The Artists

I heard you from afar, centuries away.
I knew what you needed was to heal–
the same as I did each day. 

I described how to blend the elements
Binding it in rhythm so it couldn’t be forgotten.
I sang it into nature until the deer could sing it from memory
until the birds took my song and spread it across the woods
until its meaning permeated into each root
until it became the core of our breath.

After many generations, it would finally reach you:
carrying within the new wholeness formed
In each listener it touched along its journey.
I have been told by some people that my music helps them heal. Moments such as these humble me: I am reminded  of the power and wisdom of my ancestors and their closeness to the truth. I think to myself: my intention in writing this was not to heal you, it was to heal myself. In the process of healing myself, I was able to help you feel more whole. Just how in the process of creating these ragas, my ancestors acted as their own healers, now centuries later I am able to do the same. Energy travels through these sounds across eras and generations, casting a net of introspection, vulnerability and love across all those it touches.

A Salve That Travels Time is rooted in Raag Yaman, an evening raga that has traveled through the centuries to bring forth healing through complete surrender. It opens up the portal to a state without thought: the same space one hopes to reach through the practice of meditation and other forms of mindfulness. Once this place is reached, a sense of deep introspection emerges, and acceptance begins to feel realizable.

Grief’s Garden: Meditations for Moving Through Loss

“...the price of living wholeheartedly (which is the only way worth living) is the heartbreak of many losses — the loss of love to dissolution, distance, or death…”
--Maria Popova

A letter to those who have experienced loss,

When we speak of grief, we often associate it with death, but whenever we lose love in some way, grief enters the room. People come in and out of our lives, romantic relationships end, friendships change, a parent’s physical health alters.

Within these shifts, something dies, in that the relationship is no longer what it once was. Grief is love with nowhere to go, or love that cannot go where it went before. Grief is love trying to hold on. How do we let go of what was when we don’t want to let go of it? How do we continue on when the idea of living without what was lost feels unbearable?

Grief is often characterized as a heavy burden or a weight to be carried, but what if we allowed grief to carry us? What if we shifted the paradigm to think of grief as a being or spirit with its own autonomy? A companion offering care and guidance on a sacred journey.

Instead of taking grief with us, perhaps grief takes us where we need to go.

As we do the brave work of leaning into our grief, our shadows, our humanity, we need sacred spaces in which to unfold and move through this work of healing.

In considering what new meditations I could offer this brave space, I asked myself in the silence, “What new space do I need? Where do I need to be brave?”

My deep reply, “You need a place where you can grieve the love you’ve lost.”

The work asked of me to bring the whole of my experience with grief to create a portal to a world that could hold its continual outworking. This came specifically in the context of how I experienced (and continue to experience) the loss of love in my relationship with three beings, the loss of someone to death, the loss of an intimate friendship, and the loss of an animal friend.

This process involved exploring an already existing world and giving it a sonic space in which to be experienced. It took me on a journey intertwining inner landscapes with threads of my ancestry within Korean funeral ceremonies.

In Korea, funerals traditionally took place over a span of three days. Within that time, ritual wailing known as gok (곡) was done at three specific times. After the death, after the body was washed, and after the burial, at which point a period of three years of mourning began. During the three years of mourning, ritual wailing was continued twice a day in the first year and twice a month in the second and third years. These rituals were done more so for the loss of parents and family.

Within these ceremonies is held a deep respect and place for mourning those who have passed, not only to honor their lives and how much they were loved, but to guide their spirits into the next realm.

In the same way, the meditations of Grief’s Garden offer space to mourn the relationships that have passed in the ways we’ve known them, but in this case, to guide our own spirits into the next realm of those relationships, whether they continue beyond the physical, in new iterations, or in memory.

As ritual wailing followed a three-fold framework in traditional Korean funeral ceremonies, a similar structure was used to paint a landscape for three movements through loss.

Throughout the meditations, grief finds voice in the traditional Korean instrument of the gayageum (가야금), a 12-stringed plucked zither. The ajaeng (아쟁), a seven stringed bowed zither, upholds foundational sounds of support in the sonic world, and a yoryeong (요령), a hand-bell, heard at the beginning of the final song, “Grief’s Garden”, mirrors the burial procession and the beginning of a long walk and journey with Grief.

