Archive for Meditation

Completed Questions: Experimental Group Voice class

{ 2008 June 23 @ 10:54 am } · { Creativity, Love, Meditation, Music, Music Composition, Music Production, Sharing, Solutions, Stories, Teaching, Therapy, Truth, Work }
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Experimental Group Voice, Keith Rowley

  1. 1.How will this activity attract University of Washington students? This activity will attract UW students by being experientially effective. That is, participants will not only know they have been through an exciting event, they will feel it. This course will expand their range of expression, emotion, feeling, and interrelationships, and in so doing, students will be so excited at their growth they will feel compelled to tell others about it.
  2. Why do you want to teach this class? Because I am excited by the expressive and connecting potential of the human voice. And I want to empower people to explore their humanity, their compassion, and their ability to connect the deepest parts of themselves with the deepest parts of others.
  3. What skills and/or knowledge do you hope the students will gain from the activity? Primarily, I hope students will gain trust in themselves and their classmates. I hope they will learn to trust their own ability to express themselves more fully, trust in their power to overcome any fear of expressing themselves, trust in their ability to share themselves fully with others, and trust in the effectiveness of both opening themselves to others, and being open with others. I hope they learn that by being open to others, by listening to others, and by being committed to the process, they will create something larger than they can alone.
  4. What exercizes will the students participate in? Exercises will include visualization (controlling their emotions), meditation (getting in touch with their emotions), breathing (controlling their voices), calisthenics (enabling a wider range of expression), communication and listening (opening themselves to others), and vocalizing, employing various musical elements such as rhythm, melody, harmony, dissonance, tone/timbre, volume/amplitude, texture (monophonic, polyphonic), etc.
  5. What supplies and/or equipment will the student need to provide? Just their self, their voice, and an open mind, heart, and ears.
  6. What supplies will the student receive? Perhaps some printed inspirational resources, and/or audio CDs.
  7. Please describe your background in this area and your teaching/training background. I have been singing since before I can remember. My family of seven sang rounds together in the car all the time. I have sung in choirs starting in seventh grade, and made the Texas All-State Choir in 1981. I have 20 years experience singing semi-professionally. I have also been teaching at the college level since 2000, and am currently teaching at Bellevue Community College.

Course Outline for Experimental College Voice Class

{ 2008 June 20 @ 10:18 pm } · { Composition, Creativity, Love, Meditation, Music, Music Composition, Music Production, Production, Sharing, Solutions, Teaching, Therapy }
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  1. General course description
    1. Subject matter covered in this course
    2. This class will cover various experiential approaches to vocalization, including texture and harmony, as a group. We will concentrate on eliciting a variety of emotions, as a group, using only our voices and bodies.
    3. My approach to teaching this content will be both very experiential and experimental. I will use various means to engage and prepare students for our attempts to work together to elicit specific emotions.
    4. The only prerequisites for this course are the willingness to vocalize with other people, and a willingness to be open to all sorts of possible experiences.
    5. This class will draw on various elements of choral composition, such as rhythm, melody, harmony, dissonance, tone/timbre, volume/amplitude, texture, etc. It will also draw upon visualization, meditation, calisthenics, and breathing techniques.
    6. Students might find it helpful to draw upon their experiences working in groups (not necessarily singing in groups!), and in meditative environments.
  1. Method of course delivery
    • The course will mainly entail learning together, as a group.
    • In fact, the main point of this class is to create what we cannot create alone.
    • Students will be sticking to the pace of the group’s growth. I will encourage students to engage in active listening throughout their lives, by listening to various artists, as well as the world around them, in an effort to broaden their “palette” of sounds with which to elicit emotion. But the point of the class is, again, to create together what we cannot create alone.
    • Inspirational resources may be provided via audio CDs and/or printed material.
  1. General course goals/objectives
    • Students will directly experience working in a group.
    • Students will directly experience creating something as a group that they cannot create on their own.
    • Students will broaden:
      • 1) their relationships with others
      • 2) their ideas of what music is
      • 3) the limitations of their feelings
      • 4) the limitations of their expression
  1. Outline of overall course structure (i.e., lessons/topics)
    • The course is broken down into combinations of “preparation-to-create” and “approach-to-creation.”
      • “Preparation-to-create” is: calisthenics, meditation, breathing, and visualization.
      • “Approach-to-creation” is: visualization, and the various choral-composition techniques, such as texture, harmony, melody, unity, dissonance, rhythm, amplitude/volume, and tone/timbre.
    • The course will last an hour and a half, once a week, for six weeks.
    • Each week I will present a new combination of “preparation” and “approach.”

