Orange trees and Aradhna

Here in the UK there's a mobile (cellphone) network called Orange with an interesting advertising campaign. It's the i-am-everyone campaign and it's basically about how you are who you are because of everyone else and the relationships you have with them (and of course how Orange keeps you connected with everyone). The people in the TV ads literally say: 'I am everyone', which is a weird thing to hear if you don't understand the context! You can check it out on www.i-am-everyone.co.uk if you're interested. I have a similar philosophy: It might be true that any one leaf is not the tree in its totality, yet every leaf is as much the tree as every other part of the tree (all the parts have the same DNA if you want to get technical about it) and in that sense every leaf IS the Tree and stems from the same source as every other part of the tree. 'What is all this talk of Orange ads, leafs and trees really about?' you might be wondering. Last Sunday we went to see Aradhna, a group of 'western' (American, Canadian and British if I'm correct) musicians who grew up or spent a lot of time in eastern countries (India, Pakistan, Nepal). They play devotional Christian music in Hindi using sitar, guitar, tabla and violin and this particular afternoon they were doing it in a baptist church in south west London. It was a harmonious blend of east and west in a musical, cultural and religious sense and it got me thinking of the diversity of the world and the conflict it creates. Surely, somewhere beneath all our artificial differences there must be eternal truths we can all agree on? Where does the common ground lie? Is it possible that we are all looking for the same thing without realising it because we are looking in different places and call it different names? And in the sacred atmosphere created by the interaction between the musicians and the congregation my mind and spirit began to ponder these questions. The realisations I came to are the kind of thoughts you discuss with good friends around a bottle of wine or a campfire and are difficult to express in a blog, but if you have the same questions, you may want to find a tree to sit under for a while, try to find the wisdom in an Orange advert and definately visit www.aradhnamusic.com.

(My apologies to Aradhna for using their music in my slide show without their permission)