Walk Don't Walk

I went to a "meditation flash mob" this evening in Union Square. After my 45 minute ride on the L train, I came up into a Friday night in Manhattan with Hare Krishnas playing their finger cymbals and a funky beat from some other street celebrants. The moment I sat down on the ground with two hundred or so other meditators in front of the statue of George Washington on his horse I felt....sublime. So so soft.

Then most of the crowd did a silent walking meditation up Broadway. I have never walked so slowly in NYC in my life--what would be considered a normal, if relaxed, pace for most of the country. It was that magic Maxfield Parrish time of day, the high west sides of buildings sunset orange. We walked into ABC Home, a huge fancy shmancy home decor + clothing store with a gallery type space upstairs where Thich Nhat Hanh's calligraphy was being displayed and sold. Somebody had a good time designing this exhibit. A Buddhist nun sat in the middle of the floor leading everyone in a beautiful Betsy Rose song. She taught it to us seamlessly, a section at a time in between anecdotes about people learning to breathe into their anger. If Martha Stewart and Mister Rogers got to design heaven, it might be like this. Breathing in, I smile. Breathing out, I admire $495 linen dresses without attachment. Happiness flowered in me from music, from human goodness, and from art.

Everyone on the L train looked so beautiful, all the way back to Canarsie.

Ancestry hide and seek

Communion

"a universe that eats and drinks itself..."

--Allen Ginsberg

The body of Christ has a voice

One voice from many

Harmony is consonance and dissonance

Dance and disaster

The y-axis of holy sound

One way we know we are one.

The body of Christ has a beat

x=x=x

It vibrates at regular intervals

The body of Christ has sex

Loves itself with a rhythm

Self. Other. Self. Other.

We oscillate, we radiate,

we sing our fossil fate as we transform

into our larger selves

I am. We are.

I am. We are.

I am. We are.

And we are all together

We feed each other at arm's length

We bump and grind

We digest nourishment, each from the other

In pairs or Pangea, we learn to love well

We sing inside each other's voices

We smell each other's smell

We die and are reborn, God's compost,

the sound of the bell

Not because we fear the flames of hell

But because we yearn to love well