Dear World Family,
Indeed we are one family striving to live together in our one home –the Earth. Never before have we so clearly experienced how the actions of every person affects our entire planet. My prayer for this day, our global Earth Day, is for all of us to see clearly the interconnection of all life and to always remember this in our hearts, mind and actions.
Last month I just returned from a time of living with my minstrel Baul family in West Bengal, India. I met the Bauls in 1990, when I first started my World Wheel Project of circling the planet creating environmental stone sculpture and community theater. My first turn of this wheel was to go through 12 countries on the 35th parallel, to establish a world family of peace.
India was one of the countries and while there, I fell in love with a small band of minstrels whose philosophy was to embrace all people and life as their own, to respect our own bodies as the temple of God and to listen to the innate wisdom within our hearts. At that time I felt that what they needed, was not another sculpture, but was a focal point, a community house. And so together we built a Baul Akhra (ashram).
Now after 30 years, I have returned to enter their lives and find that the little Baul Akhra is brimming over with students, and Basudeb das Baul and his wife Urmila are in need of a larger place. It has been Basudeb’s dream to have a Baul School. For the last few years I have sold my paintings and sculptures and gathered donations to make his dream come true. We are on the last few months of completing the school, save for this respite when they are also in confinement within their village because of Covid-19.
I wanted to share with you something special for this Earth Day. It is a link to my youtube channel (Vijali’s World Wheel) where you can hear Basudeb sing surrounded with his family and students. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYztjajuIeg&list=PLo-Rm7eZURNPb9tVnp7rpEFhAO94P0MnY&index=3
Also please “subscribe” to my channel and you will receive a notice of my weekly YouTube program: “Arts to Awaken Peace and Compassion in a Torn World.”
I leave you now with much love and joy as you listen to this profound Baul music,
P.S.
More Baul singing for your enjoyment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb0tPMDE2Is
