Mindful Vespers - at South Wedge Mission

10/21/2022

So this group - like baking sourdough bread, detailed ambitious homeschooling schedules, and drinking a bottle of wine almost every night - was born and died over the pandemic. However! If you are local to Rochester, NY, there was a singing group that emerged from it... and then died when Omicron surged... but is RE-RE-emerging. I'll put some more thoughts about what it is and isn't below in the comments, but we meet on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month from 8-9 starting this week, and if you want to get on the e-mail list to get reminders about when it is, shoot me a message at gregwoodsbie@gmail.com and I'll add you!

06/30/2021

+Mindful Vespers - Tonight at 8pm

While Greg’s out of town, tonight Matthew will lead an old school in-person session involving mindful breathing, audio and lectio divina, and a time for centering or walking meditation. Would love to see you there at the South Wedge Mission!

06/19/2021

The word "dukkha" is usually translated as "suffering" but very few of the Poli words that Buddhism was originally conceived/communicated/written in have direct one-word translations. "Dukkha" also means "unreliable," so it's referring to both the unpleasant experiences that we typically wish would end or that we could relieve ourselves and others of, but also all of the other experiences that won't *reliably* bring peace... because as soon as we have the experiences, we're just instantly back on the wanting train. That's not to say that we shouldn't enjoy pleasant experience, just like we should wish to end the suffering of ourselves and others, but we do so without clinging to it, because we know that it is unreliable. The concepts can easily seem a paradox. The experience is freedom.

06/16/2021

8pm tonight. www.southwedgemission.org/mindfulvespers

After some warmup time to rest and settle, Matthew will lead a meditation on "Planting Seeds" and then we're going to play around on one of my favorite hymns, "Jerusalem."

06/12/2021

Keep going and doing!

06/09/2021

I hope you can join us tonight (8pm - links at www.southwedgemission.org/mindfulvespers), but if you can't, or just want to get a taste of what we do, many of our past practices are up on our YouTube page. I particularly love what we did on "Apophatic Meditation" and "Hanging Out With Your Hangups." Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki8ycje1ykw&list=PL62xyp9UU4F165tTFuIkPyOXPHw_UmeKQ&index=6

A mostly musical meditation, but with a general idea of exploring pet peeves as a way to tease out our false self.

06/07/2021

Mariah Maloney, Artistic Director of Mariah Maloney Dance originally from Homer, Alaska is a New York based dance artist. From 1995-2002 she performed, lectured and taught internationally as a dancer with the Trisha Brown Dance Company. Mariah is an Associate Professor at SUNY Brockport.

We will ALSO be joined by Anaar Desi-Stephens on violin and voice! Anaar is a professor of musicology at the Eastman School of Music.

I'm really excited for this practice!

Links at:
www.southwedgemission.org/mindfulvespers

05/26/2021

It seems like there couldn't be more than a handful of people in America who don't harbor some form of ill will toward people who have different ways of behaving regarding the pandemic in this past year. Whether those people are in your family, across the country, have taken things more seriously than you, or less, it is a major challenge to not clench up and unproductively stew. If you'd like some space and some techniques to work on that (and some nice music), join us at 8pm tonight: http://southwedgemission.org/mindfulvespers/

Invite a friend!

Mindful Vespers Mindful Vespers: Interspiritual Practice at the Intersection of Music and Mindfulness Wednesdays – 8pm EST Zoom, Facebook Live and In Person(coming soon) Click to Join us on ZOOM Click to view on Facebook Live Click to explore past practices on YouTube +UPCOMING PRACTICES: Weds May...

05/21/2021

If you missed our practice this week... well... good! Because the live sound entered some sort of death loop and was completely trash! Luckily, we had no idea at the time and just kept going in our blissful meditation, so the recording sounds great!

A mostly musical meditation, but with a general idea of exploring pet peeves as a way to tease out our false self.

05/19/2021

05/17/2021

Our meditation from last week "Apophatic Meditation" is now available on YouTube. While we work really hard to get what we think is really good audio quality for the live stream, we also simultaneously record each track (each instrument or voice individually) so that we can go back and balance it and edit it to make it sound even better, and you can listen to it more like a podcast. I think this week was a particularly nice treat for your ears! Our goal is to just keep doing this and constantly get one percent better, so we LOVE feedback! Think the lighting sucks? (spoiler alert: it does) Too much reverb on my speaking voice? (This is Greg, and yes, there is, but that was through my vocal pedal, so I couldn't fix it in post) We'd love to get your ideas!

This form of meditation uses the verbal formula, "X is Y. X is not Y. X is not not Y." with X being a noun and Y an adjective. If you do your best to allow y...