Today is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashona, and although my actual spiritual practices lean more toward Buddhism and Hinduism, I welcome this time for contemplation. In honor of my ancestors and my parents, who still attend synagogue, I don't work, and try to remove myself as much as possible from the usual wheels of life.
Last night, as it turned out, was the first night of kirtan with Krishna Das at Omega, and as usual, my heart breaks open. It was a particularly small group: 120 people cancelled because Ram Dass wasn't going to be there due to illness.
It was just KD, Ty and a violinist, so it was really intimate and beautiful. Tonight I hope to go early and take some photos both before everyone gets there and after everyone leaves. I'm interested in exploring a bit how the space changes. It is so charged with energy during chanting, and so filled with bliss afterwards. I want to see what that looks like in a photograph if possible. How to capture it. Or what is actually reflected in the physical space.
I'm using this time to complete a piece that I've been playing around with for the last year or so. It's a chant/prayer/poem that predated the Water Prayer beads, and actually inspired them. Having written a poem about chanting, I wanted to create a strand of 108 prayer beads, and write the poem, one word per bead, upon them. The opening line is: to be one small note, rising in the throat of the universe. So written on the beads, from bottom to top, the poem rises as well.
I am now thinking that I will string the beads differently than you see here. I am toying with the idea of making a silver chain, which will contrast nicely with the paper beads. And perhaps add some small bells as well. I held the strand in my hands and to my heart while chanting last night, to imbue them with the energy of the names. The names of god being what one chants when chanting.
I am also reading Matthew Fox's "One River Many Wells" which really ties together the meditative, mystical and practical aspects of not only the world's great religions, but the spirituality of cultures from Africa to Australia, ancient and modern. It's a wonderful book to be reading at this time of year especially. I was first introduced to his work at Miriam's Well a few years ago, when I was working briefly with Susan and Richard Rosen.
I spent the afternoon communing with nature. There is an ancient tree strewn across a now dry stream bed that is wide enough to walk, sit and splay out upon, in Buttercup Sanctuary where I hike. And tried to follow some of the teachings talked about in Fox's book, sitting quietly alone.