A nice weekend

I was fortunate enough to have a very nice weekend. In fact, technically, it is not quite over. In a little while I am going to sit down and watch the colts/patriots game and have a few beers.

On Friday evening my son called to tell us he had bought a puppy. Of course, his buying a puppy pretty much meant that we were getting a puppy as well. He bought a 4 month old Sheltie from a pet store. The dog was originally $1,200 but had been marked down on clearance to a little under $400 because it was getting so old. The puppy is very nice but acts a little bit skittish and afraid. I think it has been somewhat traumatized by spending the first four months of its life living in a cage.

Hopefully he will adjust soon and start coming out of his shell. From what I have read about Sheltie's they are excellent dogs; very intelligent, loyal, and full of energy.

On Friday evening I took my son out to the Comedy Forum to see an act. Unfortunately they didn't actually have a comedian, instead they had a comedy hypnotist. I found the whole thing more than a big strange. If you have ever seen a comedian bomb then you know how painful that can be for both him and the audience. However, watching a hypnotist bomb was really uncomfortable. It was not a very large crowd, the place was not even 1/4 full. This didn't give the hypnotist many willing subjects to work with. He brought over a dozen people on stage, after much cajoling of members of the audience. It was so obvious that several of them were going to have no part of it. The rest looked like they would go along, a little bit, for the fun of it. The induction portion was very long and painful to watch as it was so obvious that he was having no success with anyone on the stage other than one, clearly highly suggestible girl. That isn't entirely true. He had one other girl in his thrall. When he told her to go to sleep, you betcha, she went to sleep. Finally he sent everyone off the stage but the two girls. Then he tried to get them to do something. The sleepy girl simply refused and then mumbled 'I'm really tired' and walked off of the stage.

It seems she must have worked a long shift and was just thrilled to get a chance to lay her head down for a minute. I don't know what kind of an act this guy was going to do with one girl but, to his good fortune, he apparently was able to induct another woman who had been sitting in the audience.

He did his whole act with just these two girls, most of it involving things like telling them they were hot, cold, laughing, or posing for a model shoot. Both women acted as if they were the drama queens in their high school plays, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the play-acting. I found the entire episode to be a very surreal form of 'entertainment'.

The women showed evidence of being aware of what was going on because they both clearly had limits to how far their play-acting would go. At the end when he 'woke them up' and they both acted like they had no recollection of what had happened it seemed a little hard to believe. All in all, it was mildly amusing and I am now glad that I can check that item off of my to do list of things I ought to see once in my life.

On Saturday we took the puppy to a dog park which was a lot of fun, and then swung by the lodge to support their fund raiser.

My plans for the evening were something really, really, special. On Wednesday I found out from my friend Adrian that Nicole was going to be hosting an evening of chant at her home. This sounded like an excellent way to spend a Saturday night and I was eager to RSVP.

I am so glad that I did!!! What an absolutely amazing experience! While on Friday I saw a hypnotist fail in his attempt to sway a crowd, on Saturday this live chant put me in such an altered state that I found myself repeatedly slapping myself in the fact to 'come back' to reality at the end of some of the chants!

The musicians who led the kirtan were absolutely amazing. The drumming was very powerful and they both had wonderful voices.

All that happened was that these musicians would play thier instruments and sing a line of a chant, typically in Hindu sanskrit. We, in the group, would then sing it back to them. This might last 30 minutes for a single stanza. Over that time, as the chant would swell, and flow, and develop into a thing of power, it created a deeply powerful meditation that was overwhelming.

I cannot recommend the experience enough! In fact, at my new monthly group 'Appetizers of the Soul' we will be hosting the same Kirtan at our home in January; you really shouldn't miss it if you can come. I have embedded a YouTube video at the end of this post of a Kirtan somewhat similar to what we experienced.

That pretty much sums up my weekend; two different ways to get hypnotized, one clearly preferable to the other.