Sun Ra: Cosmic Giant of Achievement

The enigmatic and mysterious Sun Ra was born Herman Blount in 1914 in Birmingham, Alabama. He would go on to lead one of the greatest jazz bands of all time with a repertoire that encompassed the entire history of American jazz from ragtime to Free.

His early life was a fairly straightforward progress of a prodigious musical talent emerging as a pianist, composer and arranger, making his way in the world with a respectable if unremarkable career. However his path was altered beyond measure due to a life-changing event in the late 1930′s. Our protagonist had a mystical, out of body experience. He described it himself…’a bright light appeared around him. His body was transformed and he was transported to another planet, (which he was later able to identify as Saturn). He spoke of being in the presence of other-worldly figures who were benevolent towards him and gave him advice about the direction his music should take, and his own personal destiny as an artist on earth. This is a classical alien abduction story but what marks it out as specially unusual was the fact that it occurred a good ten years before the concept of aliens and flying saucers entered the public consciousness (or the collective subconscious?).

This event shifted the whole focus of his life.  (continue reading Sun Ra: The Ancient and Heliocentric World by makmedthemiller)

We Must Not Say No to Ourselves

we must not say no to ourselves
for the greater deed
we must not say can't
if it is imperative that we should
we must not synchronize with anything
less than art-wise dignity
it is either that we are cosmic giants of
achievement, or something less than the
greater super self
across the thunder bridge of time
we rush with lightning feet to join
hands with those
the friends of seers who truly say
and truly do

this planet is doomed
the science fiction poetry of Sun Ra
Kicks Books (2011) p 47

And Also...

Sun Ra among 2013 inductees to Alabama Music Hall of Fame