Chanting as a contemplative practice naturally draws our focus to the present and embodied presence. The very physical act of breathing and forming sounds brings body and mind together. Chant has a place in many sacred traditions, from Gregorian melodies to Native American drumming to the polyrhythmic chants of West Africa. There are as many ways to chant as there are bodies and vocal cords. You may enjoy exploring different kinds of chant, or even creating your own, as a way of entering into contemplation.

Perhaps the simplest, most familiar chant is “Om.” In the Hindu tradition, Om is the original and basic vibration of the created world, the sound that holds all other sounds, the unity that embraces all diversity. The mantra is also called pranava in Sanskrit, meaning it infuses all of life and fills our prana, breath. Om represents the fullness of reality and encompasses all things; it has no beginning and no end.

You might practice chanting this single syllable alone or in a group, from five minutes to more than twenty, followed by a time of silence. Begin by sitting tall and straight so you can breathe deeply. Inhale, and on your exhalation, vocalize the three sounds of Om, AUM, on a single tone. Feel the sound moving upward with your breath: beginning in the bottom of your belly—aah; moving to your chest—ooh; vibrating your lips and nasal cavity—mm. Take another deep breath, and sing AUM again, slowly shaping the vowels and gently closing your mouth to a hum.

If you prefer, you can simply hum for as long as you’re able, lips barely touching and teeth apart, before breathing in and humming again.

Repeat the chant as many times as you wish, letting all other thoughts and sensations disappear. If you are distracted, return your focus to breath and sound and the way it feels in your body. When you are ready, let the chant subside into silence.

po·et·ic jus·tice
pōˈedik
noun

the fact of experiencing a fitting or deserved retribution for one's actions.
"the noise was deafening and it was poetic justice when the amplifiers stalled just before the start"

Most books you come across about the Taliban in Afghanistan are about war and politics. The arts and culture of this war ravaged country don't often get a mention. But poetry is a powerful force in Afghani culture and it runs deep in the culture of Taliban. This is the message of a collection called Poetry of the Taliban. Its publication has been quite controversial in the UK.

Poetry of the Taliban

This short documentary profiles Rafael, a member of the Free Minds Book Club, as he explains what writing poetry from prison means to him. The Free Minds Book Club is an organization that helps prisoners learn how to read and write poetry while incarcerated.

FREE MINDS BOOK CLUB

Wedged in the crevices
of each day
there is terror
and everywhere
fresh pieces of communion
go uneaten.

-Helen Mirkil

POETIC HUNGER

they will kill you
and say I’m sorry
and expect your mother to
forgive and forget
she ever gave birth to you
carried you in love for nine months
endured labor
and pushed you out with God’s might moving in her hips
ever fed you life from her bosom
or how you smelled like heaven after she washed you
that she ever watched you take your first steps
speak your first words
ever tucking you into bed with stories that rocked you to sleep
the many nights she prayed for your protection
or how excited she was the day you gave your first recital
that she ever taught you to be good and kind
ever beamed with pride
whenever you got an A on your test
that she ever wanted the best in this world for you

they will kill you
and say I’m sorry
and expect your father to forgive and forget
ever holding your tiny body in his hands for the first time
and looking into your eyes and seeing eternity
ever teaching you how to ride a bike
or the many nights he helped you do your homework
how he worked hard to make your life easier
or playing catch with you in the backyard
or the life-lessons he recited to you over the rhythm of hair clippers
ever scolding you with stern words and reassuring hugs
ever kissing your cheeks
or how he was there week after week cheering you on from the stands
how he dreamed that you’d graduate high school
go to college
fall in love
and that he ever wanted this world to love you too
- Ewuare X. Osayande

When feeling confused,
as if I’ve trusted a broken compass
or started to believe we might be no more
than scraps of molecular machinery,
I remember this:

During the Grand Entry, on the fifth day
when everyone looks weary
and the morning is already hot,
after nearly a hundred dancers have entered
and made their way around the circle,
stepping lightly to the beat of the drum,
a single white feather falls to the rough floor,
little more than a fluff of milkweed,
a puff of cottonwood drifting down.

But when a watcher spots the feather
he rushes to it and places his hat over it
so that not even the still air on this hot day
might blow it away.

He signals to a veteran from one of our wars,
a man qualified to pick up the feather
and return it to the dancer who lost it,
as likely a prospect, it seems, as returning
a missing feather to the right bird in a sky full of birds;
but for those who keep these traditions,
a version of knowing that even the hairs on our head
are numbered, not even one
could be lost without being missed.

