31 May a bowl
“That one? How about one of these?” The Nepalese man picked up an intricate singing bowl pointing to its design.
I held a simple copper bowl. The sides were not smooth, little indents captured the hand-hammered process of a craftsman. The inside had a flat bottom and parts of it were green from age. I felt the weight of our connection. The weight of past, present, and future.
“No thank you. I want this one.”
“This one more expensive.”
“That’s okay. I only want this one.”
I didn’t need to play it to know I wanted it, but the man kindly showed me how. I couldn’t get it at first, it took an angled position and a surprising amount of pressure. I slid the leather part of a wooden stick around the lip.
An alto tone reverberated
into the air and
into my chest.
My heartstrings vibrated, shaking loose built-up dust.
I bought it at the Tuscan Gem Show, the famous rock gathering, showcasing crystals four times the size of a human. I was at the end of a relationship built upon my grief and his desire. Tears and the vulnerability they brought gave this man an opportunity to care for a woman he imagined to be of his dreams.
But my attachment to him, while I did love him, clung to his provisions, not his person, and my grief, the strongest force led me away.
The singing bowl and I had a different kind of attachment.
I learned that original singing bowls were hand-hammered by monks, and they collected alms and ate from it. It came with them on all of their excursions. And so it did with me. It shook my ribs on the mountain of Crestone, it journeyed with me to the depths of the darkness, it soothed me in the process of healing.
I play the bowl each day, it brings me into the present moment, the vibration of the note F unifying what is
without
with what is
within.
My heartstrings are no longer dusty. They have made music full of joy and eternal peace.
I thank you, singing bowl, for being that which opened the door and accompanied me into the melody of living.