Experimental Voice Class: Summary/Description

{ 2008 June 20 @ 9:06 pm } · { Composition, Creativity, Love, Meditation, Music, Music Composition, Music Production, Production, Sharing, Solutions, Teaching, Therapy }
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In this class, people will use their voices to elicit emotion. The class is inherently experiential and experimental, with the participants exploring their voices, their emotions, and their interrelationships, all within a safe, fun, and enticing environment. Exercises will include visualization, meditation, breathing, calisthenics, rhythm, melody, harmony, dissonance, tone/timbre, volume/amplitude, texture (monophonic, polyphonic), etc. In such an experimental and interactive creative environment, we will foster community via people sharing in the creation and experience of a wide array of emotions, including love, sadness, joy, power, anger, grooviness, happiness, play, confusion, and peace.

Enchanted Rock

{ 2007 September 10 @ 9:43 pm } · { Composition, Creativity, Design, Fiction, Meditation, Poetry }
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As great and ebon pillars frame
The vaulted granite and nurture the
Bell-watcher, so do overarching
Branches bower all I feel
From this bough-strung, airy cot.
Ah! God’s world! Yes, He made it for us
And lives astride it; and by prayer
And right living, from within
The forest grove we may yet
See him in our minds; crouched
Heavily on his gilt-leaden throne,
Dizzying white to even most-exalted
Human brain. O! Lord of lords!
Highest of the high! Thou art First
And Last, Means and Measure of ev’ry
Plastic, fallible thing of thy creation.
O! To live and be with Thee
Above this dreary world of decay.
To shine forever with the unfalt’ring
Blaze of motionless stars,
Ne’er to feel the pangs of love lost
Or unrequited; ne’er to see the last
Embers of a brother’s once-flaring
Vitality slowly fade into engulfing
Darkness; O! The mere hint of a thought
From thy most Perfect Intellect
Instantly manifests infinitudes of worlds,
Inhabited with creatures of Purity and Grace:
Great winged lions Pneuma-lifted,
Reconnoitre and pounce on the Imperfect:
Twisted, knotting flesh succumbs to
Tooth and claw; the loveliest of womankind
Stroll through fields of primrose, fine garments
Flowing about their bosoms; they help
One another out of their twisted tangles
Of fabric and one by one dive
Into wat’ry ablution, singing
“Hail Mary, full of Grace!
Turn to us thy Perfect Face!
When thou seest what we have done,
Thy wrath shall fall’st upon thy Son!”

O! were the base and lower creatures
Of this sticky, fragile valley grand
As that pinion’d enforcer of Heavenly Law!
Were men and women Heavenward lifted
And purged of whimsical carnal desires!
O! were the very ground upon
Which we standeth steadfast
As thy Word, O Lord! Through me
Sing thy empowering songs of creation!

Atop the precipice of this enchanted rock
I survey the confused maze of human
Order, god-like; from darkness beneath
My forward-looking eyes emerges
A pure, sinuous drone to which beats
The rhythm of my heart and synchronously
The receding ripples of hill and dale.
Obscuring a nearer peak, mists hover
And all signs of life smother:
Thick cloud of acid rain casts
Sheets of death over all it darkens;
But as it passes to a succeeding vale
The light of my seeing beholds a peak
Recreated: bright with new-budding flowers’
Open invitations to free-roaming bees;
New-branching trees reach out
To embrace and enfold the very reaches
Of Heaven; river trout play and burst
The dancing and splashy surface of bubbly
Bourne, drunk on crispy post-shower
Air. Spots of such cloud obscure
Variously among my vista, carried upon
Viewless, inconstant winds that now billow
Up from below, now beat me from beside,
Now tease nape-hairs in subtle desultory tugs.

O! Enchanted rock! Still
And silent forever in thy massive permanence!
Though divine breeze buffet thy barren slopes,
Though soft rain pound thy granite shores,
Though warming sun bake thy stressless crevices,
Still dost thou stand, irresponsive, silent
But for the moaning blasts that gust amain
Through thy mysterious caves and crags;
Still dost thy sheer mass and impenetrability
Impress upon this mutable earth
Thy imposing form, stamping thy design
Upon this world of immediate sensation.

