(not necessarily in that order)
After our big concert last night, I was up early today preparing music for this morning’s class.
Then lunch with dear friends; a few errands around the Village; and an inspiring Q&A with Jyotish and Devi tonight. All in all, it was still a very full day.
So, tonight I decided to indulge myself with a little treat…some potato chips!
Tonight’s concert was wonderful on so many levels…which I hope to be able to actually communicate about tomorrow!
Right now, I’m ready to call it a day and go to bed.
So far we’ve been having a challenging re-entry.
It’s Swami Kriyananda’s birthday weekend, so there were plans for a beautiful tribute concert, in addition to other inspiring events.
Unfortunately, Ananda Village is experiencing a major COVID outbreak, the worst we’ve ever seen. As a result, we’ve had to cancel a number of in-person events. The concert is also off, since — as always — singing is a super-spreader activity.
It’s quite a disappointment, but help came from an unexpected direction.
I’ve loved Ella Fitzgerald since I was in my teens. I’ve been transported over and over again by her stunning voice, amazing creativity, and sheer brilliance, to the point that I wouldn’t have believed I could still be blown away by anything she sang.
But today I was blown away anew by Ella. It was just the pick-up I needed in the midst of a challenging afternoon. Check it out and enjoy…“How High the Moon”!
Of course, the “it” I’m referring to is…Christmas!
Yes, we’re already in meetings for this year’s Christmas Play, and planning for the Christmas Concert isn’t far behind.
After all, it will be October in just a few more days and (as every church musician knows) once we’ve entered the time warp that is October, Christmas is just a couple of weeks away!
We are fully back to our traditional (as in “pre-pandemic”) Spiritual Renewal Week, which means a Tuesday night concert with approximately 30 singers from Ananda Village and an additional 35 or so singers from Ananda communities around the world.
And only one rehearsal. Which not everyone will arrive in time to attend.
Then there’s chanting and a song before each weekday class. Plus a kirtan. And an Indian banquet with a musical entertainment component.
I was tempted to title today’s blog: “Drowning in details,” but that would be an exaggeration. I just have to keep going and I’m fine.
But if I were stop and try to tread water, it would be all over.
In addition to creating challenges in presenting our Spiritual Renewal Week concert, the fire and power outage also affected how it was shared.
Usually concerts during big events are live streamed so that people worldwide can enjoy them, but that couldn’t happen due to being on generator power and other circumstances beyond my limited technical understanding.
The combination of a nearby fire and the power outage also left many Village residents unsure whether the concert was still happening, not to mention those who were considering evacuating.
I was sort of surprised to realize how strange it was to get home afterwards and not be able to pull up the live streamed video. And not to receive comments and voicemails about it.
It really did start to feel a little bit unreal, like I just imagined the whole thing. Turns out the proof is in the video!
To begin with, we’re in the middle of Spiritual Renewal Week here at Ananda Village, our first big in-person event since 2019! Each day there are morning classes, plus special events most evenings.
Which brings me to yesterday. We started out by singing before the morning class with the Joy Singers, leaving immediately after class to drive to town and grab burrito bowl lunches-to-go on the way to my weekly appointment at the Infusion Center.
For this week’s treatment I received four pre-meds, followed by all three of my chemo drugs: Velcade, Darzalex, and Zometa. I was a little nervous since the concert was that night and this was my first time getting all three medications at once.
The treatment lasted two and a half hours. By then we had learned there was a fire not too far from Ananda Village, so we drove home to prepare for the concert while listening to fire reports and hearing about what areas were under mandatory evacuations (as opposed to just warnings).
We only had about an hour to eat dinner, change clothes, and get over the amphitheater to set up the stage, but we started hearing speculation that the concert should be delayed or cancelled because of the fire. So, we called and talked to the Village community manager, a very calm and wise soul who explained why he felt the concert was a “go”, and we totally agreed. And then the power went out!
But let me back up and give you some context about our concert…
We usually have a well thought out “theme” for our SRW concerts, but this year was simply about finally singing together once again — in person — as a global community! The choir wasn’t large, but we hadn’t had singers from so many different locations singing together in one place since our 50th anniversary event in 2019!
