The Fes Sacred Music Festival (June 7 -15) has ended and so has our Sacred Song, Sacred Story, Writer's Retreat. A number of writers from Australia, Laos, Germany and Morocco, met each morning for writing workshops at Riad Rcif under the tutelage of Australian writer/performer Jan Cornall. Taking their inspiration from the Fes medina and the extraordinary music performances each night, they were working on poems, songs, prose pieces, film, novel and play ideas. Hooking up with the Fes Festival Fringe they found a perfect venue for reading their work at Culture Vulture's pOp Up Gallery in the heart of the souk where the passing traffic of locals and tourists stopped by to listen.
Below are some pics and a taste of what was presented there as well as other writings from the retreat.
Jan Cornall
Medina Love
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
(audience is encouraged to sing this backing refrain, repeating continuously in gnawa/calypso rhythm, using any percussive instruments at hand)
(poet speaks)
I'm lost in the medina
and I'm beginning to glean a
meaning of finding my way back
to a rhythm
I didn't know
I had
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, j'aime le medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
In the medina
I've seen her, I meet her, I greet her, I sweet her, I treat her, I shove her, I pinch her, I steal her, I feel her, I smile her, I try her, fry her, I ask her, I tell her, I fake her, I make her, I take her, I trick her, I prick her, I ask her, I pass her, I trance her, I dance her, romance her, I step her, I find her, I lose her, I fear her, I steer her, I near her, I cheer her, I love her...
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
(poet freestyles in call and response to audience members who add their list of medina experiences followed by the chorus again)
In the medina
I scarf her, I chafe her, I leather her, slipper her, arghan oil her, spoil her, bejewel her, jellaba her, shoe horn her, knife sharpen her, embroider her, indigo her, I bake her, charm snake her, I carpet her, cushion her, I silk her, I milk her, noos noos her, expresso her, mint tea her, targine her, mosaic her, archaic her, I Sufi her, Jelala her, inshallah her, I brotherhood, motherhood, sisterhood, I love her!
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, j'aime le medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
( poet and audience continue singing and fade into the medina sunset)
(C) Jan Cornall, June 2013, Fes.
Elisabeth Vongsaravanh
Wahdi Fi Leile - Alone in the Night
Medina'd
Lullabye
Below are some pics and a taste of what was presented there as well as other writings from the retreat.
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| Jess Stephens of Culture Vultures at the petite pOp Up Gallery |
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| Some of our medina audience. |
Jan Cornall
Medina Love
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
(audience is encouraged to sing this backing refrain, repeating continuously in gnawa/calypso rhythm, using any percussive instruments at hand)
(poet speaks)
I'm lost in the medina
and I'm beginning to glean a
meaning of finding my way back
to a rhythm
I didn't know
I had
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, j'aime le medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
In the medina
I've seen her, I meet her, I greet her, I sweet her, I treat her, I shove her, I pinch her, I steal her, I feel her, I smile her, I try her, fry her, I ask her, I tell her, I fake her, I make her, I take her, I trick her, I prick her, I ask her, I pass her, I trance her, I dance her, romance her, I step her, I find her, I lose her, I fear her, I steer her, I near her, I cheer her, I love her...
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
(poet freestyles in call and response to audience members who add their list of medina experiences followed by the chorus again)
In the medina
I scarf her, I chafe her, I leather her, slipper her, arghan oil her, spoil her, bejewel her, jellaba her, shoe horn her, knife sharpen her, embroider her, indigo her, I bake her, charm snake her, I carpet her, cushion her, I silk her, I milk her, noos noos her, expresso her, mint tea her, targine her, mosaic her, archaic her, I Sufi her, Jelala her, inshallah her, I brotherhood, motherhood, sisterhood, I love her!
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
La, la,la,la,la, j'aime le medina
La, la,la,la,la, love the medina
( poet and audience continue singing and fade into the medina sunset)
(C) Jan Cornall, June 2013, Fes.
Elisabeth Vongsaravanh
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| Elisabeth Vongsaravanh- jellaba shopping in Fes medina. |
Wahdi Fi Leile - Alone in the Night
What’s the meaning of the dark blue sky,
the swallows wings against the wind?
What’s the meaning of countless threads
without hands gently spinning them in?
A breeze of music soothes my skin
swallows my soul and the rhythm within.
I have no need to be any place better
my up and down waves, like rhythm and rhyme,
are music playing on a dark blue night.
Wahdi fi leile, wahdi fi leile, wahdi fi leile
An animal in the fields of yesterday
shape-shifting to hide from eyes that
don’t see beyond. Go on with it, go on I say;
take my tongue and speak my words,
take my eyes and you see,
you can’t take my life,
can’t take it at all, for in my life,
you would be just as I am.
