Reflections of the Sun Pt. 3 (Son Como Sangre) appears on the album Sacred Paths by Asia Jazz Project featuring Molina Soleil & Aju (2009)

Jazz meets Latin Reggae meets sultry Spanish vocals and spoken word poetry on the third Reflection of the Sun, highlighting Aju’s multi-faceted abilities as an vocalist, as well as Asia’s diverse sound. 

Asia Fajardo-Wright is an avant-garde saxophonist and composer who leads Asia Jazz Project, plays in the Latin-Reggae band Mono Verde, and writes and produces original cultural and musical productions. 

Sacred Paths – Soulaju’s 2009 collaboration with Asia – is very theme-oriented and theatric in its musicality.  My hope is that Sacred Paths leads to some experimental modern dance productions in coming years.  I would like to see a director/choreographer take Sacred Paths to another level, adding physical movement to these compositions. 

This fall, Asia will debut her own new collection of experimental works that fuse the world of theater and experimental art with her original music: 

Omecihuatl Rising (a tribute to the Divine Feminine) is a union of jazz, free-jazz, classical, world-percussion (Japanese Taiko, Native American hand-drums, Mayan water-drums, Aztec /Mexica Huehuetl) where modern dance, painting, and poetry are all woven together; free-form movement and structure are intertwined. Through the fusing of these elements, the countless representations of the Divine Feminine and age-old questions pondering ‘womanhood’ are explored.

If you will be in the Denver Area in October, you can see Omecihuatl Rising at the DNote in Arvada on October 2nd ($8) or the Fox Theater in Aurora on October 22nd ($10).  Click HERE for event info.  The production will feature Denver dancers, artists, and musicians, including Aju. 

“Sound like Blood, Blood and Song (Sound), Sound of the Heart, Pure Fusion.  We are a New Vibration, a New Sound.  Come onto these Wings.  We Shall Go, Navigating with the Heart.” – Aju (Son Como Sangre)

Reflections of the Sun Pt. 2 (Life Rituals) appears on the album Sacred Paths by Asia Jazz Project featuring Molina Soleil & Aju (2009)

Listening to Aju’s Life Rituals Reflection I am reminded of the importance of rituals, personally, socially, and culturally.  Not so much the Mannequin/mundane rituals of day-to-day life, but the spiritual rituals, love rituals, appreciation of moments that echo the circular and spiraling nature of this life. 

I used to think of life in terms of cycles.  I often found myself in very familiar predicaments, beating my head against different walls that all looked and felt the same.  Through meditation, discipline, reflection, life work, I began to understand these cycles as circles that will always bring you back to your points of origin. 

How could I break old, unwanted cycles while embracing the circular nature of existence?  I began to understand the possibility of spiraling higher rather than endlessly circling back to the exact same point of reference. 

To reflect and meditate on this life is to live holistically, celebrating the unexplainable, living life’s countless riddles gracefully, recreating cultural rituals, creating and co-creating new rituals.  To truly love this life takes some appreciation of magic, of dreams and sky.  The organic matter of life, as well as the intangible.  The divine.  The sacred. 

Molina

Reflections of the Sun Pt. 1 (Solar Flare) appears on the album Sacred Paths by Asia Jazz Project featuring Molina Soleil & Aju (2009)

During weeks 32 – 34 of A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively, I get to write about and reflect on pieces that I did not write or record.  Reflections of the Sun parts 1, 2 and 3 were written by Aju, recorded with Asia Jazz Project.  These Reflections reflect, compliment, and contextualize my Letters to the Moon. 

The Letters to the Moon and Reflections of the Sun explore the cosmic dance between the sun and the moon.  This relationship has been revered and celebrated cross-culturally throughout human history.  Life on Earth could not exist without the sun or the moon and the solar balance they create on the planet. 

In dance, art, ritual, life, and love, men often appropriate the brilliance of the sun, and women the magic of the moon.  There is that connection in these compositions, but these poems say much more about life and love than what can be expressed simply between man and woman. 

Reflections of the Sun Pt. 1 was written by Aju sometime during the summer of 2008.  The dream is this reality, played out over and over again throughout the span of time, always for the first time, always reminiscent of something familiar yet impossible to name. 

