-^-for posterity-^-

the last night i was in laos we had a spiritual time together as well as celebrating a laotian ceremony.

the spiritual time was very peaceful. we sat next to the river on a balcony with jagged mountains to our right. i leaned back in my chair and stared up at the sky and the orange slice of moon. we would sit in silence and i couldn’t quiet my mind so i let it run for a bit. i thought about things, i enjoyed thinking and feeling them inside of me.

staring up at the sky, through the abyss and darkness, i felt like the earth was wonderfully small. in vietnamese there is a saying ‘the frog who sits at the bottom of a well.’ it is meant to denote a person who doesn’t really have a thorough perspective of the world. a frog who sits at the bottom of a well can only see the well’s opening. the opening of the well is not large enough to let the frog have an objective perspective and i felt just like that frog leaning back on my chair and looking up at the sky.

thought the sky was dark and there were only a couple of stars shining through the haze, i felt as if i could see the atmosphere move. from my position, it almost felt like i could reach up and grab the clouds as they swirled and twisted in the sky. in my mind’s eye, they all looked green and blue, much like the weather maps on the ‘weather channel’.

i enjoyed listening to the bugs chirp, the river flow. i felt like, while i was only looking through the narrow opening of the well, that really wasn’t a problem.

we moved to the front lawn where someone had built a fire and someone else had brought things for roasting marshmallows. we stood there and chatted.

we all participated in a laotian ceremony. as it was explained to me, this ceremony is given to anyone who is about to undertake something large in their life. someone who is going to get married, someone who is going far away from home or someone who is going to be traveling.

there was a large bucket filled with flowers at the center of the table. also in the bucket were large piles of white yarn cut into 8 inch long pieces. one would go up to the bucket, grab a piece of yarn and take it to someone else to bless them. the person being blessed would raise their left hand and put it in front of their nose and mouth while holding their right hand outstretched.

the person blessing you would then move the string backwards and forwards on your hand while saying a blessing. they would then tie the yarn on your wrist and you would have to wear it for at least three days. i had a mess of yarn on my right hand that i will remove in a couple of hours but that i have worn for the past two and a half days. something inside of me won’t let me take it off even though everyone in the office wondered what it was.

after the yarn ceremony, we stood around aimlessly and chatted. someone took out the blue hymnal and a group of us stood in the corner singing. i hadn’t sang in four part harmony for at least the past year and something inside of me was quite dry.

we opened it up and six or seven of us sang. i sang tenor and my voice, while slightly rusty (i have sang karaoke but that’s a one person job, mennonite hymns are communal), i was able to follow along for the most part.

our voices rose and fell and the old songs came back and brought with them millions of memories. all those times i stood up and grabbed the blue book from the bench in front of me. all the zipping noise they made. all the times i opened up to a song and stood next to my mother and tried to sing. all those voices around me. the beautiful tenor that used to sit in the front. the bases that would sit somewhere in the middle on the right. the sopranos who would be all over carrying the melody. i remember all the song leaders we had when i was growing up. they all came back to me as choppy, happy visions and i smiled.

we sang ‘praise to god immortal praise’ which is number 91 in the blue book and is my grandfather’s favorite song. i asked that we sing this song because i wanted to remember them (they sit on the left side about two thirds of the way back). the song starts out and marches along. the tenor part is high for me in parts and my voice strained. i lifted my head, tightened my throat and breathed deeply. it was my sacrament for my ancestors.

the song ended and i inevitably had a tear in my eye and my throat was tight maybe not entirely because of the singing. i stood there for a moment in the heat and the darkness listening to people mumble and talk around me and i didn’t know quite where i was.

i could have really been anywhere for, when your eyes are following the notes, your brain is interpreting them, your voice is making them move and your memory is saturated, your soul’s home is everywhere.