As I mentioned in this previous post, we are doing a "r&r" show in a church tonight. Playing music in a sacred space. If we were truly enlightened of course, any space could and should be sacred. The priests will tell you that you should be in church to find your sacredness. And if you read lots of Zen literature, well, you think you have to be in a monastery or on a mountaintop to get off.
But really, I think you can be anywhere. I think we can make a space sacred just by our intention, our focus, and our willingness to be open to communicating with the moment. So yes, I've found a certain sacredness in the rain forests in Puerto Rico, the majestic shoreline of Big Sur, on a rock on the coast of Spain, on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, at the Temple Bar in Dublin, on the side of a desert road in New Mexico, in a little black box theater in Chicago, and yes, sitting in meditation on a chair in my little livingroom.
I even had an amazing, mind-blowing moment of transcendence the first time I visited New York City, standing in the middle of Grand Central Station at rush hour, waiting to meet a friend. I will never forget the mad rush of emotion and light in the face of such a massive wave of humanity.
Anyway, you don't have to be in a church to celebrate the sacred. It's everywhere. Not a bad motto to live by. Still it is kind of cool to be playing in a someone else's designated sacred space. Kind of heightens the stakes a little. I think of the Grateful Dead playing in the Great Pyramid, or the Cowboy Junkies recording their first album at Trinity Church, or Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye doing rock and roll outlaw poetry at St. Mark's Church in New York. Maybe our show doesn't quite rank in that list, but of course, for us, it does.
You can make little things into big things, and big things into little things if you put you mind, heart and soul into it.