* * *

Down into the hallows of the rock
We travel, disembodied and borne
Aloft by the selfsame wind that carries
The Word from its berth among inner caverns
Out into the world and now back again,
Having deposited in that soddy vale
The heavy crudities of its broadest meaning.
As we delve deeper into the ancient darkness,
The air loses its warmth and likewise
The caverns slow-shine of an alien light
Of unknown yet steady hue,
Like the chill, eternal night
Of arctic borea. Here are frozen
In perfect magnitude beauties in essence:
I reach to touch upon first sight
A band of pure gold inlaid with dazzling diamonds–
My hand flinches in quick retreat
From inhuman cold. Borne now
To a deeper, vaulted chamber
Which roof is crystalline to sight
Even at this impossibly eternal height,
Cistene figures imag’d of most brilliant
Shapes and colours caught mid-step–:
Beautiful serpent coyly coiled
Upon that cursed apple tree,
Fruit of Knowledge yet upon
The lips of ambitious Eve;
Damned, lonely Adam ever
Reaching, tantalised by God’s closeness,
The sight of whose Infinite Being upwells
In him an ever more aching hunger.

My heart cries out for the guiltless souls
Of physical First Man and Woman,
And though in Heaven ripe fruit ne’er falls,
On earth it does, and when it lands
In the lazy lap of a dozing poet,
The dreamer wakes and the hungry eat.

Earth My Body

{ 2007 August 27 @ 8:14 pm } · { Creativity, Love, Meditation, Music, Music Composition, Music Production, Peace, Poetry }
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My old friend Dell is helping me with “Earth My Body,” which is a song taught to me by this great guy Kaj (pron: “kai”) at the Kerrville Folk Festival back in, say, 1991. Simple words:

Earth my body,

water my blood,

wind my breath,

and fire my spirit.

For my first two years at Kerrville, drum circles were just kick-ass: very often, very nice, very humbling, spiritual, powerful, communal. Exactly what my soul desired at the time (and has been craving ever since). (Since the KFF is a "songwriter’s" festival, KFF, Inc. officially banned drums after my second year– quite probably as a direct result of our drumming– which was, to me, at least, and i know to most anyone who was present at this particular circle– among the most divine experiences in my life.)

One evening, on the back of Chapel Hill, the darkest, quietest, most sacred spot on the ranch…

…nice fire,

a dozen or more beautiful hippies,

clear sky, no moon.

lots of stars.

smallish fire.

 

Kaj starts this beat.

He’d taught me this song earlier,

so i knew it. Dropped right in with my talking drum,

got it going.

Organically, grows.

People join in as their spirit gets it–

“gets” it.

Groks it.

All of it going on: super-natural.

Kaj starts singing.

I join.

We sing in unison for quite some time,

and one by one,

people start joining in,

start singing in this unison, this one song…

Once this feeling, this communal bond, is established,

i add a harmony,

the 5th,

very quietly at first,

blending it in as just an overtone.

And it grows.

Soon others join in the harmony as well.

i add the 3rd,

quietly at first,

and soon all three parts are going,

and everyone is feeling it,

knowing,

that–

this is something special!

Everybody knows it, is singing,

playing, harmonizing,

the spirit of the song so growing organically,

moving us all

from the inside

to play as IT

–the SONG–

wants to be played, to be manifested in this plane of reality…

for she is the message,

and we, the messengers…

And i’m on fucking autopilot–

dun-dun talking away–

talking with–

–holding conversations with–

every individual musician/instrument-combination in the circle–

taking turns, listening, responding–

listen/reply–

hear/say–

joke/laugh–

cry/weep–

bless/thanks–

spit/spat–

The spirit rises–

we are all orbiting Pluto–

the stars spinning round our heads–

the gods whirling ‘twixt our souls–

hearts beat in time–

the earth throbs with us–

fire-sparks join our spirits rising–

the wind sings harmonies in the trees octaves higher–

energies race to the farthest oceans of space–

brightening the darkness

all around us,

within us

…

eventually we drop;

we feel the spirit quiet.

As one, we fade,

leaving only the crackling of the fire,

the chirping of the crickets,

the wind, still calling our universal names…

In silence, we all exhale,

for the first time in 20 minutes

(though it seems lifetimes).

i look up at the stars and think,

“wow! look at the stars!”

i hear a voice across the circle whisper:

“wow! look at the stars!”

i think to myself, “this must be God,”

another voice across the way:

“this must be God.”

i think to myself: “I am THIRSTY!!!”

someone hands me a bottle of water.

Like that.

–

Anyway, it’s such a wonderful, meditative chant on our inner connection with our world. It’s always stayed with me, and I always wanted to lay down some kind of version of it. So, finally, in the summer of ‘05, i did. But I’m not perfectly happy with it, so just a few nights ago, I was iChatting with Dell, and he brought up again how he’d like to do some collaboration over the internet, like I’m doing with Jon. So, right there I tell him about “Earth My Body,” and he says, “send send.”

