Often in those self-help books and shows, and within a number of philosophical Spiritual-teachings, I have come across the concept of speaking your voice. Take Action. Stand up for what we believe, and all that. For many (most?) of us, I’m sure that sort of thing sounds great on paper and within a daily assertion, but the actual practice of Speaking Up gets pushed to the sidelines among the day to day chores. We don’t like being on stage, sticking out in a crowd, and such.

I’m no exception, but today I wanted to try a little experiment on voice, and would challenge my readers to try this once today, and let me know any thoughts you have after-wards.

Find a quiet space, like your car, or an empty house while showering, or such, and sing along with a song. In my case, it was in my car with the radio on to a local pop-station. Change channels until you gt a song you like, and vaguely know the words to. If you are in the shower or dusting the shelves at home, run a song through your head as you say the lyrics out loud.

For this challenge, I don’t want you to simply mumble along with it. Take a deep breath, sit/stand up straight, and belt out those notes. Doesn’t matter if your voice is scratchy or sounds like a drowning camel, or even Platinum Album material. No one is around, remember?

Ideally, if you are listening to the radio, you should be loud enough to not actually hear the real singer. Overrun the lyrics in your ears with the ones in your lungs. Yell it if you want, at least one verse, if not a whole song. If you are a bit stressed and can’t think of a song, just stick to sounding a Barbaric Yawp (first part of this video).

I mean really try it, as instructed. I’ll wait…

Then, after you are done, take a little internal assessment of yourself. Do you feel silly? Do you feel guilty or worried about the neighbors? Try to ignore that primary feeling and think again.

I’m guessing that even with any ego-ruled emotions bouncing around in your head, you feel just a bit better than you did before this activity. Perhaps not much, but maybe your shoulders slump a smidgeon less for the moment, or that nagging cough feels a little less nagging this particular minute.

Be honest with yourself.

I will readily admit I don’t consistently set aside time each day for healthy things like meditation or involved spiritual musings. Yet, I wonder how much effect it would have if everyone took 1 minute to just yell or sing each day? To sound our barbaric Yawp, and sing a song of yourself.

Catharsis is underrated.

One lady read from Grapes of Wrath, and shared how it changed her outlook on Humanity and Humility, reading of the horrid selfishness of people below their station. She had grown up in a wealthy NewEngland community, and formerly looked down her nose at “poor farmers” until that book made her re-think things.

One man shared a bit from Oral Microbiology and how it changed his view of our communal relationship with ‘the good microbes’.

Yet others shares inspiring sermons, quoted from Martin Luther King, Ghandi, and more traditional “English Literature” such as Flowers for Algernon, and Where the Red Fern Grows.

However, by far my favorite was an older lady who shared “The Hobbit” as her favorite book. She explained briefly that we adults are often told to get our heads out of the clouds, and how this “kids book” showed that even as an older adult, it was “OK to have an imagination”. She also referenced the new movie Avatar, as an example of world-building freedoms and whimsy-wonder.

Instead of reading an excerpt from The Hobbit, however, she admitted that she once submitted music to a “Fanzine” on Middle earth back in the 80s. She had set the first parts of Galadriel’s Song of Eldamar to music, and then launched into a lilting A Cappella song, the lyrics of which are below.

To say the fact I could honestly answer “heard a lady sing in elvish” to the question of What I Did on Sunday, is awesome.

This UU thing may not be entirely spiritually ritualistically filling, but it’s still a fun community to be growing a part of.

(My son also has now expressed interest in going as he misses the other kids. Also, he has learned not to jokingly blow out the small candle I light in the evenings after starting to understand the reasons for lighting a candle “Representing the Love and Mystery that some people call God/dess”)

Galadriel’s Song of Eldamar
I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:
Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.
Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,
And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree.
Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shone,
In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion.
There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years,
While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears.
O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day;
The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away.
O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore
And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.
But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?

Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen,
Yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!
Yéni ve lintë yuldar avánier
mi oromardi lisse-miruvóreva
Andúnë pella, Vardo tellumar
nu luini yassen tintilar i eleni
ómaryo airetári-lírinen.

