06-12-2006, 08:26 PM
Sacred Sounds Gathering each Full Moon
and other archeoastronomical events
Located on the Big Island of Hawai'i
Embracing music from all spiritual traditions,
including our own.
Aloha,
My name is Benjamin Kinsey, and I have a dream. I invite you to learn more about my dream to see if it resonates with you in any way, though I don't expect my ideas will universally appeal to everyone.
This dream is a synthesis of a worldwind of different ideas, but the fundamental idea is that spirituality is interconnected with music. Churches have their hymns, native americans have their pow-wows, buddhists and hindus have their chanting, aboriginees have their didgeridoo dreamtime, and so on.
In the west, a number of new traditions have emerged rejoining music with spirituality. Each approaches my dream to some extent, and have advantages and disadvantages.
Alchemical Fire Circles
pro: circular, outdoors, revolves around fire, no leader, tight spiritual focus, can be very transformative, lots of amenities and creature comforts, space between songs
con: drumming and dancing focus sidelines non-dancers and drummers, registration often costs substantial money, english chant focus narrows down the chant inventory
Sacred Arts Circle
pro: spontaneous, no leader
con: short lasting, rush to finish evening, indoors
Dances of Universal Peace
pro: circular, strives to include music from all traditions
con: often leader based, dancing focus sidelines non-dancers, too short lasting for deep spiritual transformation, space between songs usually filled with leader talking
Rainbow Gathering Music Circles
pro: absolutely free, outdoors, extremely non-leadership based, revolves around fire, can be very long lasting, literally all night
con: often non-circular, extremely disorganized, often lacks spiritual focus, usually no space between songs, best musicians often out-volumed by restless drum tappers, usually no amenities or creature comforts, people sit right up to the fire, almost like claiming territory, even sometimes falling asleep at the fire (usually because there is not enough warm places to crash out) putting music makers in an awkward position, gatherings are sometimes illegal and interrupted by authority figures.
Western Version of Native American Sweat Lodge
pro: circular, can be very transformative
con: different levels of heat tolerance, heat can be dangerous, distracting, sometimes leader based
Western Version of Indian Devotional Singing:
pro: music can be very beautiful
con: call and response style requires leadership, music usually focused only on one particular spiritual tradition, non-circular: often sitting facing the leader or altar on the side or corner, usually indoors
Western Music Band:
pro: each musician gets heard
con: non-circular, often non-spiritual, usually dependent on electronic amplification, usually indoors
My dream: combine the pros of all the different approaches.
(1) Circularity: focus is on a small ceremonial fire in the center, not an altar in the corner or a leader on the stage. Giant bonfires isolate and obscure people on opposite sides and work only for drum circles. In any case, wood, like any biomass, is sacred in this area of thin soil and should only be consumed in moderation.
(2) Tight spiritual focus: At the very least, the fire itself will be a sacred fire, not a trash fire! Please keep your butts, plastic, inked trash and treated wood out. The ash will be used for ceremonial purposes, maybe even consumed or used to wash dishes, so it must be kept 100% pure.
(3) Transformative: no rush to finish a song or to end an evening. Spend the night if you want. May morning birdsong humble us all, to put down our instruments, and lullabye us to sleep.
(4) Outdoors: protected from the elements only by the minimum structure necessary
(5) Free: thus 100% non-exclusive (except for disruptive people, who will be disinvited)
(6) Some amenities and creature comforts: site situated will be adjacent to a kitchen (similar to the Garden Temple on Big Island). Latrine available. I will try to keep batches of chai brewing.
(7) Open to music from all spiritual traditions: musical genres include chanting, jamming, om-ing, toning, droning, throat singing, etc and will expand as skill increases.
(8) Intimacy: circle is small enough that muisicians can make eye contact, see chords being played on each other's instruments, etc. If event gets too popular, all promotion will cease.
(9) Low Volume: intention to give space to the most shamanic musician. The most shamanic musician is the musician channeling spirit in the moment, and may not be the one who initiated a song, or even who knows the song the best, and ideally, will be traded off between many people even within the same song. In any case, no waking up the baby!
