=ab050529 REMINISCENCES OF THE ABODE: ------------- FROM: Steve Amdur, Campra, CH-6718 Olivone, Switzerland sa73122@yahoo.com www.geocities.com/sa73122 , /sa73122a , /sa73122c PVK transcripts on: www.yahoo.com Briefcase User Name: AdobetoZenith (Adobe, not Abode) Password: ( ask me or Mr. Gebel ) Main Folder: /PVKsa0411 ------------------------------------- From 1967 to about 1974 I lived intermittently at New Buffalo commune, in Arroyo Hondo New Mexico, 10 miles north of Taos and 10 miles south of the turnoff to Lama Foundation in San Cristobal. Some of the Taos Indians tried to show us some things. Joe Sunhawk once said, "You are a very strange people, for you carry your past with you wherever you go." I guess New Buffalo still exists as a bed_and_breakfast and conference center, supervised by Rick Klein, one of the Founders. I returned to Massachusetts and attended Haverat Shalom on College Ave in Somerville. It is associated with the first (Red) Whole Jewish Catalogue, a sort of egalitarian New Age neo_traditional re_approach to religious Judaism. I heard that during the week of Passover, R. Zalman Schachter would give a seminar at The Abode of the Message. I imagined that to consist of one small building, with a name slightly too long for the lintel, drooping down at either end. I worried that this might not be a proper place for a nice Jewish boy -- Arab mystics or some such -- but since R. Zalman was teaching there, it must be OK. I got off the bus at Darrow Road in Lebanon Springs, in a light snowstorm. A pickup truck passed by, with two scruffy hippies. I asked if they were going to Abode. With few words or less, they indicated yes. I asked if I could have a ride. Likewise. I got in the back of the truck, which has always been my favorite way to travel, except for walking and sailing. It was snowing lightly so I remained standing, supporting myself on the cab. Got off at the Abode and walked into the main building. Walked into the dining room of course. Bread, obviously whole wheat, was baking in the kitchen. OK, real hippies. Solid oak tables (pine, in point of fact). OK. I was lodged in the barn, long before it was made into apartments. Barn swallows would flie in an out. There was a picture of Noor Inayat Khan, zl'b, on the wall, so I felt at home. She reminds me some of Gail Meyer, my closest childhood friend. I got mad at the Abode for something, and paid with a rubber check. Sikander wrote me that they had found my checkbook, and he assumed it was for that reason that I had cancelled my checks. I felt so sorry for the poor fool that I made the check good, and here I am. Subsequently I spent some summer months at the Abode, mostly picking weeds in the garden, under Sarah. (Sarah Westwind). One year I tied up the new grapevines, near the pond. How beautiful the fish are in the pond. Some say the Chinese regard carp as almost sacred. Kule (Jackman) once built a swimming float for the pond. He would sometimes lie on it and watch the stars come out. He said, This is very good for the subtle bodies. One year I met Latifa (Patricia) Kendrick (Monaghan). Taj Inayat and PVK had met her in Texas, and brought her back. A cherag, and truly so. She once told me, If you have trouble relating to Jesus, think of him as Murshid. She said, she was once sitting in the Meditation tent and saw great hands, of HIK I gather, come down and bless PVK. Last I knew she was in Plano Texas. A very fine person, frail but with great courage, but vulnerable. I was at the Campground when Sikander (Kopelmann) led the crew putting up the Centerpole for the first Meditation Tent, on a dirt floor. There was a short serious attunement before we did so. Once after a PVK week I was davening mincha and noticed how the forms of Jewish prayer interweave with the -- kavanot, levels of consciousness, attunements -- of the 'Sufi' way, like warp and woof of a tapestry. Chana, zl'b (zicharon l'Bracha, her memory for a blessing) left the Abode to found the Canaan Family, nearby in Canaan New York, to replicate the Abode attunement in an explicitly Jewish context. On Friday afternoons she would drive in her little yellow car, the Honey Bee, to the Abode with fresh-baked challot. I gave a Herz Siddur in her memory. TIK said it would be placed in the Sanctuary, when it was completed. Under the supervision of Lynn, we gathered rocks for the Sanctuary. Each rock was individually picked. There were some nice quartz rocks on the road. Someone brought a rock from Mt. Sinai. I did not work on Shabat, of course. Once on a Saturday work_day I picked potatoes. Elijah Imlay was in the next row, and we talked about Judaism. It was great fun. (Once at Zenith workcamp they got a little behind and were working in the rain on Saturday. I did not. I still sometimes imagine myself putting on raingear and going out there. ) I went to Shady Hill School in Cambridge Massachusetts. It is, or was, a private co-educational school with lots of wooden buildings. I'm sure it is as good as the Abode and Hollow Reed schools. One Christmas I was in the Abode dining room. There was a little silence before the