Upside Down

We have five senses, and even more, but what are all these senses for when you’re upside down? My friend Ray, the Zairian jazz man, told me that. “You Western whites are not on the right track. To get you back on track, you first have to find your centre, the real one.”

The heart of the puzzle

Contrary to what one might think, in this dark age the true center is not in the head, oh no. The true centre of you, of the true you, seek it rather in your body. Seek it in your belly.

“This centre, which it is absolutely necessary to learn to spot in the bottom of your belly before you go off alone like a great one, that small point from where the slightest of your gestures start, is the heart of the puzzle.

We call it “I”, but still? Whites imagine that they bear the responsibility for everything they do: “I” here, “me, mine” there…

“But where does it begin? Because before being a point of consciousness, a spiritual point, this “I” is first a physical point, since these are physical acts that we do.

“Yet, if you observe yourself well, you will realize that there are in you a thousand (false) points of support, a thousand “I”, a thousand personalities whose each takes a decision poorly centered, imagining, often the time of a flash, a thought, that she is the only “I”, the only master on board. It’s very funny!” (Patrice Van Eersel, Le cinquième rêve)

From a flash or thought? The flash comes from the belly, a burst of energy that dazzles you but does not come from your brain. Thought is not.

The Centipede

It may be very funny, but Ray doesn’t laugh at all. He puts his hard fingers on a coffee table like a djembe.

This rhythm makes me go down in my stomach. I am music, I listen to my belly beat the measure of the world, of this inner world that each one carries in itself wherever it is.

“He becomes pensive again:
– That’s really a crucial question. Because we’re all built on the same pattern. And then the game becomes cloudy, because if everyone says “I” at the same time and all these “I” change constantly, you will inevitably end up asking yourself what is the big “I” of all these little “I”. Oh I assure you, the day when the Westerners really ask themselves this question, they will suddenly find themselves in the position of the centipede to whom we ask: “by which foot you start?” (Patrice Van Eersel, Le cinquième rêve)

Raymond Lema A’nsi Nzinga, aka Ray Lema, born on 1946 in Lufu-Toto, is a French-Congolese pianist, guitarist and composer.

The Spiral of the Belly

Ray is two years older than me. Long live him, and me too. He plays jazz on piano and guitar, and sings as well. African music makes her heart, body, muscles and bones, hair and flesh vibrate. The body is the most beautiful musical instrument on earth, he said to me. A sublime sounding board! If you would start playing your body instrument regularly, experimenting with the rhythms and sounds on your body, you would realize that life is a spiral.” (Patrice Van Eersel, Le cinquième rêve)

Yes, I feel that too. Life is a spiral that starts from the belly. And living life to the full, organically, is following this spiral and letting our true center, our belly, take us into the dance of the world.

Global Music

Ray has a great ambition. He wants to make all music coexist in one global song. To start from scratch, he went home to Africa in Zaire. It was the 1970s. He had never been back before. It was a shock. A fabulous flash of consciousness. The rhythms that mix and bounce the ball have made him spin his head and body.

Very quickly, Ray realizes that each village has its own rhythm. Or rather its rhythm game. The “rhythmic signature” of a village is based on the crossing of two different rhythms on the most varied percussions, from the djembe to the tin can, played by “little ones”, children or adolescents. Because the little ones are chatty and they need to get muscular.

When we play this music, people just say: “It’s spinning”.
-What’s spinning? asks Ray.
People stared at him in astonishment. It was then that he had the idea of making them listen to modern western music. Stupor. they reply with a grimace: “No spin”. (Patrice Van Eersel, Le cinquième rêve)

Skipping Rope

It can’t be clearer: African music is first and foremost a rhythm. Or rather two rhythms that meet.

Hitting his drum, the first “little” does, let’s say: Kitticlop, Kitticlop, Kitticlop. Sitting opposite to the other, the other does Tac-Tac, Tac-Tac. The Kitticlop and the Tac-tac then intertwine in a braid which we do not know where it begins or ends. The villagers say “It’s turning.”