Molina

Twitter @MOLINAspeaks

“Trinidad Undaground”

Our main goals in working with these young people were to empower them to tell their own stories and engage in a process of creating their own media.  Before we put cameras in their hands we ran some workshops with them, talking about their experiences, identity, their dreams, life beyond Trinidad, getting them writing their thoughts on paper.  The following video is a “making of” look at our work with this group of youth.

The Making of “Trinidad Undaground”

Letters to the Moon Pt. 3 (Scandinavian Dream) appears on the album Sacred Paths by Asia Jazz Project featuring Molina Soleil & Aju (2009)

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I was on a train from Copenhagen, Denmark to Berlin, Germany when I wrote this poem.  There was a lot of movement that day, in the waters and in the sky.  The colors held me.  I watched everything in silence, breathing it all in until it was time to write…

I find it hard to write at the moment.  The words do not come easy now.  By contrast I was in a zone at the time I wrote these Letters to the Moon.  I had a lot of ideas and I was heavy on passion, hungry to create.  I consider these Letters to be some of the best poetry I’ve ever written. 

Those moments ebb and flow.  I don’t accept the idea of writer’s block, but at the same time creative energy is circumstantial.  Mental stagnation reflects physical stagnation.  As a writer you have to remain open and ready to put your ideas in motion when the moment is ripe.

“Until then, I write of you, hovering over brick paths peacefully, humming dreams of tomorrow until the day that I come home.  To taste the color of your mouth.  To smell the sweet scent of your flow.  To get lost in you.  Again.”

Following are links to retrospectives on the other two Letters to the Moon on Sacred Paths:

Letters to the Moon Pt. 1.

Letters to the Moon Pt. 2.

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a 52-week blog series in 2010, focusing on five years of independent music by your man Molina.  For blogs, free downloads and updates, follow me on twitter @MOLINAspeaks.

Letters to the Moon Pt. II (Omnipresent Stream) appears on the album Sacred Paths by Asia Jazz Project featuring Molina Soleil & Aju (2009)

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I wrote five Letters to the Moon during a journey through northern Europe in November 2008.  Three of these poems became compositions on Sacred Paths.

This Letter was written near a small town maybe 30 miles or so south of Dublin, Ireland.  I can’t recall the name of the town, but I remember the day well.  I remember the way the pen felt in my hand, the coldness of my fingers as a I scribbled the ocean’s words. 

I was not sure exactly what I was doing in Europe, or what I was doing in that particular city at that moment.  But I was supposed to be there, alone, a feeling that shadowed me everywhere I traveled.

I fell in love. 

It was some combination of personal relationships past and present, reflections on lessons, acceptance and forgiveness of self and others, recognition of the unseen: stunning clarity of all that I am, beyond me.

She became everything that day.  She presented herself as all she would be, eternally. 

I did not want to leave her.  I knew I did not have to.  I would write her story again.

Molina

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Believe It by Molina Soleil & Aju w/ DJ Ceiba.

Recorded in Harlem, NY, February 2009.  Beat by DJ Ceiba, NYC drummer and producer.  Released on My America, benefit compilation for Papers the Movie—a film about undocumented youth.  Release Date July 4, 2009.

I walk on through the winter, where all the trees are dying.  Behind me, a road of tar and red clay.  I reach across the new ocean, borderless in brothels of freedom.  A long night awaits us…”         – e.g. bailey

(above: image from BP spill in the gulf coast, April 2010)

Verse I:

Pops used to say he sleep with an eye open ’case the room come alive like a raging ocean / Maybe somethin’ gonna shift in the time zone / Never know, sky could fall like a rainstorm / ‘Was man told me he live through three lives, died twice now he see the world through three eyes / I was told that you die three deaths / the first when the soul leaves its host, exit the last breath / Second death when you march in your black box, parade to the dirt that house that your bone stock / Third death, you forgotten, never heard again, never spoken of, name is never said / How many walkin’ dead, faces never seen, stories never read, eyes void of dreams / They live in trash dumps, cross borders of hell Sleep on concrete, rot in your prison cells

How much is unseen, unheard, incomprehensible to the human eye?  How much is shaded by those who set the agenda?  How much of what we don’t know kills us?  Physically? Spiritually?

