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Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

GATHERING AT THE VALLEY OF FLUID ANGLES

Words and music below for my spoken word piece accompanied by sitar.

My friend Dino Corvino in his, “Here You Are Wausau” podcast will be focusing on Writing in Public – what he also calls citizen journalism – in his next few episodes. He’ll be speaking with a few friends that write, talking about his own writing, and will publish these podcasts soon.
I spoke with him regarding aspects of writing: process, ego, why we write, how we started, and more. It was lots of fun, and in the middle of our convo, drawing from an experience with my friend Randy here in Arizona, I stated that a writer also puts something in the public eye to make a statement.
This strikes me as a credo for all artists, and while I’ve not put anything in public with sitar before, here is a combined sitar and written word work. Wait till it’s dark, light a candle, hear the story and sound wash over you like a gentle river.
https://gregoryormson.com/go/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/SARASWATI-SITAR.mp3

My sitar flows in 19 bands of light: baaj, chikari, and tarab. Its journey to my hand is a mystery, but its music-medicine came to my doorstep from an old land, gripped me from the eons, and pulled my soul into its orbit. It’s a path unlike any other, bending more than notes.

A musician said, “Its all angles.”

Sitar bends the note, Saraswati dances with a swan, and because I’ve felt this resonance I participate in its step toward the depths from which rises a watery siren-song of the fathoms.

Sitar bends the note, Saraswati dances with a swan, and because I’ve felt this resonance I participate in its step toward the depths from which rises a watery siren-song of the fathoms.

The sitar flows like never-ending river, shepherding me to a place close and yet far away. My teacher speaks in clusters of daring: “Consistency, consistency, consistency,” she says. Her words; the kernel of all learning, teaching, and the core of every guru’s curriculum.

I’ve seen the rivers of India, but I can’t put myself and my sitar on their banks; but at dusk, on a hot July night, I made my way with this string & steel riddle to the banks of the Salt River.  Listening, I realized sitar will not accompany me without also shepherding along a river of souls.

Looking to the Salt, I could almost see a funeral pyre float past; a desert inspired mirage bobbing with the current, like a lazy raft ablaze in flames and scented smoke; grief in its wake.

In the desert, and on the Salt, my sitar smelled like incense and the hymnody it raised came from an earlier time. I followed its lead, though I didn’t understand.

My round orbit needs a bending, moving to the same low place with water. My hand slides over the baaj: sa ra ga ma pa da ni sa; then I start over and turn back looking for Saraswati to dance along the edges of my fingers.

If I endow this time with consistency, maybe she will appear, open the gates of inspiration, and I will find a corner – a crag in the rock – from which to behold a swan and a golden orb. I’ll breathe deep, stroke the baaj, tarab and chikari raise a note for another time. I’ll hold the wave and lean into the valley of fluid angles.

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Filed Under: MUSIC, Writing: Author Yoga Song, Rochak Press Tagged With: #chant, #gregoryormson.com, #laccourtoreilles, #motorcyclingyogiG, #musicstory, #riverstory #Indiamemory #storytelling, #sacredhoop #talkingradio, #sankalpa, #Saraswati, #satsong, #sitar, #SlowDownAndBreathe, #song, #songwriting #spokenword #musicwriting, #spokenword, #theminingjournal #nmualumni #yogacoacharizona #yogaforbikers #asana #msfridercoach, alignment, Arizona, Poetry - literature - writing, UWLaCrosseAlumni Leave a Comment

About Gregory Ormson

Author Yoga Song. Writing on yoga, motorcycling, music, the Midwest, and more. Beyond that, a human being working lyric narrative, playing music, traveling, learning, and breathing with intention. Like everyone, I'm a bit of stardust, a touch of shadow and light; and a drop of golden wrapped in billion year old carbon. Pretty simple, really.

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