(not necessarily in that order)
It’s not the entire full choir yet, but what a huge step in the right direction!
It was thrilling to hear voices joined in song once again. It was the first time since March 2020, and it sounded beautiful.
It was both a profoundly joyful and a deeply moving experience.
And I was struck once again by the realization of what a gift our music is, and how extremely important it is to the health and well-being of Ananda’s global network of communities.
Experimenting — yet again — with another communication platform for our choir (this time it’s groups.io) and feeling rather confused.
I see that it works for other choirs, so I guess I’ll just keep plugging along. The clarity will come, I’m sure.
We can’t sing together as a choir, so we have to find other ways to maintain our heart connections. Such as meditating together (as a choir) in the Temple of Light, which we finally got to do tonight!
Sure, there were only perhaps 10-15 of us, but it’s a good first step towards keeping our choir magnetism strong and unified as we continue exploring alternative ways of joining our energies together (without song).
The lack of regular choir is really starting to weigh on me.
The virtual choir experience has very real benefits and definitely can convey a certain power. And we’ve been able to add back live music in the form of small groups for Sunday service. But the vast majority of our choir members are left out in the proverbial cold. Mainly because there’s nothing we can do right now that really involves the entire group in one activity.
Take the virtual choirs we’ve done. Because of the technology aspect, we’ve never had more than twenty out of more than fifty choir members participate. Same thing with Zoom choir rehearsals. And given that we don’t yet have permission to meet as a choir even outdoors…! Well, the hole that not having choir leaves in the fabric of our community is beginning to feel awfully big, and getting bigger.
So now you can understand why I’ve got “where there’s a will, there’s a way” on my mind. Because there has simply got to be a way to connect and interact and share and be together AS A CHOIR even while being safe and staying healthy! We just have to find it. 🤔
We can’t sing together as a choir right now.
So we’re all putting together remote, individually recorded, then cobbled together, videos.
But so many new levels of technology happening all at once is daunting for many of us.
And the frustration is double if it doesn’t work: you lost the battle with the technology and you don’t get to be part of the choir video!
It will get easier; and then maybe we can settle into a “new normal.”
There are moments when I ask myself (somewhat impatiently, I have to confess) why the heck is it taking so long to find my bearings, settle in, and get back to full productivity.
After all, it’s been almost a month…!
And, after all, it’s almost Easter and there’s so much to do…!
But the truth of the matter is that I could not believe we were already at Palm Sunday last week. And I’m having a hard time fully comprehending that Easter is in less than a week.
A big part of why I’m feeling so disoriented and cast adrift is because — for the music ministry — the Easter season is usually anchored by our Good Friday performance of the Oratorio, Christ Lives. But this year there’s no choir, no Oratorio performance, no live Sunday service music at all.
I’m still plenty busy, but with a wide variety of tasks, many of which continue to evolve day to day in response to the ongoing crisis. It feels scattered and piecemeal, and I can’t help reflecting on how different it would be if this were any other year.
If it were a “normal” year, our rehearsals would have been steadily intensifying over the past four weeks. We would have been meeting regularly with soloists; arranging instrumental rehearsals; meeting with our sound and production teams; figuring out choir formations and seating diagrams. Tomorrow night would have been our final run-through before Friday’s performance. At this point we would be having a hard time thinking about anything but the Oratorio, as we more fully immersed ourselves in Christ’s life with every practice and rehearsal.
So, yeah. As we get closer to Easter, I guess the reality of it all is starting to hit home. I really, really miss it.
At approximately 900 acres, Ananda Village is big and spread out enough that those of us who are self-isolating (because we’re in a high risk category due to age or health issues) can easily go days seeing only a bare handful of fellow residents. One definitely starts to miss running into friends at work or the market…or at choir rehearsal!
Which is why it was so incredibly sweet when ten choir members got together for our first ever Village Choir Zoom Chat this evening! We chatted and checked in and laughed (a lot) and shared ideas….and it was wonderful just to see all the smiles! Here are some pics to give you the idea…
Koral kept us particularly well entertained by “traveling” the world throughout the course of the meeting!
Somehow I missed getting photos of Bandhu and Ramu (oops!), but it sure was great to see you all! Hopefully more choir members can make it when we meet again next week. 💗
Can I just say how much fun we’re having in choir?
Today was one of those non-stop days, filled to the brim with tasks and challenges both expected and unexpected. It was all good but I felt like I hardly had a chance to catch my breath, arriving at rehearsal feeling rather frazzled and not especially prepared.
But it really didn’t matter. Because there we all were (close to fifty of us), joined together in fellowship and in the joy of singing our glorious music. Feeling our energy rising in response to the vibration of high consciousness.
So we sang and we laughed and we sang some more. And it was just so fun because there was so much JOY.
What made tonight’s choir rehearsal so great?!?
It’s in moments like this that I really love my job. 🙂
Feeling especially appreciative of tonight’s choir rehearsal and reflecting on the reasons why…
Well, the choir is making a lot of progress musically, and it’s always a joy to hear the music coming into fuller expression. Plus, the music itself can be counted on to leave me with uplifted energy and feeling better than when I arrived. And it’s always fun to spend the evening with a choir full of dear friends, with lots of laughter, shared insights, and sense of accomplishment.
But most of all, I’m deeply grateful for that “thing” that can happen in almost any musical ensemble, when a group of people puts aside–to whatever degree possible–their individual selves in order to join their energies in creating something bigger than the sum of their parts. When each person’s mind is focused on the collective goal: contributing concentration, building magnetism, and uniting in ever closer attunement and connectedness.
Of course, all this is largely overt and conscious for an Ananda choir. I mean, our entire lives are dedicated to transcending our little “self” in order to better serve the higher “Self”.
But this kind of experience is not exclusive to devotees. I vividly remember many “peak experience” moments that occurred throughout a wide variety of musical experiences…from jazz bands to drum & bugle corps to musicals to orchestras to chamber music to a gig for a Jewish religious convention!
I grew to live for those moments when the energy of the music would sweep me away so I could feel at-one-ment with “something” bigger. And that’s what is starting to happen more and more with our choir. What a joy it is!