You are the sun, you are the moon

This semester, I'm taking a class about North Indian classical music. We've been learning all about different Indian music traditions, which are all really interesting, profound, and tied up in spirituality. Half of the class is singing, and today we learned a song with this poem that really struck me:

Sthayi
Tu hi surya tu hi chandra
Tu hi pavan tu hi agan
Tu hi aap tu akaas
Tu he dharani Yajamaan

Sthayi
You are the sun, you are the moon
You are the wind, you are the fire
You are yourself, you are the sky
You are the earth and the conductor of activities

Our teacher, Pooja, prefaced this song by telling us that it's over 200 years old and is about the Almighty. It's always so cool how music can unite us in our search for the Almighty/Transcendence/the Sublime/the Divine/God/the Universe/whatever else  you want to call it. That which is beyond our understanding yet for some reason so much a part of us.
So, what struck me so much about this poem? The word for you. Pooja told us that "tu" is the word they use in Hindi for friends/other people you are informal with. They use "ap" for parents and grandparents and so forth. What is so incredibly interesting is that this poem uses "tu" to address the Almighty... because it's a part of yourself and you are familiar with it. Honorifics are always something that I think about because they are so much a part of Korean, which has complete different levels and ways of speaking to people depending on how much respect you owe them. What is so interesting for me is that the Korean Bible is notoriously hard to understand, especially for non-native speakers, because of the super high honorifics it uses to address God... yet this poem addresses God in the informal way.

What do you think?

New directions

I haven't posted in over a month-- this often happens whenever I try starting a blog... Life gets in the way or I run out of things to talk about or it just isn't worth it.

I've come to the realization that I keep talking about silly stuff that in the grand scheme of things doesn't really matter and doesn't really speak to me... So I think that it's time to expand the purpose of this blog.

I'll admit- initially I started this because I heard it was a really good way to draw traffic to your etsy shop. Well, I'm still going to share and talk about projects of mine, and if I find an etsy shop that is really spectacular I'll share it, but I want to do more.

This blog is now going to become a receptacle for my thoughts, ideas, and dreams. I'll throw journal entries on here and poetry and art and questions... I've found that my mind is very theologically and philosophically oriented, so probably a lot of posts will end up being about that, but don't worry! I will do my best to make my thoughts and questions relevant to those of you that don't share my beliefs, because I think we can all learn from each other's questions.

"Learning to Fly" taken by me Spring 2011 of my friend Chris