Across The River

Across the river
Across the river
Across the river I go

Peter Gabriel / Rhodes, David / Shankar, Lakshminarayana / Copeland, Stewart


Continuing a metaphysical theme this week it seems...

A curious sentiment overcame me this morning while driving and listening to the media player. I had selected All music which started with the letter 'A'. Across The River came up pretty quickly from Secret World Live with a fade into Slow Marimbas. It caught me and transported me to a different place, a younger time in university days, when I hadn't yet travelled off the North American Continent. This was a time of absolute freedom within the context of being a student and no larger obligations than to feed and dress myself, and to organize my days around Learning - both curricular and extracurricular, and to concentrate on friendships and testing the waters of the world with my big toe.

At the time I used a loft that I built with my father with my desk below and mattress above. I had a blue light in my room and would chill out listening to music when going to sleep. I had been turned on to Ravi Shankar along with a lot of other music including jazz and classical and would go to the public library to check out CD's which were something of a novelty still. The only reason for mentioning Shankar is the world music that Gabriel was incorporating in his music at that time with Middle Eastern, African and South American influences. Across The River has a wonderful middle eastern sound that just grows and grows until Gabriel belts out "Hey Hey!" in the last part.

Here's where it gets interesting. I was also studying World Religions as an elective and writing a paper on Hua-Yen Budhism. One thing contains all other existing things... and vice versa...

Have you ever had that feeling with your eyes closed and relaxing to touch the expanse of the universe and at the same time to feel infinitesimally small? You should try it sometime if you haven't experienced it... I would sometimes wake from a dream with the feeling and try to hold on as long as possible before opening my eyes. Or sometimes in that period in university, laying on the bed with my arms spread wide and looking up at ceiling in the dim blue light or with my eyes closed.... the feeling that all of the stars and the whole universe resided between the outstretched length of my arms and in the same moment to be so infinitesimally small and surrounded by empty space....

With life so full these days and no longer free of obligations other than myself, that infinite feeling is hard to grasp... which is why it surprised me so this morning driving down the autostrada at full speed and with a full day's obligations in front of me.

Life is full of so many surprises!

The coming home was as nice as the going this morning with an incredible skyscape. I hope you enjoy!