- Gary Hawk

What can one detail tell us about a scene? If you’re Lynne Ramsay: absolutely everything. Today I consider the poetic possibilities of cinema and one of our finest contemporary filmmakers.

THE POETRY OF DETAILS

US Poet Laureate Billy Collins reads his poem “Forgetfulness” with animation by Julian Grey of Headgear. 

FORGETFULNESS

A fragment of Mel Krieger's "Patagonia - 40 years fly fishing in ARGENTINA - this is for us the most motional and beautiful few thoughts about fly fishing describing the very essence of being a fly fisherman...

PATAGONIA

A poetry film that explores ideas of alienation and personal identity in relation to others and by testing the limits within the self.

APPRAISAL

… He was born in Oklahoma
And his wife's name is Betty Lou Thelma Liz
He's not responsible for what he's doing
His mother made him what he is
… And it's up against the wall, redneck mother
Mother who has raised her son so well
He's thirty four and drinkin' in a honky tonk
Just kickin' hippies' asses and raisin' hell
… Sure does like his Falstaff beer
He likes to chase it down with that Wild Turkey liquor
He drives a '57 GMC pickup truck
Got a gun rack
"A Goat Roper needs love too" sticker
… And it's up against the wall, redneck mother
Mother who has raised her son so well
He's thirty four drinkin' in a honky tonk
Kickin' hippies' asses and raisin' hell, ah pick
… Ah play it for mama
… M is for the mud flaps she gave me for my pickup truck
O is…

Up Against The Wall Redneck Mother

Bravery, loyalty and even honor are morally neutral virtues. They make good men better, bad men worse, and men under orders better tools, that is all. Service members are due respect for serving, but they don’t fight for freedom, and while we can argue when they last did, it’s been a long time.

Remembering Soldiers Service

This short clip challenges all to have the courage to stand up against the evils of war. To stand up for peace.

I Made You Look

Compilation of Zen Buddhist and Taoist poems by various monks and poets. Read by Alan Watts and Jack Gariss. Video clip from "Koyaanisqatsi." Music by the Japanese singer Etsuko Chida.

ZEN POETRY

1453 Constantinople fell to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, ending the Byzantine Empire.

1910 An airplane raced a train from Albany, NY, to New York City. The airplane pilot Glenn Curtiss won the $10,000 prize.

1912 Fifteen women were dismissed from their jobs at the Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia, PA, for dancing the Turkey Trot while on the job.

1916 U.S. forces invaded Dominican Republic and remained until 1924.

1922 In Federal Baseball Club v. National League, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that organized baseball was a sport, not subject to antitrust laws.

1941 Animators working for Walt Disney began what was to become a successful five-week strike for recognition of their union, the Screen Cartoonists’ Guild. The animated feature Dumbo was being created at the time and, according to Wikipedia, a number of strikers are caricatured in the feature as clowns who go to “hit the big boss for a raise”.

1946 The United Mine Workers (UMWA) and the U.S. government signed a pact establishing one of America’s first union medical and pension plans. The UMWA Welfare and Retirement Fund permanently changed health care delivery in U.S. coal fields. The Fund was used to build eight hospitals in Appalachia. It also established many clinics and recruited doctors to practice in rural coalfield areas.

1950 The United Auto Workers (UAW) at General Motors won a hospitalization plan.

1953 Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became first men to reach the top of Mount Everest ... and come back down again.

1974 U.S. President Nixon agreed to turn over 1,200 pages of edited Watergate transcripts.

1986 Colonel Oliver North told National Security Advisor William McFarlane that profits from weapons sold to Iran were being diverted to the Contras.

[video:https://youtu.be/Fij9sRTWEuc]

1996 The United Farm Workers of America reached agreement with Bruce Church Inc. on a contract for 450 lettuce harvesters, ending a 17-year-long boycott. The pact raised wages, provided company-paid health benefits to workers and their families, created a seniority system to deal with seasonal layoffs and recalls, and established a pesticide monitoring system.

Merle Haggard's band, The Strangers, demonstrate another way to focus and produce meditative sounds.

[video:https://youtu.be/Uk56xqpdhhM]

And finally, the story telling poetry of Townes Van Zandt takes us out; see you next week ...if good lord's will'n and the creek don't rise.