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We have five senses<\/a>, and even more, but what are all these senses for when you\u2019re upside down?\u00a0 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.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “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.<\/em><\/p>\n We call it “I”, but still? Whites imagine that they bear the responsibility for everything they do: “I” here, “me, mine” there…<\/em><\/p>\n “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.<\/em><\/p>\n “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\u2019s very funny!”<\/em> (Patrice Van Eersel<\/a>, Le cinqui\u00e8me r\u00eave<\/em>)<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 Thought is not.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It may be very funny, but Ray doesn\u2019t laugh at all. He puts his hard fingers on a coffee table like a djembe.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “He becomes pensive again:<\/em> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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<\/a>, Le cinqui\u00e8me r\u00eave<\/em>)<\/p>\n 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<\/a>, take us into the dance of the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/em><\/p>\n When we play this music, people just say: “It\u2019s spinning”.<\/em> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n It can\u2019t be clearer: African music is first and foremost a rhythm. Or rather two rhythms that meet.<\/p>\n Hitting his drum, the first “little” does, let\u2019s 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\u2019s turning.”<\/p>\n 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<\/a> … (Patrice Van Eersel<\/a>, Le cinqui\u00e8me r\u00eave) <\/em><\/p>\n You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.<\/p>The heart of the puzzle<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\nThe Centipede<\/h4>\n
\n– That\u2019s really a crucial question. Because we\u2019re 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?”<\/em> (Patrice Van Eersel<\/a>, Le cinqui\u00e8me r\u00eave<\/em>)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/eden-saga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ray-lema-patrice-vaneersel-25XE-1000x600-1.png\")
Raymond Lema A’nsi Nzinga, aka Ray Lema, born on 1946 in Lufu-Toto, is a French-Congolese pianist, guitarist and composer.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Spiral of the Belly<\/h4>\n
\nGlobal Music<\/h4>\n
\n-What\u2019s spinning? asks Ray.<\/em>
\nPeople 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<\/a>, Le cinqui\u00e8me r\u00eave)
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<\/p>\nSkipping Rope<\/h4>\n