So, I’m excited about music again. Lots of it going on in my life right now… just need some money to be able to keep it coming. Oh, Brotherhood of God, help me open the God-Mind connection, to manifest greatness and goodness, joy and health, for the greater good of the Universe and Everyone Concerned…

Kirtan: the Yoga of Singing. Of Course.

{ 2006 August 23 @ 12:05 pm } · { Change, Creativity, Family, Love, Meditation, Music, Music Production, Peace, Poetry }
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Just heard Jai Uttal and his group (Jai Uttal and the pagan love orchestra) singing “Om Nemah Shivaya”, a gorgeous Hare Krishna-esque chant from their “Nectar” album. Upon visiting his website, I’ve discovered that there is– suprise!– a “yoga of singing,” called “kirtan.” And here is some information about a workshop Uttal will be holding around the turn of the new year.

What a wonderful thing! As I heard the song, a call-and-response singalong, I just couldn’t help but sing along. And soon, I was picturing in my head “my people.” My future. The dream of my future, in a beautiful, natural setting, with my friends and family surrounding me, all of us singing together in this beautiful sound, feeling and sharing love and smiles.

Kirtan. The Yoga of Singing. Of course.

The God-Mind Connection

{ 2006 August 17 @ 10:03 pm } · { Creativity, Family, Love, Meditation, Problems, Therapy }
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M and I have been reading this really powerful book called “The God-Mind Connection,” by Jean K. Foster. I say “powerful” because it is really making me aware of how to tap into the infinite power of God. Now, that term “God” kinda bugs me, but I am definitely getting over it, simply because I’m realizing that such terminology for the unnameable is simply a convenience, and that I do, in fact, understand what is meant by the term “God,” anyway.

But I have such mixed feelings about the possible job at EB BCo. in Seattle lately, with the sudden death of Aunt Kay and its accompanying complications, plus the fact that M and I have so little money these days, all of which makes it difficult to purchase the airfare to Seattle for said interview… I mean, if this is part of my “growth plan”, then why is it seeming so “hairy,” so borderline possible?

According to Jean K. Foster, I need detailed pictures of my dreams…

I do still dream about owning some land up in the San Juan islands— on Orcas Island, specifically– right on the water, up a gentle slope, with a little babbling brook running thru green, open pastures, surrounded by tall evergreens… Dappled with colorful, fragrant flowers, birds twittering, deer peeking thru the trees occasionally. A main house with a big kitchen and eating/congregating area, several spacious bedrooms, offices, libraries, a big bubbling hot tub…

And out a ways, thru tree-covered paths or down beautiful sunlit trails, are scattered several other, smaller cabins where our friends and family live and help us maintain the place, tilling the garden, tending the animals, installing solar panels, windmills and power plants, constructing buildings off-the-grid…

A place where like-minded people can raise their children and commune with other loving souls…

Yes. Something like that.

And, also in accord with Foster, a temple… A place where one may go to commune with God. A place in which to re-fuel… To re-charge and re-center… To remember and re-remember one’s calling.

But what I really need to work on is inviting God into my heart, or at least inviting the Brotherhood of God (Foster’s “facilitators”) into my heart to that I can follow my “growth plan.”

I thus feel that this move to Seattle is part of that plan. It gets us up there to that area.

I feel, however, that another part of my growth plan is music and community. Drum circles. Communion via the drum vibration… This aspect of my life has just been missing for so long now…

–
As one of my biggest problems right now is our debt, I just talked to this financial advisor, Zack Niehaus. (Very strange because he just called me, just as I’d typed “But what I really need to work on is…” above!) I’ve had problems trusting financial advisors before, simply because I guess I wasn’t really honest with them. The truth is that we are maxxed out. We have no credit available.

Which, if seen from the proper perspective, means that “it can only get better.” I think if I can stay un-obsessed with my computers— which means my freakin’ iTunes Library, mostly— then I think I can maintain the track of positive productivity. I’m feeling great, too. Had a nice little quickie session with my sweetie just before I came to work, and at one point, I got the picture of our farm/commune up in Orcas, with the glowing addition of a child— our child— running, laughing, playing in the sun. So beautiful it makes me cry…

It really seems that, when I am seeing from my god-mind, all around me are the resources I need to become what I am striving for. Ask the question about my addiction… “is there help for me with my addiction?”

The God-Mind connection, the Brotherhood of God…

There is no growth in my addiction, only stagnation, which, if anything is the Devil, it is stagnation: non-growth, sadness, and the realizing of my own personal Hell. And in my life, actually, nothing is just personal. I am married to the beautiful MAW, so I share everything with her. Including my own “personal” Hell.

