Gong

“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.

-Emily Dickinson

Some of you friends have asked for details regarding what we’re up to now, most lately and specifically,  The Gong Experience.  Well, here goes.  Until fairly recently, my only experience with a gong was watching The Gong Show as a kid and the gong at The Golden Buddha Chinese restaurant, formerly on the east side of Detroit, long gone. As a kid I got to gong the gong when we went out to dinner there, always my restaurant choice for a birthday dinner, largely because of the gong.  This was, perhaps, a foreshadowing.

I have more recently been introduced to the singing of the gong during my introduction to Kundalini yoga.  The sound experience was unlike anything I have known and I found myself drawn to the opportunity to learn more. We spent 24 hours over the past two days in phase one of the class, The Gong and Self-Mastery.  We are a group of 15, many of us previously strangers to each other, quite diverse strangers, now a group of partners learning to flow together, to doubt, struggle, bask and play.  Here is a little about what it was like for me.

Let me be clear;  I am not a musician.  At all.  I loved to sing to my kids when I tucked them in at night.  They fell asleep very quickly.  There was a reason for that. My connection to music, beside enjoying it and admiring the ability of others to make it, was dance.  I danced classical ballet for many years, and enjoyed it greatly, except for when I didn’t.  Since the kids are now too big to stand on top of my feet and dance around the living room, well I haven’t danced much lately.  Anyway, this weekend I found myself in a class with some incredibly inspired and talented musicians, some of whom have even made beautiful CD’s of their performances with the gongs (yes, these people exist) and the rest, well maybe there was no one else as markedly unmusical as me, but I bet none of them had ever been to a birthday dinner at The Golden Buddha.

Our teacher, Sotantar Suraj has his own uniquely inspired manner of teaching “the way of the gong,” specifically using planetary gongs : gongs that are attuned in frequency to the frequency of the planets in our solar system.  There’s a mathematical formula for how these gongs are made, but since it is more advanced than the math necessary to balance my check book, I’ll leave it alone. Gong and Self-Mastery training involves more than learning how to technically play the instrument, but rather Sotantar guided us toward interfacing with the gong as a sacred entity, as a partner in the creation of healing energy vibration. As we also discovered, the gong serves as a mirror, reflecting back to us facets of our core, of our Devine nature, if we allow, if we are open to the discourse.  As we become clearer and more open, our own energy frequency increases and in turn we can affect an increase in the frequency of others, of the planet.  This is a good thing.  This is understood to be a healing thing.  This required some guts.

We all had our turns playing the gong alone in front of our team, followed by sharing our feelings about the experience and then receiving feedback from our teammates.  Our first experience was with the Sun gong, a massive 38″ energetic entity.  When I knelt in front of it I felt small, intimidated even.  But I did as I had been taught; I set an intention to be open, to step into the embrace, to have fun.  I knew that I was being encouraged to enter into the connection, to relax into it, trust, be with the flow, oh yeah, and to stay out of my head.  Right.  Somehow I managed to make my first connection, and then it happened, I began to dance.  I wasn’t thinking about proper technique, I wasn’t thinking about my teammates behind me, and although vaguely aware that there was VERY BIG sound coming  from my partner the gong, I was having a grand time.  My movements felt free and expansive, unselfconscious and really, really good. Somewhere in there, Sotantar gently took the mallet from me and holding it with an elegant looseness, placed my hand on his and we continued to play.  Suddenly I was back in my head and I thought, “I must have been doing something wrong.  Maybe I’m making too much noise.  Shit”.  But I continued to play until the hand on my shoulder told me that it was time to stop.  I turned to face my teammates, who I was surprised to see were still there, and when I opened my mouth to speak, I instead, cried.  I am not one to relish losing my composure in public; but I looked at the faces in front of me, at the other tears I saw, at one of the faces I love most in the world, and I said, “I have gone through much of my life trying not to make too much noise or to take up too much space.  I think I might be getting over that”.  And we laughed.  And they told me I made a joyful sound and that I danced.  And that I went big. And that it was a good thing.  I told Sotantar that when he took my hand I feared that I had done something wrong.  He told me that I had had “quite a grip” on the mallet and that he only wanted to show me that I could loosen.  I said, “Well I didn’t want it to get away from me”.  ”Uh huh”, he said.

Our journey continued into the following night, ending with us playing the much smaller Venus gong for eachother.  By the way, Christopher really rocked it out on Venus, who is rather notoriously difficult to play.  Uh huh. I, on the other hand, felt like I had when my children where young and danced standing on my feet.  I felt awkward, clumsy and ridiculously happy.  And then I laughed.

We ended the night noticing the different quality to the air, noticing a lightness of being. Together we had traveled somewhere marvelous.  Together we had created elevated, sacred and joyful sound.

Team 14, the beginning of the 14th team of its kind in the world, the first in the Midwestern United States, will continue to evolve.  Our intention is to continue to train and play together.  We’ll keep you posted on events and concerts, as will Team Christopher & Carol.  I hope you’ll join us in raising the vibration.  This has nothing to do with Chinese food.  This has to do with something else entirely.

She Let Go

Well then…

 

“She let go…without a thought or word, she let go.  She let go of the fear.  She let go of the judgements.  She let go of  the opinions swarming around her head.  She let go of the committee of indecision within her.  She let go of all the “right”reasons.  Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.  She didn’t ask anyone for advice.  She didn’t read a book  on how to let go.  She just let go.  She let go of all the memories that held her back.  She let go of all the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.  She let go of the planning and all the calculations about how to do it just right.  In the space of letting go, she let it all be.  A small smile came over her face.  A light breeze blew through her.  And the sun and the moon shone forever more.”

-Ernest Holmes

 

Story

 

“How are you tending the emerging story of your life?”  

We don’t “have” a story, rather our story  is a dynamic creation.  The spirit with which we author our story is, I believe, largely a function of  our intentional focus, and a large measure of courage.  Tending our stories well requires honesty and honesty requires clarity.  We must be willing to be awake to ourselves.  We must be willing to strip away the veil of illusion, the little lies we tell ourselves, if we are to welcome the mystery. We must be willing to step out into the light.  Even our most subtle ways of hiding must relax open if we are to unfold and step fully, powerfully into the living of a really good story.

Kindness

“Three things in human life are important.  The first is to be kind.  The second is to be kind.  The third is to be kind.”

-Henry James

Happy Spring Equinox

And the Nazz stepped away a little bit.

And he put a glorious sound of love on.

He said, “Oh sweet swing’n flowers of the field.”

And they said, “Oh great singular song to beauty.”

And he said, “Stomp upon the terra.”  They did.

He said, “Lift your miracle the body”.  The body went up.

He said, “Lift your arms”.  The arms went up.

He said, “Higher”.  They went higher.

He said, “DIG INFINIY!”

And they dug it.

-Lord Buckley

I’m gonna make a point of doing some stomping tomorrow.  Happy Spring and wishes for bright new blessings upon you.