When I had time to write, I couldn’t get my blog website to load.
And now that the website is working again, I don’t have any more time to write!
Oh well.
Technical difficulties
Iridescence
Running to a meeting and wanted to at least share a beautiful image.
Have you ever seen such an iridescently beautiful beetle?!?
A snowy Sunday
This was the perfect snowy Sunday…
It was barely raining when we left early in the morning to rehearse before service, but the predicted snow did arrive midway through the morning.
By the time service was actually underway, sitting in the Temple of Light felt a little like being in the middle of a snow globe!
But the snow had completely stopped by the time service ended and we were ready to drive home to a winter wonderland.
Then the weather had cleared up as the day ended, resulting in a beautiful cloudy sunset.
Altogether perfect.
We are made for unity
When I see videos like this, and feel the powerful energy they capture, I am convinced that a big part of why music is so powerful is because it reminds us of the truth that we are made for unity.
We truly are one.
The video above is of Jacob Collier conducting the audience in an amazing 3-part-harmony encore, at the end of his homecoming DJESSE World Tour show in June 2022.
I first heard a video of him conducting his “Audience Choir” in Singapore. Even the comments are inspiring:
🎶 It’s not the voices that move me. It’s the unity for me…….. Big Chills!!!
🎶 It’s hard to express clearly, but there’s something bigger here. It’s almost spiritual. It’s something about enough people coming together in one cause and there being enough good in all voices to fill in and uplift everyone else’s voices to a place of beauty. Perhaps this is how God hears us. When you step far enough back from the world you begin to see and hear the cohesive beauty rather than the minute chaos.
🎶 What a beautiful moment of perfect harmony among humanity. If it can be done here in this room, we can do it everywhere. Imagine.
And then there’s the group Choir! Choir! Choir!, which started in Toronto in 2011 as a weekly drop-in singing event. Participants got a lyric sheet at the door, “DaBu” (AKA Daveed Goldman and Nobu Adilman) taught the vocal arrangement, and a video was recorded.
Hundreds, even thousands, of strangers coming together to sing — I can only imagine what a high it must be.
By the way, even though I picked a video almost at random, I managed to choose a performance that Choir! Choir! Choir! did in collaboration with supporters of the Canadian Cancer Society. Serendipity strikes again!
Another inspiring comment:
🎶 This is beautiful. What’s more beautiful is the diversity of people… young, old, kids, races all together for one purpose. It’s the proof that music brings people together and heals. Thank God for music and for artists and talented people.
Reflecting on all this brought to mind a song we used to sing when I attended Unity church in San Francisco. I couldn’t locate a recording, but here are the lyrics (as best as I can recall after so many years):
We are one, we are one,
I am you, you are me, we are one.
And in that unity we can live in harmony
And peace will come, cause we are one.
It’s thrilling to me to see music developing in the direction of not just musical, but human harmony.
New vision for Village music
This is what our big meeting last night was about. It went really well; I feel we’re headed in some exciting new directions.
So, this is the new vision:
To broaden and expand community singing at the Village, while also presenting the highest quality and purest musical expression possible when broadcasting worldwide.
Our goal is to have MORE people singing — and in more ways — than before the pandemic. To help accomplish this we proposed three levels of involvement, depending on a person’s life circumstances, individual inclination, and energy level. Each individual gets to choose what’s right for them.
LEVEL 1 – Community All-Sing Choir
Fun and spontaneous; melody only (or parts if you want to); once a quarter sing-alongs
LEVEL 2 – Village Choir
Community attunement; singing in parts; two evenings a month; informal performances
LEVEL 3 – Performance Ensemble
Commitment and follow through; regular weekly rehearsals; perform for Sunday services, as well as possible outreach and recording
What’s really fun is that more ideas came up during the meeting, from people who are enthusiastic about helping to make them happen — specifically regarding more involvement for children and families, as well as more support for “newbies” who are just learning the music.
All in all, it’s an adventurous new phase for music at Ananda Village.
Relieved and happy
I’m very happy to report that our big meeting about new directions for the music at Ananda Village went really well.
But what a week it’s been! I’m totally ready to crash for the night.
New beginnings
We’re finally “post-pandemic” enough to bring our full choir back online.
This is excellent news (yay!).
However, I feel like we’re poised on somewhat of a precipice, because there are things that have changed as a result of all that we’ve gone through in the past three years, and what we’re proposing doesn’t match exactly how things used to be.
I’ve never been in quite this position before. So, I’m just doing my best to tune in to “what’s trying to happen” and trust my intuition.
But, to be honest, it’s a little bit scary.
Focused intensity
This day started out with an 8:00am meeting, then segued into planning music for the astral ascension ceremony (tomorrow around noon) and finishing up preparations for our annual presentation (tomorrow morning).
An email also needed to go out inviting people to our music satsang on Thursday night (Ananda Village Music: New Beginnings is the theme).
It’s been a while since I spent such an intensely focused day in the office and I’m totally ready to call it a day and go home.
Saying good-bye to David Miller
Day before yesterday I wrote about recording “Secrets of Love” at Crystal Hermitage, which had me thinking about David Miller.
This afternoon I was reflecting that I hadn’t been in touch with him for a while and I wondered how he was doing.
And tonight I learned that he had passed away.
David was a big part of the music of Ananda for a long time, from way before I came on the scene. He worked closely with Swami Kriyananda on arranging the music. In fact, some of our most beautiful choir songs are his arrangements.
David was a gifted pianist, a quirky jokester, and a deep devotee. He will be missed.
Go with love, dear David. 💗
Serendipitous
After a very full Sunday, which was preceded by an unusually early Saturday, I realized this was going to be one of those evenings where I didn’t have much of anything to share.
Then it occurred to me that there might be newer readers who don’t know why in the heck I’m committed to writing Every. Single. Day.
So, I went back to the very early days of this blog (which I started on Swamiji’s birthday — May 19 — in 2019) in order to share the blog post where I explain about the daily writing.
But along the way I stumbled upon a different post (about spontaneity and my tendency to overthink things). And that inspired me to share the above “overthinking” meme, which I got a kick out of but didn’t know what to do with.
Rather serendipitous, no?