Grief work is a form of soul protest, our wholehearted response to acts of violence and oppression. — Francis Weller

In the week before a momentous war’s anniversary, a picture starkly intrudes. I force myself to look. And in looking at another’s pain, I am complicit in it.

Susan Sontag invites us towards this complicity: Narratives make us understand; photos haunt us.

There’s no shortage of grief thrust into our consciousness. We try to stay with the pain. Sometimes it’s a guide, like a repeated song, an earworm. I repurposed a mantra to try to ground all that is thrown at us. Into its familiar rhythms, I fit a new story, stumbled over words.

I am drawn to this mantra, given its meaning from long-ago languages and myths: we bow in deference, we make repeated salutations to Shiva, who is considered the destroyer. He also symbolizes the inner self that remains intact even after everything ends.

It’s a mantra of hope in a world gone wild and uncivilized.

Writing, vocals and composition – field sounds/Creative Commons licensed audio: Joan Schuman
Spun ideas:
– Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (2004)
– Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow (2015)
– Om Namah Shivaya mantra

featured online, on air, in festivals

2025 | Electroacoustical Poetical Society (EAPS) commissioned for artist collective (broadcast theme: “Intrusion”) featuring works by Brian K. Price (USA), Joan Schuman (USA), Ilaria Boffa (Italy), Tony Brewer (USA), Gregory Whitehead (USA), Marjorie Van Halteren (France) – January 2025

2024 | radioart106 broadcasts, program #170 featuring 1 hour of new/early work, broadcast across radio art spaces in December 2024: USMARADIO (San Marino, Italy); diffusion919fm; Radio RaBe (Bern, Switzerland); Radio Campus Paris; Reboot.fm (Berlin, Germany); Radio Tsonami (Valparaíso, Chile); ∏Node (Paris, France)