(10) Circle dancing occassionally, to bring up the energy, and chase sleepers away. Generally however, music will be played "shanti-dhuni style" which is relaxed, sitting, meditative
(11) Regularity based not on western calendar, but on astronomical (lunar-solar) calendar, i.e. will be held on nights closest to the full moon, solstices, equinoxes, etc.
(12) Increasing fluency with the language of music. "Let's play that in C"
(13) Unity with other sacred sound makers around the world, such as Dan Furst and friends in Egypt
(14) Moving towards making our music distinctly hawai'ian - willingness to try slack keys, etc.
(15) Intention to share our music with those not able to join us. Sessions will be recorded and uploaded to archive.org as creative commons/open source music. Gradually, we will build one of the largest libraries of free sacred sounds music.
(16) Generally, I envision a potluck dinner starting 2 hours before sunset. Music circle will begin promptly at sunset and last for as long as the energy is sweet, perhaps until morning.
(17) For those who spend the night: Yoga and chai in the morning.
This dream will take time to realize, because there is no perfect site available. For lack of any alternative, I volunteer the use of a portion of my family's land in the Puna District of Big Island (in Hawai'ian Acres subdivision)
My family's land has some advantages and some disadvantages.
Pro: adjacent to Hawai'is largest intact rainforest, thus, plenty of firewood is available; private land so we can close the gate if we so choose; as it is my own land I can more easily share my collection of bulky instruments.
Con: the land is beyond the pavement by two miles of poorly maintained roads, relatively far from the ocean, being in the mountains, it is relatively rainy, esp during wet season. We have neighbours within 300'-500' in two directions, so full volume drum circles on my family's land are not possible.
I have a business and a family, and these must be my highest priority. I am slowly preparing my family's land to host
a temple, a composting toilet and a parking lot. The temple will be a combination fire circle and outdoor kitchen, modeled sort of after the Garden Temple.
__________________________________
About the author: Benjamin Kinsey has been exploring sacred sounds for over 10 years. A world traveler and now family man, he recently relocated to Hawai'ian Acres. He has written free software which generates custom chord dictionaries. He is a freelance computer consultant with his own company called PUNAcomputer.com, and a free/open source software advocate. For correspondence, email benjamin at the domain name of PUNAcomputer.com
and other archeoastronomical events
Located on the Big Island of Hawai'i
Embracing music from all spiritual traditions,
including our own.
Aloha,
My name is Benjamin Kinsey, and I have a dream. I invite you to learn more about my dream to see if it resonates with you in any way, though I don't expect my ideas will universally appeal to everyone.
This dream is a synthesis of a worldwind of different ideas, but the fundamental idea is that spirituality is interconnected with music. Churches have their hymns, native americans have their pow-wows, buddhists and hindus have their chanting, aboriginees have their didgeridoo dreamtime, and so on.
In the west, a number of new traditions have emerged rejoining music with spirituality. Each approaches my dream to some extent, and have advantages and disadvantages.
Alchemical Fire Circles
pro: circular, outdoors, revolves around fire, no leader, tight spiritual focus, can be very transformative, lots of amenities and creature comforts, space between songs
con: drumming and dancing focus sidelines non-dancers and drummers, registration often costs substantial money, english chant focus narrows down the chant inventory
Sacred Arts Circle
pro: spontaneous, no leader
con: short lasting, rush to finish evening, indoors
Dances of Universal Peace
pro: circular, strives to include music from all traditions
con: often leader based, dancing focus sidelines non-dancers, too short lasting for deep spiritual transformation, space between songs usually filled with leader talking
Rainbow Gathering Music Circles
pro: absolutely free, outdoors, extremely non-leadership based, revolves around fire, can be very long lasting, literally all night
con: often non-circular, extremely disorganized, often lacks spiritual focus, usually no space between songs, best musicians often out-volumed by restless drum tappers, usually no amenities or creature comforts, people sit right up to the fire, almost like claiming territory, even sometimes falling asleep at the fire (usually because there is not enough warm places to crash out) putting music makers in an awkward position, gatherings are sometimes illegal and interrupted by authority figures.
