Love/Death

09/03/2023 Alia Meira

Ki aza kamavet ahavah
Love/Death in Hebrew
For Love is as strong as Death. (Song of Songs 8:6)

Death is both the greatest challenge to Love and her greatest teacher.

In the face of Death, it is possible to close our hearts, constrict the contours of identity and defend the small self, out of that terror of not-being. And yet, death teaches us to treasure each moment, value each breath and come into a heightened awareness of the preciousness of this moment of love.

In the awareness of Death, the fullness of love blossoms. We surrender all that we are. It is a kind of ego-death. We are consumed by the passion of loving. We die to the past, invite in the unknowable Mystery of Love, open to the possibility of ego-annihilation, knowing that Love is as strong or stronger than any ambition, idea, conception or self-image.

To view context from Shir HaShirim through the Love at the Center project, click Shir HaShirm (Nitzavim).

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

Love/Death

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Love/Death PDF.

Chants, Scripture

After the Fire

06/04/2023 Alia Meira

V’achar ha’aysh, Kol D’mama Dakah
Hebrew for After the fire
And after the fire, a soft murmuring sound (1st Kings 19:12)

With the prophet Elijah we enter the storm. Through the wind, and the earthquake and the fire, we journey and are awakened to full aliveness. We are broken open. And then, in the silence we listen.

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

To download the PDF file for this chant, click After the Fire PDF. For the musical notation, click After the Fire notation PDF.

Chants, Shir HaShirim

I Was Asleep

05/02/2023 Alia Meira

Ani y’shaynah v’libi ayr
I Was Asleep in Hebrew
I was asleep, but my heart stayed awake. (Song of Songs 5:2)

I was asleep,
nearly unconscious,
I couldn’t see; I couldn’t hear;
I couldn’t know the love within me,
I was lost in all my parts,
Until my heart awakened me to wholeness.
Ani y’shaynah v’libi ayr.

Even when just a small place in my heart is awake, it can save me from going completely unconscious or from being completely lost in my stories and patterns. I want to pay attention to and encourage that tiny place of awakeness in my heart, honoring its aliveness, curiosity, humor and steadfast resilience. With that steady attention I give to the awakened heart, I encourage its influence on my whole being. That influence can lead me to joy, integration, healing and wholeness.

To view context from Shir HaShirim through the Love at the Center project, click Shir HaShirm (Emor).

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

To download the PDF file for this chant, click I Was Asleep PDF. For the musical notation, click I Was Asleep notation PDF.

Chants

A Narrow Bridge

04/07/2023 Alia Meira

Kol ha’olam kulo gesher tzar m’od
V’ha’ikar lo l’fachayd klal
graphic of Hebrew for A Narrow Bridge
All the world is a narrow bridge;
the main thing is not to fear. (R. Nachman of Bratzlav)

In calling all the world, a narrow bridge, I think Reb Nachman is reminding of us how treacherous it feels to walk this path of love. How easy it is to lose our way or stumble. So often we are pulled off-course by doubt, pain, trauma, distraction, boredom, numbness, cravings, restlessness or reactivity. In those dangerous moments of imbalance, the important thing to remember is not to fear.

I believe that this bridge is what connects the finite with the infinite. We are walking this path of love with keen awareness of the dangers. We are supporting each other in that steadfast purposeful love; strengthening each other in our resolve to stay true to love, and not let fear move us off the path.

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

To download the PDF file for this chant, click A Narrow Bridge PDF. For the musical notation, click A Narrow Bridge notation PDF.

Chants, Shir HaShirim

A Wild God

10/09/2022 Alia Meira

B’rach Dodi … Al Haray V’samim

Hurry my Beloved … to the hills of spices! (Song of Songs 8:14)

Happily ever after? Well, no.

The Song of Songs is our great Love story. As with all great stories, you might wonder, “Well, how does it end?” I grew up with a bedtime story, a myth, a blueprint for how love was supposed to go, where it was supposed to take me, that can be summed up with the words, “And they lived happily ever after.” The last note says, “Ta-da!” “The End.” And I’ve always been a sucker for those romantic comedies that warm my heart and lure me with their fantasies of “happily ever after.”

The Song of Songs ends on such a different note. The lover turns to her beloved in the Garden and says, “Go! Hurry, my Beloved! Flee! Be my gazelle, my young stag on the mountain of spices.”

She turns to Love, Reality, God, the vastness of Being and says, “I will not domesticate you with my concepts; I will not limit you with my convenient definitions; I will not settle for comfort and ease and a small predictable Reality…. because I have glimpsed your vastness, your wild immensity, your unfathomable nature. “

I live at the edge of wilderness, and I’m always playing at that edge. I have a small container garden on my porch, a hummingbird feeder and a seed-block for the woodpeckers, jays, juncos, grosbeaks and finches that I count as family. A grateful tribe of chipmunks live under my wooden planter boxes. Bears sometime lumber onto my porch to do their mischief. The seeds from my chive’s flowers waft off my porch into the ground the surrounds my house, taking root as tufts of delicious food for the deer that wander by.

The other day I stood on my porch and stared into the dark eyes of a doe who was leading her two young children into those between lands where my chives had spread. For a long timeless moment, we were lost in each other’s eyes. And then quite suddenly she must have heard those words, “Hurry, flee, be like a gazelle in your swiftness and wild beauty; run to the mountain of spices.” I was so grateful for those moments and sad to see her go, and happy for her wildness, for in those precious moments, she awakened the wild in me.

And this is also how the Song of Songs ends — leaving us playing at the edge — between our civilized, predictable, constructed, comfort-seeking world… and the vast dangerous mystery that can’t be contained, defined or even fathomed.