The Magician & The Musician

“There are times when the truth can only show you an illusion.” 
(Lionel Suggs)

Music is the purest form of magic. Magic is the deepest essence of music. The romance between the two is legendary. While music is our refuge, magic becomes our resurrection. There is no flow sleeker than music and no law stronger than magic. Both have survived the rise and decline of countless civilizations… both are unbound by time and space, or atoms and cells… both defining life and existence, uniquely and fervently.

The truest lie is magic, the loudest silence is music. A magician and a musician, both estranged by destiny and separated by distance, feel connected to each other through the invocation of their respective spells – magic and music. A series of Haikus and two cinematically emotive instrumentals attempting to create such an atmosphere of invocation:

Remnants of Remembrance

“…when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.”
(Jane Austen)

Scars are but evidence of life. Evidence of choices to be learned from, evidence of wounds, wounds inflicted by memories. Memories are like bullets. Some whiz by and only spook you. Others tear you open and leave you in pieces. Sometimes the scars remind you that you survived; sometimes they tell you that you have healed. Scars fade with time. And the ones that never go away, well, they build character, maturity, and caution.

Memories leave a light in the eyes, just as plain as scars. Versification of one such estranged and dyspnoeic moment, when painful memories and a torturous migraine decided to waltz in unison, presented in the form of a set of Haikus and two poignant melodies:

Ascent

“Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?”
(Frida Kahlo)

Balance… Balance is not symmetry. For everything in this journey of life we are on, there is a right wing and a left wing: for the wing of love, there is anger; for the wing of destiny, there is fear; for the wing of pain, there is healing; for the wing of hurt, there is forgiveness; for the wing of pride, there is humility; for the wing of giving, there is taking; for the wing of tears, there is joy; for the wing of rejection, there is acceptance; for the wing of judgment, there is grace; for the wing of honour, there is shame; for the wing of letting go, there is the wing of keeping. We can only fly with two wings, and two wings can only stay in the air if there is a balance.

Having two desired wings is perfection. And perfection is not balance. Nature seeks balance. You cannot have two coveted wings at the same time, nor can you equilibrate with just one wing. A bird with one wing is imperfect; an angel with one wing is unblessed; a butterfly with one wing is dead. Life is a balanced system of learning and evolution. Whether pleasure or pain, every situation in your life serves a purpose. So there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale.

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. This verse is one such moment of discovery of the self from a shackled state of inactivity to a long-desired flight.