The melody was vaguely akin to “Spancel Hill” (video link)

As a musical interlude here’s three awesome songs. First, one that was performed by a wonderful brother&Sister act in church this past Sunday:
The Christians and the Pagans”

Next, two songs by the band Gaia Consort (whom I love), with the first being more Christmas-y and festive, one I listened to while standing outside under the stars and invoking Awesomeness.

Father xmas.mp3

Gathering.mp3

Enjoy!

What I do not like is radio stations that switch over to Christmas music 24×7 starting on November 1st.

Case in point? Mix 102.5, the local radio station that played something other than country or hard rock in my area.

At least I still have NPR for news and such, but I’ll have to start downloading more music for my MP3 player to listen too if I want actual eclectic music this month.

*sigh*

Those who know me personally hopefully are aware that I’m not really one of “Those guys” who oggle the babes at the beach. Still, sexy dancing is a pretty sacred thing that shouldn’t be taboo either, from both genders.

This one is my favorite Shakira song to get the blood pumping, and groove started. Unfortunately, YouTube won’t embed the video, so I am linking it directly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-3brRCRsA8

One thing I like about Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll is her humanitarian work and philanthropy. Beyond being an amazing songwriter, she helped create a foundation that improves the lives of Colombian children, is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and build a $6million school in her home town which former president Bill Clinton visited.

So, unlike many other music stars with their bling and hypersexualized stage personas, Shakira used her fame and talents to improve the world close to her.  Kudos!

…

Next time, I promise, no sexy goddesses of  song.  I’ll find a nice guy for all you female readers. 

And now to continue to use of “God” in the July musical treats,  here’s something utterly weird and awesome.

Also, I am going to the beach (Barnegat Light, NJ) for a nice long weekend with my parents, sister and family, and grandmother.  Should be a nice “family reunion”, which I will return from on Tuesday the 21st.

In the meantime, enjoy these three literal translations of some songs.   They made me giggle. 

First is “Total Eclipse of the Heart”.

Next up, my favorite, A-Ha’s “Take on Me”.

Finally,  who can resist the sultry snarl of Billy Idol, in “White Wedding”.

enjoy!

Need I say more, than this song rocks, and has such a good groove, regardless of the lyrics.

Watch more Under the Pink videos on AOL Video

Also, for more Tori Amos: I also like this groove (Sorta Faierytale…)

Discuss?

I’ve always loved fire circles.  Sitting around a campfire,whether roasting marshmallows with friends and family, or drumming and dancing for alchemical transformation, are soothing and soul-healing events in any flavour.

Last weekend we attended Drum and Splash,  (Have I said enough on how awesome D&S was?)   and this time, my wife graciously allowed me to stay up as long as I wanted, even until the sun rose the following day.   It’s rare I get total freedom to stay up late, so I was quite excited to finally attend “third shift” of the drum circles.

For those not used to the type of alchemical festival drum circles I enjoy, there seems to be three shifts.   Initially, there are tons of people present.  Drummers are loud, excitable, and spontaneous, and the fire is encircled by dancers of all shapes and sizes.  It’s more of a party festival atmosphere, just everyone jamming and having fun, and (depending on the place) kids are present burning out the last bits of energy before bedtime.

At one point, a giant deer-god arrived, costumed and about 10 feet tall, and danced around the fire a bit.   This was kinda fun.  Later, a huge red firey dragon, formed of yards of fabric like a gigantic scarf supported by 8-9 poles and a wire and cardboard face arrived.  To me, this was very magical, as it wove and danced around the fire, above our heads.  I went out and danced for a bit myself here, weaving between the poles with the crowd, until it soured back into the night (and it’s home-camp).

Second shift happens around midnight, and is not really a “timed” event.  It’s organic.  The kids go to bed, the tired and early risers drift off to sleep, and the drumming generally becomes more rhythm-driven and less furious, and starts to sound a bit more ‘tribal’ if that makes any sense.  Polyrhythms start to blend and flow together in unison, complex and almost more primal..  (The term ‘djembe cowboys’ has been used insultingly to describe some brash drummers from first shift who Must.Play.Lead.)

In the past, I’ve only ever stayed and drummed for this part of things.   Many dancers wander away, and the few that are left seem to prefer a more ascetic or trance-like nature.  Things start to feel “serious” in a vaguely playful way, more sacred-inspired, and is what I really enjoy about these drum circles.   For myself, this is where I can just lose myself in the heartbeats of the drum, and half-watch the dancers as the sound washes over me and the stress of the world is bounced out of my brain.