We had been really looking forward to this concert, but we encountered all kinds of obstacles along the way — my health issues; the ongoing COVID realities (increasing cases, singers testing positive, and others avoiding singing as a precaution); having to relocate the concert from the Temple of Light to the outdoor amphitheater, which was the only way we could have a large choir; musicians having accidents that put them out of commission; you name it!
But all along we felt very strongly that we had to keep moving forward with restoring our music to it’s primary place in the life of our global community. Why? Because Ananda Music is such a tremendous tool for uplifting consciousness, which is so needed in the world right now.
The added confusion and challenge of a fire and power outage just a couple of hours before the start of the concert had us wondering whether there weren’t downward pulling energies trying to block the powerfully positive and joyful expression of our music.
If so, we weren’t going to allow it to happen! I was inwardly resolved that the concert would happen — even if we didn’t have power. I figured that we would simply sing unamplified with however many singers showed up and whoever made it to listen would just have to come right up close to hear us!
But the good news is the amphitheater was on a generator, so we did have power. Plus all the singers made it and the concert went miraculously well.
Oh, and I felt absolutely fine the whole night, with no side effects whatsoever from my big chemo treatment. Miracle on top of miracle!
And that was my super big day.
Today was our Joy Singers concert at Crystal Hermitage Gardens (part of the Expanding Light’s “Springtime at Ananda” retreat). It was scheduled for exactly a week and a day after the Oratorio, which seemed fairly doable.
The problem, of course, is that week and a day went by really fast! I was just barely recovered from the Oratorio by the time we met for our only rehearsal on Thursday night.
Going into the rehearsal, I hadn’t yet found the time or bandwidth to review all the songs and was dismayed to discover just how many of them were either newer or harder than I remembered. Suffice it to say that by the end of the evening I was not feeling particularly ready, much less confident.
So today (concert day!) was about pulling it all together — alto parts, lyrics, researching Shakespeare songs, organizing the binder, finalizing the location, etc. — which finally got the energy really moving.
Of course, once the energy was moving the grace started to flow, and I’m very happy to report that the concert went very well and was enjoyed by all.
I finally have the bandwidth to share my favorite memory of Seva.
I had only moved to the Ananda Palo Alto community in 1999, so when I relocated to Assisi in 2002 to be part of a singing group touring Italy, I was still quite new to the path.
In January of 2004, Assisi was raided by the Guardia di Finanza, and nine of our key leaders were put in prison in March. Although it took something like seven years, the charges were eventually completely repudiated, but while it was happening it was a very intense situation.
Jyotish and Devi were visiting Ananda Assisi for a Kriyaban retreat followed by a big public event in celebration of Yogananda’s Mahasamadhi. They and many others stepped right in to cover for the leaders and teachers who were in prison so the event went off as planned.
Our choir director was among those arrested, so I was called upon to direct the choir, including for a large concert we had planned to do in Perugia later in the week.
And this is where Seva came into the picture.
You see, there was a large group of American devotees coming to Assisi on pilgrimage. Imagine their surprise when they arrived to the news of all that was going on!
To me, they were like the cavalry; a group of solid, seasoned devotees who came in and helped prop us up when we had been broadsided by circumstances. And Seva stood out for me, even in the midst of this amazing group of souls.
So, I asked her to sing the woman’s solo at the beginning of “Lift Your Hearts.” I remember her looking a little surprised, but she said yes. Later I discovered (I don’t recall exactly how) that Seva was not normally a soloist! I guess I had put her on the spot, but she didn’t hesitate. She simply did it.
And that is now a memory I cherish.
Here’s a recording of the song from that concert. Seva’s is the second solo voice you hear at the beginning.
…then chew it!
That’s how I’m feeling right now about a wonderful (but big and getting bigger!) project that we’re working on for our Spiritual Renewal Week concert.
It’s one of those things where the vision was truly compelling, but because it’s something we’ve never actually done before (at least not at this level of magnitude), the closer it comes to manifesting the more we’re realizing just how big of a bite we have to chew! 😮