Music to Disappear Into...

Just a quick update.

I am sitting in my "tent hut" at Sivananda Ashram on Paradise Island, Bahamas. The reality of being here has been very different than my expectations- which involved "retreat". The schedule is extremely busy and full and there are MANY people here who are for the most part overworked, overtired and moving fast. Up until this morning not much of a sense of serenity but today I blew off the ashram schedule and slept until 8:30 which was perhaps the closest experience to the divine I've had since I've been here!

Okay, that's a little cheeky I know, and not entirely true because I had a total out of body experience yesterday during one of our practice sessions with Silvia Nakkach.  We were chanting seed sounds and I went completely into a different reality. I truly had no sense of body or being "here". Occasionally my awareness would touch in enough to know that I had not heard what she was singing although somatically my body must have picked it up because I would find myself repeating the sounds. And that is not entirely true either because I got to the point where I was in total silence and no longer singing. I entered a still point. After we were done I had no memory at all of what we had been doing.

From the seed sounds we flowed into a mantra practice that was more along the lines of a bhakti practice and I "came back" with that. We did a call and response practice singing "Tasmai Sri Gurave Namaha" with different people leading it and when we were done the room was bright and shimmering. I felt clear, energized and grounded.

Oh, the reason I am here by the way is that I am attending a week long workshop with John Beaulieu and Silvia Nakkach followed up by a two-day practicum with Silvia- very exciting! And my daughter Angela decided to take the workshop too which makes it doubly wonderful!

A.A. Bondy "How Will You Meet Your End?" (+playlist)

Speed of Sound

Yes, I know. I haven't written in months even though I think of it every day. Still moving through many transitions- from Florida to Rhode Island, caring for Mum as she moved through the end stages of her life, shifting out of a long-term relationship, moving into a new apartment after Mum died- and I have been in a bit of a funk moving too fast for so long and losing the sense of moving from my center. Feel more like I am being thrust out on the edge of some kind of centrifugal force.

Time to stop.

So today I am wandering around my apartment trying to figure out what to do first and finally remember... MUSIC.

Yes, MUSIC...

So I put on AA Bondy because it is the first thing that comes up on my iTunes- and rapture, sweet rapture! As quickly as the speed of sound hits my consciousness I am dancing in my kitchen. And I feel like myself again instead of some odd piece of driftwood floating on an unfamiliar ocean.

That's the beauty of MUSIC.  Thank you. Sometimes the answer is so close, so familiar, so simple, that we forget altogether. Sort of like looking for your glasses when they're on the top of your head- or better yet, you already have them on!