That night, there were a few interludes where the drumming essentially stopped.  People chatted lightly, a few scattered beats kept the place from absolute silence, and it felt very relaxed.    One group of three girls started an unfamiliar “firetribe” chant, but no one really joined in.    I did not have a drum of my own (sadly) and hte one I was borrowing had to be given back to its owner, so I went over to the chanters and asked if they knew “Let the Way be Open“, which I first heard at Starwood in 2002, and has become “The” chant in my head, which completely recalls the feel and energy of the fire circles.  Every fire I ever gaze at, I tend to hum it in my head, it’s that neat (to me).

The group smiled at finding “someone else who knew some fire chants” and we went a few rounds with it, eventually getting about 15 people who had been sitting around nearby to join in when we made a sort of conga-line around the fire while chanting.  It was rather playful and fun, but still felt sacred, and managed to get the drums starting up again.

Then, time passed and it got later and later.  Judging by the moon I’d guess it was 2am, when the energy shifted.  Many people had gone elsewhere, leaving five of us sitting around with drums.  I was handed a pretty untuned djembe and just kept a baseline for a time, and started to really really feel the groove.   At this point, there was only one dancer, who had an amazingly graceful animal/shamanic style of dance.  Very cool to watch.

As the drums do, everyone kept playing for a bit, then wound down to change the beat.   We all stopped and smiled around at each other, commenting how that last groove was kinda neat, and there was some energy built up around the fire, but the night was still early.  One of the drummers stood up and placed a wrapped bundle of sticks in the fire, and bowed his head for a moment, silently offering/releasing some personal something.   The world then started to shift away into shadow, before we even started drumming again.

Someone made a comment,  “Ohhh nice, lets get improv!“, everyone chuckled, and a simple bass beat started.   Somehow, I found myself in possession of a smaller djembe, which was almost a Doumbek, and honestly can not remember picking it up.    Instead of a normal drum beat, a few of us spontaneously just rattled our fingers on the drumheads, making a sound like rain, rising in pitch and volume, and falling, interspersed by staccato sounds of a single drum, and underscored by a deep Boom, Boom-ba-boom.  At this point, the shift in energy was palpable. Like putting a car in low gear, you could physically sense something akin to that feeling the instant an elevator starts going down.

I’d never experienced anything like that, between the five of us, each with a differently toned drum, where the sounds felt huge, and expansive.  An army of drummers, yet only our own single instrument existed.   (tough to describe in words)   I thought for a moment this must be what a runner’s high feels like, when time shifts and you just Are the drum.

Then, for what felt like hours, this simple and complex groove ebbed and flowed.  I noticed, vaguely detached now, that I had been alternating between a deep Dunn… Dunn and an almost frenetic takka-tak-takka-tak-tak-taa-something.   My hands would blur, and there were some pretty cool pauses in the sound coming from this hunk of wood and skin in my hand.  And the higher upper rhythm bounced out against the deeper djembes.

Beyond the firelight, the universe wheeled.  Within the firelight, the universe throbbed…  There was no firelight, only Space and Time… We were the universe… There was no universe, just me…  The fire was the universe and we spun with it, and were the waves of sound around it…  Words kinda fail here.  It was the most amazing disconnect/reconnect to reality that I’ve ever felt.

The lone dancer was gone, replaced by a tawny lioness.  No, perhaps a lithe mamma-bear.  Wait, make that a noble cow, who seemed to look remarkably like a lioness.   Yep, lioness.   I continued drumming, or, rather letting myself be drummed.  I still had hands, I think, and there was still sand and benches in this swirling fire of earth and distant seas and sky.  We grooved, and that lone dancer was back to her graceful twisting.   “Hmm, that’s nice“, thought a brain that may have been mine.

Later again, the rhythm wound down.  The five drummers looked among ourselves with gleaming smiles, awe sparkling in our eyes.   One, the slightly flamboyant guy who has suggested going improv, let out a sighing “coooool“, and the moment had passed.   We all shared that knowing look among friends, that something wonderful had just happened.  The dancer came over to kiss her boyfriend and said that was “one of the most awesome sacred grooves” she’d danced to in a while.