In the first movement, after the death, Grief appears. The song “Don’t Fade (The Loss)” holds space for loss in a tangible experience or felt moment, conveyed in the concrete language of lyrics.

In the second movement, after the body is washed, Grief sings. What can be said when you’re overwhelmed by oceans of love’s absence?  “No Words (A New Companion)” begins a conversation without words. It is the unfolding of a new way to offer the love that can no longer go where it used to.

In the third movement, after the burial, Grief holds space. “Grief’s Garden (A Long Walk)” is a longform song, a place to settle in and linger. Grief’s Garden holds a collective experience made of very personal loss. In this garden is solemn soil. It is an endless, expanding world with paths tread by a million steps and trees grown over lifetimes from great seeds of loss. Here, you are never truly lost, but learning how to love what was lost along winding back roads.

I cannot say what these meditations will be for you, but I can tell you what they have been for me. Even as they were being unearthed and not fully formed, these songs held me as I moved through waves of grief. They held space for me to be seen, to unravel and unfold, and to laugh, celebrate, and remember. They offered unspoken understanding as I turned over, with sometimes shaky hands, the love I’ve lost “to dissolution, distance, or death”. Grief has taken me where I needed to go, and I trust will continue to guide me as I come to know more of myself and this world of love and loss.

Though these meditations were birthed from a place of leaning into loss specifically  in relationships, grief is grief. Perhaps you are mourning the loss of a certain type of childhood, of hiding a part of yourself, or losing a physical place near to your heart. Whatever losses you hold, there is space for you to be held in Grief’s Garden.

As you move through those tender places within, may you find whatever is needed in this sonic world. May you come to know Grief as a companion, and perhaps someday, a friend. And as you travel through the linear days of the physical world, may you trust the non-linear movements of integration and transformation held simply in being with each present moment.

Deepest breath, deepest bow,
Shel Kim Rollison,
Our Daughter (우리 딸)

for some time in the deep of winter it felt like the pain of loss was too acute, that I needed to allow myself the space to be in stillness and silence with myself. I needed distance to really be with my grief. But it seems that now with the arrival of spring, the desire and need to share what’s been germinating in the darkness is blooming. Bravespace means to me the yearning to re-enter life after loss.

Ohaka Mairi ("Grave Visiting" in Japanese) is a reflection on a trip I took with my mother to visit our ancestral gravesite in Yodo, Japan. This song explores themes of Japanese religions (Shinto and Buddhist), familial expectation, saving face. This song is about my desire to commemorate my Japanese ancestors in a loving light while holding the truth that they likely could not imagine nor accept having a mixed African American descendant. The song is also a tribute to Japanese women who stand up to the patriarchy, like my free-spirited mother, who broke from tradition - familial, religious, social - to live life on her own terms.

The song shares chords with We Belong by Pat Benatar, and utilizes a traditional Japanese folk music scale, Yonanuki Tan-Onkai (ヨナ抜き短音階) or "Minor Scale without Four and Seven (fa and te)," in D minor. This song was mixed in Logic Pro. Acoustic guitar backs a singular vocalist, with one instance of harmony over the bridge. Samples include clapping, the way one claps three times before entering a shrine in the Japanese Shinto tradition; train tracks, to symbolize the train we took to the cemetery; and wind, which in Japanese culture represents freedom.

When approached with the prompt of “interpreting spirituality and healing as an Asian American,” my instinct was to refer to my roots. The freedom and privilege I’ve had to explore spirituality and alternative lifestyles throughout my early adulthood came from my family’s sacrifice and survival in this country. This piece features an interview with my mother's younger sister, Maria Consolación. It is dedicated to her.

An empyreal composition meanders atop subliminal messaging, guiding listeners to soften their mind's grip on learned hierarchies and modes of living. Subliminal messages focus on general gestures towards amending rigid beliefs, as well as specific messages inspired by things I have been working on unlearning myself, including capitalism and its teachings of productivity, brahmanism and its teachings of elitism, and more. This piece seeks community with the countless YouTube videos with promises like “subliminals for headaches" and “subliminals for depression” that lullabied me to sleep as I spent recent years learning to live with chronic head pain.