Wahdi fi leile, wahdi fi leile, wahdi fi leile
Is there a song as beautiful as death
then it’s the same song for life,
and maybe it’s not you l love, but the stars I see
in the dark blue sky that fills me with love as I lay
connecting the dots.
Wahdi fi leile, wahdi fi leile,wahdi fi leile
Shadows of your song follow me along
in a moonlit yard,
An animal in the fields of yesterday
Wahdi fi leile,
wahdi fi leile
shape-shifting to hide,
for in my life you would be just as I am,
letting shadows cover me from sight.
Love will remain a breeze of music
and we’re missing the rhythm within
as we lay
Wahdi fi leile, wahdi fi leile.
(c) Elizabeth Vongsaravanh June 2013, Fes.
Medina Mystery
My veins feel like empty transparent tubes intertwining
inside my body. A slow transfusion of new blood, new thoughts, new life. Under
the African sky, I imagine that the Moon is God’s Third Eye watching over me
from above. . .
(c) Elizabeth Vongsaravanh, June 2013, Fes.
Claine Keily
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| Christine Colton and Elisabeth Vongsaravanh at Cafe Clock, Fes. |
Medina Mystery
The comforting smell of leather and spices,
the familiar stench of the cobbler’s glue, takes me back to the time I went to
get my mother’s sandals fixed - the last time, in 1986 . . . In the alleys - paint, varnish, street-food,
grilled meat, baking bread - blends with death and dirt, garbage, urine and mule-droppings. It doesn’t smell so awful.
In the medina everything seems to exist in
the harmony of contrasts and contradictions. Enter a blue gate, and come out on
its green side. Do it three times,
you’ll be enlightened! Enter a tiny ragged doorway and find a tall palace of
mosaics with space and roofs that open up to the sky. Lift a woman’s
jiellaba and maybe, all she’s wearing is the latest Victoria’s Secret lingerie.
I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love with
the music, the feeling of mystery - I know that to every patch of the
surface, there is a depth waiting to be opened and explored. I’m in love with you! With the essence of the
maze, gathered behind walls guarded by black sparrows guarding their nests.
Living in the medina is like living in a nutshell. The alleys as wide as my outstretched arms,
wall to wall, I walk within your walls. I walk, and I wonder where the vegetable gardens
grow . . . All those fresh green enormous crisp bunches of mint, the tomatoes,
radishes, apricots, peaches, sweet juicy pears, cherries, thyme, artichokes,
melons, cucumbers, parsley, plums, and corn. Where are the lemon trees and the
almond groves? When do the sellers get up to be ready for the hungry buyers
coming for fresh greens? They seem to be there all day long, behind their
luscious heaps of delicacies.
From above, the view of birds flying over
medieval rooftops featuring satellite dishes, and green tiles sprouting thirsty yellow grass,
while emerald cedars, cypruses and dates grow in hidden gardens and beyond the
hills of the sandstone city. On the
streets below, children are running up
and down like cats do. They fall, they cry, they laugh and they point me in
the opposite direction I’m about to go. I assume they want me to get lost.
From peace and quiet to crowded streets and
shops and food, food, food everywhere. Small coffee shops pop up in between a
lamp-shop and an embroiderer and mules keep passing by carrying whatever is placed on their
backs. They speak French too, hee-hawing ‘Attentiooooon!’ Another street opens, where a piece of wood is
burning, smoking on the pavement as a cloud of bees blocks the pathway - no
one seems to mind walking through confused crowd of bees. So like everyone else, my
daughter and I pass through the buzzing
bunch, completely surrounded for a split second. Their nest has
fallen. Where else were they supposed to go?
As I walk I often find myself looking into
the eyes of people. I’m curious
about them. What’s on their minds. I know too little about Islam. I doubt that
religion ever had to do with the true nature of people. I could have been born
here. I could have grown up eating olives, herbs and Turkish delight my whole
life. My mother loved wearing hats and turbans, and she was particularly
proud of her little purple piece of muslin she would always carry around in her
handbag for no reason at all. Maybe it was a gift from someone. I’ve never
asked . . . She would wear a black turban with an orange broach going to the
Sunday mass.
At the beginnings of
fashion, before World war I., the French icon Poiret introduced his
collection of robes and turbans to the world. In every culture we blend
and fuse, invent, distort and transform the traditional. But we forget about the roots. If we didn’t,
this world would be a better place. Everything that’s art brings us one step
closer to peace. The sacred songs of Morocco, Andalusia, Armenia, Tibet, India,
Syria, the Sufi rituals and dances, the drums, the orchestras of all cultures
leads to one realization, that we all are connected through love and a
spiritual thirst to be free. There are no words any
more. There are songs and sounds that become the ivory of pain, as passion is
let loose from a Spanish guitar. Don’t ask why . . . let’s just be here and
stay forever in peace.
