Posted on Elizabeth Gilbert`s facebook an hour ago.
Dear Ones:
I want to share something really special with you all today, and I hope you will share it with others...
http://rayyaelias.com
Last year, when my beloved Rayya Elias was diagnosed with terminal cancer, we made a commitment to create as much art as we could together, in the time that she had left. We've been making music, writing, and filming all year long — and many of our friends and loved ones have been creating alongside us.
I wanted to share with you this video, of a song that Rayya and I wrote together. It's called HAPPY HOME, and I think it fully captures the intensity of this moment in her life.
I wrote the lyrics, which are all about Rayya and my love for her. The words are based on a story my friend Martha Beck once told me about a concept in Chinese mythology called "The Banished Immortal". Banished Immortals were thought to be divine beings who had been cast out of a celestial paradise, in order to live out one human incarnation here on earth. Because they have a memory of what heaven was like, Banished Immortals are never really at home here on our planet, where there is so much suffering and difficulty. As a result, they always feel alien and out of place, and they often become addicts, or artists, or healers — or all three. Banished Immortals just keep trying to find, or create, or disappear into, a sense of heaven here on earth — because they remember what existence is supposed to feel like, and they know it isn't supposed to hurt this much.
After Martha told me about this myth, I wrote these words for Rayya, whom I think of as my Banished Immortal.
Rayya took my words and put them to music. Her brilliant nephew Sami Jano produced and arranged the music for the song, and then shot this video, along with his directing partner Stephen Meierding.
Tonight, Rayya was scheduled to have performed a one-woman show in New York City, but she had to cancel the event because of her declining health. I feel so sad for her today, because I really wanted her have that moment tonight on stage (where she has always belonged, and always feels at ease), singing her songs and telling her epic stories. But it was not meant to be.
So I decided today to just share this video with you all, in the hopes of showing you what my Rayya can do — and also in the hopes of letting her feel some of that spotlight, and giving her an even wider stage.
This video was shot on a day when she was very ill, after a full year of illness, and you'll see the pain in her face. But she showed up that day to create this video, anyway. Because this is what we can do, while we are still here — no matter where we came from, or why we came, or what state we are in. We can keep trying to create, for as long as possible. And if we can find a way to make art in loving collaboration, even better still. That's how we find little pockets of paradise on earth, even through all the suffering and loss and pain.
ONWARD,
LG
Here are the lyrics:
I'm under you, seeing you, watching you spin,
From a boy to a girl, and then back again.
I have you, I lose you, I find you again,
You're a woman, a man, and then back again.
You're not one of us.
Never meant to be walking among us.
Your eyes on me, reading me, an inch from mine
Your mouth, searching my paradigm
I have you, I lose you, now we've begun,
So rest with me, stay with me, where you belong
You're not one of us.
Never meant to be walking among us.
But I'm trying to give you a home
My body and mind are your own
Now you've lost your heaven
You live in our dungeons
My banished immortal.
Dance, dance, you've found a home
A happy home.
So dance, dance you have a home
A happy home.
Happy home, happy home.
You're not one of us.
Never meant to be walking among us.
But I'm trying to give you a home
My body and mind are your own
Now you've lost your heaven
You live in our dungeons
My banished immortal
Now you've lost your heaven,
You live in our dungeons,
My banished immortal.
Now you've lost your heaven,
You live in our dungeons,
My banished, my banished, immortal.
The video is very hard to watch.You can see the illness has taken nearly all her strength and reserve.Reminds me of David Bowie and Johnny Cash`s final songs although she looks frailer than either of them did.