Verse II:

I’m a bird in a cage, they clipped my wings / I scurry on the ground midst the fluttering of feathers gettin’ plucked, waitin’ to get pulled / Taken to the slaughter, cut, packed, and moved across a dozen states and placed on a shelf / No list of toxic growth injected in my breasts / What’s left is what I knew before the mass machines, before the roar of the blades, before the scissors drink / The trees were once alive, I danced around they roots before I was absorbed / me inside of you / the flesh that is consumed without a trace of thanks / My life just thrown away, the waste of my decay / The offering of me so you can have a meal: the cycle of my truth, I give myself to you / The sacrifice of soul so you can pick my bones, so you can lick my wounds, so you can send me home

The earth is a living organism and there is an interconnected web of life.  The average human being in modern society has lost their direct connection to this truth, mentally and physically.   We don’t know how our food is grown or where it comes from.  We often fail to pay proper respect to the water, air, plants, and animals that sustain us.  Each human being is a reflection of every other person on this planet, yet we dominate each other, kill each other, rape each other, and rip each other apart, limb by limb, word by word. 

Verse III:

I had a dream of a sewage water wasteland / skiin’ through an interstate of icelands / High rise buildings lined the horizon, aqua city life, concrete islands /  Sniper planes patrol through the night sky, dark smog hide the light from the daytime /Twist and turn my way through the pipeline, weave past the restricted access line, through the gate saw an image of a time lapse / Kinda hard to grasp how many days passed, how many years gone, just erased now / How much land dead? /  How many speak now about the bombs that were dropped through the oil wars ? / Nuclear waste that oozed into the soil? / No continents, fresh water gone tomorrow / Genocide, politicians gone to Mars…

Holes in Heaven.  The disappearance of forests.  The extinction of ocean life.  Uninhabitable planet.  Self-induced genocide…

Believe It…

Resist and Rebuild.  A HEALTHY WORLD IS POSSIBLE.

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a 52-week blog series in 2010.  Adrian H. Molina, also known as Molina Soleil of SOULAJU, is writing a new blog each week, breaking down the inspiration behind five years of independent music, one song at a time.

MOLINA – www.molinaspeaks.com

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“Rise Mantra” is the opening track on Sacred Paths, by Asia Jazz Project featuring Molina Soleil & Aju (2009). 

Meditation.

Few  people will ever listen to this track in it’s entirety.   It is a jewel for those who have the time.  This is the living word, fused with experimental, improvisational jazz.

This is a mantra for the earth.   The people continue to rise and demand justice for all living things, including our Pachamama.

This week’s post is dedicated to the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, taking place now in Tiquipaya, Bolivia.  One of the key principles of the conference is to establish a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth.

EARTH DAY 2010

A.M. SOLEIL, RETROSPECTIVELY is a 52-week blog series in 2010, reflecting on 5 years of independent music by Molina.

The arrival of SOULAJU: Soul flows like water.  The long awaited album is finally complete.  15 solid tracks available for $5 mp3 download.

This story has many beginnings.  This moment is a culmination of past reflections.  The focus is on the Present, in these times, as we shape what will be.

SOULAJU is a fusion of lives, stories, styles, and cultures; this fusion is personal and universal.  Each track stands on its own, but the true jewel lies in the journey of the album, start to finish.

In the words of photographer Ric Urrutia, “Soulaju is creative, conscious, energetic, sexy, intellectual, and overall: bad ass.”

The reviews, the hype, and the celebrations will come in waves.  The album will soon be distributed by Itunes, Amazon.com, and other major distributors.  For now, as independent, community-based artists, we are excited to share this release with our friends, our supporters, and your networks and communities.

Thank you for your support.  Please help us spread the word.

Official SOULAJU album release: 15 tracks, $5 download: http://soulaju.bandcamp.com/album/soulaju

Filmed by Jai Harris & Ro1 Films in Arvada, CO, benefit show for Family Tree, November 2009.