Calling for the Beast

Listen up,

At least 25 people seem to like the music and videos I upload because recently my youtube channel hit the milestone of 25 subscribers! This calls for a celebration and therefore I'm making a small "contest". The 10th person that posts a comment underneath this blogpost will recieve an appropriate sum of €25! No strings attached. This may seem a little tame as far as a "contest" goes, but don't be fooled, I took inspiration from a book about psychological warfare used in the Vietnam war to turn allied soldiers against each other. It is a nervewrecking psychological challenge to try and be the exact 10th comment and could turn civil housewives and well-behaved fathers into valuta-thirsty beasts. It could very well be that with the amount of followers on Dropping Gems it will be a matter of seconds to fullfil my goal, and so, it'll be pure luck where my hard earned money will end up, but it wouldn't surprise me if my audience will use clever tactics, devious tricks and foul ways of deception to try and claim the grand prize. Don't forget that DP is also read in countries from Asia and Africa where €25 can be a lot of money.

So good luck to you all!

Ok now, I was visiting Amsterdam and after a mandatory visit to the red light district (only sight seeing) and coffeeshops, when returning to the car at the outer part of the city I saw a, to me, surprising thing.


                                 Are they afraid a bear might come sit on their porch?

And I guess you could say I'm in my experimental fase regarding pics, playing around with shutter time to make some effects:

                              

Self portrait

(Or do people say "selfie" now?)

                                  Sunset taken from my room, thought it looked neat.

Walker!

If you do it right you can make drawings in light. It's not so easy to do because you don't know where you are drawing until you see the finished photograph. I made very simple things as you can see below but with some dedication, I'm sure it's possible to make some cool stuff. Maybe it's something I should try in the future.

(That's supposed to be a fish)

                                                    This one is old but I still like it

                     

For music we are going South this time, Africa to be more precise. Ismaël Lô, a human made in Senegal, made himself immortal with the beautiful song Tajabone. It is also used in the movie Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother). Watch it sometime, it's good. 

And now just shut up and enjoy.

                                                        Ismaël Lô - Tajabone

Spiritual Release

Did you know I was part of a shamanistic ritual performance?

Antwerp is still floating on a spiritual plane because of it. It must have greatly helped reducing traffic jams in the city, helping people who weren't even at the event. Karma's were lifted all around, that's for sure.

Me and some friends first warmed up the blessed ones who were present with some poetry and music intertwined. I was complimented by a few persons for my good readings and was offered to come read some more at a future poetry themed evening in the near future, so that's pretty cool.

After enlighting the audience with words, it was time to do the same with deeds. That's were the shamanistic ritual comes in. We took a small pause after reading poetry to prepare ourselves and the room. When it was time, the people were invited to come to the first floor to enter a candle lit room. There, in front of a shrine, at the border of a circle made in sand, decorated with fire, magic stones and flowers, three people stood there with black stripes painted on their face. Two men, including myself, unclothed with only a white robe around our waist similar to Jesus, and a women in a white dress. We didn't make eye contact with the audience but stared into the void. The audience silently took a seat, looking at each other, wondering what strange event would take place. When the room was filled the show started and meditational music began playing. The fourth person, the shamaan, began the ritual. It is difficult for me to write down what happend in a clear and understandable way, you had to be there, but we all represented the four elements of nature, earth, wind, water, and fire, who became connected and then set free to merge into the cosmic energy and lift the spiritual radiance of Mother Earth.

I can truly say there was energy in the room. It was even too much for some, and I am not joking on this. From the corner of my eye I could see one women slowly but surely slipping into a lifted state of being. At first she was just sitting there with closed eyes while rubbing her forehead, but as the show went on, she began a heavy breathing so loud the whole room could hear it while continuously doing a sort of slow motion headbang. I was starting to get a little worried where this was going but the show needed to go on and so we did. We continued to take the crowd on a journey through the cosmos while suddenly the lady bursted out into tears. These tears must have been bottled in there for a long time because they just kept on streaming down her face. All this time, since the beginning of the ritual she hadn't opened her eyes once. That she was "out there" is clearly an understatement. The whole thing lasted about 30 minutes and afterwards she explained she felt things that where missing in her life and the atmosphere that was build made it all came out at once.

All in all, we thought it was a succes and I guess you could say it was a special evening. The ones lucky enough to show up that evening will remember it for a long time, that's something I'm certain of.

I also went filming some scenes at night that I will use for a future video maybe and tried to take some pics as I was out there anyway. They are not that special, the inspiration wasn't really there, but since I can post anything I want here I'm posting them.

I don't know why exactly but I like silhouettes of tree branches, or trees in general, like the pics I posted before (Mist Obscura)

A bus passing by, it looks a bit like light graffiti

Before I close of I want to apologize for the spelling errors in my poem the last time. I checked it again and made some corrections. If I still missed something you can let me know in the comments.

Did you know Quantic is releasing a new album soon? And they are going to team up with Alice Russell for a few songs! I've got the scoop on one of their upcoming songs, You Will Return. And I hope you return to this blog too!

Bonus piece is a remix of Jullian Gomes Love Song 28 by Atjazz Galaxy Aart who turned it into a trance-like wave.

And now just shut up and enjoy.

                                          Quantic ft. Alice Russell - You Will Return

Jullian Gomes - Love Song 28 (Atjazz Galaxy Aart Remix)