Here are some great texts suitable for Jewish Kirtans:
1) Bilvavi - letting go of ego (i.e your stories)
Bilvavi mishkan evneh, lehadar kevodo
uvmishkan mizbeach asim lekarnei hodo
ulner tamid ekach li et eysh haakeydah
ulekorban akriv lo et nafshi, et nafshi hayechida
I will build a sanctuary in my heart, to beautify His presence
and in this sanctuary I will place an alter, to receive His majesty
and for an eternal light I will offer up the fire from the binding of Isaac
and as a sacrifice (giving up the lesser to come closer to the greater) I will offer up my singular being
2) Adon Olam - all or any part - Eternal One
3) Yedid Nefesh - beloved of my soul
4) Telihim Chaf Gimmel - Psalm 23
5) Ana Bekoach -
6)Adoshem Hu Elokim - the Lord is G-d
7) Ayn od milvado - There is nothing besides Self
8) Keyl Rachum ve Chanun - Merciful One
9) Hallelu
10)Shabos Kodesh (the tune of the Moshav Band)
11) Rachmana d' anei, deanei le'anyei
12)Shema
13)Selected verses from anim' zmirot
14)Barechi Nafshi
15)Kaddish
16)Return return
17) Pitchu li shaarei tzedek - moshav band tune
open the gates of cosmic balance/I will enter, with gratitude to the Divine/ thank you for you have answered/and become my salvation/the stone that the builders despised/ has become a corner stone/this is from Jah/ it is amazing in our sight/ this day, this moment, is as G-d as it gets/ we will delight and take joy in it
18) Avinu Malkeinu - our father, our king!
19)Kol Galgal
20) Ki Va Moed - Carlebach - now is the time
21) Yivneh Beyto - Carlebach
22) Listen listen listen (to my heart's song)
23) Shifchi kamayim - Carlebach
24) Ken bakodesh
25) Lev Tahor
26) Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh - done responsively
ie. leaders: kadosh, kadosh, kadosh
devotees: kadosh kadosh kadosh
leaders:adoshem tzevaot
devotees:adoshem tzevaot
leaders:meloh chol haaretz kevodod
devotees:meloh chol haaretz kevodo
and repeat upping tempo slightly
27) חסד מופלא
קול דממה דקה
שפדה נפשי השבויה
הייתי עיור, הרגשתי חסר
חסד מופלא
מה מתוק הצליל
28)Krakow Niggun
29)
Chanting these word sounds may help to reintroduce G-d consciousness to many people,or states of excitement and or bliss and or repose. To chant shemot (names) of the divine is to be in love with devotion, with the spell of surrender, which is why Krishna Das can chant the name of Jesus ("open up the gates of the church and let me out of here/ too many people have died in the name of christ for anyone to hear the call") and see it merely as a synonym for boundary-less love, which anhilates all effort and all artificially maintained difference.
To get a sense check out Kirtan Rabbi, and Reb Krishna (nee Jeffry Kagel)
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
HaTikvah (Ha Amitit)
My only hope is: This world (and is there a world or is it all just my own projection?) is somehow - incomprehensibly - already perfect and nothing needs to be done (except for that which will be done by The Doer). Not perfect from the point of view of the body, of course, which cannot escape birth and death (and if it is not an early death then add to the inescapables decay) but from the point of view of THAT which briefly animates the body for its own ends.
On the other hand, in her shmooze (discourse) "The Lion Courage of the Heart" Gangaji seems to me to be inviting us to abandon such fictitious hopes, which are just another means of postponement, of avoiding whatever is here right now.
Eylu veeylu divrei Elokim chayim...these and these are the words of the living G-d.
On the other hand, in her shmooze (discourse) "The Lion Courage of the Heart" Gangaji seems to me to be inviting us to abandon such fictitious hopes, which are just another means of postponement, of avoiding whatever is here right now.
Eylu veeylu divrei Elokim chayim...these and these are the words of the living G-d.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
InJewsion
One of our lecturers ( who is a very engaging and passionate speaker and, as it turns out, is also an ex-priest) said that "Freud was of Jewish descent, but did not identify as a Jew". It may have flown past the others but I am (of course?) hyper alert almost anytime someone says the word "Jew" (are they going to attack? praise? neutral or disinterested? [sigh of relief] accentuate us? deny us?) mentally argued with it, because of prior readings.
