Fred Coyote tells the story of an anthropologist who came to a Hopi elder to record some of his people’s songs. The old man took him out on the edge of the mesa and he sang a song. The anthro was recording and making notes and he said, “What is that song about?”
The old man said, “Well, that’s about when the kachinas came down into the mountains and then the thunderheads built up around the San Francisco peaks and then we sing and those clouds come out across the desert and it rains on the gardens and we have food for our children.”
And the old man sang him another song. And the anthro said, “What was that song about?”
The old man answered, “That song was about when my wife goes down to the sacred spring to get water to prepare food for us and to prepare the medicines because without that sacred spring we wouldn’t live very long.”
And so it went all afternoon. Every time the old man would sing a song, the anthro would say, “What’s that about?” And the old man would explain it. It’s about something or other – a river, rain, water.
Eventually this anthro was getting a little short-tempered. He said, “Is water all you people sing about down here?”
And the old man said, “Yes.” He explained, “For thousands of years in this country we’ve learned to live here. Because our need for this water is so great to our families and to our people, to our nations, most of our songs are about our greatest need. I listen to a lot of American music. Seems like most American music is about love.” He asked, “Is that why? Is that because you don’t have very much?”
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This anecdote hit home when I first read it, and the more I learn about love, the more sense it makes. Our current cultural landscape values some things that are not necessarily breeding grounds for real love. It values youth above almost everything. (Craig Ferguson has a great rant about this.) Sexual gratification, often with as many partners as possible, is valued more than a partnership. Sometimes I think that having numerous sexual partners is part of having a real partnership, but I’m not convinced that that’s actually the case.
In any case, once you start understanding love and partnership you start seeing how wrong our artists often have it. For whatever reason it’s very difficult to explore true partnerships in art. As if a true partnership cannot be explained – it must be experienced. And then once it’s experienced, it’s not written about.
I have no idea why this is, but I would love to see it change.
My teacher has this type of true partnership, so he lives as an example for me, but when he dies, what happens to that example if it is not written down? He seems tickled by the idea of an “oral tradition”, that is, one that is not written down. One that must be experienced. There is no doubt that this way has its advantages, but I can’t help but think our culture could use some more outward, recorded expression of his type of relationship.
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Links:
Thea Elijah’s “Six Stages of Love Induced Disorder” – a beautiful study of the path to true partnership.
Craig Ferguson’s rant on youth – really awesome summary of why, in his words, everything sucks .
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