Two people exist in us, the shepherd and the scientist – In conversation with Andrea Navratil, singer-ecologist

You not only sing but you teach singing to both adults and children. How?
“‘Tell me what you sing and I’ll tell you what sort of person you are.’ Kodály expressed it this way a few decades ago. Today, the question is not what we sing. Because we do not sing, we consume music. If I am travelling, I don’t listen to any music because silence is extremely important in our life, and a very rare commodity. I live three hours from Budapest and when I leave, I enjoy experiencing the darkness, the dawn, the travel and the peace. Because if I am at peace, the song can sound within me.

“It is a very beautiful challenge to bring everyday singing back into people’s lives. I have been holding Dúdoló (roughly: humming) classes for more than 10 years. I didn’t set out with grandiose, far-reaching goals; all I want is for those who come to have a good time singing together like in a spinning or distaff room. On these occasions I try to pass on ethnographical background knowledge in relation to the songs yet these are primarily relaxed, communal gatherings. We regularly meet in Göd, Budapest, Tihany, Keszthely, Tapolca, Kiscsősz and Dörgicse, but I have also held ‘hummings’ in Transylvania and even in Prague and Buenos Aires for Hungarians living in the diaspora. I consider regularity to be very important: to reach each other from week to week or fortnight to fortnight. The ‘base’ already forms a community and celebrates together.

“Kodály said that we received singing as a gift from God. It serves to know, develop and fulfil ourselves. It is therapy. It is a great opportunity!”

You are a singer and ecologist. Which comes first? How do these areas come together?
“I am frequently asked how it is possible to cultivate both areas at the same time. When this word used to have light and honour, this person was called in the tradition: peasant. The peasant sang, danced, knew the world around him or her, used but not exploited the environment, gazing heavenward he or she read the course of the stars, and cured man and animal from the pharmacy of God. I know only a fraction of this yet I learn while teaching, day by day. For example, today I loaded 30 kg of corn into the boot of my car because 100 children are waiting for me in the afternoon and 200 tomorrow. We hold a farming almanac, an unconventional tradition and environmental class, where we try to communicate to children growing up in an urban setting how up-to-date and useful the knowledge preserved by the peasant is still today.”

But you are not getting the children to kneel on the corn, are you?
“Yes, they insist! Children can be asked in Göd, Nagykovácsi, Nagymaros, Gazdagrét, Gödöllő, Vecsés and Újhatvan why it is good to kneel on the corn while saying magical phrases. At the beginning of the class we talk about from where and through whom this plant arrived, which is suggested by its common names tengeri (by sea) or törökbúza (Turkish wheat), but in relation to this we can also talk about the fact that if we are producing something in one part of the world for which there is demand in another part of the world, what a burden this imposes on the given ecosystem and from this it is our common responsibility. Kids tend to know corn in its popcorn form and now they experience that all parts of this plant were used in olden times. We make nodding birds from the corn stalk, angels from the leaf and husk, we sample corn hoecakes and polenta, we bag up the shelled corncob, and thanking them for their help I tell them with so many dried cobs I won’t have any need to chop up kindling for cooking for the next month. Nothing left over, nothing wasted.

“Naturally we sing, dance and tell tales, because as Skorenovac (Székelykeve) story-teller Boldizsár Szőcs puts it: ‘what isn’t in a fairy tale simply does not exist.’ The tale is the poor man’s university.

“I brought you a present: when I loaded the corn into the sack, a few corn kernels fell out and I thought I would surprise you with them. Look how beautiful they are! Even such a tiny thing can give joy when I hold it, look at it, touch it and get to know it!”

You have placed the corn kernels into the palm of my hand: it would even be possible to do the so fashionable mindfulness meditation with these that people are currently doing using raisins. Deepening attention can be practised with corn kernels as well.
“I am certain of that. Hold them in your open palm, sensing their tiny weight, observing the shades of colour, the miracle happens seeing that none of them are identical. You are contemplating. Einstein said that there are two ways we can live our lives: either as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle. You decide.”

Is there anything we discover now as a novelty that has already long been known in the tradition?
When I went to Moldavia, I saw plants planted and grown in gardens according to the principles of permaculture. True, the woman didn’t know that the way she cultivates her garden is what scientists term permaculture farming, nor did she know that what she called ‘gyöntölés’ others in the world know as baby massage. She inherited this knowledge in the tradition and uses it. In many cases, science lags behind tradition. I read somewhere that if a conscientious scientist travels all the pathways of science, taking winding routes and coming upon dead-ends, then all of a sudden he will find himself back where tradition originally set off. Of course, I don’t want to say that there is no need for science. Indeed, there is. Two people exist in us, the shepherd and the scientist. Just as we have a heart and a head. And now if we are talking about the Advent period, let’s see who found Jesus in the manger and how.

“Three kings set off from distant lands, three wise men from three countries, and they met up. They followed the path of knowledge, they followed their heads. Still, the shepherds arrived first, those who heard the word of an angel!

“I believe that a shepherd and a scientist exist in all of us. And these two must be in harmony in order to live a full life. As Christmas approaches, I encourage everybody to look not in the shops but in the traditions of the winter festive season.”

You also said that there is no such thing as sustainable development. Why?

“Because it is time to wake up: development cannot be sustained! There is such a thing as sustainable farming, a sustainable lifestyle – and in this area we can learn a lot from shepherds, peasants, native peoples: from all those who use the local environment in which they live. Science has to find how to move forward together with these people, arm in arm.

