Some years ago, Deborah and I were in Costa Rica, and had the opportunity to do a vision quest together.
There were many elements to the experience, but one that rang loudly was that I longed for Deborah and I to sing together. I have been a singer and performer since I was very little, but she never had that, and while she always supported me, it was not something we shared and it could even create distance between us.
The initial revelation as it spoke to me was for Deborah to “find her voice.” I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I knew what I wanted it to mean, for her to find a way to enjoy singing. Instead I went for the more obvious, which was also what came out of our CR trip, to empower her as a voice in childbirth and midwifery. A couple of months later, we were in Bali, working with her midwife partner that had also been in Costa Rica.
Midwife Ibu Robin Lim was the CNN Hero of the year for 2011. She runs a free birth center and clinic in Ubud, Bali. Deborah and I spent a month with her there, and I built the web site http://awakeningbirth.org/ and we recorded a podcast series http://awakeningbirth.net, available on itunes. Still there was an echo inside of me.
On our last weekend in Bali, we finally took a break from working and went to an Ecstatic Dance at a yoga studio, a huge open air pavilion with a thatched roof. There were over 100 hippie types writhing to techno beats with an eastern edge, and I liked the sound. It kindled memories of my son telling me about going to see a performance by Krishna Das, and Kirtan, an Indian tradition of group singing and chanting.
When I got home, I began looking up Krishna Das on YouTube. I liked the sound, and I thought, “My voice can be deep like that.”
My bass player had just moved away, I didn’t have a band, and had no musical outlet. I thought, “Maybe this is something I could do on my own. Maybe some folks in the community would like this.”
I found a harmonium, an acoustic, hand pumped, air-driven organ, in Asheville, NC (where my son lives), and plunked down $400. After about a month, I had learned about 5 songs and invited some friends over. Deborah came. We all had a fun time and started doing it once a week. I would practice by myself on Wednesday evenings, and one friend asked if she could come practice her singing and I said OK, and then it was like, “Well if you are going to come, we might as well invite everyone else.”
And so we started having Kirtan twice a week. And Deborah really liked it. We discovered another kirtan performer Jai Uttal and added his songs to our weekly gatherings. Deborah bought me a Jai Uttal t-shirt. We started singing together to Jai Uttal on road trips. We were having fun and doing music together!
Then one of the people who was a regular at Kirtan suggested that she had some friends that she had done these spiritual dances with at the another community, that maybe they would come for a visit and lead some dances. Dances? We could add movement to our chanting? People were already being inspired to get up and move.
I got on YouTube and found the Dances of Universal Peace. I liked what I saw. I recalled dancing with Sufis once back in the 70s. I started learning tunes and dances and bringing them to Kirtan. Sometimes we danced, other times we just sang the new songs. Om Mane Padme Hum. Gate Para Gate. The dance that resonated the best was Bernie’s “I am Open To All the You Are.”
I tracked down the Dance of Universal Peace North America web site to see where I could go to experience the dances. I started looking for a mentor. Asheville was the place!
A friend and I went to their usual monthly dance, and it was small but nice. We took home a couple new dances.
About a month later I went back to Asheville for a weekend with Abraham and Halima Sussman, two senior teachers with roots that went all the way back to San Francisco in the late 60s and early 70s, the origins of the dances. It was only a week after my mother, who I had been caring for the last 4 years, a year with no speech, months of hand feeding her… I was in a very open place and suddenly free to begin a new life.
I liked the Sussman’s energy. There was a resonance of the spirit that came out of San Francisco that got my attention.
Two weeks later I went to a 6 day dance camp in the Ozarks.
I felt like I had come home. I had found my people, my music, my communion, my practice.
So now with the dances, Deborah is smiling from ear to ear. Everyone keeps telling me how much she is beaming. We are closer than we have ever been. It is all connected.
Toward the one.
Join me for Kirtan and Dance Retreats