The sky was getting lighter, which led me to realize a good two or three hours had passed.   My arms were feeling quite energized and tired, such as a good workout will do.  The fire had died down to embers, and we rebuilt it.  Everyone put away their drums and moved to sit and chat around the fire.  Someone joked about it being marshmallow time, and one drummer wandered off to camp to get his guitar.

I made a comment about feeling the Universe (not the animal among us) spinning, and everyone agreed that there was some serious transformational energy flowing among us.

It was only then that my brain snapped awake and realized what my eyes had been seeing.   At one point, wasn’t there a lioness ten feet from me?!  Not a dancer, with the image flickering in my imagination suggesting beastly form.  It. was. Real.   Fur and breath and sheen of tooth… and the drum carried us all across the void.

I laughed, a bit nervously, yet still awed, and the conversation continued a bit longer.  We had all connected, that much was confirmed by everyone there, to that deep communal Drum-place.  We grooved, and thanked each other with hugs and sincere handshakes, then half of us parted company to go get some sleep or swim in the river to feel grounded again.

Even now, re-typing these words, I’m getting goosebumps.

I’d read, and heard, and know on a metaphorical level, that Otherworld stuff happens, and that Faeries exist in a sense, and drums can help you trance.  I kinda understand manifesting your will through visualization, in my inner mind.  I’ve even tried psychedelic visions under a full moon and glimpsed spirits and energy flowing, but they were always overlaying the solid reality of Me.  Always somewhat under my control, and vanishing, or retreating, the moment I stop trying, or opened my eyes.  This was different.  This is unexplainable.  This was Magic, deep and Real.

I’m still trying to integrate it all into terms I can ponder more meaningfully, because somehow “I drummed until morning” is both absolutely correct, and so far beyond the Truth.    Wow.

First, let me just say that the Four Quarter Farm is one of the nicest places I’ve ever attended a festival, both mundane or pagan-friendly.  It’s a bit hilly, and my legs were a bit put off by the walking on Friday, but it was a good kind of sore.

Friday was just a general relaxing and shedding of “home” that accompanies most vacations.  The tent was setup, the food was stored for cooking and consumption, and the focus was on exploring the place and just unwinding.

We went to the swimming hole with our suits and he kid’s arm-floaties, and were happy to see there were a few people skyclad.  I had read on the website that the place had instituted a clothing policy, and thus brought our suits, but was very happy to learn that it didn’t really apply to the swimming hole, which was very secluded deep within the woods.

The river water was brisk (I refuse to admit it was cold) and when the sun peeked out it was positively welcoming.   Friday evening, over the course of dipping in the river a few times, I felt quite profoundly and wonderfully relaxed.  Free.  That water, even with the myriad of fish that nibbled your toes, was like a womb.  Comforting (yet chilly) and relaxing, and safe.   I miss it already, and our bathtub doesn’t quite feel the same afterwards.

Saturday, my son met a young boy just under 2yrs old while walking down to take yet another dip in the Hemlock Hole swimming area.   I chatted with his mother, who’s name sadly escaped me with it’s unfamiliar Native American style.  I believe it was Laya-something, or Leah-somesuch. (I wish I remembered, as it was a beautiful lilting name in my half-memory).    She and her husband did healing massages and energy work, and we chatted briefly about the Sweatlodge that her group put on.

A bit later, we ran into Yellow Bear’s mother again, and she mentioned the second round of Sweat lodge was going to be starting soon, if we wished to attend.   I could not, but my wife and Nettle did.  When they met up with us later, I was told by them both, in rather certain terms “You.  Go Sweat.  Now”.   So Nettle and I went to round 3.

My own interaction with any Native American tribes has been sadly limited by movies and vague NewAge spirituality. I felt somewhat nervous to appear “that ignorant white guy pretending to be Native” when we first arrived, which was not helped by not knowing anything about Sweat lodges themselves beyond “big tent-cave full of rocks where you sit in and sweat and stuff“.

