Blu Jay
Friend to Flowers and Animals, Mala Improvisation and The Ecstasy of the Sea draw from the wandering spirit of Lalla, a 14th century Kashmiri mystic and saint who walked the earth with no clothes on. She renounced all material life and was devoted to Shiva, and had immense poetic influence in Shavaism and Sufism. In Lalla’s poetry for Shiva, the lines between eroticism and devotion were blurred.
Friend to Flowers and Animals and The Ecstasy of the Sea are rooted in the eroticism of nature ⸺ devotion to earth as the ultimate form of devotion. Mala Improvisation is an excerpt from Flower Improvisation, initially improvised for the welcoming of ancestral spirits, after seeing a vision of a woman with a sickle and a parrot. The erotic in the vision is demonstrated in the solitude and euphoria of the woman with the sickle. Spontaneous composition and improvisation of these pieces evoke the instinctive, visceral trajectories of those whose lovers were bodies of water, celestial beings, supernatural entities and gods.
Friend to Flowers and Animals, Mala Improvisation and The Ecstasy of the Sea are offerings to renunciation, freedom and the spirit of Lalla.
Mala Improvisation
