Dream Atoms

Over the past weeks I have been watching racial prejudice take the media spotlight, many people sharing their stories, views and opinions to help shine light on this issue from various angles. It has been encouraging to watch people raise their voices in different forms to help feed the collective conscious on the matter, but I have remained silent not knowing if what I had to say would be of any value to the general public. After some soul searching I came to a conclusion my perspective and my art may be a way to use my voice to make a positive impact.

The optimist in me sees this year 2020 as a powerful catalyst for positive growth. Evil in all its outlets is necessary to redirect us to harmony. COVID-19 could be Earth's way of telling us that our economy, that values the manufacturing of materialistic goods over the sustainability of the environment, is no longer going to work. It is my hope that the disease of racial prejudice is also eradicated, by reorganizing and rethinking systematic institutions to provide all humans with equality.

It has been enlightening, however dark and tragic, to see the various cases against other human citizens because of skin pigmentation. Given my upbringing (as a 'white caucasian' suburbian male), I have never experienced blatant racism against myself or witnessed against my friends of different colour - which I am grateful for. It's easy for me to make a statement like "we are all human beings of one race, no matter the colour of our skin", when I have never experienced systematic inequalities. The perspective this affords me is one I would like to share, as it is my belief if this truth were universally realized we wouldn't find ourselves in this mess of racial injustice.

We are not just flesh and bones, we are the souls that temporarily inhabit these bodily temples. Gender, skin colour, nationality, religion and class do not define what we really are. Two great analogies I've picked up from my Yoga/Hindu studies illustrate this concept more eloquently then I could describe; 'drops from the same Ocean' or 'lightbulbs sharing the same electrical Current'. If we treat each other as if we were interacting with God, we might have more respect for all conscious-sentient beings.

The composition of Dream Atoms was inspired by the writings of Sri Paramahansa Yoganada. The writing process spanned approximately a week, in stream-of-consciousness fashion. The piece is intended to be one large song with 10 movements, largely improvised in the moment which reflects some rough edges (beauty in imperfection, right?).