Western Version of Native American Sweat Lodge
pro: circular, can be very transformative
con: different levels of heat tolerance, heat can be dangerous, distracting, sometimes leader based
Western Version of Indian Devotional Singing:
pro: music can be very beautiful
con: call and response style requires leadership, music usually focused only on one particular spiritual tradition, non-circular: often sitting facing the leader or altar on the side or corner, usually indoors
Western Music Band:
pro: each musician gets heard
con: non-circular, often non-spiritual, usually dependent on electronic amplification, usually indoors
My dream: combine the pros of all the different approaches.
(1) Circularity: focus is on a small ceremonial fire in the center, not an altar in the corner or a leader on the stage. Giant bonfires isolate and obscure people on opposite sides and work only for drum circles. In any case, wood, like any biomass, is sacred in this area of thin soil and should only be consumed in moderation.
(2) Tight spiritual focus: At the very least, the fire itself will be a sacred fire, not a trash fire! Please keep your butts, plastic, inked trash and treated wood out. The ash will be used for ceremonial purposes, maybe even consumed or used to wash dishes, so it must be kept 100% pure.
(3) Transformative: no rush to finish a song or to end an evening. Spend the night if you want. May morning birdsong humble us all, to put down our instruments, and lullabye us to sleep.
(4) Outdoors: protected from the elements only by the minimum structure necessary
(5) Free: thus 100% non-exclusive (except for disruptive people, who will be disinvited)
(6) Some amenities and creature comforts: site situated will be adjacent to a kitchen (similar to the Garden Temple on Big Island). Latrine available. I will try to keep batches of chai brewing.
(7) Open to music from all spiritual traditions: musical genres include chanting, jamming, om-ing, toning, droning, throat singing, etc and will expand as skill increases.
(8) Intimacy: circle is small enough that muisicians can make eye contact, see chords being played on each other's instruments, etc. If event gets too popular, all promotion will cease.
(9) Low Volume: intention to give space to the most shamanic musician. The most shamanic musician is the musician channeling spirit in the moment, and may not be the one who initiated a song, or even who knows the song the best, and ideally, will be traded off between many people even within the same song. In any case, no waking up the baby!
(10) Circle dancing occassionally, to bring up the energy, and chase sleepers away. Generally however, music will be played "shanti-dhuni style" which is relaxed, sitting, meditative
(11) Regularity based not on western calendar, but on astronomical (lunar-solar) calendar, i.e. will be held on nights closest to the full moon, solstices, equinoxes, etc.
(12) Increasing fluency with the language of music. "Let's play that in C"
(13) Unity with other sacred sound makers around the world, such as Dan Furst and friends in Egypt
(14) Moving towards making our music distinctly hawai'ian - willingness to try slack keys, etc.
(15) Intention to share our music with those not able to join us. Sessions will be recorded and uploaded to archive.org as creative commons/open source music. Gradually, we will build one of the largest libraries of free sacred sounds music.
(16) Generally, I envision a potluck dinner starting 2 hours before sunset. Music circle will begin promptly at sunset and last for as long as the energy is sweet, perhaps until morning.
(17) For those who spend the night: Yoga and chai in the morning.
This dream will take time to realize, because there is no perfect site available. For lack of any alternative, I volunteer the use of a portion of my family's land in the Puna District of Big Island (in Hawai'ian Acres subdivision)
My family's land has some advantages and some disadvantages.
Pro: adjacent to Hawai'is largest intact rainforest, thus, plenty of firewood is available; private land so we can close the gate if we so choose; as it is my own land I can more easily share my collection of bulky instruments.
Con: the land is beyond the pavement by two miles of poorly maintained roads, relatively far from the ocean, being in the mountains, it is relatively rainy, esp during wet season. We have neighbours within 300'-500' in two directions, so full volume drum circles on my family's land are not possible.
I have a business and a family, and these must be my highest priority. I am slowly preparing my family's land to host
a temple, a composting toilet and a parking lot. The temple will be a combination fire circle and outdoor kitchen, modeled sort of after the Garden Temple.
__________________________________
About the author: Benjamin Kinsey has been exploring sacred sounds for over 10 years. A world traveler and now family man, he recently relocated to Hawai'ian Acres. He has written free software which generates custom chord dictionaries. He is a freelance computer consultant with his own company called PUNAcomputer.com, and a free/open source software advocate. For correspondence, email benjamin at the domain name of PUNAcomputer.com
