Im l’vavi asicha, va’yichapais ruchi

With my heart, I meditate (converse) and my spirit searches. (Psalm 77:7)

There are three phases of this Heart meditation, all meant to awaken the heart as a vehicle of exploration and perception.

1st Phase (with sound and concentration)

1. Chant Im l’vavi asicha 3X with complete focused gentle attention to the “back door of the heart.”
2. As you chant va’yichapais ruchi, release and send the inner power that has accumulated in the heart out into the Universe. Let that spirit fly out and explore.
3. The 2nd time you chant va’yichapais ruchi, allow that spirit to return and find its home within your heart.

2nd phase (with sound and movement)

1. Turn head to the left, and as you chant Im l’vavi, circle down and around to the right. As you chant asicha circle down and around back to the left. Repeat 3X.
2. As you chant, va’yichapais ruchi, bow to the center, finding your depths.
3. The second time you chant, va’yichapais ruchi, lift yourself up into the fullness of your heart.

3rd Phase (silent chanting with breath concentration)

1. Im l’vavi, on the exhale, asicha in the inhale, spiraling in to the heart. Repeat 3X
2. On the exhale, va’yichapais ruchi, sending the breath out to search, taste and explore.
3. On the inhale, va’yichapais ruchi, letting the breath return with information, subtleties and richness.

To hear the various parts of the chant, use the audio players. To download a part, right-click a note and save (or download) the linked MP3 file.

• Heart Meditation 1
• Heart Meditation 2
• Heart Meditation Mix

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Heart Meditation PDF. For the musical notation, click Heart Meditation Music.

Sova smachot et panecha

Filling up with the joys of Your Presence (Psalm 16:11)

This is a practice of deliberately filling ourselves up with joy, beauty, light, and vitality. We chant that word “sova” three times, and with each repetition, we open up a greater capacity for joy, cultivating and stimulating those inner receptors that can open to Divine Presence. Sometimes I do this practice with my eyes open, taking in the beauty of the things of this world, filling up with the magnificence of light, color, fragrance and the vast variety of God’s Creation.

This practice can also be done as a circle dance. Stand in a circle and then face a partner. Look into your partners’ eyes and allow God’s light to shine through them to you. Each person that you face in this dance shines a particular and unique refraction of that one light. Fill up with that light as you chant Sova, sova, sova smachot (2X). Then as you chant Sova smachot et panecha the first time, take hands with your partner and slowly change places. The second time, turn to face your new partner and take in their unique light.

To hear the various parts of the chant, use the audio players. To download a part, right-click a note and save (or download) the linked MP3 file.

• Filling Up 1  
• Filling Up 2  
• Filling Up 3  
• Filling Up Mix  
  

< To download the PDF file for this chant, click Filling Up (Sova) PDF. For the musical notation, click Filling Up Music.

V’laila kayom ya-ir kachashaycha ka-orah

Night shines like day, darkness is as light. (Psalm 139:12)

Perek Shira is an ancient midrashic text that assigns a verse to each creature and hears the particular call of each aspect of Creation praising its Creator in song. One day, after vacationing on a lake in upstate New York, my beloved students, Wendy and Susan called me to ask, “Does the loon have a song in Perek Shira?” When I said, “no,” they suggested a text. I went immediately to the internet to listen to a recording of the loon’s call. Wendy described that call as mournful yearning. Susan said that although that was true, the mournful, yearning call of the loon led her to joy. Not many birds sing in the dark, but loons call to each other all through the night. The loons teach us to know the radiance of night, and to let even our darkness shine.

To hear the chant, use the audio player. To download the chant, right-click the note and save (or download) the linked MP3 file.

• The Song of the Loon  

To download the PDF file for this chant, click The Song of the Loon PDF.

Yiram hayam um’lo’o, tevel v’yoshvay vah.

Th sea in its fullness will roar, (also) the world and all its inhabitants. (Psalm 98:7)

While walking on the beach in Los Angeles, I listened to the great roar of the ocean and felt it as wilderness. The message of that roar cut through the thin veneer of civilization. I realized that just as the seas cover 70% of our planet, the waters within me also constituted 70% of my seemingly solid body. I felt a kinship with the ocean, and I heard that roar within me. I saw that all of our constructed reality- the inhabited world – was dwarfed in comparison with that vast wilderness that edged across my toes. As I listened to the roar of the ocean, I opened to the roar of our human lives surrounded like islands by the great sea of Oneness.

This is a practice of opening to the wild, oceanic, wondrous expanse, so that we might tap into that immense energy as the source of our creativity.

To hear the various parts of the chant, use the audio players. To download a part, right-click a note and save (or download) the linked MP3 file.

• That Roar 1  
• That Roar 2  
• That Roar Mix  

To download the PDF file for this chant, click That Roar PDF. For the musical notation, click That Roar Music.