evening meal. I felt like reciting the King James bible story of the Nativity, which I still know by heart, pretty much, from our Shady Hill Christmas celebrations. But I did not. At the top of the building where the first office was -- to your left as you walk out the dining hall -- is a room they say was haunted. They say a Shaker woman went crazy and the Shakers kept her locked up thre. I hope that has been cleared, "in a good way" of course. This is the building where Aftab had her first bookstore, with a woodstove and books to look at and some nice little snacks to buy for not very much money. Every bookstore should keep one copy of each book just for people to read. His first summer, the water in the cistern got very low. Sherdyl, who later taught agriculture at Cornell, would sit out on the stoop across from the dining hall, drinking beer from a case of it. He said, 'Everyone's got the sh_ts but me. That's 'cause I drink beer.' One Sukot I built a Sukka in the middle of one of fields of the farm. I used large corner posts, and tamped rocks in the postholes. I left before the end of Sukot, so Sherdyl had to take it down. He later said, "You put it in pretty good." He used to say, "Once a redneck, always a redneck." So sometimes I say, "Once a hippie, always a hippie." The Abode used to have signs, 'No hunting or fishing, this land is a sanctuary for all living creatures.' Sherdyl once told a story, best's I recollect: He saw some bikers -- motorcylists in traditional costume -- on the upper road. He recollected, 'I really didn't want to get my ribs kicked in for the dear old Abode, but I thought maybe I should do something. So I walked toward them, thinking of Murshid, but then they turned around and went away.' Once a woman slept a night in the Shaker burying ground. I was a bit concerned, but someone said, It's ok. I don't recall who. Someone once said to me: 'Before you say anything bad about the Abode -- think twice.' I don't recall who. Sometimes I would walk back from the pond, especially after the first stars were out, humming Reb Nachman's niggun. Sometimes I walk up the old Strada Romana behind Campra, humming the second part of the Kyrie from the Bach B Minor. Those are good walking tunes. The Bach Kyrie for uphill, the Reb Nachman niggun for a lonely road. ----------------------------------------- Here is a poem, set at the Abode on a Shabat: * few pale stars above waning moon in the western sky tzitzit - rose dawn-beams eastern sky lightens pale green, pale blue dark blue, the lightening moon crows and bluejays call a mist blows over the pond from the heron's tree cornstalks turnign brown rabbits walk across the road white-tail deer bound off mint, sage, basil, thyme diamond dew on the garden motley of pale greens behind the blue sky yellow sun bursts forth in joy like s strong woman in the stone-cooled hhall flute note in the quiet air earth foods at noontime golden light, green gardens the birds are setting up camp pensive time, Yitzhak Kaballat Shabat sun setting behind the hills bright colored palace cool of day drifts back spectrum of darkening blues looking for three stars Ruach Camp - Abode of the Message 1982. 1983 to Noor --------------------------------------------------- Maybe that's enough for now. With warmest regards to all, as always, Stephen Benjamin Amdur ------------------------------------------------------------------ Campra, 29 May '05 -- 20 AIYaR -- malkut sh'b HOD -- 21 Rabi al' Thaanay -- a bright warm day in Campra, all the trees in leaf, almost to the top of the treeline -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================ ================================================================= REB NACHMAN'S NIGGUN: 2/4 Time -- about MM=60 (ie, 60 bps) This niggun is in 3 parts. My alphabetic notation should be reasonably clear. Captital letters are 1 beat -- eg G D Lower-case letters bracked in parentheses are 1 beat, eg (gc) A note is the flat if followed by a - eg b- is B-flat A capital letter followed by a 2 is 2 beats Bar lines are indicated by / A letter followed by an an_sign (ampersand, & ) add half of its value So (g&) is a dotted eighth note (in 2/4 or 4/4 time, where a quarter_note gets 1 beat n means natural -- eg dn is a d_natural eighth note A plus prefix means either: this note is higher than the one that precedes it or in this tune, this note is an octave higher than the same letter without a plus sign There are no words to this niggun. The mood is calm but optimistic. It is in no sense a lament. ---------------------------------------- Theme 1: / G D / (b'd) C / (gc) (b-a) / (gaga) (b-a) / / G D / (b'd) C / (gc) (b-a) / G2 / (Repeat previous two lines) Theme 2: / (gb-) (b-b-) / (b-(ab-)) (cb-) / / (gb-) (b-b-) / (b-(ab-)) (cb-) / / g B- a / g C- e- / (d& (c)) (b-c) / D2 / / g B- a / g C- e- / (d& (c)) (b-c) / G2 / Theme 3: / +G2 / +G2 / +G +G / +G +G / / (+gf) (+b-a) / +G2 / (+gf) (+b-a) / +G2 / / (+gf) (+b-a) / (gf) (e-d)/ (dc) (fe-)) / (dc) (b-a) / / G D / (b'd) C / (gc) (b-a) / G2 / (Repeat entire niggun ) ==============================================================