First, gather friends and family. Together, build a structure with at least three sides. Roof it with bamboo or cornstalks, anything you can cut from the ground. Remember to leave spaces where the stars can shine through. Dwell in this place for a week.
“Dwelling” includes eating, talking, singing, napping, reading, relaxing, entertaining, all that is our life. Lounge here, dine here, enjoying the fruits of the harvest. Invite friends and strangers in to dine with you. If it isn’t raining and you’re up for the adventure, sleep in the sukkah you have built. The sukkah is one of the few Jewish practices that involves the entire body in the experience of a mitzvah, a commandment relating to Jewish practice and observance.
Sukkot encompasses a multitude of themes and symbols. This Jewish holiday is rich in life and lessons of an embodied faith.
Dwelling in a sukkah, a little hut open to the elements and slated for demolition only a week after its construction, one is returned to a time in Jewish history when the entire nation was homeless and wandering.
Dwelling in a sukkah invites people to remove themselves from both the materialistic things that normally fill our environment and the illusion of security that our stuff provides to us.
Many of us fill our homes with the most beautiful and expensive stuff we can afford – (sometimes more than we can afford). We are surrounded daily by our material things, symbols of our security and comfort and accomplishments.
Usually, we dwell in the midst of our stuff. Sukkot calls those who honor this holiday to leave their stuff behind for a week and return to a simpler existence.
Focus shifts from what we want
to what we need,
from what is additional
to what is essential.
Sukkot is a harvest festival, yes, but it is much more than that. It is a time when people of the Jewish faith are invited to step out of their comfort zones as a community and make sure that their life priorities are in line with what is of ultimate value. Stepping into a sukkah provides a physical framework for understanding what is ultimately important within a very intimate space.
Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg writes:
Sukkot is the holiday of change! Sukkot is a celebration of the beauty of things that don’t last.
The little hut which is so vulnerable to wind and rain and will be dismantled at week’s end;
the ripe fruits which will spoil if not picked and eaten right away; the friends and family who may not be with us for as long as we would wish;
the beauty of the leaves changing color as they begin the process of falling and dying from the trees.
Sukkot comes to tell us that the world is full of good and beautiful things.
But that we have to enjoy them right away today because they will not last.
The children in our lives get out of the way in no time flat. Our elders die, taking their stories and our love with them. The ones we love cannot not wait for us to finish other things and get around to them. The season of Sukkot brings into sharp relief the contrast between what we value and how we spend our days; the distance – if there is distance – between how we love and how we live.
And it does not rebuke us. Instead, we are invited to give thanks for our restored sight, to celebrate the realignment of our actions with our values. Let us rejoice together, beloveds.
Yuri Yamamoto is a singer, pianist, composer, choir director, story teller, and meditation dancer, and is still expanding her possibilities. She is a member of SKY, a multicultural trio that performs eclectic music, and serves as the Director of Music for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh, North Carolina while pursuing the UUA Music Leadership Credential. Born and raised in Japan, Yuri is actively involved in supporting the victims of the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, particularly those who were affected by the damaged nuclear plant in Fukushima. Her music videos as well as videos from an interview in Fukushima are available on Yuri’s YouTube channel. Lyrics of her Japanese songs are written by Masao Tachiya.
http://www.youtube.com/user/JAmilkpig
Travis is a Certified Projective Dream Worker, Professional Musician and ordained Unitarian Universalist Minister who leads on-going groups, and has offered his work internationally. He fuses his offerings in occasional Work Shops drawing on a diverse set of practices for exploring the rich wisdom of dreams. In June 2012, he led a workshop on Sound Healing and Dream Work at the International Association for the Study of Dreams Annual Conference in Berkeley California. Various Sound Healing techniques are applied in tandem with the dream work, providing layers of enriched experience for accessing the Deep Self. Travis also incorporates Shamanic techniques in order to ‘bring the dream alive’ and has been facilitating groups for the past 18 years, bringing a mythological-archetypal-poetic perspective to the work and much life experience. Musically, Travis has been playing Didjeridu and offering original Mystical Spoken Word Poetry for several years in a wide variety of musical projects, including Outlaw Dervish and Axis Mundi. He has traveled to India, Egypt and Australia to play music and say poems in group ceremonies and sacred spaces, and has released 4 studio albums featuring Didjeridu, on his own, and with Collaborators, most recently “Yoro Yoro” with Ben Leinbach.
http://www.intuitivesound.net/music.htm
The Reverend Amy Carol Webb is the “beloved song weaver” – passionate, powerful, and poignant. Born and reared in Oklahoma, Amy traces her heritage back to Native Americans through her Great-Grandmothers who settled Oklahoma when it was still a Territory. Amy’s music and ministry reflect the same pioneering spirit, tenacity, integrity and never-quit grit. With her undergraduate degree in performing arts, Amy cultivated a long and rewarding career travelling the world as a performer, recording artist and voice coach. Answering a life-long call to ministry, she earned her M.Div. from Andover Newton Theological school, and is now ordained to Unitarian Universalist Ministry. She currently serves as a hospice Chaplain, fills pulpits throughout Florida and the eastern seaboard, coaches congregational singing and composes both worship and secular music. She is presently at work on her 9th CD from her home in Miami, Florida. A congregant says, “Amy not only moves you, she moves you forward.”
