Today was a great day! I am in Eau Claire, Wisconsin at Unity Christ Center (http://www.unityeauclaire.org/). This is one of my “home churches” and I visit here at least once a year. Today was their annual Garden Party and it was my second time to play this.
This morning we did the Sunday service outside in their beautiful garden area. I setup my keyboard on the gazebo which is inlaid with square stones bearing the names of people, divine ideas, etc. It was a gorgeous day. I spoke on “living an undivided life”, and did all the music, supported by Nancy Hirsch, a beautiful woman who was the platform person for the day.
The meditation that morning was incredible, as I basically just called our attention to all the sounds and feelings of being outside together on a wonderful day, with the reminder that everything we were experiencing were expressions of God. As we sat together in stillness, we could hear the songs of the birds in the trees, some of the littler kids playing in the rocks, and the not too very distant ring of wind chimes that had been hung in honor of our dear Savannah who passed over last year. (I was honored to help lead her memorial service and that is an experience I will always cherish.) We felt the breeze on our cheeks and the sun on our faces and knew the touch of God.
After the service we had lots of good food, and many musicians, including myself, jammed out on the gazebo the rest of the afternoon. I played some songs from my new CD as well as some blues and old rock n roll. Everyone always dances when I play Little Richard!
There were vendors set up outside and in the sanctuary as well, with scarves and artwork and organic potions and cards and stones and angels and pictures. I bought an amazing picture of a bee that a lady had taken and framed. This bee was not one of the fat little fuzzy friendly-looking bees that I always think of – this one is more of a hornet! Dazzling colors on a vibrant flower that jumps out from the picture, almost in your face, that says, “yes, I am a bee and I might sting you”. The lady, wearing a face mask and rubber gloves, told me the bee was “just bee-ing himself”, was authentic and strong and confident. She had obviously been listening to my message that morning and reeled me right in.
I also had the opportunity to experience a Reiki treatment with a wonderfully attuned woman, followed immediately by another exotic treatment from a young man who place magnets on me, toned over and into me, and vibrated my body with tuning forks. This was absolutely incredible and I had the feeling I was touched by my own personal angel who visited me during these times. It’s interesting to note that I had just the night before changed my desktop background on my laptop to a painting by Carravaggio of an angel ministering to St. Francis as he lay in ecstacy. On the table I vibrated and shook as the energy poured through me and felt vibrantly alive when my new friends had finished their ministrations.
At the end of the day, after the vendors had taken down their displays and the musicians had packed up their instruments, we sat around a fire, while my host Josh led us in Kirtan chanting. A tall handsome young man with dark hair and glasses, he sat cross-legged by the fire with his harmonium in front of him and a make-shift altar at his side, as we chanted songs to honor the Divine Feminine. This ceremony was to acknowledge a nine-day Hindu festival as well as the Fall Equinox. We smudged and offered rice to the fire. I placed my bee picture in front of the altar, along with the bracelet that my dear Christy made me at a retreat last year, and others added their pictures and jewelry. We sang and I played a drum softly in rhythm with Josh’s two-stringed Hindu guitar thang (I can’t remember what he called it). Later we all participated in the sacred Roasting of the Meat Tubes on Long Metal Forks ritual. There was a moment before we started singing, when I was just sitting on a bench in my white guru clothes I bought in Mexico, looking at the fire, and thinking what a wonderful life I am living, and how there wasn’t another place on earth that I wanted to be or another thing that I wanted to be doing.
Life is good.