing the Unknown. She felt sometimes so lost and alone, like fallen out of the universe. Almost every night she cried. I was moved by her process and wanted to give her a "tool" to reestablish deep faith in her. We meditated together and did evening Yoga and one night I was sitting on her bed with my guitar singing Ra Ma Da Sa to calm her fearful heart."
In Angelika's Words:
"For me, making this recording experience being pregnant was also a big gift, since what more can I ask for than use this very sensitive energy for a creative purpose that will serve others as well? Being pregnant is like reestablishing the spiritual links to Mother Earth, and the location of the Studio contained the perfect conditions for this to happen together with the music. Like when we recorded Ra Ma Da Sa, it rained and thundered outside, as if being part of a deep cleansing and healing, and I just allowed that through me to become the music."
Markus and Angelika wanted to make a music video to create a visual expression of their music. They worked with Corwin, an amazing artist in his own right who did the videography, editing and animation for this video. Here are his words about this album:
"My goal in this version was to illuminate the profound elements of Rumi's poem, extending what the artist Mirabai have done with making it musical.
To illuminate Rumi musically and visually!
The current version is true to the "Experimental film genre".
The idea is to create integrity and trust with the imagery,by allowing the viewer to see the technology and the artists making the film (ie..blue screen,starkness) and not hide this technology "hollywood style". It is concerned with truth, not the Illusion of truth.
The viewer feels the authenticity of the message, when it is not hidden with film tricks. At end of the video we see Marcus and Gely "playing" with the blue screen, we see their true-ness and their personalities, we as the viewer feel closer to them and we trust them!
We also trust what we have seen and there is motivation to watch it again under this new light of trust. The opening, the blurred Markus character, is the image or vision of what Rumi might have looked like, turning in amazement and finding ways to express this love in his poem,... in the Mtns around the Anatolian city, Turkey.
The Gely character begins the "transport" into the visual alchemic,...as we count one,... she closes her eyes, two..... closes her eyes and finally we transport into her hand and we are now seeing into the tapestry of each of their minds, "not in a dream", but fully conscious, in contemplation of this dynamo between reason and the powerful flow of love.
The knock comes to both in the "darkness" and "starkness" of reality,... the Gely character, almost too stiff to dance with love,... here, turns, like out of a calculated novel. ...But in seconds after love knocks, her "love self" "inner child" or "the Lover" as Rumi would say, sprints excitedly to open the door, jumping with glee. Her love self totally ready to embrace that which has come knocking.
This is a powerful visual,.. that the inner child of love,.. is always racing ahead of reason, to catch the moment before it eludes. the freshness before the smoke of the fires.
We see the one moment where it looks as if Markus character had failed to understand and seems to be sad, but his eyes show he is learning and wanting to continue.
Markus character is struggling to comprehend, this is difficult awareness, the angelic, the bliss of the morning, the innocence newness, the "freshness"
We see that Markus character is really going through the journey, realizing that love is not Romeo and Juliet, it is the very subtle dynamic of supporting and nurturing the flames of all the love in his reality.
We have to see how the "hero" or "heroine" fails but also how the hero recovers from his failure. Markus character as "myth" demonstrates this with grace and tenderness,
he relights the flame that has been extinguished, in an almost impossible environment to keep a flame alive, but he succeeds!
This moment is the seed metaphor of the whole piece, it is the crux and the moment of realization.
There is the long dance and then the two standing back to back."
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[...] You can read more about the making of this song and album in Markus and Angelika’s own words by reading our March 10 post: Mirabai Ceiba – The Making of ‘A Hundred Blessings’ [...]