While browsing wikipedia for our modalities assignment, I came across the following in the article on Freud:
"Freud was a "partially assimilated, mostly secular Jew."[12] According to biographer Ernest Jones "Freud's Jewishness contributed greatly to his work and his firm convictions about his findings. Freud often referred to his ability to stand alone, if need be, without wavering or surrendering his intellectual and scientific discoveries, and he attributed this ability to his irreligious but strong Jewish identity in an antisemitic society, whereby he was accustomed to a marginal status and being set aside as different."[13]Freud once described himself as "an author who is ignorant of the language of holy writ, who is completely estranged from the religion of his fathers—as well as from every other religion", but who remains "in his essential nature a Jew, and who has no desire to alter that nature".[14]
I know there are other places (intro to Moses and Monotheism for example??) where Freud makes it abundantly clear that he owns his Jewishness, and sees it as feeding his creativity and vision. So to all those who would prefer that Freud be pried away from his Jewishness and be only of the euphemistic "Jewish descent" here's your rebuttal. But don't worry even if he identified as a Jew you can still own him, and take anything in his thinking you find useful.
While browsing wikipedia for our modalities assignment, I came across the following in the article on Freud:
"Freud was a "partially assimilated, mostly secular Jew."[12] According to biographer Ernest Jones "Freud's Jewishness contributed greatly to his work and his firm convictions about his findings. Freud often referred to his ability to stand alone, if need be, without wavering or surrendering his intellectual and scientific discoveries, and he attributed this ability to his irreligious but strong Jewish identity in an antisemitic society, whereby he was accustomed to a marginal status and being set aside as different."[13]Freud once described himself as "an author who is ignorant of the language of holy writ, who is completely estranged from the religion of his fathers—as well as from every other religion", but who remains "in his essential nature a Jew, and who has no desire to alter that nature".[14]
I know there are other places (intro to Moses and Monotheism for example??) where Freud makes it abundantly clear that he owns his Jewishness, and sees it as feeding his creativity and vision. So to all those who would prefer that Freud be pried away from his Jewishness and be only of the euphemistic "Jewish descent" here's your rebuttal. But don't worry even if he identified as a Jew you can still own him, and take anything in his thinking you find useful.
In a moment of clarity
One can make one's stand downstream, where the reactivity has emerged as polarised debates, angry fors and againsts, or upstream, closer to the place where these debates have their genesis, closer to the source than the symptoms. How many times have I forgotten this and got lost downstream, contributing to the great and senseless maya of reactive debate. Awake Sir Immanuel!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
For Walt Whitman
See also sulam-yaakov
Studies in Being
Above the village of Koke
sits Moimango
watching over his people
sometimes his son
Gematsu
now also old
comes to pay his respects
in Moimango's abdominal cavity
rodents have made their nests
on his toes and fingers
lichen goes
his head nods forward
around his people
the jungle grows
Poems come up in the night
if I don't write them down
they dive beneath the surface again
_______________________
The theory of relativity
If I were alone on the moon
then coming across
even the filthiest public loo
... that stank of urine
and shit stains on the bowl
would be like finding
a long lost and dearly loved friend
(see also The General Theory of Ephemerality)
-------------------
Imagine
Imagine if wheat got a warning:
now hear this
in 10 hours you will be cut off at the roots
taken from your moist earth fields of gold
and baked to brown in ovens
imagine if cows got a warning:
now hear this
in 10 hours men with prods
that sting like wasps
will bother you to crowd together
for a long thirsty journey
in a cattle truck
to a place that smell of blood and dung
where shuddering one by one
what's done is done
Imagine if the Jews got a warning
now hear this
in 10 hours you will be cut off at the roots
taken from the muddy streets and thin lipped forests
and cathedral cut throat towns
crowded together
for a long thirsty journey
in a cattle truck
to a place where something smells wrong
where
men and women
with guns and dogs
will crowd you together
one after one
bake you in ovens
and what's done is done
____________
Some thoughts make me feel small
and some thoughts make me feel big
some thoughts are bullies
that push me around and beat me up
some thoughts make me laugh
_________________________
No purpose can survive the sea
