Faraway is Close: a podcast from Shebana Coelho: Recent Episodes
Shebana Coelho
Stories, songs, and conversations about awakening to a life of creativity, excavating colonization, place, purpose, and exploring the mystery of journey. Hosted by writer and performer, Shebana Coelho and guests who share their creative journeys.
https://www.shebanacoelho.com/blogcast/i-have-to-believe
I have to believe
by Shebana Coelhi
I have to believe
that
the rain will rain
and then stop
that it will flail at windows
down the trees
and stop
that the leaves will bend this way
and that
the green will become brown
and the brown will become green
I have to believe
the earth will move
us into a time
when we heal it
that
the silence will become song
even as
a weary wind kills us down
and we made it
from refusing to breathe
from refusing to see
from saying
Chup
to all the women in the lineage
be quiet
We kill children in
each other’s names
and laud
the power that makes
men blind
to their own abyss
how to sing them down
into humility
I have to believe
that you do what you can
love who you love
sing what wants to sing you
and that will make some dot
of difference
I have to believe
it matters to
sit and breathe
and think
of your friend who is breaking
in Ramallah
the boy
you met one day in Gaza
and the peace activist
in Israel whose brother said at his own funeral
even as he was murdered
he would not want
another
Palestinian life taken in his name
the uprising is in you
refuse to live
a silent life
refuse to ignore
your passion
refuse to ignore
what is in
the way of that passion
rise up and love yourself
enough
to live what you love
that passion is safety
that safety is passion
the revolution
begins with you
living
and
yes
i am going there
now
let me wade into these waters
in conversations
people have said
meaning to be kind
middle east...
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This is Part Two of the Abyss, Days 9 to 13.
This is up there as one of my favorite episodes.
Because it sounds good, because it's the end of a good story. In my humble opinion. Recorded in a studio in Plaza de Pelicano by Ernesto Ojeda.
Music by Carlos Merino, Ernesto Ojeda, Coral de los Reyes, Urtaa Gantulga, Gerry Carthy
ABOUT THE ABYSS BEHIND ME SERIES
Inspired by this quote:
Women have always had to start from scratch because they've not had the testimony of women before them. And that's a terrible disgrace. Because culture is a palimpsest. We all build on what was built before. So if you always have an abyss behind you…~ the writer, Rosa Montero, translated from Spanish, quoted in the documentary, A las mujeres de España. María LejárragaThe quote moved me into starting a 13 day blog series: 13 Days of the Abyss Behind me. 13 because I've always liked that number, especially as an age. Read the text at shebanacoelho.com/blogcast.
LINKShttps://www.rosamontero.es/https://www.filmaffinity.com/es/film444391.html
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On this episode, the voice unadorned speaking of the abyss behind me, inspired by two powerful Spanish documentaries, Pico Reja and A Las Mujeres de España, and a quote from one of them by a writer named Rosa Montero who said:
Women have always had to start from scratch because they've not had the testimony of women before them. And that's a terrible disgrace. Because culture is a palimpsest. We all build on what was built before. So if you always have an abyss behind you…~ Rosa Montero, translated from Spanish, quoted in A las mujeres de España. María LejárragaThe quote moved me into starting a 13 day blog series: 13 Days of the Abyss Behind me. 13 because I've always liked that number, especially as an age. Read the text at shebanacoelho.com/blogcast.
This is Part one of the Abyss, Days One to Eight.My hope is that one story inspires another, that the abyss, being spoken, becomes a bridge, a way to connect.
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"For me success as a musician is to play what I hear and that has been my goal for my whole life....You sit down and you try to hear what's in the air and reproduce."~ Robby Parker.
On this episode, a new segment of What Arises in Encounter featuring guest story-travelers and their creative journeys, In this third segment, an encounter with musician Robby Parker who created lovely oud compositions for my documentary, Nasario remembers the Río Puerco (nasarioremembers.com, available on Vimeo on Demand) and with whom I collaborated on a poem set to music, Clay.
About Robby:Robby Parker secretly wanted to be a rock star. Since he couldn’t admit it, life made him a world music vagabond. His deep fascination with culture, language, people’s spiritual beliefs, and plucked instruments has led him to study and perform throughout the Middle East, Europe and North America. He loves wearing sandals, long robes, walking with animals in the streets and drinking fresh 50 cent mango smoothies.
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Returning to Podcasting after a break
In the radio silence: The Good Manners of Colonized Subjects in Cadiz
@ 4 min:
And INTRODUCING
part one of my storypoem, On the Island
Riiaz is an island boy who, one day, stops fishing and throws the lobsters he has caught back into the sea; Zillahz is a lobster who take a stand against the might of men and nets, and her father Miryal is the great lobster of the deepening sea who transforms himself into a human to confront the village of men - all to save the old songs, the ones that save us.
Come back next week for part two.
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This episode was recorded on May 4, the day after reading about the possibility of Roe v Wade being overturned, feeling despair and coming out on the other side of it, and wanting to share that journey. I don't know what the other side of despair is called but there is hope in it. It all begins, as many things do, with colonization - stories of encounters in Portugal, with the shadow of India, the origins of tea time, and an invitation to reflect on how you have really changed and from that place of change, to choose a true response to injustice. And a poem in English and French about an unexpected encounter to find your own song by the sea.
24:36 min Intro to Poem & French version of poem read by Irina Sels
30:57 min Poem in English read by Shebana
The English and French text of the poem, along with photos & links for material referenced in this episode - all this on my website: https:/www.shebanacoelho.com/blogcast
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This episode comes to you from Sevilla, Spain. It's an encounter with director Sylvie Nys about voice and song, and how over the past few years of the pandemic, she's been going to sing at an event in Sevilla called the Jam Tonic - here, she has discovered her voice, her way of singing. The first song she sang was BB King's "The Thrill is Gone."
Sylvie Nys is a director originally from Belgium. She has directed over thirty plays. She is the founder of Ñía Company, the first in Seville to create theater for babies. A translator, playwright, Sylvie is also an actress in her plays for children. She is a songwriter and author of a children's book (Michú y yo) and most recently, the co-author of a book of portraits and text called Sevilla Intima. (Mirada Global, March 2022).
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A new recurring segment, What Arises in Encounter featuring guest story-travelers and their creative journeys. On this first segment, I visit with Laurie Bower in northern New Mexico. Laurie is a teacher and practitioner of Yoga, Improv and Creative Writing/Audiobook Narrator and Producer. We talk and sing about about landscape and story, discovering voice.
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In this episode (recorded October 18, 2021)
- Creativity beyond the page and the stage
- Arriving at the end of the world one October 12 a long time ago
- how to react when someone calls it “civilizing, not colonizing”
- discovering voice and song
- a guided meditation into sovereign space
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In this episode (recorded January 6, 2022)
An open letter to 2022
- on nuance in art making, and shadow and the light
- the language of the senses
- the silence behind words and images and feelings
- messages in the night
- the enterprise of grant-making
- why we need art
A sudden song in the Gobi desert in Mongolia
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