It happens. The comfortable world suddenly seems empty and hollow and we have that sinking feeling that we see but through a glass darkly. The big questions rear up: Who am I? What is life? Death? God? What’s going on here? The soul calls for some deep connection with the roots of things, and all received wisdom starts to seem hollow and secondhand.

The great event in human affairs is when an individual slips through the thicket of shallow certainties and confronts Truth directly. Buddhists call it Face to Face Seeing, a knowing beyond understanding. The bush flares, the boundaries of language dissolve in a rush. Questions are not answered, they are uprooted. The Hidden Secret is uncovered, the light of a thousand suns revealed.

It is when we wish to learn from someone who has seen in this way that troubles begin. We want to hear the straight scoop but the straight scoop is incompatible with the finite system of language. Whatever is reported about “How things are,” or “God,” or “enlightenment” will, by definition, be a metaphor, a tall tale–a shoddy translation.

This is the small print that accompanies any authentic scripture: the very nature of language is at odds with the message. There’s no need to guard the Great Mystery–IT can’t be said.

Rumi was an truth-seeker who was given great gulps from the ocean of answers, and his later life was one long unblushing attempt to report back to those on shore, to translate the untranslatable.

There’s no saying this right, he says, but I’ll try again. His way was to call on the communicative powers of art–all those activities which somehow bypass our calculative mind and directly touch intuitive wisdom. Rumi used bodily movement and music but he shines most in the subtle force of his poetry, which spontaneously came to him fully formed in complex rhyme and meter.

In the bardic cultures anything really worth saying is worth singing, and a still vital tradition was born where musician-seekers gather and sing favorite Rumi verses, often right through the night. No doubt music helped Rumi’s poetry spread from its birthplace at the western edge of the Persian empire (now Turkey) across the Middle East and into India and central Asia, where it remains a vital part of folk culture.

Now Rumi has come to the West, and The Illumination Band continues this musical tradition, but with the familiar sounds of our own sacred native folk traditions. The results are haunting and unforgettable. Appalachian harmonies, gospel anthems and primitive blues give a powerful, authentic voice to ecstatic poetry seven hundred years old.

In concert The Illumination Band brings a wide new range of expression to Rumi’s poetry. Humor and storytelling give way to soul-longing and the sweet breath of revelation. And if the night is young, and the stars aligned, sometimes there’s dancing in the aisles.

The music of the Illumination Band debuts now as a companion CD to ONE SONG • The New Illuminated Rumi by Michael Green, a lavish new collaboration between word, image & music published by Running Press in September 2005.




	Home Page A Blessing About The Book About the Music Download a Song Press Releases Pages from ONE SONG Appearances, Concerts Interview Questions Contact Links



				It happens. The comfortable world suddenly seems empty and hollow and we have that sinking feeling that we see but through a glass darkly. The big questions rear up: Who am I? What is life? Death? God? What’s going on here? The soul calls for some deep connection with the roots of things, and all received wisdom starts to seem hollow and secondhand. The great event in human affairs is when an individual slips through the thicket of shallow certainties and confronts Truth directly. Buddhists call it Face to Face Seeing, a knowing beyond understanding. The bush flares, the boundaries of language dissolve in a rush. Questions are not answered, they are uprooted. The Hidden Secret is uncovered, the light of a thousand suns revealed. It is when we wish to learn from someone who has seen in this way that troubles begin. We want to hear the straight scoop but the straight scoop is incompatible with the finite system of language. Whatever is reported about “How things are,” or “God,” or “enlightenment” will, by definition, be a metaphor, a tall tale–a shoddy translation. This is the small print that accompanies any authentic scripture: the very nature of language is at odds with the message. There’s no need to guard the Great Mystery–IT can’t be said. Rumi was an truth-seeker who was given great gulps from the ocean of answers, and his later life was one long unblushing attempt to report back to those on shore, to translate the untranslatable. There’s no saying this right, he says, but I’ll try again. His way was to call on the communicative powers of art–all those activities which somehow bypass our calculative mind and directly touch intuitive wisdom. Rumi used bodily movement and music but he shines most in the subtle force of his poetry, which spontaneously came to him fully formed in complex rhyme and meter. In the bardic cultures anything really worth saying is worth singing, and a still vital tradition was born where musician-seekers gather and sing favorite Rumi verses, often right through the night. No doubt music helped Rumi’s poetry spread from its birthplace at the western edge of the Persian empire (now Turkey) across the Middle East and into India and central Asia, where it remains a vital part of folk culture. Now Rumi has come to the West, and The Illumination Band continues this musical tradition, but with the familiar sounds of our own sacred native folk traditions. The results are haunting and unforgettable. Appalachian harmonies, gospel anthems and primitive blues give a powerful, authentic voice to ecstatic poetry seven hundred years old. In concert The Illumination Band brings a wide new range of expression to Rumi’s poetry. Humor and storytelling give way to soul-longing and the sweet breath of revelation. And if the night is young, and the stars aligned, sometimes there’s dancing in the aisles. The music of the Illumination Band debuts now as a companion CD to ONE SONG • The New Illuminated Rumi by Michael Green, a lavish new collaboration between word, image & music published by Running Press in September 2005.