Introducing Myself
James Barrett
Hello to All,
Working on an introduction first I say, "What a great idea!" a discussion group concerned with "music, poetry and psychedelia special interest research
group and discuss list with a focus on perceptual and ambiguous experiences" although a mouthful it makes me want to join.....so I did.
I am 38 year old male who was born in a town built in an old volcano crater on the mid north east coast of Australia. My parents kept a house full of books and music. I read a lot about magick, yoga, Tantra, 19th century travellers, and poets as a teenager. I started writing poetry when I was about 17, so terrified that someone would read it I destroyed the first notebook I kept. Finished school I tired to get a job as a psychiatric nurse but was not accepted and did a year of general nurse training. Got bored and went to university instead to study journalism and Asian studies. Decided I wanted to be a poet and just managed to finish my Bachelor of Arts before my recreational chemical pursuits and lucid dreams took over from the expectations of the course. I spent the next 10 years wandering the waste, often barefoot, living in the forest (Gippsland, Northern NSW, Colo River) and the ghetto (Sydney), reading and writing, taking life as my teacher. I worked for money only when I had to, nursing the damaged and ill, the abandoned and the broken. When I turned 27 I nursed my grandmother as she died. After this with the money she left me I travelled to Tasmania, Thailand and India for a year. I busked and worked on farms, lived in a tipi for three months in Tasmania. In India I travelled to Ladakh where I spent a week at a Buddhist monastery near the Pakistan, India, Tibet/China boarder. I recorded some of a three day Yama Durga Puja and an hour of it can be downloaded from here: http://www.archive.org/details/YamaDurga_DiskitGompa
I moved from Ladakh to Manali, Pavarti Valley (many Sadhus at Kier Ganga) and then McLeod Gange where the Dalai Lama has his residence. I spent a month there going to lectures and learning about the Tibetan culture and people. I tired of the crowds and the spiritual shopping centre atmosphere around the western Buddhist community at Dharamsala so I moved to Varanasi. This city changed my life. I spent three months in Varanasi, a sacred city for Hindus at the convergence of the Varnuna, the Assi and the Ganges Rivers. I studied Yoga with a private teacher (Pranayama) and Asana at the Muchlee Bunda Math (fish monkey ashram) and studied ragas with several private teachers. In Varanasi I met Erika from Sweden who is now my wife, although it would be a year before we met again.
I returned to Australia via Calcutta and Thailand. Started corresponding from where I was in Sydney with Erika who was in Stockholm. I worked several jobs (nurse, tutor to Aboriginal students, and life model for drawing students) and saved my money. I left Australia again after 7 months for London. England in 1997 was at the end of the Tory government and a depressing place. I stayed 6 weeks and went to rave parties in abandoned office blocks and in ancient houses in the country owned by rich freaks. I tried to call Erika but she was not around in Stockholm so I partied on in Britain. One morning in Exeter after a night of no sleep I was walking down an empty street and I heard Erika's voice so I called her from a nearby public phone. In Stockholm she answered the phone and asked to come over. I did and we agreed to meet in Casablanca, Morocco in two weeks. I returned to London for one last party weekend, brought a ticket for Casa and flew out a few days later. I met Erika again in Casablanca and we had three months in Morocco (Casablanca, Tarazout, Rabat, and Tangier). I searched out signs of Gnawa and Sufi and the life described by Brion Gysin, Paul Bowles and William Burroughs with three weeks in Tangier. By this time we were running out of money so we skipped over to Spain with the last of our cash and started walking from the boat into Europe. I had a 7 day transit visa and no money. We stayed a night in Center de Emergencias in Malaga, crisis accommodation for the homeless and the stateless. I could deal with it but my young Swedish girl was not used to the chaos. We left Malaga by foot the next day, walking up the highway. To be picked up by a van load of anarchists. They helped us out with a place to stay and we ended up working on a farm for a month in return for some money (selling the olives we picked) and food and a bed. We got some cash sent from Australia and made our way to Barcelona and from there a bus to Amsterdam. We lived in squats in the Dam for all of 1998.
In 1999 we travelled back to Australia. By this stage our lifestyle was starting to take its psychic toll on Erika. Drug use, siege conditions (squatting can be stressful) homelessness and poverty were among the new elements in her life since she started her adventure with me. We needed to make some changes but they were slow in coming. We lived in a mad art warehouse in the Aboriginal area of Redfern in Sydney ( http://www.active.org.au/sydney/webcast/front.php3?article_id=2807) for seven months in 1999. Then bought a van and travelled up the coast living for three month in an old railway carriage in the rainforest. We shared our living space with dozens of snakes rats and possums. Here Erika became pregnant and we began to plan........
Erika returned to Sweden at the end of 1999. I stayed on in Australia until February 2000. I went to the millennium Free N.R.G rave on new year eve 1999 outside Byron Bay with Bedlam, Oms not Bombs, 'Negusa Negast', Spiral Tribe, Spaz and Black Cat. Standing on the beach watching the lightning from a storm out at sea with the tents and wagons of about 500 travellers behind me it felt like it was 999 not 1999. It was my farewell to the rave scene. I left Australia to settle in Sweden a few months later.
Our son was born in April 2000, a dragon child. Since then I have been studying and working at colleges (learning Swedish) and at university. I am now doing a PhD in digital humanities looking at how we read multimedia texts. I study symbolic forms, cognitive philosophy, dialogism, visuality, poetry, spatial modes, audio theory, media theory and literature. Privaly I am intested and practive Yoga, vegetarianism, and esoteric philosophies. Our second son was born in 2005. I play didgeridoo (Yidaki, have been since 1995), sitar, percussion, bansuri (Indian flutes), jaw harp, harmonica, guitar, and other bits and pieces. I still write poetry. I am part of the 'music your mind will love you' collective ( http://mymwly.blogspot.com/) the last word in neo tribal electro telepathic acoustic freak folk. I have released two solo CDs on mymwly records and have played on several others with the group 6majik9. My solo musical projects can be downloaded here: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator:%22Jim%20Barrett%22
My blog is here: http://www.soulsphincter.blogspot.com/
Does anyone else have anything to say?
:-)
Jim 'Nada Baba'
Will Swofford
Went to the last day of the Whitney Summer of Love exhibit today - i have some perspective on that I hope to offer.
really big thanks for sharing your experience.
-W
Daniel Spencer
www.myspace.com/blankrealm
Barnacle Rodeo Records
barnac...@gmail.com