This post is about a song. Two songs actually, Bliss and Dunia, both playlisted by Buddha’s Lounge on YouTube. It’s also about the power that music has to cause transformational effects to our normal reality, to take us to a new level. It’s not just emotional, it’s a real life transformation that happens. You find yourself changing into something you weren’t before, a new experience, a new feeling, seeing the world in a new way, having an epiphany. Plug in the ear buds, click and sit back.
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And here’s my epiphany. Bliss is the balm that heals all wounds. “Like waves to the shore, part of the ocean. The stars high above, part of the sky. Now I drift to you, I dream of a river. A water so blue, wish I could live there. Wish you were here.”
The music starts off with the muezzin singing about Dunia. Dunia means “world” in Arabic, as in the world we live in. It also means “to be satisfied”, “to be well pleased”. (from Eudocia). Or better yet, the YouTube comment from just below where the music is, where Sadou Diallo, a listener, comments, “Dunya means Life in many African languages. I'am Fulani and we call life aduna sounds adouna. Beautiful lives to all of you, peace on you journeys, peace on your bodies, peace on your souls, peace on your family, peace from a victorious land. Love you all guys. Your sister from humanity.”
Then the song quickly shifts from Arabic into English, from Dunia to Bliss. Or bliss into dunia. Either way or both ways. You can play the music while reading, just click.
“Like the air that I breathe, you'll always be there. The wings that I need, when I wanna fly. Now I drift to you, I dream of a river. A water so blue, wish I could live there. Wish you were here.”
I’m a big fan of bliss. Not just the song but the feeling, the lift. I think it’s something that we should talk about. Why not? Is it taboo or something?
Then the song changes and the muezzin is singing about ‘Dunia’ again. The muezzin of course is the minaret singer guy on top of the minaret calling out at dusk for all the faithful to come pray. It feels like being in a desert city with houses of baked mud and the setting sun lighting up the horizon with subtle shades of orange, pink and yellow as he lays down his sonic pathway for the pilgrims to follow.
Actually Bliss is not the name of the song, but the name of the band who produced the album that the song is on. ‘Wish U Were Here’ is the name of the song and the name of the album is ‘Quiet Letters’. It features guest vocalist Sophie Barker from Zero 7. I’ve done my homework.
But it’s bliss the feeling that I really want to talk about. This is the goal of our human life, isn’t it? I think so. Or should be anyways. “Living on planet earth is blissful” is what the song seems to be saying, both songs actually - the one in Arabic and the other in English and then both together.
And what a nice fit, since they’re been fighting with each other since like the Crusades. That’s hundreds of years. Gees. Fighting over whose religion is more blissful. Just feel the bliss and it won’t matter. Just enjoy living on planet earth and it won’t matter who lives where or why. Just feel the bliss and we won’t need politics. Lord knows it doesn’t help anything.
It’s like cars are the most inefficient form of transportation ever invented: a 4,000 pound vehicle carrying one 180 lb. person to a predetermined location like a grocery store (easily served by public transportation) exhausting poison gas all along the way into the air we breath; yet it’s also the most popular form of transportation ever invented. Like politics, the way we practice it, is the most inefficient way of solving our problems ever invented and yet we keep doing it. Nothing actually gets solved but new problems get created. Gees.
We could do so much better. We could choose to talk about bliss. We could make it a lifestyle priority if we chose to. What would it take, I wonder, for that kind of a transformation to happen?
Dunia concludes with a prayer. Actually the whole song is a prayer:
“Pray for a happy ending because no one knows tomorrow.
Pray for a happy ending if you are a Muslim.
Pray for each other for a happy ending, pray for your religion.
Pray for a happy ending if you are a Christian.
Let's pray for a happy ending.
Pray for a happy ending, pray for a secret.”
Basically wishing bliss on everyone.
Folks, I’m getting old. This train is pulling into the station. Slowing down at least. Not much time to do much else. Feel some bliss or leave missing the best part. Things get clarified with age. What we knew as a child returns to us. My mother actually returned to her childhood when she was old and senile. They literally had to tie her to her wheelchair and put an alarm on it because she was trying to get out of there, find her mother and go home to Toby the dog and her 11 siblings and the old farmstead in Hillsdale Michigan with the gardens and the animals. She didn’t belong in that nursing home, she knew that for sure.
None of us belong in a nursing home. We belong to the bliss. That’s our home.
The international world music chill out pop band Bliss is based in Denmark with members from Denmark, Sweden, and Guinea-Bissau.
Bliss