which is why people go there with a fishing line
to hold onto
_______________________
I squeeze my latest poems out of me
like toothpaste out of a near empty tube
_______________________________
the dessicated overproduced thoughts
of old poets past their prime
desperate to retain
their imaginary sage ship
Second World War Memorabilia for avid collectorsa Mauser pistolA pregnant peasant woman with a bayonet through her bellyA lampshade made from a Jewish youth's skin
A pile of eyeglasses without eyes
A canister of Zyklon B
________
The Big Bluff
I pretended I was confident
(trying fake it til you make it)
I pretended I learnt from experience how not to make new mistakes
I pretended I was both strong and sensitive
I pretended I wasn't scared or sad
and sometimes I pretended I was unhappy
I pretended I was otherwordly when I craved sweet flesh
and pretended I was earthy when the world repelled me
I pretended when there was no need to pretend
I pretended when almost everyone saw through my pretence, but me
I feigned contentment and I feigned
discontent
I feigned interest so it wouldn't look like I was alone
I feigned uniqueness
I feigned sameness
I feigned acceptance when I felt anger
and I feigned anger when I was hurt
I pretended to be invincible for my children
and to be helpless for my parents
I pretended yesterday's courage could dispel today's terror
I pretended I was unflappable and cool
I pretended I was one of those
who act on their conviction
(Perhaps I pretended I was convinced)
I bluffed my way through life
often anxious I would be called out
like shaka's witch sniffing
to be dealt with at the side
but I shall have my recompense
when at my funeral
I shall only pretend
to die
________
Signs of life:
traces of margarine in the jam jar
a to do list that always recedes into the unreachable distance
ants eating a worm on the concrete driveway
bird shit on the brand new car
_______________
male supremacy is a
phallusy
__________
Me?
I love me
without any "buts"
without any "because"
not even "because I am"
without I love me
without love me
without mein the hollow curve
from which the last thought
has gone
______________________
Goverment Gazette
be safe
don't swing on the branches
don't feel the wind in your hair
don't lie in the sun
don't inhale
be safe
dob on your neighbours
get your cervix and prostate palpitated
don't leave your car
report any suspicious activity
excluding call centres, washing powder ads, reality shows, workaholism and intrafamilial violence
be safe
watch out for exotic species and crumbling cliffs
be confident and assertive
be two metres tall and weigh 300kgs
don't leave your belongings unattended
don't talk to strangers
rather sorry than unsafe
consult your physician
or mental health professional
make sure you live til 90
and die of advanced
boredom
_____________________________
You sexy bitch
with your breasts and your ovaries
your lungs and your kidneys
your stomach that burps in the night
you sexy bitch
with your warm wet vagina
sticky with blood every month
how I stuffed you back into your skin
only to have your stubble and breath
trouble me again
______________
"I trust nobody, including myself" Joseph Stalin
In the morning
I lock myself up
in case I escape
____________
like an unblemished etrog
her hand upon the steering wheel
her nipples
two spears that pierce my eyes
and from between her pearl teeth
and plumped lips
the vapours that hint
of body's end
___________
REVERSE THIS TO REFLECT BY GIVING UP EVERYTHING YOU GET EVERYTHING
____________
For Walt Whitman
thank you for the letter you sent me
The giraffe eating
leaves of the acacia
a long way to go
________________
To Sylvia Plath and HaShem
Love set the universe ticking
like a well made gold watch
Studies in Being
Above the village of Koke
sits Moimango
watching over his people
sometimes his son
Gematsu
now also old
comes to pay his respects
in Moimango's abdominal cavity
rodents have made their nests
on his toes and fingers
lichen goes
his head nods forward
around his people
the jungle grows
Poems come up in the night
if I don't write them down
they dive beneath the surface again
_______________________
The theory of relativity
If I were alone on the moon
then coming across
even the filthiest public loo
... that stank of urine
and shit stains on the bowl
would be like finding
a long lost and dearly loved friend
(see also The General Theory of Ephemerality)
-------------------
Imagine
Imagine if wheat got a warning:
now hear this
in 10 hours you will be cut off at the roots
taken from your moist earth fields of gold
and baked to brown in ovens
imagine if cows got a warning:
now hear this
in 10 hours men with prods
that sting like wasps
will bother you to crowd together
for a long thirsty journey
in a cattle truck
to a place that smell of blood and dung
where shuddering one by one
what's done is done
Imagine if the Jews got a warning
now hear this
in 10 hours you will be cut off at the roots