Happily, the entire group was amazingly welcome, calm, secure in their own ways, and friendly.  Did I say welcoming and awesome yet?   This is what stood out in my mind the most.  The tribe Was.  Just Was.  No pretenses I could pick up on, no favoritism. Chief Joe joked and smack-talked the young teen nearby with a fatherly smile. The teen Loki threw it back in a respectfully teasing way.  It was beyond my imagination on how to expect them. (Again, too, why am I thinking in terms of Them and Me?  We are humans, all one people, and one tribe anyway, right? Right?)

The word Tribe has a new meaning for me.  It’s family, but deeper and more respectful than any family I’ve ever met in the mundane world.   My own family, who I love dearly, comes close, but is too small, too limited to convey the wordless feeling of Us that I felt among those people.      I also know that such words are too limiting, and seem the product of my own faulty perspective and connotations of “How the Indians act”.  (NO insult intended to any of Native blood, this is a compliment to be sure, and admission of my own lacking experience)   Suffice it to say it was awesome.

Nettle said it best in a comment she made towards me:  The people we met at the sweatlodge were inspiring to me as examples of the kind of low-key, humble, unpretentious but very powerful healers that I would like to learn from – their particular way of working isn’t mine, so it’s not them in particular I’m thinking of, but that particular feel, of genuinely wanting to help and knowing that it’s not about them at all, and being able to really do so – that is powerful to me.

The sweatlodge itself was very casual and easy, yet held a deep power I hadn’t felt outside of a chemically assisted vision-quest from years ago, or the raw serene power I first felt in Church which led me towards assistant ministry for a time.  There was the weight of Tradition there, and it affected everything they did, including the joking-teasing amongst each other.  I won’t go into detail, for the sake of privacy, but the basics were we entered the lodge, sat around it as hot rocks were placed in the center, and then ‘locked in’ and sang/chanted for a time.  There was a lovely young girl with us initially (approx 5-6 yrs old?) so the first songs were kid-friendly.   I’ll never think of SpongeBob quite the same way again. ;P

I had actually expected the sweat to last a bit longer, as I was just really, really starting to feel a deep relaxation when it was over.   We had been directed to let our worries and cares drip from our bodies and our spirits into the earth.  Leave it with the earth, shed it into the ground, etc.   When it was over, the ‘stuff’ I was trying to release had managed to pool under my skin and out of the shadowy core it had been hiding, so I felt kinda bad at the timelimits.  Still, the dip in the river immediately afterwards, which shocked the body system back into Being, was the most cleansing bracing thing I’d felt in quite a while.  The oily blackness I was holding washed off in the river, instead of the earth, so still felt Amazing.

Inside the sweatlodge, in the darkness and heat, while doing one particular chant, I could sense everyone around us, and they numbered far more than the actual physical count of people I saw when the door was open.   All those stories about the Ancestor spirits, the totem Animals, and such?  I’m rather convinced they exist now.  I felt them, not maliciously, or euphorically even, just an awareness of them.  Again somewhat like the Tradition and history and connection with other sweatlodges and people.  We were there as much as we were here.   It was subtle, and I only really noticed the memory of it to ponder a day later when speaking to my wife about her experiences (hers got rained on, while staying perfectly dry, and I believe her).

My wife and Nettle got to go to another round of sweats, which I heard were much less singing and more prayerful, which now of course means I’d love to do a full set of sweats sometime.  I can only imagine the deep and powerful Healing that gets done every day.  No wonder the Tribe was so profoundly and outwardly Together.  My only regret is being so relaxed and relishing the feeling, that I completely forgot to sign a small notebook they had with a mailing list.  I’ll track them down again somehow, or just wait until next year.

…next post,  the Maebius at the Firecircle, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Drum.

.

First, we have a favorite “muse-worthy” song, by Joan Osborne: One of Us.

Lyrical snippet: If God had a face what would it look like?
And would you want to see
If seeing meant that
you would have to believe
in things like heaven and in Jesus and the saints
and all the prophets

So, I ask you humble readers, would you want to see God/Goddess manifest and visible without a shadow of a doubt, standing before you? Myself, I almost would not, but in a way I would.

I would, obviously, because on some level all this spiritual searching leads one to a profound belief in the reality of the Divine.    I would not, mostly because such a revelation would crumble a particular part of my worldview, and rather profoundly change the way I feel about my workplace and Reality as I know it. (if that’s not vague enough!).