(c) Elizabeth Vongsaravanh, June 2013, Fes.
Claine Keily
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| Inkala, Kinga and Claine Keily(reading) at pOp Up Gallery, Fes. |
The Mute Gypsy
And I wanted so to sing
but the snow
was on my breath again
and so I stayed there
mute again and let
the winter take me
I shall remember this
and all the springs
before it
that taught me
if ungently
that we all heap snow in our
mouths
even before the honey season, and before
the flowers
for this is what
our mothers taught us
(c) Claine Keily, June 2013, Fes
And I wanted so to sing
but the snow
was on my breath again
and so I stayed there
mute again and let
the winter take me
I shall remember this
and all the springs
before it
that taught me
if ungently
that we all heap snow in our
mouths
even before the honey season, and before
the flowers
for this is what
our mothers taught us
(c) Claine Keily, June 2013, Fes
Song of the False Gypsy
Take it then
my blood for wine
and the children with
clots for viens
like bitter apples
And it does not rain
And here take this
orchard empty
where the caravans
of love, no longer
come to sleep
I am tired of
emptying the night
from all the
fruit wagons I visit
I am tired
of dreaming life
(c) Claine Keily, June 2013, Fes.
Catherine McMahon
Take it then
my blood for wine
and the children with
clots for viens
like bitter apples
And it does not rain
And here take this
orchard empty
where the caravans
of love, no longer
come to sleep
I am tired of
emptying the night
from all the
fruit wagons I visit
I am tired
of dreaming life
(c) Claine Keily, June 2013, Fes.
Catherine McMahon
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| Catherine McMahon at Mokri Palace garden. |
Medina'd
Guided through the medina my luggage rolling on,
Guided through the medina hearing late night Sufi songs.
Looking for orange, or green or blue or pink,
With Aisha's blond curls another vital link.
Gliding through the medina are pastries on her head,
Swaying through the medina, the donkey's calmly led
Noisy in the medina, wheels weaving on small ramps
Gardens in the medina, with softly glowing lamps.
We are many in the medina, we live and shop and play.
We are visitors to the medina, who might just lose our way.
Notes soaring, hands dancing, to stillness we are led
Flamenco, much applauding and different voices blend.
Gazing across the medina, after poetry is read
Sat dishes and washing, familiar as round bread.
Eight points to the star and fountain in its midst,
Wood carving and blue tiles because we are in Fez.
Crowds gather in the plaza, police are everywhere
It's a concert, not a riot and the festival is shared.
The entrance is narrowed, we squeeze and softly swear,
There's watching and some giggles at the clothes and masks we wear.
The rubbish in plastic the cats with care dissect,
There's more sorting around midnight, when orange men collect.
We're seeing just a little of the mysteries of our host,
We're descending to the medina and all that it evokes.
(c)Catherine McMahon June 2013, Fes.
Inkala Gisela Bleyer
Inkala Gisela Bleyer
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| Inkala reading at pOp Up Gallery |
Lullabye
Hush baby hush
Hold onto my heart
Onto this heartbeat
My Angel
Together we'll soar
Can you taste the dust of our dry mother earth?
Can you touch the light of a rainbow falling?
Can you smell the song of little cicada
Praising the sun on a drop of dew?
Hush baby hush
Open your eyes now
And look at the sweetness
Of brown sister date
Open your ears now
And Hear the salt
In green brother olive
Together let’s fly
My angel sweet
Together explore
This great gift of life
That we enter together.
Come now my baby
Together let’s dream
Lets run with bare feet
Pounding the soil
Awaking the grain
To burst forth with joy
To fulfill its purpose
Of growth in the heat
To be cut and grinded
To be burnt and consumed.
Like these grains
Now my angel
Together let’s sing
Let's meet our own journey
And taste our own path
Let’s discover some secrets
And let others remain
Forever Unknown.
Come little angel
Hush baby hush
Together let’s travel
Together let’s dream
It’s safe to let go
It’s safe to not know.
(c) Inkala Gisela Bleyer, June 2013, Fes.
Lost and Found in the Medina
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| Inkala, dressed for the medina. |
Lost and Found in the Medina
Wandering … wandering, upwards in the
hot meandering lanes of the Medina. Relentlessly burning - there's no shade at
this time of day! I'm in search of a hat I seem to have lost. I
wind my way up the endless steps, avoiding the donkey's droppings and some
garbage, watching for signs and landmarks I have memorized so that I might not lose my way in these labyrinthine alleys. This way and that I turn, searching for
something I treasure that has seemingly disappeared. Does
it matter or is it yet again time to let go?
