Thankfully, my visits to the Tibetan-Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center in Bloomington, IN have settled into an annual pattern. Daci and I just spent a pleasant week there.
To prepare for the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday celebrations this past summer, the center’s resident monks and volunteers worked for weeks to spruce up the grounds and facilities. The two stupas were completely repainted. All the prayer flags (hundreds of them) were replaced. The entire center looks better than I’d ever seen it.
I didn’t have a project this time, so most of my time was spent walking the grounds, chilling on the back porch and taking in the forest, hanging out in the temple, browsing the gift shop, and reading.
That back porch was our main hanging out place; we took all our meals and tea breaks there. On the last morning, during breakfast, a young deer casually strolled by, much closer to us than usual. Unfortunately, we didn’t have our phones handy, so didn’t get any photos or video.
My reading was, as usual, a simpatico selection: The Glass Bead Game (Hermann Hesse); Meetings With Remarkable Men (George Gurdjieff); The Narrow Road to the Interior (Matsuo Bashō); Buddhist Philosophy and the Game of Go (William Cobb); and Playing By Ear (Peter Brook).
The cover photo for my upcoming album Counsel of Perfection had been quite the ongoing project. Jennifer New, who provided the splendid photo for Visions of Old Souls, composed and shot a very cool set of photos in conditions that were far from optimal so, unfortunately, nothing worked out. We used one of her compositions as a starting point for the final photo, arranged and captured by Daci on a tree stump in the woods.
With plenty of leisure time to reflect on music projects, I decided to make remixing the meditation chant album Pastimes of Creation the top priority, since that looks to be a very brief piece of work. I’m aiming to release it on New Year’s Day, and then focus on finishing the more intensive Carving in Shadows.
Two other chant projects, among other things, are brewing on the back of the stove. With our move, wilderness camping trip and seemingly endless duties and distractions, there hasn’t been nearly enough Music Time this year. I’m hopeful of moving things forward as we hunker down for winter.
