50 years ago, Shchedryk Choir, a children’s choir was formed in Kyiv. Until the Russian invasion this spring, they performed, rehearsed and sung, winning awards in all international competitions in which they participated. The choir had managed to record two songs in Skt. Andreas Church in Kyiv before it became impossible due to the war. It was two lullabies.  Saul Zaks, conductor, composer, musician and Pathfinder from Buenos Aires, living in Denmark, took the responsibility for trying to get the songs out into the world. An article was published by Zetland, a danish subscription-based media organization on March 30th.

Thanks my dear friend Anette Østerskov Hansen from Copenhagen, these beautiful songs reached my ears, and I share them in turn, as this is what remains now from the choir, the children are scattered over the world. “ We do not know if we can ever assemble the choir,“ Marianna Sablina, the choir’s conductor, writes. “ That’s why we do not want our music lost in the fog and the fires of this terrible war.“ 

So here they are: Lulling the Sun by Gija Kantjeli, a lullaby where the children sing the word sun in 17 languages. Sun. Sun. Sun. The second lullaby is an Ukrainian folk song Walking Bunny arranged by Roman Surzhi.  

gg…..

ggg..

ggr……………

gggrrrrrr………….

like grief.

deep in thought with, about, a friend that recently left us. what are we doing when we grief? are we really with that person that left? feeling that vacuum their passing leaves behind, like a huge void. and it’s not that anything could fill that void;

a void like an immense precipice, an invisible black hole, if one looks at it in a negative sense. something that makes you freeze or pause when you get near it. re-question EVERYTHING in a minute. it appears all of a sudden out of nowhere, when you least expect it, or is lurking behind the door, the fear, the next thought. or it could also be an enormous heap under the carpet, that appears just at the moment as you walk over it and makes you stumble in surprise, if one looks at it in a positive sense (in terms of elevation). ejecting you into unknown land, into what looks like a barren, silent landscape with no one around. and maybe we just feel this way because we never think of endings, of how to retrieve, of loss and leaving, breaking up. these topics are blended out of our reality, and when they do happen, it is commonly perceived as a disaster, as a stone that hit out of nowhere.

is grief any more than expressing regret of all the potentials not lived, the acts not realised, the messages not sent, the conversations not had? are there similarities, like in various types of griefing, like griefing ‚cultures‘.. i have to think of petri dishes all of a sudden: which one do you belong to? the intense-long term, the fast-and-furious, the lacto-resisto…

so mainly thinking about ourselves. and our chioces. and what we missed/did not live/scoop or see.

and what will no longer be so. ever. only in thoughts, dreams, visions.

which leads me to the question of how do i want to leave this world? what, or rather how do i want to leave this what behind? have i made sure there is a what to leave behind? and does it matter?

it feels hard to think it could not matter; that’s an open door to exploitation, profit, hierarchy, competition etc. then this void looks like a garbage dump.

could we leave lively, inviting worlds behind? like bee-hives, or green hills with a myriad of colored flowers on them?

is it because of our lack of conversing with endings that we leave sad worlds behind?

if we lived fully, could there be sadness? or is the sadness of what is left not connected to the abundance of the life lived…?