Rabbi Danielle Upbin is a prayer leader, teacher, inspirational preacher and singer-songwriter. Originally from New York City, she currently resides in Clearwater, FL, where she and her husband serve as the spiritual leaders of Congregation Beth Shalom. Chanting Hebrew prayer in a joyous and soulful manner is Rabbi Danielle’s passion. She has studied meditation, Jewish mysticism, and yoga and strives to interweave inspiring teachings from Judaism into her presentations. She is actively involved in a local interfaith coalition, and is a regular presenter of song and prayer in the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Clearwater’s monthly gathering called “Festival Ruah: A Multicultural Spirit Experience” along with musicians, dancers, artists and spiritual leaders from around the globe.
Rabbi Danielle released her first CD in 2012, entitled, “Reveal the Light”, an eclectic collection of spiritually oriented songs and chants in Hebrew and English. It has been said of her CD: “Reveal the Light gives us a sonic pathway into the rich tradition of the jewish faith, blesses us with the gift of hearing the power and sincerity of Rabbi Danielle’s voice, and adds to our palate of songs to be sung for sheer pleasure.” – Fred Johnson, internationally acclaimed Jazz musician, singer and spiritual teacher.
When she isn’t singing, Rabbi Danielle is chasing around her four little children, running half-marathons, and baking cookies.
Her music is available on iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby and OySongs.com.
Since its inception in 2005, Three Twelve (known individually as Jason Whetstone, Deb McClain, and David M. Glasgow) has performed for thousands of listeners, in coffeehouses, conference centers, and festival stages. Stylistically, their music ranges from intimate ballads to jump-up-and-down rock—but with every song they perform, they explore the role of spirituality and transcendence in each individual’s search for meaning. Wherever they go, whatever they sing, listeners speak of hearing “exactly what they needed” in the music, speaking of situations ranging from a bad day at work to a cancer diagnosis.
Lisa Thiel is a visionary artist and ceremonial singer whose healing song prayers and chants are among the most popular in the women’s spiritual movement today. Her spiritual path led her to study many of the world’s spiritual traditions and her teachers were yogis, shamans, Tibetan Lamas and Wise Women of the Goddess Tradition. The connecting thread throughout was the practice of sacred song for healing and empowerment, and an emphasis on the Sacred Feminine found in all traditions in one form or another.
The result is a vital, authentic music that resonates with the energy of her experiences. Lisa is a priestess of Brighid and Kuan Yin in the Fellowship of Isis and honors the old Celtic Wheel of the year.
For decades Diane Taraz has been creating her own songs and breathing new life into traditional ones. She excels at a cappella singing, but also plays guitar and lap dulcimer, and on her many recordings has collaborated with a wealth of talented musicians.
Born in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts, Diane taught herself guitar during long winter evenings, her feet perched on a wood-burning stove. She wrote her first songs in high school and began working her way through 100 English Folk Songs, a classic collection of ballads. She was captivated by the beauty and power of the melodies, and the way the words provide a glimpse into the past. After moving to the Boston area for college, Diane studied guitar with 12-string master Tracy Moore and polished her vocal skills at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge.
Diane has recorded nine CDs that feature her many compositions and her vivid interpretations of traditional songs from England, Ireland, Scotland, French Canada, and America. She is the director of the Lexington Historical Society Colonial Singers, and she presents historic programs that focus on specific eras, including the American Revolution and the Civil War. She often performs as a guest with the Gloucester Hornpipe & Clog Society, a traditional band that plays maritime, Celtic, and Colonial music. She also sings with Vox Lucens, a 12-member a cappella Renaissance choir, and the UUlations, a women’s a cappella group.
Founded by Bernice Johnson Reagon in 1973 (with Mie, Carol Maillard and Louise Robinson) at the D.C. Black Repertory Theater Company, Sweet Honey In The Rock®, internationally renowned a cappella ensemble, has been a vital and innovative presence in the music culture of Washington, D.C., and in communities of conscience around the world.
The metaphor of sweet honey in the rock captures completely these African American women whose repertoire is steeped in the sacred music of the Black church, the clarion calls of the civil rights movement, and songs of the struggle for justice everywhere.
Rooted in a deeply held commitment to create music out of the rich textures of African American legacy and traditions, Sweet Honey In The Rock possesses a stunning vocal prowess that captures the complex sounds of Blues, spirituals, traditional gospel hymns, rap, reggae, African chants, Hip Hop, ancient lullabies, and jazz improvisation. Sweet Honey’s collective voice, occasionally accompanied by hand percussion instruments, produces a sound filled with soulful harmonies and intricate rhythms.
Liz began her musical training as a young child, mastering Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 11 by the age of 11. When her family moved to Germany during her teens, she added languages, philosophy, and poetry to her studies. She was classically trained, studying music at Hunter College and Juilliard in New York City.
She lost interest in a music career until she saw Bill Evans play one night at The Bottom Line in New York. She met Evans after the show and, at his suggestion, she began to study jazz piano with Stanford Gold. Evans remains a major inspiration to her and she has recorded a number of his compositions.
She later moved back to Southern California, where she studied at the Dick Grove Music Workshops in Studio City. During her studies, she took a job playing piano in a restaurant and was unexpectedly thrust into improvisations when she realized the piano she was to perform on had no stand for her music! Over several months these improvisations developed into compositions. When Windham Hill’s Will Ackerman heard a tape of these, he signed her to record her debut album, “Solid Colors,” in 1983.
Her musical style defies traditional description and has inspired countless musicians. With a dozen albums to her credit, her works cross many musical genres and paint a spectacular musical panorama.
For more information about Liz Story, contact Vision Quest Entertainment at 303-979-7011.
http://www.visionquestmusic.com
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