The Grapevine Art & Soul Salon
WHY WE LOVE ATLANTA
Shambhala Meditation Center of Atlanta
Ring the Bells: The Poetry & Music of Leonard Cohen
January 17, 2020
FINDING THE WORLD IN A LOVER'S GAZE
News of this gathering at the Shambhala Meditation Center first came to me when Chris Kayser, long known by Atlantans for his diverse and exquisite theatrical work in various city venues, let me know that he would be joining several other people to read and sing some Leonard Cohen pieces there. The setting would have appealed to Cohen. Among his many adventures in "the art of being human," a theme embraced both by the Shambhala Center and by The Grapevine Art and Soul Salon, Cohen retreated in 1994 to the Mt. Baldy, California, Zen Center where he lived as a monk for five years before making his way back into producing music for the larger world.
On October 20, 2009, my sister Nancy and I were among the many fans who attended the Leonard Cohen concert at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, part of his world tour at age 75. It was absolutely something to be savored. His performance included many songs that we had sampled as they came out, including favorites from the album I'm Your Man like (besides the title song) "Ain't No Cure for Love," "Tower of Song," and "In My Secret Life."
Cohen's writing process, as he told an interviewer in 1998, was "like a bear stumbling into a beehive or a honey cache: I'm stumbling right into it and getting stuck, and it's delicious and it's horrible and I'm in it and it's not very graceful and it's very awkward and it's very painful and yet there's something inevitable about it."* Nancy and I thought so, too.
Recently I began to immerse myself again in his music by listening to the album I’m Your Man as I walk the track around the empty basketball court at the Y. The Cohen drama unfolding in the intimate space of my ears turns my body into a moving theater of sound and imagery where stepping along becomes sashay, swirl and sway, turn and counterturn, shake and shudder … loosening gestures toward both earth and cosmos, sacred and sensual. The Greek God Eros was described by the poet Sappho as "loosener of limbs," an epithet that certainly fits Leonard Cohen as well. His erotic approach to mysticism is enchanting to those of us who like to loosen the rigid boundaries between body and soul that we often find in world views and in ourselves.
Any Cohen fan will recognize the Shambhala program title "Ring the Bells" as Cohen's injunction in a song to “ring the bells you still can ring … forget your perfect offering … there is a crack in everything … that’s how the light gets in.” The wabi-sabi bowl in the photo above is a lovely image of the Japanese tradition of using gold to mend things that are broken, thereby illustrating the philosophical/psychological value in the imperfect. Contemplating the image frees us to find gold in our own breaking and mending.
My son Jonathan and I decided to cover the meeting on January 17 for The Grapevine. We were greeted by a lovely lady who was all about welcoming new guests and then went into a large room, the back wall of which was hung with cloths and featured a small altar with an LC album and a burning candle.
Seating arrangements included mats and cushions on the floor facing the performance space, and behind them, chairs for the older crowd of LC generation fans. A hundred or so guests looked on as eight or nine readers took their positions.
The diverse group of readers moved to a podium one at a time to present lovingly their well-chosen poems and lyrics, full of desire, darkness, and wit. Eventually, one of them even brought out a replica of Cohen's familiar fedora and took a turn wearing that while reciting his work.
Interspersed in the readings were quotations about LC, including some from a piece written by Tom Robbins in 1995 called “The Man in the Tower." From it, here is an excerpt about Cohen’s voice:
It is a voice raked by the claws of Cupid, a voice rubbed raw by the philosopher’s stone. A voice marinated in kirschwasser, sulfur, deer musk and snow; bandaged with sackcloth from a ruined monastery; warmed by the embers left down near the river after the gypsies have gone.
It is a penitent’s voice, a rabbinical voice, a crust of unleavened vocal toasts – spread with smoke and subversive wit. He has a voice like a carpet in an old hotel, like a bad itch on the hunchback of love. It is a voice meant for pronouncing the names of women - and cataloging their sometimes hazardous charms. Nobody can say the word “naked” as nakedly as Cohen. He makes us see the markings where the pantyhose have been. **
One reader at Shambhala Center drew this from the Robbins piece: “There is evidence that (LC) might be privy to the secret of the universe, which, in case you are wondering, is simply this: everything is connected.” To that, I add that love appears to be the connecting force and, from Robbins again, “The poetic image may be the only device remotely capable of dissecting romantic passion, let alone disclosing the inherent mystical qualities of the material world.”
Or … it may be the device of sound, given beautifully by Chris Kayser leading the audience in a closing singalong of Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Touching on the wit of the master, Chris started by “teaching” the audience the choral refrain (“Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah”) and then went on to draw all the guests into a heartwarming rendition of the full song. Cohen's music rings bells that echo near and far, bringing us both distress and rapture as we search for the gold of our own life experiences. Leaving this gathering, we carried a wealth of images and words for meditation, all connected and all connecting our hearts and minds and bodies to them, to each other, to Leonard Cohen, and to the Shambhala Meditation Center. Many thanks to them for a wonderful evening.
Photos of event by Jonathan Knott
Shambhala Meditation Center of Atlanta Ongoing Programs
See these links to related features in The Grapevine:
Tribute to Leonard Cohen by Barbara Knott
A Review of Leonard Cohen’s Concert at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, October 20, 2009 by David Price
Leonard Cohen, You’re My Man! A Poem by Nancy Law
The Leonard Cohen Live Concert DVD by Charles Knott
Leonard Cohen and Those Who Know Secret Things by Barbara Knott
* Iyer, Pico (October 22, 2001). “Listening to Leonard Cohen,” Utne Reader, Utne.com. Archived from the original on November 15, 2009. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
**By all means, read the whole piece at https://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/robbins.html.
Copyright 2020 Barbara Knott, All Rights Reserved