Blessings galore for a new year filled to overflowing with love, light, laughter, abundance, health, friendship, and JOY!
It’s 2024!
Reflecting on last week’s all-day meditation
“Celebrate the birth of Christ in the cradle of your consciousness during the Christmas season. Let His vast perception in Nature, in space, and in love be felt within your heart, as well as in the hearts of men of all races and religions.”
–Excerpt from “To Meditate on Christmas Morn,” from the 1952 Edition of Yogananda’s “Metaphysical Meditations.”
Yogananda started the tradition of the eight-hour Christmas meditation in order to honor “spiritual” Christmas as well as “social” Christmas. As Swami Kriyananda said, it’s a time for inviting the infinite Christ to be born anew in the ‘mangers’ of our hearts.
The idea of meditating for an entire day can feel a little (or a lot!) intimidating, but it’s actually an amazingly beautiful and powerful experience. In fact, some insights came to me this year that I’ve been wanting to find the time to explore further.
First of all, I found myself using a different method of categorizing the “types” of Christmas one finds in our society:
Material Christmas (or “Who’s even thinking about Jesus?!?”)
Religious Christmas (or “Jesus is the reason for the season.”)
Spiritual Christmas (or “Seeking to experience the inner Christ consciousness, born anew in the manger of our hearts.”)
Next I marveled at how we can all be so incredibly busy in the lead-up to Christmas — events, decorating, planning, buying gifts, etc. — only to arrive at the 23rd, two days before Christmas itself, and drop everything. And I do mean, everything. All of Ananda Village just stops. Literally.
But I’ll confess that on the evening of December 22, it did cross my mind that I could get a whole lot accomplished if I stayed home and worked on the 23rd. I didn’t give in to the temptation, but it was there.
So, I got to thinking about the need, even (or maybe especially?) at Ananda, to balance our Martha and Mary tendencies.
Not that we are necessarily “worried and bothered about so many things”; we truly do find great joy in service. However, during super busy times like the holiday season, we have to remember to stop serving long enough to sit at the feet of the Lord and just BE with God. And that’s what the all-day meditation allows us to do.
Finally, I have to say how moving it was, as the day drew to a close, to reflect that two days before Christmas close to two hundred people dropped everything for eight full hours in order to sit in silence and celebrate the birth of Christ in the cradle of their consciousness.
I was so grateful to be sharing that experience with my spiritual family.
It’s raining, it’s pouring
Don’t know if the “old man” is snoring or not, but I’m certainly enjoying the sound of the rain coming down tonight!
And here’s the original nursery rhyme, in case you’ve forgotten it:
It’s raining, it’s pouring,
The old man is snoring,
He went to bed and bumped his head,
And couldn’t get up in the morning.
Advent of ChoirMate follow-up
Once Christmas is over, Advent calendars mostly disappear until the next year. But I continue to revisit the ChoirMate Advent calendar because I still marvel at the wide variety of groups that were highlighted.
They were truly from all around the world, including Poland, Norway, USA, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Sweden, France, Malta, Denmark, Germany, UK, Australia, and Iceland!
I haven’t had a chance to listen to every single choir yet, but want to share a few with you.
Medici Cantares (which loosely translates as “Medicine Singers”) consists of sixty Polish doctors, medicine students, representatives of other medical professions and other music lovers. They created the above video as a musical showcase of the group — reflecting “the friendly atmosphere of rehearsals, the diversity of concerts and the spontaneity of singing!” Below is a translation of the lyrics from Polish into English…
I measure time with intervals between two shifts
Seasons I only recognize the leaves by their colors
Washing, cooking and cleaning is waiting at home again
Where to find a moment of respite, relieve all stress
REFRAIN
Medici Cantares you don’t get bored at all
It’s rehearsals, concerts and festivals
Because singing together is good fun
Relaxation and health, sometimes even fame
Not a gym or a swimming pool, just a choir rehearsal sometimes
And it doesn’t matter what voice you sing – alto or bass?
Everyone will find a place in the choir, some for a shorter time, some for a longer time.
But the band must always be one organism.
REFRAIN
Here you will regain self-confidence, here you will meet cool people
The conductor, although seemingly delicate, commands respect
Here you can find friends and learn empathy
Here you will develop your own talent during many hours of rehearsal
REFRAIN
The first time I listened to this video of The Spirituals, I was totally blown away by the joy, the devotion, and the incredibly high energy of this London-based group.
Here’s AcaVoca, a choir from Denmark that’s about jazzy rhythms and intricate harmonies.
Well, it’s been fascinating exploring these choirs from around the world, but I’m going to finish up now with the Reykjavik Queer Choir singing Stafasupan, which translates as “Alphabet Soup” and is sung to the tune of (wait for it!) — Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
How fun is that (though slightly surreal)! 😂
Yes, it IS a wonderful world!
And it strikes me that music is a big part of what makes the world as wonderful as it is.
This video certainly illustrates that point (sincere thanks to Marian, a friend from college days, for sharing it with me).
Choir! Choir! Choir! specializes in assembling massive numbers of strangers for the experience of singing and making music together. And what fun they have; you can see the joy level going through the roof!
What I think is that we all need to be singing with other humans. Who knows? It just might be what saves the world.
Finally, a do-nothing day
Yes, it was a day of doing as close to nothing as we’ve done in a very long time.
I did manage to fix simple meals and do dishes. But other than that?
Well, I checked a few emails. I put away some clothes. I read my book. I replied to a few texts. We watched a movie. I read my book. I tried to write a thoughtful blog (but gave up). I subscribed to PBS. We watched an hour-long TV show. We watched a half-hour TV show.
And now I think I’ll go read my book in bed. 😊
Christmas blessings
My well of creativity is pretty much depleted after all the holiday events, but I hope you are blessed with the light and love that are the essence of Christmas.
One last beautiful event
The Christmas play was a tremendous success on every level: inspiring, uplifted, sweet, well-attended, well spoken, well sung, beautiful costumes and scenery, and an amazingly smooth flow from start to finish.
Christmas Eve dinner with friends followed and now I’m falling asleep at the computer.
Happy Christmas, everyone!
So deep, so still
Today was our annual 8-hour Christmas meditation. And it was, indeed, incredibly deep and profoundly still.
I have lots more I want to say about it but I’ve run out of steam for tonight. It’ll keep until tomorrow.
Or maybe Monday, considering that tomorrow morning is Sunday service and the Christmas play is in the late afternoon, followed by Christmas Eve dinner with friends.
‘Tis the season when the activity never ends!
The shortest day is behind us
I’ve been just a little behind on pretty much everything lately. So, yes, the fact that yesterday was the solstice slipped right by me.
Of course, that means I was completely unaware of experiencing the shortest day of the year. Even better is that we’re now on the upswing, with a little more daylight every day.
As a summer solstice baby this makes me happy.