Asha ~ Star child

Asha plays this improvised piano piece 'Star child' from his album "A Concert of Angels."
CD/download here: www.ashaquinn.c...
I composed this piece back in 1993. It was spontaneous, and I later lightly orchestrated it. "A Concert of Angels" was entirely improvised, actually, over just 3 days, including the light additional orchestration, and yet sales-wise it's been my most successful album.
The young girls who feature in this film are Hungarian, and we are in Hungary. Jázmin (in black) and one of her 'besties', Kata, are both 12. Jázmin is the daughter of a friend, Annamarie, and I've known her since she was 5.
The girls both go to a Rudolf Steiner inspired Waldorf school just outside Budapest, where the emphasis is on soul, spirituality & morality, whilst also adhering to the more generally observed national curriculum.
Many of my Hungarian friends put their kids in these schools, from kindergarten right through to graduating high-school. What's especially noticeable about these kids is the self-confidence, presence and dynamic creativity they all exude.
They are encouraged to be themselves, to be kind, to be grateful, to be imaginative and to express their truths. I've seen many Waldorf school concerts & theatre productions over the years I've lived in Budapest, and they transmit love, devotion, passion and freedom in a very elevating way. The standard borders on the professional, and yet they are simply inspired by art for art's sake!
Jázmin started learning English last year, and... as I'm learning Hungarian... we meet every wednesday evening, where she talks in English & I talk in Hungarian. Plus we do her English homework, and she helps me with my Hungarian vocabulary.
We often make up mad stuff, and so the learning is a joy! I bring food, and whilst we do our language thing, Anna rustles up some dinner. Then we play Uno! Three neighbouring cats usually appear too, and curl up amongst us.
Of Jázmin's friends known to me, Kata is always up for some adventure, and a bit of provocation and edge. If they were older guys they'd be 'Easy Riders,' or maybe Butch Cassidy & the Sundance kid! They're both tomboy girly girls, however!
Last weekend was Easter, and a very warm one at the end of March. I took us all to see this church ruin I love at Tök, where I've filmed several of my songs before. It's in a beautiful, vast, wide open setting & the girls went wild.
With their permission I left the camera running, or directly filmed some of their more dating antics. After that we went to pick seasonal 'bear garlic' in the forest at Pusztamarót, and finally went even further afield to a thermal river at Hévíz. Kata picked up her dog Szedi to come with us down to the river.
We also hung around at Jázmin's house, playing with the neighbour's dog Guszti (Gusztáv) and two of the cats, Ramzi & Puszi (which means 'kiss').
Looking at all the footage of the fun, a film idea occurred to me... I wondered if it would match this piece of mine from way back, 'Star child'. Running it in slow-motion, and with a vignette effect, it fitted perfectly, with a kind of home-movie feel to poignant music.
Well... it WAS a home-movie!
The title, 'Star child' refers to our celestial origins. It's not that Jázmin & Kata are singularly 'starry' (well, they were film-stars for the day!), it's more that we all carry a divine spark within us which is celestial.
Children are closer to our spiritual origins until they fully fall to earth in our now overwhelmingly materialistic systems.
A few decades ago the term 'Indigo children' came to the fore. It meant a child born with a new type of spiritual awareness; seed-carriers of higher love in a mechanistic, highly materialised world, often with an innate sense of our spiritual origins that could, however, conflict with more materialistic value systems in science, health, education, art, psychology, religion and so on.
The Waldorf education system seeks to re-integrate science, art and religion as it used to be before materialism really set in during the Renaissance. The unifying thread being a sense of gratitude and Godliness (spirituality beyond conventional religion).
But we are ALL star children, really. It's not about creating a new way, but re-discovering our innate divinity and living it, freely.
The poignancy of the music reflects the struggle to achieve that, especially if faced with repressive cultural and familial belief-systems, and the free-spiritedness of the girls on film reflects the glory of purity, innocence, play, nature and loving-kindness.
Another way of saying all this might be: 'Girls just wanna have fun'!