Dissolving Boundaries by Anoushka Shankar

This past Saturday night, I went to see Anoushka Shankar with my sister. I love when musicians do fusion in a way that somehow senses our deepest human truths. I know...a bit esoteric. But as soon as the lights went dim and a smoke filled the stage, the mood was set. Beautiful, tragic, moving, uplifting...when music can do that for us, I say it's a win for our souls.

Anoushka created her new album, 'Land of Gold' in honor of the refugee crisis. This crisis isn't a new one. We've seen the story told over and over again throughout history: xenophobia, the closing of borders, hatred of the other.

I came across this article recently about how Marieke van der Velden and Philip Brink were making a documentary and took photographs of Syrian refugees who had escaped to a Greek outpost, the Island of Lesbos. This is the same island where European tourists vacation. They photographed the interactions between the refugees and the tourists. You can read about it here: When European tourists and Syrian refugees meet. What a juxtaposition. When suddenly boundaries between people do truly disappear, for a fleeting moment.

                                           photograph by Marieke van der Velden and Philip Brink

Talk about dissolving boundaries. This has been my huge wondering lately. Seriously, how do we dissolve boundaries? In ways where we respect each other's backgrounds, where we help each other out when we are struggling, where we don't impose our values and beliefs on the other person. There is this vicious diatribe happening throughout the U.S. these days. It seems like for the collective mentality, we don't want to dissolve boundaries. In fact, many want to fortify them, make them stronger, and make them harder to cross. We want to build walls, to hate symbols that don't represent our religious or political values, to hate people that don't represent a tunnel vision of what the world should look like. I'm scared...for our national psyche, for our global psyche, for my family and friends.



mural done by Herakut and Syrian refugee children in refugee camp in Jordan

'Dissolving Boundaries' is this gorgeous song that is part of Anoushka's album. Ever since Saturday, I've been playing it on repeat. The repetition of the piano feels like constant movement, of the need to get to a new location. When the piano stops, the sitar begins. The keys are hopeful. That's what dissolving boundaries really can be; a hopeful process where we accept, we humanize, we serve those most in need. Sometimes, it's the music that helps us to get there.



Dissolving Boundaries