Kalk Bay Argus Retreat
There was to be a follow-up weekend retreat in Pommereau in early March, and I was in communication with David as to how I could participate in the group long-distance from Cape Town. I had a clear visual memory of the room and the space within which the musical magic happened five months previously. He sent me the programme of the different meditations from silent to breath work to the exhilirating overtone harmonic chanting as each individual sounding combined in the composite sonic creations, creating the ecstatic state which I still had dreams about.
The weekend retreat coincided with the annual Argus cycle tour which attracted between thirty and forty thousand cyclists from around the world. It was held on a Sunday, and the first group of cyclists would pass through Kalk Bay around five thirty or six in the morning while the bulk would continue to ride along the main road till around mid-day. There was traditionally a very warm welcome from Kalk Bay residents for the cyclists, with restaurants opening early and breakfasts on the pavement accompanied by –music, hooting, cheering and clapping for the several hours it took for the mass of cyclists to flash through.
I started my weekend retreat early on the Saturday morning, having a very quiet and solitary time. I was fasting, drinking only liquids, and pent the day mostly in meditation and breathwork. At the appropriate time I would chant along with the tanpura droning in the background. It was a peaceful and internal day, and I was quite detached from the bustle outside that was Kalk Bay on a Saturday in mid-summer, the day before the Argus tour. My house was set back one block from the main road, but I had expansive views from the two decks on either side of the roof openings where I had created a living and sleeping area. From these decks I could see, hear and feel the street life. Going to bed early, with the moon flooding through to the sleeping area of my simple loft, I was filled with a sense of calm and could hear the waves gently rolling out in the bay. I was lulled into a peaceful sleep aware of the pleasant vibrations in my body.
I woke well before sunrise and prepared myself for the day, feeling light and excited. I was seated in meditation well before the first cyclists arrived and the pavement cheering began. As I found my consciousness moving within, the external world began to fade in the background. More and more, till I found the point of stillness. The tanpura droning gently, persistently, I was no longer aware of the global event passing my doorstep. What I did become conscious of, however, was a connection between myself and the group in Pommereau, seated in their early morning circle. The connection became tangible, it was like a golden thread which emerged from my heart area and floated out from this contained space, circling out over the waters of False Bay. I followed its trajectory as it moved up and northwards, across the French countryside and entered the room in Pommereau, where it settled into the circle. All the hearts of the persons in that room were linked in a circle by this golden thread of light. And I was at one end of this thread at the tip of Africa. What an extraordinary image and vision. This connection stayed for several hours.
What happened next defies the rational mind which ‘only knows what it knows’. [1]
The tanpura was droning, I was seated breathing gently, eyes closed, still seeing and feeling this ‘thread’ from my heart chakra, and then I began to hear it.
Very, very quietly but no question about it, there was an overlay of chanting coming through on the music of the tanpura. I could hear harmonics held in these sound waves. The chanting became more distinct and grew from a single voice into several. It was as if the choir’s creation in an isolated retreat centre was transported in the subtle realms and reaching me. It was stunning. I felt as though I was physically present in the circle of sound being created in another place! We were connected.
In some other dimension we were sharing the experience. I now understand that it is in the seventh dimension that sound is created and then it travels from there circling down through the other dimensions until we perceive and receive it – at least the part of sound that is audible to us in this dimension.
So perhaps this explains in part what transpired that early Sunday morning in March 2006.
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[1] Thanks Jim for this helpful phrase.