In twenty-odd years I haven’t had to sit out very many Swamiji’s Birthday celebrations, but that’s what happened today.
It’s not just that my voice would not have been ready to sing yet, it’s that this morning I finally tested positive for COVID. Sigh.
Ramesha tested negative and has not had any symptoms at all, which we’re hoping stays that way.
So, I’ve been at home, thinking about Swamiji and how to better serve the area of his work that is ours to do — the music.
I’ve also been enjoying reading the many beautiful tributes to Swamiji on social media. My favorite is a series of video clips of him laughing — he had such a wonderful laugh! Unfortunately, it’s a Facebook video, so I can’t share it here on my blog.
But here are some photos of Swami laughing to help you feel his joy.
Featuring Jyotish and Devi, it’s one of the highlights of the year throughout the world of Ananda.
And for the first time ever, it’s being offered completely free of charge. So, check it out and register to attend online (that way you’ll have access to all the recordings even if you can’t make it in real time).
Of course, there’s music at the beginning of every class, so we’ll be there for sure. 😊🎶
During both Village Choir and Ensemble rehearsals tonight there were moments that absolutely captured the meaning of this quote.
The wonderful thing is that the “first breath” happens with each song…and each time you restart a song that you’re working on.
So, we get to tune in again and again to that focus, intention, and emotion. We get to feel, over and over again, our unified energies as we create an ever-new expression of our beautiful music.
I definitely kicked off the new year in a new way!
First, by choosing a Word of the Year and, secondly, by participating in an art workshop where we decorated a board with our chosen word. It was a simple but powerful process that made me realize why “art therapy” is a real thing.
So, my word is RECLAIM. And my “helper word” is DESERVE.
I had been mulling over word possibilities for a few days before the day of the workshop, without feeling drawn to any word in particular. Then the word RECLAIM popped into my mind while I was driving to the art studio and, after I shared it with the group, I could feel that it really resonated within me.
So, before I started working on my board, I just sat for a while to tune into what RECLAIM actually meant to me. What was I reclaiming? And how? This is what came to me:
What = My power / How = Own it What = My body / How = Move it What = My time / How = Honor it What = My joy / How = Embrace it What = My willpower / How = Befriend it What = My self / How = Accept it
Then it was time to tune into the lettering and how the word would fit on the board. This is what I did at first, by hand…
It didn’t feel right, so I asked Sarah (the Ananda Village artist who was offering the workshop) if there were stencils or something that could help me get the letters right, as I wanted them to fill out the space more. And she immediately pointed out to me the connection between “filling out the space” and my word! I was wanting to RECLAIM my space. Interesting, no?
These are the letters that I then decided to use.
Next, she suggested tuning into the chakras in order to feel the color that best matched the energy of my word. Because my word feels very powerful and strong, I chose yellow, for the third chakra (power, self-control).
And because my “helper word” had to do with the fact that I DESERVE to reclaim all the elements of my self, I found myself gravitating toward royal purple for the letters.
Then an important memory suddenly resurfaced, of a time when I felt reassured by the Universe that I was, indeed, deserving (I wrote about it in this blog post). And I marveled at the power of this process once again.
The end result is that I absolutely LOVE my word and feel it’s already helping me start this year strong.
“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.
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.
This isn’t the greatest pic (although I’m grateful to our friend, Neha, for capturing a few shots on my cell phone), but hopefully it conveys some portion of the joy that filled the room at the end of our concert tonight.
Hats off to choir, ensemble, accompanists, and tech crew for a job (extremely) well done!
If you’re ready for a blast of Christmas joy, please consider joining us for our annual Christmas Concert,THIS Saturday, December 16 at 5:30pm (PST) in the Temple of Light at Ananda Village.
This year’s concert feels special on several levels. To start with, it’s the first time since 2019 that the full Ananda Village Choir gets to sing on the Christmas Concert.
Secondly, early this year we made the decision to experiment with having a smaller ensemble of dedicated singers who were able and willing to put in the time and effort to take their singing to another level. I believe that outpouring of additional energy is going to bear beautiful fruit in this concert.
Finally, it feels special…just because! I can’t even explain the feeling; maybe the stars are somehow aligned. Who knows? It just feels really, really good.
We start early (5:30pm PST) in order to make the concert accessible to families with small children; that’s also the reason the program only lasts about an hour.
And if you live too far away to join us in person, watch the concert LIVE using this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDCI8OPwO0g (or you can just click on the video above).
I hope you can join us in celebrating the love of Christ and the joy of this Holy Season.
I love how this photo captures the joy shining in all the faces and how, if you look closely, you can feel the bonds of divine friendship flowing through the entire group.
And this was at the beginning of rehearsal, before we had sung a single note!
Our Christmas concert preparations are definitely off to a great start.
