My immediate reaction to receiving the email from John was to write back and to tell him how untrue this title was – how much work I had to do, how many emails I had to answer, of the pressures of getting all our printing done on time - let alone all the other trials and tribulations and tales of woe and despair that I have to bear. I sat down at my computer but before I could even write one word of this a small but firm voice said to me “How much energy do you want to waste acting out all this victim stuff? John has given you a wonderful gift. Why not instead try being ‘The Man with all the Time in the World’?"

by Susannah Darling Khan

Italy 2007. A man hums a simple melody to the circle of people gathered around him. They pick it up and sing it with him, someone adds a harmony and someone else adds a rhythmic riff. The music rises to a crescendo. As the volume quietens, I encourage the man to sing out over the sound texture still held by the group. He leaps into the unknown, and lets go into the song which streams through him, his chest swelling as he gives his heart voice; strong, insistent, steady. Then something inside him breaks open, and he is suddenly singing wildly, passionately, weeping profusely, and we all with him. When he eventually returns to stillness, we have all been touched by mystery and freedom. There is awe, and love, and a new peace.

By Ya'Acov

May the blessings of the season rain down upon you and Your Family!

Here we are at the time of the longest night, a time when for three days our ancestors called the light back into the darkness with ceremony, dancing, sharing stories by the fireside while the sun seemed stuck at its lowest trajectory across the southern sky. Finally they would breathe a sigh of relief when on the fourth day the sun would rise higher in the sky again and the cycle of another year would begin. These were times when we knew that ceremonies and prayers were a necessary part of the human connection to the bigger picture. Certainly, the closer I have got to a living relationship with the elemental powers through daily and cyclical rituals, the more at ease and connected I have become. To me, the alienation from nature, and our own true natures, that so many of us experience, is a source of deep suffering.

“Teach Ritual Theatre”

“What’s that?”...   (musings of a ‘5 Rhythms Teacher’)