Everyone, from the youngest child to the oldest grandfather, has their own way of entering into this rhythmic game — by hitting a drum, a hollow tree trunk, a bottle, snapping his tongue, fingers, playing a string instrument, of the humpback that resound in the very dark night to the top of the giant trees. As if the two “little ones” of the beginning were spinning a gigantic sound jumping rope … (Patrice Van Eersel, Le cinquième rêve)

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
Friendrich Nietzsche

Upside Up

Find our centre, the real one. And then we have to make it work. Not easy when you only speak the language of Molière.

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin dit Molière (1622-1673) was a French playwright, actor and theatre company leader. Considered the patron of the Comédie-Française, he is still the most played author today.

Necessarily. A play by Molière is upside up and spins good …

Only

Just do. We have to. Hurry up. The planet is run by upside-down Bidochons. Feet in the clouds — what’s the point when you have too much lead to fly? It makes your head drag on the ground. Which explains why you eat shit.

For most of us, life is like a ladder in a chicken coop: slippery and covered with shit.
David Hemingson

Ray is right, it’s all about turning the brushes round. Doing a flip maneuver, like Tintin’s lunar rocket. A general turnaround.

Humanity is mentally controlled and little more conscious that an average zombie.
David Icke

Only those who are already on the right path will be exempt. They have already found their center. Since birth. Don’t worry for them, they know it well. When by chance they hear our music, it grates in their heads, their bodies do not turn. Their world is still. Their nature is tense. We could do a musical test to all humans, just to check. Those who are in the right direction will be spotted directly. No error possible.

Right Direction Teachers

They will be promoted to teachers of right direction. Their job will be to detect the makers of the wrong direction, those who are the main responsible for the immobilism in reverse. The rule is simple:

For spinning fine, you have to be in the right direction and find your center. The real one.

Look at the U States. Look at the cities along the road. Wooden houses lined up in their garden. Streets looking all alike and never ending. There is a vain search for a centre. There is a search for shops around a church. The historic city centre and its old houses, at least three centuries or even medieval. You can look out, you won’t find these. Never. No way.

Every two blocks, you find the same fast food and gas station. The U States have no center. Just look at the capital: Washington. But the most populous city, city number 1, the world’s capital, is New York. Right next door. And the state of Washington is on the other coast, opposite the capital. Holy shit. U States are a fucking mess. The country king of kali yuga. The world was has been in the hands of this hard jumble for more than a century. Time for a change.

Synchronicities

So the teachers of common sense will first have to teach their students that there is a good and a bad sense. For most people, it’s not obvious. African cities are everywhere. But they’re turning. German cities are in the right direction. But it doesn’t turn out well. The city centre is easy to find. But that’s just it. Is this the real centre? It doesn’t sound…

I spent much of my youth travelling the world. Traditional Asian cities really looked like anything. African cities too. But I can guarantee you that they always found the real center. And it was always right where you were. Ray is right with his common sense and true center story. But I would like to add my own grain of salt. One essential parameter is missing.

You’re in the right direction if you buy yourself a tap of synchronicities.
You have found your true center if these synchronicities facilitate your work.

Synchronicities are too favourable a chance. You go to the most commercial place in town, you know that at this time you can’t find a parking space for your car and there, right in front of your doctor’s building, a spot is free just in front of your bumper. Synchronicity. You look for a specific passage in a book, it opens directly on the right page. Too favorable chances. As chance does not exist, and as Jung knew, he called them synchronicities. He suspected that it came from someone… Of a will that knows what it is doing. Ours or another.

It just happens at the right time, I use it cheerfully. Could I have written half of my articles without these famous “happy chances”? I doubt it.

Incredible synchronicities! Again, I just believe without believing. Without even asking Ray Lema what he thinks. He has other things to do, I’m sure. I have not questioned Abeti Masikini,portrait above nor Papa Wembaportrait above for the good reason that they are no longer of this world, even if their music remains alive. It is still spinning and not close to stopping.

Neither do I, word of a little old man. 😆

African Wisdom