In my early twenties, I had a personal close up encounter with death that became a close call to ceasing to exist from this current human life altogether.
I had been back and forth to a hospital for reoccurring emergency surgeries due to undefined stomach pain for some months. Eventually, during the third surgery preparations in a row, my mind spontaneously evacuated the body. I remember my last thought thinking: If there is anything left that I need to do in this life, I trust that this body will take care of this.
If it had not been due to my early practice days of meditation, I hadn’t been prepared for that moment with trust, surrender, and peace. Due to spending hours and days soaked in meditation, I had real tools to apply when my time to face the inescapable occurred. Without a spiritual practice that could have been a scary fact of life to embrace.
To prepare for this inescapable moment, it is crucial to step closer to that which might scare us. A lot can be learned from befriending death if we dare to stare the great riper in the eye sockets. When our bones become one with the earth, take roots, sprout and penetrate the surface, our interdependence with our surroundings become clear.
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In Buddhism, we talk about the links between our flesh and ignorance, our blood and desire, our bones, and aggression. If we instead of holding on to that which pains us due to ignorance, desire, and hatred, we can choose to acknowledge the pain right down to our bones, our pain and others, feel it, honor it and then let it go. Remembering that we are not confined by our bodies, names, or history that we are temporarily identifying with. Ultimately we are innate light, an eternal interconnected web, a storehouse of dancing truth.
Fifteen years ago, when we recorded “Jord” (Earth), I was still active with my body-mind-spirit method CM – Conscious Movement. The cello player Gertrud Stenung and I gave many kirtan concerts and worked together with acoustic music and dance as a healing art. “Jord” contains one of my trademark meditations from that period in time. It begins with a guided relaxation that takes you on a journey through the densest part of your body, your bones, as you let go and surrender into the earth. The relaxation touches on themes such as creation, death, interconnectedness, and surrender. It is followed by a seated meditation guided by visualizations riding on the natural breath through your spine. Through the practice of letting our current identification of self blend into the bigger picture, our surroundings, and fill that landscape with love, vitality, creativity, and compassion we can become aware of our interconnectedness.
The soothing accompanying music has been tried out live with many students who love what we are offering, long before this album was recorded. The music for Jord is composed and performed on cello, piano, and electronic glass piano by Gertrud Stenung. Due to these days of huge transition, I decided to make a new release of Jord and make it available digitally. May you find joy, peace, and truth in your own heart through this beautiful practice.
Jord will be available in all major online stores from July 14th, 2020.
10% of profits from sales of this album goes to water aid projects, as a contribution towards a more sustainable future for the world.
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May all beings benefit,
Chimey
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