“The fact is, we face great challenges. I can recommend the articles, books and study papers of ethnobotanist Zsolt Molnár (researcher with the Ecological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences). For many years now he has been drawing attention to the importance of knowledge preserved by tradition. He claims that the knowledge of shepherds is essential for the preservation of our planet. His research also suggests that by following ancient teachings, Gyimes meadow cultivation not only does not reduce biological diversity, but at times it appears to actually increase it. Could there really be a solution where humanity, looking on itself as a part of nature, actually enriches and not destroys it? Researchers from all parts of the world go there to try and understand what it is that these people are doing differently. It is vital work since never in the history of humanity has nature been devastated to such a degree as now. It is a fact that we stand at the threshold of the sixth mass extinction. I don’t believe that it is possible to change this from the top down through climate summits, rather it needs individual decisions. Everybody must radically transform themselves using a different perspective of the world and lifestyle. And I believe that this could bring about change. There is a way out.”

One could really say that in this instance you are not preaching water and drinking wine since you are now in your fifth year of living in a small house without water, electricity or gas…
“As my partner puts it, we are just ‘cuddly toy peasants’ because we use a car and a ton of other blessings of civilization that were not available earlier.

“I wouldn’t like anybody to think that I live like those people from centuries earlier, far from it! But it is very good to experience this way of thinking.

“What a joy it is to drink of the spring water you have collected, when you don’t waste electricity. It is a great thing to experience quiet, candlelight, what a good thing it is to progress with the rhythm of nature. Here in the city I am always turning off lights left on unnecessarily by my colleagues because I think that what is now left burning is for us an entire year’s energy consumption. We make decisions every minute and I think that many small decisions are capable of changing first my immediate environment, then the larger and even wider environment. Of course, this lifestyle involves many challenges. Things you have to give up. There are no hot showers each morning! But there are other things instead.”

There is an archaic prayer that you often put to children in the form of a riddle: ‘In a whole year a whole God’s tree, in a whole God’s tree twelve fine branches, on its twelve fine branches its fifty-two blossoms, on its fifty-two blossoms three golden apples. Now, what is it?’ The answer is not as easy as one would have thought.
“They instantly grasp the fifty-two flowers: this is how many weeks there are in a year. Well, when they say this I respond: you are right – but then again you are not. Because it is tricky to work out from the fifty-two weeks what the three golden apples are. Taking a scientific route, approaching the matter analytically, searching for graspable points, it is by no means easy to come to a solution. But an artist using the right side of the brain feels that there is symbolism and poetry in it. Let’s see how the Moldavian Csángó Hungarians say the same thing: they speak of sixty-six blossoms. But if I add that the Csángós preserve one of the ancient versions of the Hungarian language and they are very religious, we get closer to the solution. Because the blossoms mark the number of festive days and not the weeks. Three of the blossoms stand out and nurture the golden apples, these are our three major festivals: Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. The joy of birth, the mystery of salvation and the promise of the advent of the Holy Spirit are so inseparable that they are frequently to be found together in our songs and our prayers. The first of the three golden apples just starts to shine now.”

Today, Christmas is more about consuming, buying, wrapping, throwing away, accumulating.
“Who doesn’t know the feeling of the child unwrapping the present they received, that they longed for – and yet something is still missing inside them. An object will never fulfil that which we truly desire – abundance often gives birth to scarcity. Instead of the gift-giving madness, what would be the right thing to do at Christmas? Being together. Tradition tells us everything, we just have to follow it.

“Long ago, Christmas Eve was for the immediate family and since several generations lived together, that meant that perhaps even the great grandparents were there. On the following day the larger family took part in the celebrations and then the whole village – since one half of the village was called István, the other half János. On one day the Istváns were greeted, on the other day the Jánoses – nobody was left alone!

“Modern urban existence is strange indeed, when it is emphasised that you are somebody when you build a career, when you are an individual. Contrary to this, the Chuvashes, an eastern kindred people, say that you are truly strong when you can sit down at one table with your relatives. The Christmas table of olden days was packed with many things – walnuts, honey, candles, Luca wheat – and they would put an apple there as well, cut up into as many segments as there were people sitting round the table. This was to remind them that next year they are not alone, they belong somewhere. The whole apple is the family. Kinship is the greatest power keeping people together, it is a system of assurance, a strong hedge fence, to quote the Chuvashes once again.”

On the other hand, many feel, especially now, around the festive season, that they must have strength precisely to be able to bear, to put up with the relatives.
“That it is easier alone, and that happiness is created by a rehearsed smile on Facebook. This is what the individualized world would like us to believe. But this is a scam!

“It is not by accident that we are born where we are, it is no accident that we receive those difficulties we find ourselves facing. The religious person knows that faith does not make life easier, it makes us stronger.”

I just heard a story about two siblings who did not speak to each other for six years because one accidentally strayed half a plough width into the other’s land. This occurred somewhere in Transylvania, where perhaps they have still not totally broken with tradition.
“I’m not saying that there won’t be difficulties and challenges! Indeed, there will be plenty. Old people used to say: if every little friction irritates, how will you polish your mirror? Standing next to each other, boldly facing life, we can become polished. The second of the golden apples, Easter, falls in spring, when nature is renewed, reborn. This celebration calls on us, too, for rebirth and forgiveness. The fast is designed to cleanse the body inside and out. It is the perfect occasion to settle differences. Long ago, one could not attend the celebration, the joy of resurrection without first having made peace with all those you were on bad terms with. Tradition teaches us this as well!”