Something marvelous happened for me on a recent Sunday. I found myself in the midst of a group of women, all passionately singing sacred chants from all over the world. Of course, that’s a beautiful thing in and of itself. But the journey that brought me into that room is also very sweet.

 

Until recently, I had the privilege of working with prisoners through leading grief and loss groups. My favorite part, or at least a favorite part (there were so many), involved teaching the prisoners sacred chants and singing with them. The human voice, when raised in song, has the ability to reach into our hearts, wafting beyond the pain and sadness. Chanting holy words helps us remember the Light and the peace beyond human understanding.

 

As most of you know, for over a decade I earned my living exclusively as a transformational coach/therapist. Helping my clients transform was the whole point of my practice. If they needed to heal and forgive, we worked on that. If they needed to shift jobs or locations, we worked on removing the fears preventing them from doing so.

 

If they needed help with relationships or learning to love themselves, we worked on that. I’m so very grateful for the amazing men and women I had the deep honor of serving. And then it came time for me to go through my own transformational process. So as of September 2008, I shifted to an all Skype-based practice, so that I would be able to take a sabbatical and finish my book.

 

I believe in the power of ’speaking our word.’ The spoken voice is every bit as powerful as the voice in song. By speaking my intention, I created my business years ago, bought a beautiful home, then sold the beautiful home this year when I needed to move. And a few weeks ago, I used the same power of intentional word to find a rare paradise for my new home.

 

I just signed the papers for a little cottage halfway up a mountain surrounded by forest and birds, a mile from the ocean. No matter how many times I have used this technique, it always astounds me. My latest project: I began speaking-into-being a sacred dream, by writing it out as well as telling everyone I met in this new place. This is what I wrote down:

 

My Dream

 

To form a sacred healing singing circle, with the purpose of bringing the singing into the prisons. To learn, with as much humbleness and respect as possible, the holy transmission of sacred chants from various spiritual disciplines from around the world. Then, surrendering to Source, trust that a transmission of joy and healing will emerge for the singers within the prisons. Freedom from within is the order of the day.

 

A day later, a new friend told me about two singing groups that I should check out. He insisted that their focus was the same as my dream – to exclusively sing sacred chants. I was thrilled, but had a hard time believing that it was true. I had never heard of such groups; I didn’t realize anyone else had the same dream!

 

To walk into a room packed with people raising their voices in song was amazing enough. But that the songs were sacred chants from all over the world, from all cultures, tribes, spiritualities, that was amazing to me.

 

I am so excited to visit the second singing group as well. Their mission is similar, but their focus is to sing for people close to death. This is so touching to me; I used to be a death and dying midwife and often sang to my clients as they were passing over the veil, shuffling off the mortal coil. What beautiful service work such a group is doing, both for themselves and those facing transformation.

 

My two greatest loves are knowing Spirit, and singing, in that order. To have the opportunity to tune in and sing with so many other lovers of Source was overwhelming. The energy and sound filling the room was much bigger than the three dozen voices. It was the transmission of hundreds of thousands of holy ones who had sung/were singing these chants across the globe.

 

God is One Source, regardless of the language, the melody, or the religion. The river of song is Its river of light and love.

 

I can’t wait to bring these chants into the prison system! But first, it’s time to birth my book, about the holy women I had the honor of serving as a grief and loss group leader within American prisoners. Look for a release by mid-December, 2008 of Sacred Gateways of Grief and Loss: Honoring Our Healing Journey.

This morning I had a healing with a wonderful friend of mine. Today was what I would call a ‘doozy.’ We have been trading weekly spiritual healings with one another for quite a while now. This week was my turn. And I was in a state. I’ve been sitting with a few extraordinary things that have happened for me, or more appropriately, that took place despite my little self, and I’m having trouble understanding my role.

First of all, two weeks ago in the Grief and Loss Group at the women’s prison, during check-in, a group member told me, “I have been waking up at 3:30 a.m., with that Sufi chant in my head, and I just feel like chanting it! What’s going on?” I was blown away, because one of the deepest practices of the Sufis is the remembrance of the Ineffable One in the middle of the night, when the world is sleeping.

As Rumi, the Sufi poet who lived hundreds of years ago but continues to entrance poetry readers around the world, wrote:

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you;Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want; Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep. (trans. Coleman Barks)

In the Grief and Loss Group the week prior, we had talked about forgiveness, and I had taught the group members a Sufi chant in Arabic. The transliteration (what the Arabic sounds like) is something like this: “ah stahg fir allah al a theem.” How Sufis normally write it is: ‘astaghfir’allah aladim.’ This is a very powerful mystical phrase for Sufis, sometimes considered the chant of “repentance.”

Given the negative, fire-and-brimstone connotations of that term, it is more commonly seen as forgiveness: “I forgive others, and, more importantly, I forgive myself for turning away from the Light.” As we sang the chant together in group, I added a second forgiveness chant, the Hawaiian Ho’oponopono series of four phrases recently made popular by Joe Vitale: “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you” (http://www.hooponoponotheamericas. org/index.htm).

