I. The Hammer Song
Bell Hammer Song was conceived at an early age. "The Hammer Song" (“If I Had a Hammer”) by the artists Pete Seeger and Lee Hayes was popularized in the 1960‘s “folk boom,” when the Sing Out! and hootenanny were a part of popular music. As performed by the enduring folk trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, the song sounded a warning for “the bell of freedom,” “the hammer of justice,” and “the song (of) love,” for “brothers and sisters, all over the land.”
As told by Eric von Schmidt, a blues guitar player and folk singer, in his book of the Cambridge folk years and the folk music axis between Cambridge and Greenwich Village, "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" chronicled the folk scene of the late 50's and early 60's. Immortalized by Bob Dylan on his first Columbia album, von Schmidt was referenced with the song as well as the author's choice of his document he later published. Apparently, Bob met Eric "in the green fields of Harvard University" where he learned the song. In Bob-fashion, his tribute was sincere and hip but also somewhat sardonic.
In any event, the origins of "The Hammer Song" and the players associated with the song were detailed in the folk scene of the time. For myself, I first heard the song, then "If I Had a Hammer," on the am radio in my father's car on the way to Oklahoma for a family reunion. I loved the song immediately, especially PP&M's rendition It had a strong heart feeling and true care for all beings. So began my introduction to the boshisattva way of compassion and tolerance.
The acoustic guitar was my bell, the steel strings on the fret board my hammer, the poems of the heart my song. Bell hammer songs existed before the folk boom I later discovered. When I studied in depth indigenous cultures and world religions, I chanced upon the kachina culture of the Hopi tribe of the pueblo people. To the Hopi, the gourd was their bell, the drum their hammer, the rain dance their song. Tibetan Buddhists also celebrated the thunderbolt ceremony with bell, hammer and song. The bell was the feminine, or receptive, the thunderbolt the masculine, or creative and the song, the transcendental beyond of the one reality.
II. Bell Hammer Song
Bell Hammer Song was guided in its development by the triad of nature: the soul, the self and spirit. The “threes,” as it were, were common to most folk culture. In the storytelling tradition, a wise crone, fortune teller or holy man, perhaps, often warned fate “comes in threes”: the witches in Shakespeare's "Macbeth," the cock’s crows before dawn of Peter the Apostle, the visits of ghosts (past, present and future) to Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol."
When I began to write my song cycle about the Anasazi (“The Song of Kokopelli”), I researched the folk lore of desert plants in the southwest. I found myself composing songs about the same plants: “Ancient ground/painted earth grass green/Three sisters/pumpkin corn and bean ('Painted Earth').” The sisters were dietary staples of the Old Ones, as well as their descendants, the Pueblo, Zuni and Hopi. The three “liked” each other, complementing one another. Their use together offered complete protein without the augmentation of meat. Squash, or pumpkin, maize, or corn, and bean were critical to survival in the desert climate.
The mind was like the “three sisters” with regard to development of the person. Carl G. Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst, termed the process, “individuation.” The mind functioned best when the psychological functions (thought, sensation, intuition, emotion) worked together. Three functions were available to one's self in a voluntary way, which depended on life-experience, personal growth and inner work analytically. The fourth, however, was not so easy, for it was the soul’s dominion, the domain of the anima, or contrasexual self.
The soul was the opposite of one’s self, somewhat like the shadow but deeper and more intense. Thus, the threefold self only found completion with the fourth function through what it was not, the soul. The mind’s unity was rounded from the square when the "other,” or anima, appeared outside the self alone, ready to teach and heal. It was the soul who guided the triad of the three-fold self home to its totality as four, or completion of three plus one. Union was dependent on the fourth of the whole, who was an other.
III. Bodhisattva Vow
Bell Hammer Song was dedicated to the evolutionary journey of man, especially as known by indigenous cultures and shamanic traditions. The artistic journey facilitated the vision of the sacred. The bodhisattva, an awakened being, was an artist dedicated to kindness, compassion and tolerance. Inner wisdom and creative imagination were their talents. Enlightenment was the realization of the inherent masterpiece.
