18. I am Eve - Al Mudhill (The Humiliator) Mahsa Vahdat, Iran

I have to confess, I wasn't ready to leave the feelings of peace I found in my last blog. As a realtime experience in writing this blog Ive had to re-think my attempts at writing weekly. My subject is so vast that I have to admit that there maybe times I need to stay in a place, than to feel to move on weekly.

Anyway so after two weeks in my reflections Im learning a lot about how you cannot control your mind. That what enters your mind, you can either choose to give it attention or to just see it (and not react to it). After writing about Al Salam (the most peaceful ) in my last blog my mind has kept wondering to the most worst state I ever experienced. Im watching it to inform this blog post. So I shouldn't be surprised that Al Mudhill the Humiliator exists amongst the 99 names. The incident I recall felt like a burning rage inside me that if I could self destruct I would have. I can even feel it now if I watch it long enough. A few years ago when I was working on a production everything was going wrong. I was terribly misunderstood by members of my own family. I felt so attacked personally by the men in the production and the men in my own life. The very men that were suppose to uphold and value me conspired against me at one of the most critical points in my artistic endeavours. Anyway that week I couldn't go home so slept in my office. I remember feeling so humiliated and lower than low. The office was a number of studios, rehearsal spaces and a wide collection of music that we had collected from the World Music Expo. In my state I just put on the CD player and whatever was playing starting to cool the flames within me. After nights of sobbing, sleeping rough and then pretending in the morning that I had arrived to work (with no change of clothes, makeup or any comforts). I noticed what I was listening too. It was an album called I Am Eve by Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat. Inside the album cover Erik Hillestad from Kirkelig Kulturverksted - KKV wrote:

Who can stop Eve from singing?

Who can stop the water from running

or the wind from blowing?

Since the first woman of creation,

women’s voices have been heard wherever mankind has settled,

singing songs of love and joy, sorrow and comfort.

The power of their voices is strong but to try to control or ban their song is like opposing the power of creation itself.

To my friends at O.A.S.I.S I feel your pain in this humiliation of life that you are enduring right now. This was my lowest point, only now I am getting peace and understanding of the different layers of events, identities, contexts that I bought together in such a massive way - it was bigger than me. I didn't have the emotional, physical or spiritual understanding to deal with it.

According to the 25th Name Al-Mudhill is the one who leads you to the domain where you see yourself as the lowest of the low. This domain is where the original disconnected and isolated ego identity has been constructed. Al- Mudhill’s root means to seek or yearn for the object of long cherished wish. This divine quality empowers you to face your lower self, to bow low before God and to engage the lowest regions of the self. Until you reach this place, you cannot begin to dissolve the false self. Al Mudhill brings us, willingly or not, to our knees with our head on the ground.

There is so much more to say on this and I am over my word limit. But I'm really happy to share the wisdom I have on this individually if you wish to email me. Maybe I will come back to this in future but for now I wanted to move onto the music. I hope you will agree with me that this music gives this emotion a strange kind of beauty. I feel goose bumps, a chill in the air, a sorrow with an incredible beauty I've never experienced this before. I wish I could showcase the whole album but I have picked three songs below that move me deeply. Im learning there is a beauty in every emotion if only we could readily see this.

There are three songs I wish to show from the album. There are no original videos from the artist or the label so grateful to this person who has uploaded the songs as they need to be shared. I hope for this purpose its acceptable and inspires you to get the actual album from KKV.

I am Eve

Poem: Azar Khajavi (contemporary poet)

Singer: Mahsa Vahdat

Music: Atabak Elyasi

Melody: Mahsa Vahdat

I am Eve, I am Woman, fruitful is the lap of mine

Tahmineh and Tahmtan are the leaves from the garden of mine

My body is the first verse in the poem of creation

How would you like to see in veil this fertile beauty of mine

Smoky to the heart of the galaxy, grey and sorrowful

Captive and daubed with mud is the shiny sun of mine

Never disrespect me, this ancient Mehrabeh

This mother, this country, you who are born from the life of mine

I am Eve, I am Woman, Fruitful is the lap of mine

Tahmineh and Tahmtan are leaves from the garden of mine

I am woman, the great mother, zoroasters are mine

The cradle of many fire worshippers if the leaf-like skirt of mine

I am Eve, I am woman

Sorrowful Spring

Poem: Hoshang Ebtehaj (Contemporary poet)

Singer: Mahsa Vahdat

Music: Atabak Elyasi

Melody: Deylaman Gooshe in Persian Vocal Radif

The spring came, the it brought no jonquil or flower,

Brought no breeze with the scent of the feast of Norouz

The swallow came, but if brought no flower

Why is the flower not a companion of the swallow?

What has happen to this garden?

What made it forget the rites of the spring?

Why is blood dripping from the spray of flowers?

What has happened? Where has the voice of the nightingale gone?

What is this woe? What is this woe?

What brought disturbance to our garden?

Why is blood dripping from the spray of flowers?

What has happened? Where has the voice of the nightingale gone?

The Mirror of Morning Wine

Poem: Rumi (13th Century poet)

Singer: Mahsa Vahdat

Music: Atabak Elyasi

Melody: Mahsa Vahdat& Atabak Elyasi

Fill my veins with the life-giving water of love

Let the evening wine be mirrored in the morning wine

You hunted down my reason, and you know how to hit the target with your arrow

Shoot your arrow from my heart and let my should be your target

Our world has six directions. Never search for one Qibla in it

Don't search for it in any land, but nestle in an abyss

Come proudly and cast off all restrictions

Kiss the face of the soul and comb the tresses of joy

Fill my veins with the life-giving water of love

Let the evening wine be mirrored in the morning wine