Chant Dome (sound healing center)

Hello Krishna Das

I've got an idea I want to tell you about.

First a little background on myself. I've been chanting along with your recordings for awhile now, since back when I was a grad student at Berkeley in the late 90's. For the last seven years I have helped run a music club with my brothers in Arvada, Colorado called D Note (dnote.us) which has fostered a wide community and brought joy to many. The business is not exactly viable (after seven years we are still fragile), but grace has been with us and the work has been good for the soul. It is a magical place.

Onto the idea. I want to help create a space in inner cities (starting with Denver in 2010) where there would be a continual live chanting of "Om". I would find or build a dome shaped space that could fit a 100 or so folks around a central flame. There would always be at least one person chanting "om". There would be some very basic rules, like "no talking, no sleeping, no eating" which would be lightly enforced by the keeper of the space. The building would be open 24/7. There would be a place for donations to help pay for rent and keeper, with excess moneys going to charities. The Om would never end in this space, maintaining a single voice from which many would come and go. I don't have a name for this space yet. Any ideas? I believe it would be best to keep all religious signifiers out of the equation, so that those weary of religions would not be deterred from coming. So no use of the word church, or kirtan, or any iconography inside the space that would suggest such. Keep it very simple that way.

I believe this space would be healing to a whole demographic of people in deep need (all of us?). I imagine a person feeling depressed, even suicidal, at 3am. Where could such a person go at that hour? They can go here and listen to the sound of one or more people chanting and chant along, and begin to be healed. This is the vision driving this idea.

The reason I bring this idea up to you is that I'm hoping I can enlist your help. I would like to organize a kirtan at Red Rocks Ampitheater (ever been there? it's awesome) with you as the main attraction, maybe with Jai Uttal (since he has local Colorado connections) and a few others. This concert would be a fundraiser. I think if we could sell 5000 tickets at $20 on a Sunday afternoon we could raise $100,000. Assuming we'd need approx half of that for expenses we'd be left with 50k which would fund the space for a year, by which point I think it would be self-sustaining. And if it works well then I'd look to do a second one in L.A. 2011, NY 2012, etc.

Would you be available next summer/fall to help get the ball rolling?

If you agree, then I feel this dream will have taken its first step to becoming a reality.

Thanks for listening,

Adam DeGraff

field poems

To be seen from aeroplane. On reflective sheets on the ground.


What is total dance?

We gotta do one that good!

What begins as the letter D might, upon inspection, morph into a bird... then two birds... and end up as a face.

Lights by the Holy See

Featuring you

Pay Attention

For no one

*Do you know who I am?

Look me in the eye

Je ne comprend pas

Fire!

Haiku

Nakedness and drugs
makes babies with weird surnames.
Come here, Moon Unit!


During day reflective "Day in"
&
During night in lights "Day out"
(at twilight you'd see both)

A ghost lies beneath these words

Book ideas

25 random things about 25 poets, published by Ugly Duckling Press.

workout machine

How about a tread-mill in which the energy you expend runs your i-pod. So the psychological effect is that you are powering the engine of your music with your physical effort, empowering you by subconsciously reminding you that your energy has a a powerful effect.

word ideas

Growzy: grouchy and drowsy

Craughing: crying and laughing

Book Idea

How about a book called How To Have Fun.

This is for all the people too stressed, or mad, or sad, or scared to have fun anymore. So many!

Chapter one: Dance at least once a week. Take a lesson. Force yourself to start. In no time you'll be having fun.

Also dance is a great way to work out. working out isn't generally much fun, but it is when you dance!

Chapter two: Play music. If you are sad you can play a sad song. If you are stressed you can just play meandering patterns of notes. Playing music is great stress relief. G is good for some moods, B minor for others. Again, at first you may have to force yourself to start. But once you are playing, well, the world is in your hands, born aloft by the strains of your song.

Chapter three: Everything you don't like to do can made into a fun game that you do want to do. This is just a theory. I'm not certain it's always true. But I'm pretty sure.

For instance, signing bills is no fun. But if you work on a really fancy signature, then it is more fun.

Making money can be a real drag too. But if you turn it all into a game, not so hard. Let's play the "resume game". Now let's play the "interview" game. Once hired it's time play the "employee" game.

Or better yet, start your own business. Pretty soon you'll be laughing up a storm. It's hard, but it's fun.

Hard can be fun. Soft can be even funner. Love, funnest.

Chapter four: To play with language is fun too. That's why saying "funner" is funner than saying "more fun".

Digressing is also fun. More about that later.

This morning I accidentally said I felt "growzy". That was super fun. Somehow I confused "drowsy" with "grouchy" and came up with a new word.

The other day I came up with another good one, "craughing", for when you are laughing and crying all at once.

You really know you're having fun when you are craughing.

Chapter five: When something ceases to be fun, time to get serious.

Dance idea

How about choreographing a dance to a Bach Partita, something fast and difficult, but super fun to master and perform.