But even though these words were in English, the women were more attracted to the Sufi chant. This surprised me; I had added this second piece to make the Arabic chant more accessible to them, but they were way ahead of me. I wasn’t sure how comfortable I was teaching them straight Arabic; they trumped me! Now, the following week, to have a prisoner “tune in” to this central Sufi practice of waking up in the middle of the night to pray via chanting, was simply extraordinary. I had not talked about this very holy practice of remembrance at all, and it’s pretty unusual for someone who isn’t a Sufi to even attempt to try it. Yet it had happened spontaneously for her.

She had never heard of the practice before this, and had no idea why it was happening, but she was grieving deeply. Somehow Spirit must have felt her need, and woke her up into a much deeper awakening. What makes it more extraordinary for me is that I’m not sure I even embrace this practice or the Sufi path. Yet despite my doubts, my little self, the “cloudiness of my container,” she caught the fragrance of God, or as the Sufis call It, Allah.

Then, the following weekend, I traveled out to Los Angeles where I attended Revelation 2008, a “new thought” conference produced by the Agape Spiritual Center and Dr. Reverend Michael Beckwith (agapelive.com). I had the opportunity to hear many amazing mystics, and was profoundly touched by the words of the Venerable Dhyani Yawahoo (www.beautywayproductions.com). After her talk, in a question-and-answer session, I asked if I could sing as a gift for her.

There were tears in my eyes as I opened my arms and internally prayed for Spirit to sing through me. With my own free-form Middle Eastern/Western improvisatory singing style, I sang her the Fatiha in Arabic. The Fatiha, for many Sufis, and Muslims in general, is considered the most holy verse from the Koran, their sacred book. It is the opening prayer to the Koran. When I sing for God, I connect to Its Oneness, and in this particular moment, the connection was very profound. I had tears in my eyes, and as I finished, I saw people all over the room of over a thousand people crying as well. Clearly others felt this connection as well.

However, and this is a big however, despite the prisoners (particularly the woman I mentioned before), receiving a connection to God from the Sufi chants, and despite the beautiful soft glow that seemed to fill the hearts of the Revelation participants after I sang, I have issues with the path of Islamic Sufism. There are so many tenets of this path I don’t agree with, as a liberal feminist woman.

Yet, the Sufi songs would appear to have chosen me. But I continue to resist. I don’t like wearing a veil, although I chose to wear one at the Revelation Conference as a statement of solidarity with Muslim women. I don’t accept Islamic views on marriage, women’s rights, gays, or many other subjects. I can get very emotional and angry about this, but as Eckhart Tolle points out, that’s just my ego needing to be right (www.eckharttolle.com).

Regardless, somehow the light of Sufism has found its way through the cracks of my heart’s stronghold and has begun singing through me. Rumi has been my touchstone through all of my questioning, and the transmission from his beautiful mystical poetry was the reason I even entertained the idea of studying Sufism to begin with. As Rumi would say:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense. (trans. Coleman Barks)

In other words, cultural practices are just human constructions, and not those of the Great Mystery. So when I simply look for the Light, let my soul sing, and let go of religious rules and strictures, that is when I find peace. I can almost hear Rumi saying, “So come with me, to that field beyond your culture and my culture, lie down in the grass and connect with me soul to soul. Forget if you are Christian, or Muslim, or Jewish, or Buddhist, or Hindu, or atheist. Come meet me there.”

I’m thrilled to to share with readers about the upcoming publication of my first book, Sacred Gateway of Grief and Loss: Honoring Our Healing Journey, in December 2008. The book follows my journey into women’s prisons as a volunteer leader of grief and loss groups.

I am so, so grateful for all that I have had the opportunity to witness. These women are amazing, courageous, beautiful, loving, caring people who’ve experienced so much devastation in their lives. In the group, they have the opportunity to face and work through some of their pain, by facing it, expressing it and choosing to love despite the heartbreaks and betrayals.

In a broader way, this is a book for anyone who has experienced despair and heartache, who has felt imprisoned in their life, or trapped and unable to find peace. With the exercises in the companion workbook, Sacred Gateway Workbook, I hope each reader will be able to reconnect with the truth of who they really are– the Oneness of All That Is, whether you call that God, or Love, or Allah, or Great Mystery, or Spirit or just infinite energy.

Sacred Gateway of Grief and Loss will also be a template for my future project–to create certification for those who would like to learn the techniques I use, and learn how to bring grief and loss groups to prisons, nursing homes, schools, community centers and houses of worship.

Grief is so universal–it is something we all must go through. In facing it, we have the opportunity to transform ourselves in very incredible ways, as the stories in my book demonstrate. I can’t wait for you to read it!

love, jennifer