Alive in Your Song: June - July

Keep my dream alive in your Song:
It frames beautiful thoughts within me
Touches my life with magnificent light
Expands love in every direction
Speaks softly to my purpose
Points my chin back up to the stars
It stirs the imagination
Gives voice to my feelings
Shakes off the mantle of apathy
Commands a sensitivity towards life
Brings me back to my center
Reminds me that we live from the inside out
Sees through the transparent mind
Leads me back to the wisdom of cause
Honors the uniqueness of my gifts
Breaks my fall when I miss the mark

Dusts me off and encourages me
to dream the impossible dream

Ganga Fondan, 2010

Journal Entry June 18, 2010

Continuing my SongQuest this week. It was first my husband and then my Teacher who opened up the Song of life and asked me to sing my part. My life unfolds in this music. Nothing tangible to fix on and yet this navigation penetrates everything I think and feel and do.

Journal Entry July1, 2010

I feel like something is expanding every paradigm, every perception and every idea that runs through my mind. More and more I remember the words: "My Consciousness creates". Tonight while walking home I could smell such a variety of scents in the evening wind. Every few steps came a new one. With each new smell I asked : "Who is sensing this?" I have walked down this street hundreds of times. Why is my sense of smell opening now? An unspoken feeling of a greater intelligence flowed through my thoughts. Then there was an aching running through my body. This unspoken feeling seemed to say "there is so much more to who you are ... stop leaking". Then in a flash came another feeling : "there is no hurry".

Journal Entry, July 7, 2010

In this SongQuest, my senses start to look outward at the world and see the tremendous injustice and imbalance there still seems to be. Political oppression and tremendous poverty still shadow so much of this planet. It hurts inside to feel it all and a paralysis overcomes me. It's too much. Then the words of my Teacher come back and remind me that transformation can only happen from within. What do I see? I see a place for the singing. Each day, the singing builds peace. The images of hope, courage and rapture return with each strum of the guitar. My face turns towards the lightness again and my voice sings in the direction of waves calling me home.

Journal Entry, July 31, 2010

It is the middle of the night. Lifting my head and opening my eyes, the outer world overwhelms me again. Such brutality and ignorance, such greed and fear mongering! The emotions rise and fall accordingly and I feel that old familiar paralysis yet again. Now I don't want to sing or dance. I don't want to feel this anymore. Why am I here? I listen to the girls outside my window. They are drunk with laughter and forgetting. I watch them under the shadow of the trees. They shout out to each other and shriek with pleasure. I remember the feeling of alcohol in my blood. I remember the numbness and the slowing down. I remember the sobering and the aching to know what is real and what is not. I watch them playing while so oblivious of all the sleeping people. Slowly I feel my breath filling up the inside of my belly. A subtle feeling reminds me of the story of the lion who found a lion cub being raised in a herd of sheep. It took a while for that lion to convince the little cub that he was not a sheep but a lion like him. The grass eating and bleating cub did not believe this huge majestic creature at first. Suddenly, in this moment I am that cub again. Looking into the water of the pond, I see a reflection. I close my eyes and remember my part in the wildness of the world. I go back in to seek the lion and shed myself of any trace of thinking that I was ever a sheep at all.

Enraptured with "Whisper the Trees"

Listening to the music: "Whisper the Trees":

I feel young enough to experience the elation of the trees that reach out to connect with me. All around me their green sings into the dancing breeze. This forest has stood on the edge of a song for an eternity...waiting for me to come. Deep within my Being there is whirling and laughter. Everything is alive and pulsating. I know you are there with me. I know you are here with me. Letting go of skin and bone...blood and water... all fading, my heart floats upwards into the trees. What is it you came to show me? What is the message that waits here in this music? Feelings of gentleness flow around. Feelings of caring and softness overwhelm my awareness. What is there that shall endure? The question formulates like a dream. All the mountains and oceans shall pass away. What can be conquered is but temporary. Is it noble to have much and give much. Is it righteous to be known and preferred? What is important in this life? Shall we be remembered in books and music for lifetimes? What endures? The leaves shiver all around me echoing one Word.

What is the one Word that describes what endures? I long for my body, for my internal organs, for my mind and senses so that I may know this answer. Tears come quickly and I want to run deeper into the forest, deeper into the colors of my home here on earth. I long for my lover, his eyes, his arms around me, around this flesh which covers me like a blanket. Skin against skin merging in those moments of exhilaration and surrender, did we not find that which endures even if only for a fleeting moment? Am I alone now to live within that Word? Above me the trees stand strong and resilient. They know the secret of kindness. They shall let me find this way on my own. My knees drop to the earth and my head touches the ground. I whisper "Show me what endures."

The song continues. I see your face before me. The Word is beyond the intellect and you and I are forever a part of it. There is nothing to do or know to be One. This freedom is ours to play in wholeness. In this Oneness there is everything. I miss you and yet I know we are never apart. It is the human paradox we continue to unravel. "Whisper the Trees" leads me down a golden path. There is still much to discover. My heart feels lighter. It remembers the songs of our true home. Now the entire forest rejoices and sings along.

Listening to this album tonight stirs up deep feelings of love for Narayan. He reaches through the harp strings, through the voice and beauty of Elke's lyrics. She sings from that place which he used to reach into. She lets her feelings out and I am one with her. He is with her. He is with me. She remembers her brother and I remember my lover. We are sisters forever in our love for him and sing the songs of compassion and tenderness. We sing the songs of the One Heart.