Dancing Dust. The Song of a Dying Warrior

This original performance piece brings together both shamanic and Taoist insights. It offers a reflection on earlier perspectives that viewed the microcosm of the individual and the macrocosm of the world as being intimately connected.

One of the more obvious characteristics of the present age is the dominance of highly destructive technologies. Bombs of devastating power can be remotely "delivered" across thousands of kilometres. The furious energies within the atomic nucleus can be both constrained and unleashed at will.

Yet the world is moved by more than technologically mediated power. This has ever been understood by the poet, the prophet, the saint and the shaman.



Dancing Dust. The Song of a Dying Warrior can be streamed using the media player above. A CD quality file is available here.

Production Notes

Music:
B.O. Rasch (Asaguare):   Peyoth Aluz

Effects:
Rhapsodize: Crickets (Freesound)
nicStage: F-16 Flyby (Freesound)
ryansnook: Nuclear Explosion (Freesound)
Erdie: Mega-Thunder (Freesound)

Voice:
Vincent Di Stefano

Ivy Mike Thermonuclear Fireball, Enewetak Atoll, 1952

The Poem

Dancing Dust. The Song of a Dying Warrior

We stood in the light of day
Now we sit in the darkening night
Awaiting simple presence
And a return to the very moment

From this small cell
The day seems too hard driven
By those of might and power

But listen still

Soft footsteps fall upon the dust
And stir a gentle storm
That slowly gathers force

And as the drums beat louder still
The soft footfall more fierce becomes

The earth can shake when men do dance
And call upon the Hidden One
As surely as it heaves and quakes
When atoms fuse and atoll breaks

Beat the drum my stalwart men
And fill the night with pulse and promise
Bring to heel the sacred force
Bring to hand the living light

Sing the song and dance the story
Call the tune and turn the earth