Ar-Rahman, Tucker's Barn

I began my two-week December vacation last night by riding across the the Beverly Bridge, fiddle strapped securely in a panier, to play at the Atomic Cafe Irish session. There were six of us altogether--four fiddles, a flute, and a guitar--most of whom were familiar faces. We played many old favorites and, as always, I left with a list of tunes to learn before the next session. On the chilly ride home from Beverly, I decided to learn one new tune each day of this vacation. Sixteen tunes.

This morning, I awoke with fiddle music in my heart, but forced myself to hold off as my friend, who is temporarily living on the floor of my study, was still asleep. So I turned to my kitchen bookshelf, where books unrelated to the seventh grade curriculum tend to sit and gather dust until summertime. I picked up a pristine copy of The Sufi Book of Life: 99 Pathways of the Heart for the Modern Dervish by Neil Douglas-Klotz. I had learned about this book at a Sufi retreat last month and purchased it, imagining that I may one day have time to read it.

A dervish, the introduction reminded me, is "one who sits in the doorway or on the threshold or something, ready to move on and transform him- or herself." The 99 pathways are Arabic words that are names of the the Beloved, or God. They are powerful words that embody a living spiritual experience of the Divine and can awaken us to the pathways to God that already exist in our hearts. Over the past years, I have worked in meditation with a small handful of the these names, but am largely ignorant of the others, and have never taken up a consistent practice of working with them.

So. Why not one pathway and one fiddle tune for each day of vacation? The final week of Advent and subsequent Holy Nights are a magical time--a time when the earth around us is at its darkest and we are all invited to let Divine light shine within. Perhaps the joyful practices of welcoming each day with a new fiddle tune and a new name for God, will ..... well I'm not quite sure what it will do, but I do want to try it.

So.......

Pathway 1: Ar-Rahman: The Sun of Love. This is the kind of love that shines from within us and comes from a deeper source; it is always there, waiting to be discovered. Sometimes we have to give up a part of ourselves or ideas we hold in order to seek it. Douglas-Klotz illuminates this pathway by sharing the following poem by Mahmud Shabistari:

"The stakes are high for real prayer.

You must gamble your self

and be willing to lose.

When you have done this,

and your self shakes off

what you believed your self to be,

then no prayer remains,

Only a sparkle of the eyes.

Knower and known are one."

Here is to cultivating this divine sun that lives within. Ar-Rahman. Bismallah Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim. My first step in doing so was to learn "Tucker's Barn," a cheery old time tune in G.

Finding God in Hell

Last weekend, I attended the fiddle event that I have been hearing about since long before I ever held a fiddle in my own hands: Fiddle Hell. Organized by the Reiner Family, Fiddle Hell consists of three days of fiddle workshops, jams, and concerts at the Concord Inn in styles ranging from Bluegrass to Cape Breton. Well over one hundred fiddlers with a wide range of levels were in attendance. Over the three days, one only stops fiddling for the essentials: food, bathroom, and perhaps a little sleep.

I attended a Sufi workshop last year about turning, a prayerful practice of the whirling dervishes. We spun all day, with a few breaks for instruction and meditation. Spin until the whole world goes away and all that is left is your center--the Divine that lives within you. Fiddle Hell was comparable. You fiddle until the whole world goes away and all that is left is the feel of the bow in your hands and music pouring over you...voila, all that was left was the same Divine presence that we had whittled the world down to by turning at the Sufi workshop.

On the second night of fiddle hell, my friend and I stumbled upon a serious Irish session in the Inn's pub. The energy pulsed through the walls and spilled out into the bland hallway of the hotel. We found a place next to a drunk-looking older fiddler, took out our fiddles, and I looked on with awe at a picture of what Irish fiddling could be. I breathed it in and decided that one day I will be good enough to participate in such a session.

After several tunes, I picked up my fiddle and wandered across the hallway. I could already hear the slow lull of a waltz reaching out towards the Irish jigs, like two patterns of waves that meet and transform one another. I followed the sound of the waltz and entered a tiny room, which seemed to cradle its five inhabitants with a deep crimson wallpaper. I inched in and began playing along to "Planxty Irwin." Here was my community, at least for the next two hours. I recognized a middle-aged woman sitting across from me; I had sat next to her at a jam months ago at the Harry Smith Frolic. I was playing mandolin at the Frolic and remember watching her, mesmerized with a hint of jealousy, wishing that I could play fiddle too. Suddenly, I felt that in this little room, covered in a blanket of red, fiddling alongside the happiest and calmest of musicians, I was filled to the brim with all the joys one could ever want from life.