“Outer order contributes to inner calm.” –Gretchen Rubin
This is the quote I saw on my Momentum Dash screen this morning while searching my office files for some sheet music we need for the upcoming Spiritual Renewal Week concert.
I resonated deeply with this statement, especially since I could feel my inner calm fraying around the edges as I considered having to change the program because I couldn’t locate the parts. Not a good feeling. 🤦♀️
But I had also experienced this in the first week after returning home from our trip.
I was dealing with jet lag; a bad cough; unpacked luggage; leftover travel gear; dirty laundry; and the naturally occurring “out-of-orderliness” of having had a houseguest in the apartment for almost two months.
It all felt like chaos.
The end result was that I felt virtually paralyzed for the first four or five days, and not just in practical terms. I also felt like I couldn’t think or plan or settle.
I believe the breakthrough came when I simply had to do pressing tasks like laundry (or not have clothes to wear!). As I — bit-by-bit — established some order, I was able to — bit-by-bit — access my inner calm.
P.S. Not to worry, by the way! We did locate the sheet music. 😅
A big piece of the puzzle fell into place today, namely….laundry!
I really wasn’t looking forward to tackling five loads worth of dirty clothes; in fact, I only completed four out of the five. But it still felt like a major accomplishment.
I also was finally able to get the latest booster (the bivalent vaccine), which feels really good.
And, finally, progress is being made on music preparations for Spiritual Renewal Week. All in all, a good day.
Spiritual Renewal Week concert on Tuesday, June 28, 2022 at Ananda Village
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!
Earlier tonight we enjoyed excerpts from the Peace Treaty, then there’s Sunday service tomorrow, and that’s it!
My predominant thought as this deeply inspiring week draws to a close is immense gratitude — yet again! — to Swami Kriyananda, for the gift of spiritual community, for the music of Ananda, and for the example of discipleship and a life lived for God that he gave us.
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.
View of the fire from Sunset Ridge
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!
Lately I feel like pinching myself to make sure I’m not dreaming…that singing together in increasing numbers really is starting to happen again!
We were already approved to have a small live choir for this year’s Good Friday Oratorio, but now it looks like we’re going to have another small choir for an event later this month.
Plus planning is getting underway for Spiritual Renewal Week at the end of June, for which we just might be able to have a fullchoir — for the first time in over two years.
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! 😮
