The stars had only one task: they taught me how to read
Mahmoud Darwish
Stars Taught Me To Read, Over The Mountain, Peace Sounds 3 Well Bean Cafe, Gig for Gaza, Our Love, A Heart These Hands, Grenfell video. Winter Relaxation and Dad.
Greetings to you friends; amidst what has felt challenging times I feel gratitude to know you are reading/listening. By candlelight I’m looking back on the last few months. Months in which I’ve recorded, travelled, stood at peace protests, cried for the enormity of violence we’ve seen knowing violence is not my way, hung out with friends of many ages and sang for my Dad some hours before he passed away. It settles somehow in me and moves me on ever changed, ever changed. If anything touches you from what I write about here I would love to hear from you.
Stars Taught Me To Read
This song is sung by me but written by the late peace poet Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian born story teller who wrote of life in Occupied Palestine. He chose to be honest and also never hate.
Darwish famously said ‘I am from there, I am from here’ his beautiful poetry, sent to me by a friend from Jordan, asks us question identity, discrimination and our view of human family.
He also said of the stars: The stars had only one task: they taught me how to read’. His connection to the beauty of nature alongside the tragedy of oppression moved me so much.
Anytime spent listening here will generate some royalties through YT/Spotify and I will pass them on to MAP (Medical Aid Palestine) who are trying to get aid to Gaza. May the song bring the words to you as some kind of resolve in belief in love in the face of violence – as a friend said to me recently, to keep resisting oppression with freedom.
Over The Mountain
Second offering is by dear friend Christa Awad and I. If you read these blogs before you may have heard her name last time. Christa is from Syria and we have been singing together for sometime. We have a few project ideas that we share together around Christa’s experiences of living in Syria, her sister is still there running a project to support families. Christa is a Mother here in the UK. Our conversations circulate on what peace means and how to grow beauty from adversity. We offer you one song for now and this will be part of Songs of Plum Village 2. Over The Mountain (as with Stars above) any royalites will be collected, this time for Sandra, Christa’s sister. Our projects will continue together. I hope for now you can enjoy our voices.
Peace Sounds 3
Thanks all who came to the launch of Peace Sounds 3 and the artists that were involved in this beautiful project. The album is the third for the little record label that myself and Elina Pen set up in 2012. 10 artists of different genres from hip hop to folk, from shoegaze to rock – take a listen. All proceeds go to Plum Village projects in the UK supporting the ongoing work of Thich Nhat Hanh Community, poet and peace activist.
I hosted an evening to launch it, alongside some of the artists who joined and am delighted to be able to post it here for you to listen to. To buy the album please visit www.peacesoundslabel.org
Some live shows
A few performances on camera from the last few months, The first from Well Bean Cafe, I was honored to play a mini gig (1 song!) ‘Human All’ as part of Service Space’s Karma Kitchen project. Karma Kitchen offers a meal to all, paid for on their pay-it-forward model, those who came to the last event paid for these meals.
Co organised by @museumof_happiness, a project by @vicky_j_happiness, running courses and events in community spaces looking at well being. Wonderfully, Vicky held the mic right through the song which song – so kind 💚
The aim of the cafe and the 2 projects here is community, a sense of finding well being with others – so needed I feel.
And secondly, Gig for Gaza recently, raising money for Refugee Action Network that is doing amazing work I think to get aid into Gaza. I sang 3 song ‘Power In Man’, ‘Listen To Women’ and ‘Oh Friends’
New album
Two offerings here from my new record that grows toward being ready month by month. I have undertaken a trip to locations to record live videos and have another here (‘The Letting Go‘ was in my last journal) Here is ‘Grenfell‘ for you, recorded beside the tower. And following that Some of ‘Our Love, a Heart, These Hands’ that I will put out in the new year ahead of the record – I can’t say yet when that will come – but it’s coming.
Winter relaxation
This comes from my heartache and wanting to find something of stability with the overwhelming violence in Israel and x fold in Gaza – no words, but maybe this is comfort/support and keeps us well enough to engage.
Dad.
And lastly Dad. I posted this shortly after it happened.
My Dad passed away 3 weeks ago tomorrow, some of you reading this will already know. This Friday we gathered in a restaurant close to his home and shared some hours together, looked at photographs, lit candles and talked about his life. My lovely brother and I read some words we’d written and I sang some songs: Waterboys, Deacon Blue and Tom Petty that dad liked❤️
Sharing about it here felt important because I think it’s good to talk about death. I feel I’ve learned a lot this last month since my dad had a stroke.
We had some beautiful conversations; in some ways very ordinary, sharing memories really, places we’d been to together, people we knew. The beauty came because it felt to me that we all understood we were at a transition moment.
Hand in hand, with my brother and I taking it in turns, it felt like a torch was being passed to us.
Parents, carers, friends, whoever are our elders, tell us what they’ve found, tell you what they’ve learned, show you the mistakes they’ve made and set us on the way, I feel.
I feel I’m in a good place to hear myself say: get good with the relationships of your life in whatever way feels healthy. It means that when I do come to this moment of passing with it’s rush of emotions, I can get straight to the love: the giving and receiving that above all else feels like the most important thing there is.
Any thoughts welcome and any conversations too. If you’d like to read more I set this sharing page up when my Nan passed:
Thank you for reading, always lovely to hear from you if you’d like to share.
Love Joe
Lovely to be seeing some of you in the quiet space, when I am present, it’s still running daily am: 7-7:30 and pm:10:30-11.
Love Joe
Releases – on request – by donation – free if you need them to be. click the pictures below.
Joe Holtaway 