I do not want anything but the best—in other words, HEAVEN— for M. And thus, I only want the best for myself…!

Love.

Dreams of a Particular Destiny. And Not in Real Life.

{ 2006 January 20 @ 3:48 pm } · { Change, Meditation, Peace, Problems, Therapy }
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Had an interesting dream t’other night… Of all people, Frank Garcia was sorta my avatar… I knew Frank in high school, in choir, mainly, and he was mean. He was a “friend,” in a way, but he was mean to me and alot of others, too. In other words, not the kind of person i would consider “enlightened” or a “spiritual guide” of any sort.

Anyway, the dream had been going on for a while, and i only remember from this point: we were in an airliner, but i was holding onto Frank’s hands as he was dangling out a hole in the fuselage. Deafening wind. He’s holding in his hand this keychain with two keys on it. He wants me to say something like “i believe in God,” or “i believe in your church,” or something like that– something having to do with his religion. But i just couldn’t bring myself to say it. Instead, i said, “it’s not worth it.”

At which point he lets go and falls into oblivion.

Fast forward to “now.” My life is in shambles. M has left me. I have no job. I’m an emotional wreck. Directionless, pointless. But one day i get this overwhelming feeling that i need to go to Fairbanks, Alaska. And there just so happens to be a Humvee show at a local exhibition hall. M and i (yeah, somehow she’s back) devise some way to steal an H2– it must be a white one, since we’ll be in snow.

So we’ve got the H2 and we’re on the road, and i somehow hear that there has been a death in Frank’s family. I go to the funeral, and his whole family is there, and they tell me that Frank wanted me to have this: and they hand me one of the keys he’d been holding onto when he fell out of the plane.

That was important. That was like the third sign that i had some particular destiny. Some distinct destiny that was uniquely mine. And i became conscious of it. I really began to notice little things i probably wouldn’t have noticed before that indeed pointed me in this distinct and particular direction: Fairbanks, Alaska.

I began having “visions” of sliding a key into a lock, and just figured that that lock must be in Fairbanks.

And this whole while, i was sorta waking up at various points in the dream, making little notes, hoping to be able to bring it all to surface again someday while i was awake, so i could write it down. It just really felt important that i follow my feelings to Fairbanks, to see what i could open with Frank’s key. Very much like some sort of redemption for letting Frank die, for letting him down, for not simply saying those two simple words: “i believe,” even if i didn’t believe.

That’s it. But since then, i’ve been trying to see some particular destiny for myself. Like last night, M and I went to the grand opening of Brother Chi Sing’s Trinity River Sangha. I’ve really been attracted to Chi Sing’s energy since he gave a talk and really led the service one Sunday in early December 2005 at the Oak Cliff Unitarial Universalist Church. His service was very mindful. And he was just so nice, and peaceful, and his way of talking very soothing and his presence so easy and happy. He started out leading us in a like 5-minute silent sitting meditation right there in our chairs. Then he talked beautifully about being fully present in the here and now, and about what Buddhists are, what they believe, etc. And finally, he led us in a 10-minute walking meditation around the church’s nice 5-acre lot thru the trees, around the grounds, etc. Very very nice.

And M and i had the very night of this dream hadda very nice talk about the direction of our lives, and about the lack of such direction in my life in particular, and how i am starting to feel like i need mentors & teachers & guides in my life. We talked about how i’ve always been fed the idea that i need to be unique, and unlike anyone else– always be myself, as if who i am really is different than everyone and anyone else.

But what if i am NOT unique? What if i have a particular destiny? What if i can’t “make it” anymore by just “getting by”, by just “letting it be,” by not making any decisions, by just “going with the flow?” What if all that kind of attitude has gotten me is poor, lost, and directionless?

So. More change. More change is needed. I want more change. The sangha last night was really good feeling. I mean, other than the pain between my shoulder blades 15 minutes into the 20-minute silent sitting meditation. It felt good even afterwards while we were hanging out munching and socializing. Met a really cool local photographer, Kent Barker. One person mentioned “all those who suffer from substance addiction” during the “name your own prayer” segment of the service. To which i wanted to add, “and all other kinds of addiction.”

So it looks like some people are using this Sangha as a means to fight their problems. To which i say, “more power!” I know I need help in that direction.

Gotta go. Money problems now. Need to come up with like $1000 really soon. Fucking sucks. Somehow i got one month behind on our CCATCU loan payments… I fucking HATE money…