taken from the muddy streets and thin lipped forests
and cathedral cut throat towns
crowded together
for a long thirsty journey
in a cattle truck
to a place where something smells wrong
where
men and women
with guns and dogs
will crowd you together
one after one
bake you in ovens
and what's done is done
____________
Some thoughts make me feel small
and some thoughts make me feel big
some thoughts are bullies
that push me around and beat me up
some thoughts make me laugh
_________________________
No purpose can survive the sea
which is why people go there with a fishing line
to hold onto
_______________________
I squeeze my latest poems out of me
like toothpaste out of a near empty tube
_______________________________
the dessicated overproduced thoughts
of old poets past their prime
desperate to retain
their imaginary sage ship
Second World War Memorabilia for avid collectorsa Mauser pistolA pregnant peasant woman with a bayonet through her bellyA lampshade made from a Jewish youth's skin
A pile of eyeglasses without eyes
A canister of Zyklon B
________
The Big Bluff
I pretended I was confident
(trying fake it til you make it)
I pretended I learnt from experience how not to make new mistakes
I pretended I was both strong and sensitive
I pretended I wasn't scared or sad
and sometimes I pretended I was unhappy
I pretended I was otherwordly when I craved sweet flesh
and pretended I was earthy when the world repelled me
I pretended when there was no need to pretend
I pretended when almost everyone saw through my pretence, but me
I feigned contentment and I feigned
discontent
I feigned interest so it wouldn't look like I was alone
I feigned uniqueness
I feigned sameness
I feigned acceptance when I felt anger
and I feigned anger when I was hurt
I pretended to be invincible for my children
and to be helpless for my parents
I pretended yesterday's courage could dispel today's terror
I pretended I was unflappable and cool
I pretended I was one of those
who act on their conviction
(Perhaps I pretended I was convinced)
I bluffed my way through life
often anxious I would be called out
like shaka's witch sniffing
to be dealt with at the side
but I shall have my recompense
when at my funeral
I shall only pretend
to die
________
Signs of life:
traces of margarine in the jam jar
a to do list that always recedes into the unreachable distance
ants eating a worm on the concrete driveway
bird shit on the brand new car
_______________
male supremacy is a
phallusy
__________
Me?
I love me
without any "buts"
without any "because"
not even "because I am"
without I love me
without love me
without mein the hollow curve
from which the last thought
has gone
______________________
Goverment Gazette
be safe
don't swing on the branches
don't feel the wind in your hair
don't lie in the sun
don't inhale
be safe
dob on your neighbours
get your cervix and prostate palpitated
don't leave your car
report any suspicious activity
excluding call centres, washing powder ads, reality shows, workaholism and intrafamilial violence
be safe
watch out for exotic species and crumbling cliffs
be confident and assertive
be two metres tall and weigh 300kgs
don't leave your belongings unattended
don't talk to strangers
rather sorry than unsafe
consult your physician
or mental health professional
make sure you live til 90
and die of advanced
boredom
_____________________________
You sexy bitch
with your breasts and your ovaries
your lungs and your kidneys
your stomach that burps in the night
you sexy bitch
with your warm wet vagina
sticky with blood every month
how I stuffed you back into your skin
only to have your stubble and breath
trouble me again
______________
"I trust nobody, including myself" Joseph Stalin
In the morning
I lock myself up
in case I escape
____________
like an unblemished etrog
her hand upon the steering wheel
her nipples
two spears that pierce my eyes
and from between her pearl teeth
and plumped lips
the vapours that hint
of body's end
___________
REVERSE THIS TO REFLECT BY GIVING UP EVERYTHING YOU GET EVERYTHING
____________
For Walt Whitman
thank you for the letter you sent me
I read the words thirstily
with great sobs of laughter
then threw it away
knowing your next
is already on its way
__________________
I am my own factory farmed cow
prodding my tired fattened body
mercilessly on to where freedom awaits
at the abbatoir gates
_________________________
I don't even know how it is
let alone how it will be
and its not that I have courage
its sometimes that courage has me
_____________________
if I can't sing then I will write
and if I can't write then I will paint
and if I can't paint then I will act
and if I can't act or paint or write
then I'll get a job selling bogus holiday deals
from a call centre in the Phillipines or Mumbai
on commission
and I'll lovingly craft every phone call I make
to angry people interrupted at their dinner
or to a pensioner glad of the voice puncturing the stillness
as if they were my legacy