I’m feeling hot and slightly dizzy. There is an awareness of missing
and lacking something. Yet that is
strangely intertwined with a desire to give and reach out, although I feel
tired: an extra friendly smile and a few cheering words to the little chocolate
selling boy in the corner who answers with an extra broad smile, a bright “Bonjour!” to the watchman with his
newspaper at his habitual lookout. Later he will make sure that all the guests streaming by, up
and down for the various concerts in hidden courtyards of the magical Medina
are safe and well while at the same time he remains very much
minding his very own business, languid and seemingly disinterested in the
passersby.
"Bonjour Madame, welcome to you!" calls a man standing
at the door of his cupboard sized shop. "Bonjour, Madame. What are you
looking for?" ask two boys around the corner. "Nothing," I say,
"I know my way." They smile.
"Ah that is good. Then there is no problem!" What was that one
sentence Charles, my neighbor at dinner last night had said? "Mish mash
kila?" I hesitantly ask, wondering if that was the one meaning there is no
problem. I am not sure, but I say it anyway. The two young boys grin. "No problem, no
problem!"
Out of every little shop rings "Bonjour, bonjour!" How
strange that I should feel hot, restless and slightly irritated and the people
of the Medina seem to know I could do with a cheer. Even the women I encounter
seem to smile more than usual!
Entering the lane to the restaurant we had eaten at the night before I
pass a stooped man, gesturing hunger. I will feed him on my return I think, not
with money but food. My precious hat has not been found and so I start heading
back, almost pressed against a fruit seller’s cart by two donkeys
heavenly laden with big metal containers protruding far over their sides. This
weaving of bodies and boxes, carts and stalls, cats and mules in narrow lanes -
there always is plenty of space however tight it may seem!
So there is the man, his shoulders hunched forward, his clothes
sagging on his emaciated frame, his gaze averted and yet looking at me directly
- and I look back with a nod of my head. He moves forward towards me and I gesture
to the owner of the tiny restaurant with two tables inside: please feed him
whatever he wants, I will pay. Agreement is instant, no further explanations
needed. "Are Twenty five Dirham ok?" he asks. "Yes, that's
ok." He beckons the man to come and sit down. He nods at me as he shuffles
in. I feel more peaceful now.
Further on I come across a man in a wheelchair I have not seen before.
This one too I feel to feed, again with food and not with money. As I approach
the owner of the stall laden with sweet pastries next to him I notice he
already has one in his hands. Before I can ask him to sell it to me, I realize
he is feeding the man in the wheelchair, who is obviously incapable of feeding
himself. Such a sweet, loving and gentle encounter! It deeply touches me. We
smile and nod at each other - no words are needed.
I continue down the alley. It is still so hot, still without
shade. The walls on either side reflect the heat of the early afternoon back at
me. Turning a corner I recognize another disabled man in a wheelchair. I know him immediately, although he is not in his usual location. I take out
my purse to slip him my usual gift of two coins in passing with a smile and yet
this time he reaches toward me with his arm waving uncontrollably. And then he
tries to stand on legs that won’t hold him to embrace me. Spontaneously I reach forward and hold
him. For a fleeting moment memories of warnings surface about touching men,
especially in Muslim countries, about the disabled people being considered
defiled and untouchable. The moment is fleeting and gone before the thoughts
take hold. The man holds on to me as best he can and I hold him. Just that. It
is a deeply touching and very human moment.
In the distance a Moroccan man approaches, turns and looks away.
It doesn't matter what he might think. He is not the one in the wheelchair and
he is not a women throwing caution aside so how can he know what this moment is
about? It doesn't matter.
Gently I pull myself away, slip the two coins into the uncontrollably
shaking hand trying to take mine. I carefully yet firmly let go and slowly
continue walking. A young woman passes me smiling. I turn around and she puts
her hand to her heart. "Shukran," she calls, "Shukran!" We
wave and smile. Women know.
With a last farewell gesture towards the man in the wheelchair I
walk "home" to the beautiful Riad Rcif our group is staying at. I
long to just sit in the peaceful rooftop garden. My travelling hat - a thing that had held many
beautiful memories and therefore had seemed important to me has been lost. But
it is just a hat and something far more precious has been gained unexpectedly:
lasting memories of a deep connection with the Medina of Fez and its beautiful
people.
(c) Inkala Gisela
Bleyer, Fes 2013.
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| Si Mohamed Abarda, Moroccan screen writer, with Inkala and Kinga. |
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| Kinga Bisits, Karen Hadfield, Simo, Aisha at work on the rooftop at Riad Rcif |
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| L-R Christine Colton, Claine Keily, Kinga Bisits, Jan Cornall, Elisabeth Vongsaravanh, Catherine McMahon. |
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| Aisha, our fabulous hostess at Riad Rcif |
You can find many more pics at Flickr
info re next years Sacred Song, Sacred Story retreat June 2014 here
and Moroccan Caravan January 2014 here