Introduction to Unlearning

Welcome to Introduction to Unlearning…

I am nobody. I will be your instructor/destructor.

The following is a tape for unlearning

The following should only be listened to if you intend to unlearn ingrained practices, hierarchies, and patterns that do not serve you and the world around you. 

Now repeat the following to yourself

I have the capacity to unlearn. My brain has strength and stubbornness only in its pursuit of justice and its dedication of both thought and emotion towards this pursuit. 

In the nature of that justice, in the morals it entails, my brain is malleable.

I have the ability to let go of false lessons. I have the ability to recognize false prophets. 

I am letting go of false lessons. I am recognizing and releasing false prophets,

To unlearn does not mean to forget. To unlearn is to remember where you come from. To unlearn is to deeply understand your origins, your privilege and power

Unlearning is extremely difficult. I embrace the difficulty of unlearning. I welcome the challenge. 

You will now hear a soothing composition, which will mask subliminal messaging encouraging you to unlearn. 

Warning: Do not use this tape if you enjoy the status quo. You might harm the tenuous thread tethering you to your ability to tolerate reality.

Now we begin subliminals for unlearning.

//

Subliminals for Unlearning

I am unlearning lessons that taught me to crave power instead of justice. I am unlearning lessons that taught me to crave power instead of justice. 

I reject recognition for unlearning. Unlearning is my duty. 

I have been taught to see power and money as attractive. I reject these lessons. 

I reject caste and Brahmanical patriarchy. I continue to uncover how these have seeped into the lessons of my youth. I reject caste and I reject my ancestors that perpetuated Brahmanical patriarchy. 

I commit myself to continuing learning the histories of injustice in my communities, including histories of caste and Brahmanical patriarchy, race, anti-Blackness, anti-indigenousness, Islamophobia, queer phobia, transphobia, elitism, capitalism, empire. 

I find joy in the futures that unlearning allows me to imagine. I find joy in the new possibilities that unlearning allows for. 

I find joy in taking a back seat and learning from others. I could spend my whole life listening to others. 

I am unlearning lessons that encouraged me to see this land as a playground for settlers. 

I can let myself feel shame without placing the burden of that feeling on anyone other than myself.

I commit myself to anti-imperialist action. I commit myself to anti-imperialist action. 

I commit myself to divesting from empire.
I have an unflinching need to see the end of capitalism.
I commit myself to undermining capitalism. 

I let go of false lessons. 

Unlearning negative lessons alleviates head pain, allows for stronger mental health. As I focus on moving towards justice rather than accumulating power, my mind is no longer fighting itself. 

I commit myself to to seeing these processes of unlearning through to their logical conclusions of undermining capitalism,
Undermining the U.S., India, Israel, and all other fascist states
Undermining caste and all of the ways it hides behind other words

I recognize that unlearning is not simply an internal, thought-based action. It is rooted in community and redistribution of wealth and power. I commit myself to this community and this redistribution.
I commit myself to to seeing these processes of unlearning through to their logical conclusions of undermining capitalism,
Undermining the U.S., India, Israel, and all other fascist states
Undermining caste and all of the ways it hides behind other words

I recognize that unlearning is not simply an internal, thought-based action. It is rooted in community and redistribution of wealth and power. I commit myself to this community and this redistribution. 

//

peach + ice

ablate your thoughts with your peach fuzzy filters
the weight of it all melts away when you’re far away 

flow rate fast out with your cruel thoughts cruel feelings
the pain of it all clear as ice when you’re far away 

liquid and sun and your peach glasses opaque
the weight of it all cold as ice when you’re far away

picture yourself giving care and receiving
the ways of the world chilled like ice when you’re here to stay

tear it all down with your peach poison punches
the weight of it all hard as ice when you’re on your way

make your ownself out of claymation piece by piece
you feel yourself soft as ice and you’re on your way