Tag: videos

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Joy, joy, joy, joy

Yesterday in his powerful Sunday service talk, Ananta mentioned a number of things we can do to stay fresh and engaged on the spiritual path.

One suggestion was to sing the chant, “Ever-New Joy,” but instead of the title he exhorted us to, “Sing joy, joy, joy!”

“Ever-New Joy” is one of my all-time favorite chants, but what popped into my mind in that moment was a song from my childhood. I remembered it like this:

I’ve got God’s joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart,
Down in my heart, down in my heart.
I’ve got God’s joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart,
Down in my heart today!

I hadn’t thought of that song in probably fifty years, so of course I had to look it up. Turns out the correct lyrics are:

I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart (where?)
Down in my heart, down in my heart.
I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart (where?)
Down in my heart to stay!

The lyrics go on to express how happy I am that I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart; and I’ve got the peace that passes understanding down in my heart as well.

All in all, it’s a happy song and I’ve enjoyed getting reacquainted with it.

What I didn’t enjoy so much was the search for a video of the song to share. Oh my goodness!

All the videos are geared for children — not surprisingly, since it’s a children’s song — but they were so overproduced, over-the-top and just plain silly as to be unwatchable.

There were animated ones, and awkwardly acted ones, and heavy, agitated drumbeat ones. Unfortunately, they didn’t feel joyful to me, just forced.

But I finally found one that’s sweet (I think), so I hope you enjoy it.

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Making music feels GOOD

Ramesha and I recorded two song videos today and it felt great. The living room of our temporary house made a terrific studio.

One video is for our Patreon subscribers but we’ll be sharing the other one with everybody very soon.

It’s been a challenge to go from singing a couple of times a week for months on end to not really having any performance outlet at all.

We’re planning to continue recording videos as often as we can, but it isn’t exactly the same.

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The joy of singing

After days focused on writing emails, gathering information, communicating details, replying to emails, downloading videos, extracting audio tracks, writing still more emails, etc… it was finally time to record my own videos of the wedding choir songs.

It was hot and muggy. I was hungry and a little tired. I had to set up the tripod, the smartphone, the laptop, the backing tracks. It was video, so I had to change into a jewel tone top and put on some lipstick.

Ah, but then…. it was time to sing! And it didn’t matter that I was singing all by myself in my living room, to the accompaniment of a backing track. The uplifted energy, the joy of the music, the blessing of feeling it flow through me… it was all still there, ready to soothe and heal my soul.

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Videos and more videos

I’ve got virtual wedding choir videos coming out of my ears and I suspect I’ll be seeing them in my dreams tonight. But I’m not complaining — oh no! On the contrary, I’m grateful to be swimming in videos because it means almost everyone managed to get theirs in pretty much on time. Yay!

Oh yeah! and Ramesha and I still need to record our videos! 😂

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Doing, doing, almost done

It was just a few days ago (although it feels like about a month!) that I posted about “biting off more than you can chew”.

Well, we just keep “chewing”, as the project grows…and grows….and grows some more! In fact, I just counted and we have ninety-four (94!) videos of Ananda devotees from around the world, all singing.

Yes, it’s been a quite a ride, and we’re not completely done yet, but — boy oh boy — is it going to be wonderful!