Celebrating Rumi

A review of Shahram Shiva’s Lovedrunk. In a phrase: Rumi served light and sensous over well-crafted Middle-Eastern grooves. Well worth adding to the soundtrack of your life.

Disclaimer: I’m not a professional reviewer. No one pays me to write this stuff. Metaphors For Life is an affiliate of CDBaby.com but not of the artist or label who produced this remarkable CD.

I found Shahram Shiva’s Lovedrunk while doing an online search for Rumi’s poetry in general — local readings, books, websites, performances — because 2007 is Rumi’s 800th birthday. I’m thinking about hosting a local celebration in observance and wanted some good media to use before and during the event.

Rumi’s effects on western culture, 800 years after his birth in what is now Afghanistan, are profound. UNESCO has named 2007 “International Year of Rumi” in honor and celebration of the poetry and prose of this remarkable mystic, teacher, and poet. It’s also worth mentioning that, in this post 9/11 world, the best-selling poet in the US continues to be Jelalludin Rumi. While purists don’t always like the uses to which Rumi’s teachings are put (see article by William Dalrymple in The Guardian for an example), it is true that Rumi’s poetry gets more media exposure than any other three poets combined.

Shahram Shiva has, in my opinion as a modern non-Sufi mystic, rendered just a little of Rumi’s poetry into a lush garden of spiritual and sensual delight. He was and is well-positioned to do so. According to the website he is

…a performance poet, actor and award-winning author, known for his rich and entrancing concerts of Rumi, the 13th century Persian mystic poet. He was born to a Persian Jewish family in Iran and migrated to the US at the age of 16. Shiva is the only major presenter in the West who performs Rumi’s poetry in his own English renditions as well as the original Persian verses. His bilingual English-Persian concerts are Rumi events — where the great mystical poet is celebrated with Shiva’s unique and passionate recitations of the timeless poetry performed with musical groups of various genres.

In Lovedrunk Shiva has dipped briefly but deeply into the vast ocean of words that Rumi left us and set them to music composed by Olivier Glissant. The music and words complement each other so completely that you begin to wonder how you ever heard Rumi’s poetry without it. It is a lushly sensual, passionate, devoted, and contemplative trek through the mystic heart from beginning to end.

In several tracks Shiva marries spoken Persian with English and the two languages entwine like, well, like lovers. It is an erotic interplay of cultures and concepts much as the music itself, which is a blend of Middle-Eastern tonalities and phrasings over western beats. The combination is a seduction of the intellect and the senses, rendered by a Lover, embraced by the Beloved. In Rumi’s own words, the two are one in such a way that there is no telling which originated where.

The CD is so well-paced and crafted that it’s challenging to pick out one track as a “favorite.” There are some that stand out to me in particular ways, however. Track 6 is entitled “Lover Me” and in addition to being one of the most rhythmically evocative musical offerings, the track gives us Rumi echoing ancient Greek identity riddles, paradox after paradox meant to jolt the conscious mind from its well-worn ruts of thinking about reality. Here’s an excerpt:

Day you, night you,
fasting and the crumbs of a beggar you,
water and a pitcher you.
Quench my thirst, Beloved.

Bait you, trap you,
wine you, cup you,
baked and raw you.
Please don’t let me be unbaked.

Track 8 is entitled “Seven Pearls” and is in fact seven short verses placed over a series of breathtaking musical backdrops. Like a slide show into the nature of Reality, Shiva has strung these together like fine pearls indeed, bookended with verses spoken in Persian. This track routinely gives me goosebumps when I listen to it.

The lovers will drink wine night and day.
They will drink until they can tear away the veils of intellect
and melt away the layers of shame and modesty.
When in love, body, mind, heart and soul don’t even exist.
Become this.
Fall in love and you will not be separated again.

And…

Do you know what you are?
You are the manuscript of a divine letter.
You are a mirror reflecting a noble face.

Finally, Track 9 is “You Worry Too Much” and in my opinion should be the theme song for every non-cloistered modern mystic striving to retain the Beloved’s embrace while still being at work in the world. In these verses Rumi and Shiva point out to us with rapid-fire necessity just how duplicitous our ego-bound realities can be. The music rolls ever onward beneath the metaphors like a boundless sea, carrying the enrapt listener toward destinations glimpsed briefly in a fever of ecstasy.

You are Joseph.
Beautiful, strong, steadfast in your belief.
All of Egypt has become drunk because of you.
Of those who are blind to your beauty and deaf to your songs
Why do you worry?

Why indeed.

And…

You have seen your own strength
You have seen your own beauty
You have seen your golden wings
Of anything less, why do you worry?

The only less-than-positive thing I could say about this CD is that at first Shiva’s voice sounded stilted and “affected” especially on the first track. In fairness, however, I have to confess that I didn’t think that by the end of the CD. On subsequent listenings I haven’t been able to recall why I ever thought that.

I’ve bought a lot of music this year. Lovedrunk has been money well-spent. I hope Shahram Shiva decides to do more of this — if Olivier Glissant is doing his instrumentals I’ll buy the CD on sight.

For us Lovers, there’s a lot here to groove with. I would strongly recommend adding this CD to your life soundtrack — and sitting down to listen to it with those you love.