“I SING MY PROPOSALS TO MYSELF AND THEN I SHARE THEM WITH PEOPLE.”
“To help others, first we help ourselves, so that we can share the heroism from within”, says one of his songs: That Human is Me.
We interviewed Darwin Grajales, a very special songwriter, a man who many of us consider an authentic medicine. Darwin Grajales has spent two weeks in Spain offering his inner mastery in our epicentres of Barcelona and Madrid.
Fernando López
How long have you been singing and composing?
I have been composing for eight years and singing since I was 20 years old.
Why did you start composing?
I feel influenced by natural medicines, mainly Ayahuasca. It removed the mental blockages I had about the supposed perfection that I must have with art or the exercise of singing. Ayahuasca brought to me the ability to sing as something physiological, a need for self-healing and at the same time made me conscious of all the music that was influencing me and how there is a lot of pain, a lot of spite and a lot of singing against something in it. Then I had an awakening that made me comprehend how I was resisting so many things… it was a process that music accentuated. Later I received the initiative of singing proposals to myself, to make proposals to myself and since then I started to write my proposal and share songs without expectations from others.
Composing from your own experience has something to do with your connection to so many people?
A hundred percent. For me, a composition had an elaborate idea of how it should be. Now, when I start to compose it flows in a natural way, without expectations and in that moment I put all of my soul into it, my story, what is happening to me; in that instant it is as if I connected to a frequency in the human being.
Some say you are a medicine man.
I have learned that absolutely everything is medicine, but I also realise that what they call medicine songs or medicine people is contextualised as basically people or tools in which we must focus our attention more because they are fuller of oxygen. In my case, it is a music that is not conventional and simply brings a new message, even though it is so ancient… people see it as something new, ears are more receptive, and that receptivity makes you feel like you are becoming a medicine for the people.
What role does music play as a complementary medicine to Ayahuasca?
What we are remembering is that there is a lack of music in the humans’ organism. We have associated music strictly to that which sounds like an instrument, or when you call it a song, but in reality when you hear people speak melodically or with an “accent” in different countries, in towns, you realise that people are singing what they feel, think and opine, and when you focus that artistically, you call it a song, you call it music, but it is the same music. Now we are just remembering that our body lost its melody and music reminds us that melody heals everything and organises everything. It is the ingredient that makes grief feel less bitter, less harsh. Music is always the compassionate ingredient that makes emotions feel at ease.
What have you learned from these years of music, travelling and meeting so many people?
I have learned that I have become obedient to myself in a conscious way. I have always been like that, but in the obedience I feel like I have so many conditionings from the Collective Consciousness, social conditionings which made me focus my obedience to behaviours, values, and principles that have always been inside me and that I have though that they could be medicine for the whole world, only from good intention. But I am conscious of my own obedience to my feelings, my talents and qualities, and when I am obedient to all that, I am healing myself, I correct things in myself, and at the same time in that state, consciousness awakens. The obedience of others has consequences that sooner or later expand, open, and even if you did not buy the ticket, you are on the train and asking yourself when you bought that ticket and you realise that the train is already moving and you cannot get off.
What do you think of the convulsed times we are living in?
I feel that comprehension has many layers and I feel that consciousness is something we are debuting in; we have always used words that we still have not comprehended thoroughly. We are in a time in which we are going way deeper in that concept and it is being created by this deep need to exit de void, the solitude of being human, and these tools like Ayahuasca and music can get us out of these blockages, of not feeling connected to life, to matter, to relationships. This solitude we feel is a natural consequence, another layer of consciousness, of the process of transformation of the human being that slowly discovers what he/she needs to discover.
What part of that change in consciousness that you speak of can the spread of Ayahuasca play in the West?
The environment (Amazon) in which this plant lives and develops is a referent of world oxygen, the lungs of the planet, and I feel this particular medicinal plant contains a lot of oxygen. There is much novelty, much curiosity on how it behaves in your organism and activates your emotions, feelings, and a wild spirit of wanting to defy your fears and conditionings. It is the same nature of the jungle, precisely that untamed force, that awakens the hope of something so strong and resounding that your “assemblage point”, your ground, your comfort zone is moved. Many of us feel that hope, because we feel the strength of moving the world like we are doing.
From this point of view, what is your opinion on the work developed by Inner Mastery?
I feel in Alberto Varela an obedience to himself much greater than mine, in his obedience exists an ability to defy great fears and social conditionings in a public and confronting way. Alberto confronts to the point of moving cultural conditionings in other countries and cultures, and that labour will bring positive outcomes, but just because he is moving energy in that way he will bring opposition, and that opposition awakens affection in me; an appreciation of knowing how to accompany that transformation moment so that it is not seen as something destructive, but as an increase in consciousness, which is really what this organisation is doing and the use it is making of the medicine.
Do you believe that at some point there will be a rekindling between certain indigenous communities and Alberto Varela?
If I approach it logically from what I hear in each of their debates, I would see it as impossible, but if I see it from my intuitive or more feminine feeling, as life’s protective nature, I feel an undoubted yes. What we have not discovered yet is how that movement will be done, but in any case, that necessary conciliation will not happen in the present ways.
What role does your partner Goggy play in Darwin Grajales?
She is like Ayahuasca to me, a muse that awakens comprehensions that go beyond my reason. I feel immense equilibrium in a lot of invisible and difficult aspects in the feminine language. When Goggy is in my life, when she sings with me, when she shares with me I always feel guarded, protected, guided and that I have the possibility of balancing when I am overflowing with reason, she is my pole to earth and at the same time the muse that inspires.
The last question is for Goggy San Ram: Who is Darwin Grajales?
Darwin Grajales is my love, a being whom I admire a lot, who has also confronted me a lot in life, but has also been my medicine, my Ayahuasca and also that part of reason which balances me and allows me to understand many things, he is the partner with whom I thoroughly enjoy sharing my life with.
HIGHLIGHTS
Consciousness is something we are debuting in.
There is a lack of music in the humans’ organism.
We feel the strength of moving the world like we do.
Alberto Varela confronts to the point of moving cultural conditionings in other countries and cultures.
Music is always the compassionate ingredient that makes emotions feel at ease.
This necessary conciliation will not happen in the present ways.
I am conscious of my own obedience towards my feelings, my talents an qualities.
Click here for a complete listing of information of all the 2017 Ayahuasca International Retreats Calendar . It includes subsequent links to information, prices and booking procedure for each retreat.
Ayahuasca International holds Inner Evolution retreats with therapeutic use of Ayahuasca in several countries in Europe. Click the links for specific information on each retreat.
Eindhoven- Netherlands, July 27 to 30
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