All posts tagged: rebirth

‘It was an exorcism’: how heartbreak, queer rebirth and finding love over Only Connect shaped Wendy Eisenberg’s stunning new album | Music

‘It was an exorcism’: how heartbreak, queer rebirth and finding love over Only Connect shaped Wendy Eisenberg’s stunning new album | Music

Published by Sam Flores

It’s 30 December 2023. Wendy Eisenberg is walking and cannot stop. At an all-night rave in Bushwick featuring Detroit house legend Theo Parrish the previous night, they became paralysed by anxiety, returned home, “threw up a lot” and then set off with no destination in mind. “I walked for that entire day,” Eisenberg says by video call from their Brooklyn home. “I couldn’t stop moving my legs. I felt like I needed to reauthor myself, and this was how I was going to do it.” While out on their fevered walk, Eisenberg ran into an old friend. “She told me: ‘You seem like you’re having a kind of exorcism.’ Then she added: ‘Maybe just play some guitar?’” Thus diagnosed, Eisenberg went home immediately and began writing the music that became their sublime new self-titled album. “I remember reading how Cat Power wrote Moon Pix in 10 hours, in a dream state,” says Eisenberg. Many of these songs were written in a similar state, across three or four months after that “strange, mystical moment”. In the …

The Vedanta School of Philosophy That Sought to Break the Cycle of Birth, Death, and Rebirth

The Vedanta School of Philosophy That Sought to Break the Cycle of Birth, Death, and Rebirth

Published by Sam Flores

Summary Vedānta, meaning “the end of the Vedas,” is a philosophy focused on God-realization to break the rebirth cycle. Its three main sub-schools are Advaita (non-dualism), Viśiṣṭādvaita (qualified non-dualism), and Dvaita (dualism). Advaita Vedānta teaches the individual soul (Ātman) is ultimately identical to the ultimate reality (Brahman). In contrast, Dvaita Vedānta argues the soul and God (Brahman) are eternally distinct and separate realities. Vedānta’s concepts parallel debates in modern Western philosophy, especially regarding monism, pluralism, and consciousness. Show more   Vedānta literally translates as “the end of the Vedas,” and it has never been conceived as a single doctrine. Vedānta concerns the realization of God in our world, thereby cutting across the core ideas of Hinduism, such as Atman, Brahman, and attaining salvation by breaking the shackles of the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to consider Vedānta as a contribution to a purely theistic cause because this particular darśana offered a radical and transformative view of consciousness. And what would Western philosophy be without the debates about consciousness? I guess a lot shorter, and with far less existential dread.   …

‘Here Gaza,’ and the rebirth of radio within the devastated territory

‘Here Gaza,’ and the rebirth of radio within the devastated territory

Published by Sam Flores

Excerpt from a filmed interview with Hona Ghazza radio, featuring journalist Sylvia Hassan and Abdullah Sharsha, February 15, 2026. HONA GHAZZA In a small studio in Deir al-Balah that feels like a cozy living room, journalist Sylvia Hassan sat on a gold-framed armchair, preparing to go on air. After the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, Israel destroyed all 23 radio stations in the Gaza Strip – mirroring the devastation of the territory itself. Within this context, Hassan launched Hona Ghazza (“Here Gaza”), thus marking the first radio broadcast from the territory after more than two years of silence. For Palestinians, this launch, which was captured by Al-Jazeera cameras on February 11, is far from trivial. As US President Donald Trump and his Board of Peace have claimed the right to decide the fate of the narrow strip of land without consulting the local population – upon whom Israel has dropped 125,000 metric tons of explosives, according to the enclave’s authorities – Hona Ghazza has set itself a clear goal. Broadcasting on frequency 102, …

Tessa Rose Jackson: The Lighthouse review – grief, grace and memory in a luminous folk rebirth | Folk music

Tessa Rose Jackson: The Lighthouse review – grief, grace and memory in a luminous folk rebirth | Folk music

Published by Sam Flores

The warm sounds of folk guitar provide the roots of Tessa Rose Jackson’s first album under her own name, time-travelling from Bert Jansch to REM to Sharon Van Etten in every strum and squeak. The Dutch-British musician previously recorded as Someone, creating three albums in dream-pop shades, but her fourth – a rawer, richer affair, made alone in rural France – digs into ancestry, mortality and memory. The artwork for The Lighthouse by Tessa Rose Jackson. The Lighthouse begins with its title track. Strums of perfect fifths, low moans of woodwind and thundering rumbles of percussion frame a journey towards a beacon at “high tide on a lonesome wind”. The death of one of Jackson’s two mothers when she was a teenager informs her lyrics here and elsewhere: in The Bricks That Make the Building, a sweet, psych-folk jewel which meditates on “the earth that feeds the garden / The breath that helps the child sing” and Gently Now, which begins in soft clouds of birdsong, then tackles how growing older can cosset the process …

New pipe organ signals rebirth for Episcopal parish after fire, flood and ‘plague’

New pipe organ signals rebirth for Episcopal parish after fire, flood and ‘plague’

Published by Sam Flores

NEW YORK (RNS) — The organ arrived from Utah on a warm August morning. Greeted by holy water, incense and slide whistles, it came in a 53-foot-long truck that was double-parked on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The Church of the Epiphany’s priests clambered up on the truck’s loading dock, tossed on stoles and blessed the long-awaited instrument. Their prayers were punctuated by the sound of confetti cannons shot off by about 30 parishioners. Then, for hours, children, adults and elders into their 90s hoisted pipes and boxes up flights of stairs to the church’s second-floor sanctuary. The biggest spectacle was the entrance of the 600-pound organ console, which parishioners and organ builders spent over 30 minutes wrangling up an external staircase. “What has been the most beautiful part of this organ is the way it has brought our entire community together,” Denise Cruz, a  vestry member, speech pathologist and mother of two, told RNS. “It was all hands on deck.” Even with reports of declining worship attendance in the U.S. — and an overall reduction …