Day 4

Day 4

We are right in the middle or this Glomus Camp 2015 in the wonderful Serawak.

I start feeling I'll miss this place while on my way back. The atmosphere among participants, teachers, organizers and local people is so unique that is very easy to keep smiling all day, even when we are tired or feeling crazily humid hot!

The day has opened with the third and final lecture on Fundraising greatly led by Randall. Followed by the regional presentation on Arabic-Middle East music: Palestine, Egypt and Syria.  I had the great pleasure to play frame drum with Islam, Khaled, Mohammed, Maral, Moslem which very soon became my friends. Despite of the various technical issues with laptop and stuff (that were working the day before) we have had a lot of fun. At first I was a bit nervous because I was playing traditional arabic music with people that have played that all their life and I have had much leas experience playing it. At the end without any rehearsal all went great. We played a completely different program from what we talked about. Though I got a good learning on letting things to go. Letting go from playing "in the right way" or filling the moment with expectations. One can very much surprise him/her self.

Towards the end of the presentation, Maral had the fantastic idea to teach a traditional dance from Palestine. It was awesome to get the audience involved as well! So she has invited the audience to the stage and promised she would award the best dancer with a "shal" a traditional Palestinian scarf that can be used in several different ways. 

I would like to share few thoughts I have had today. I was thinking that here we are in this amazing meeting. About 120 people from different countries all over the world. The schedule is very interesting and quite full that actually at the end we meet "for real" only few of them. With how many people have you talked outside of your roommates or far from the eating table?  It is normal to connect with only few, to which can happen to have interesting and nice sharing.  On the other hand  It is totally fine to simply share just simple "how are you?" and so on kind of questions with other people? Universe, as in music, is made of dynamics and we cannot use the same with all. Though I found interesting to be aware of that and ask myself "Am I giving a chance to connect in different ways to people? And in a way I could give spaces to the different dynamics connection to happen and yet surprise myself?"

I have met incredible people and despite the language barrier, communication is strong. Among the others, I found a great connection with my friend Islam. He's an incredible oud player from Cairo, and I am honored to play beside him. i am learning a lot from him. I found not only a talented musician, but a deep "brother" connection. Sometimes words are not enough to express what we want to communicate out there. Easily can happen that even we know English good enough, it is not our mother tongue. Inside our energy body, heart and so on, we can perceive these different layers of energy where communication goes over the words. Through all these we can relate in a high connection with people, listening with all senses.  That's how I relate to the universe. Listening not only with the ears, but with the whole body. Flowers have the shape of the planets movements,  or some of them even move following some of them. And so happen to us, our body is a micro cosmos of the outer macro cosmos.

Listen and surprise yourself...

I send a lot of strength and gratitude to my brother Islam and a safe journey home,

Antonio