for G-d makes no mistakes
___________________
dragged apart by heaven and earth
I want to rise
and sink to my knees
at the same time
_______
sitting next to you in the car
feeling safe and warm
a good times song on the radio
wind in my hair
steaming coffee in the holder
battery chickens in their hovels
sex-slaves in their brothels
this is as G-d as it gets/
it don get much G-dder than this
_______________________
Sometimes I watch the news
hoping to see suffering and general mayhem
and then I might flick channels
and land on an image of an Afghan boy
holding on to parallel bars
long jalabiya wrapping around the stumps
left by a Taliban or NATO bomb
and it slices through the brittle casing
resentment and fear have placed round my heart
and as sadness comes flooding I stop pretending
their hurt can diminish mine
_______________________________________
As the human beast grows older
they keep more files
and boxes in dusty storerooms
begin to shuffle at night in slippers
keep track of their investments
if middle class, or if not
sit on a beer crate
and stare at the dust
_________________________
__________________
I am my own factory farmed cow
prodding my tired fattened body
mercilessly on to where freedom awaits
at the abbatoir gates
_________________________
I don't even know how it is
let alone how it will be
and its not that I have courage
its sometimes that courage has me
_____________________
if I can't sing then I will write
and if I can't write then I will paint
and if I can't paint then I will act
and if I can't act or paint or write
then I'll get a job selling bogus holiday deals
from a call centre in the Phillipines or Mumbai
on commission
and I'll lovingly craft every phone call I make
to angry people interrupted at their dinner
or to a pensioner glad of the voice puncturing the stillness
as if they were my legacy
for G-d makes no mistakes
___________________
dragged apart by heaven and earth
I want to rise
and sink to my knees
at the same time
_______
sitting next to you in the car
feeling safe and warm
a good times song on the radio
wind in my hair
steaming coffee in the holder
battery chickens in their hovels
sex-slaves in their brothels
this is as G-d as it gets/
it don get much G-dder than this
_______________________
Sometimes I watch the news
hoping to see suffering and general mayhem
and then I might flick channels
and land on an image of an Afghan boy
holding on to parallel bars
long jalabiya wrapping around the stumps
left by a Taliban or NATO bomb
and it slices through the brittle casing
resentment and fear have placed round my heart
and as sadness comes flooding I stop pretending
their hurt can diminish mine
_______________________________________
As the human beast grows older
they keep more files
and boxes in dusty storerooms
begin to shuffle at night in slippers
keep track of their investments
if middle class, or if not
sit on a beer crate
and stare at the dust
_________________________
Symetries:
Teenage girls
their bodies bursting out of their clothes
middle aged men
their eyes bursting out of their sockets
_______________
Haiku with Dan
The giraffe eating
accacia leaves what a
journey to travel
The giraffe eating
leaves of the acacia
a long way to go
________________
To Sylvia Plath and HaShem
Love set the universe ticking
like a well made gold watch
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Palestine will be free / equality of misery
Palestine will be free
from the river to the sea
as free as Gaza, the one party state
where to speak against Hamas is to seal your fate
as free as a woman of the Taliban
who can only breathe if her owner says she can
as free as a Bishop in Teheran
who can choose between a bullet or conversion to Islam
as free as Hariri was to crticize Hizballah
til they blew him and 21 others up to Allah
as free as Turkey to bomb the PPK
and any non-combatants who might get in the way
as free as a donkey, explosives strapped to its back
sent by Hamas in a donky-ish attack
as free as Gilad six years alone
denied Red Cross visits and a word from home
as free as a cronies of Arafat or Abbas
to pocket billions of donor cash
Yes Palestine will be free
from the river to the sea
from the river to the sea
as free as Gaza, the one party state
where to speak against Hamas is to seal your fate
as free as a woman of the Taliban
who can only breathe if her owner says she can
as free as a Bishop in Teheran
who can choose between a bullet or conversion to Islam
as free as Hariri was to crticize Hizballah
til they blew him and 21 others up to Allah
as free as Turkey to bomb the PPK
and any non-combatants who might get in the way
as free as a donkey, explosives strapped to its back
sent by Hamas in a donky-ish attack
as free as Gilad six years alone
denied Red Cross visits and a word from home
as free as a cronies of Arafat or Abbas
to pocket billions of donor cash
Yes Palestine will be free
from the river to the sea
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