Alice Coltrane and Her Cosmic Healing – On the 50th Anniversary of “Journey in Satchidananda”

I remember. I remember that hot July day when you died. It was the summer of love for everyone else. It was the summer when I lost my love. It was a sad summer. I could not eat because I missed you. I could not sleep because I missed you. In the autumn, I felt relieved. I dreamed. I dreamed of sailing to you through the clouds, of floating with you on the sea. I played the piano and thought of you on saxophone, but you were gone. I played the harp and remembered your smile. My dreams of you made me suffer. When I was awake, I suffered. When I tried to sleep, I suffered. I needed to find the place of pure consciousness – turiya. I chanted the holy name of Rama. I read the sacred writings of Paramahansa Yogananda. I am a Virgo Sun, a Taurus Moon. I remember. I remember the bull god and the god Ptah. I remember playing music in ancient Egypt.

Three years have passed. It is July. It is the month of your passing. I am Isis and you are Osiris. We are at the Village Gate where you and I once played. I play harp. Pharaoh Sanders plays saxophone. Charlie Haden plays bass and Rashied Ali plays drums. Vishnu Wood plays oud. When Pharaoh plays saxophone, I remember you playing saxophone. I place the crown of Osiris upon your head. When Vishnu plays oud – the desert, the pyramids, the sands shimmer. When I play harp, the Nile River radiates in the sun. When Charlie plays bass and Rashied plays drums, the audience claps in time to their rhythms. They are the hooves of the camel carrying me to your tomb. I anoint you with myrrh.

It is November. The days are so short now once more. The Sabian symbol for today’s astrological degree: “A path through woods brilliant with multicolored splendor.” I walked through the woods today. The gold is gone. The warm Indian Summer sun has set, has sunk in the west. The chill wind cuts through my bones. The dusk fades upon the smooth limbs of the trees, smooth like your limbs. The evening glow illuminates the brown leaves, brown like your skin.

I have been studying with Swami Satchidananda. He has taught me about existence (sat) and the expression and knowledge of our existence (chit). Ananda is the bliss of existence. How do I overcome my suffering? How do I attain bliss? I attain it through meditation and music.

Four elements. Cecil McBee is an earth sign, like me. He is Taurus. He is the ground of mother earth with his bass. Rashied Ali is a water sign. He is Cancer. He is emotions flowing with his drums. Pharaoh Sanders is an air sign. He is Libra, like you were. He plays the saxophone, like you did. His balancing breath is a breeze of energy. Tulsi is a fire sign. Her droning tamboura brings me to bliss, kindles the flame hidden within my soul, my spirit. Majid Shabazz shakes bells and tambourine for our ceremony, our ritual. The six of us sit inside the studio. Six is the number of love, it is the number of Venus. We do not turn on the lamps in the studio. We burn incense. We light candles.

It is twilight. Blue hues, silvery sheen on the studio walls as the incense rises. Cecil begins with his bass groove and Tulsi with her tamboura trance. Majid shakes the bells and tambourine. Rashied steady on the drums. Pharaoh’s saxophone sounds so much like your voice. I close my eyes and imagine my love for you emanating from me and from my hands as they caress the harp. I imagine their love for me as they play. I imagine Swami Satchidananda’s love for everyone.

I inhale the patchouli, its patterns intermingling with my fingers as they play more strongly upon the harp. Cecil’s bass and Rashied’s drums, Pharaoh’s saxophone, Tulsi’s tamboura, Majid’s bells and tambourine – they blur in my half-closed eyelids with the candles’ white and yellow, the gas heater’s orange-red flame, and my turquoise visions of Shiva-Loka. My fingertips cascade and glide upon the harp’s crystalline strings as the diamond mandala of the Shiva-Loka dissolves and disintegrates. I dissolve and disintegrate.

I attain bliss. I exhale. They exhale. We rest in the darkness.

After these moments of shared silence, they return to their instruments.

I move to the piano.

I am excited for next month’s trip, my voyage to India. We quickly and rapidly play a bluesy, jazzy improvisation as I think of my December stopover to Bombay.

It is now night. As I play the piano, I remember you again, my beloved. I remember Juarez, Mexico where we were married, the sweet scents of the patchouli curl above my head like you curled around me that night. Majid’s sleigh bells make me recollect our first Christmases with our children. The joy of their smiles as we decorated the evergreen tree and the snowflakes fell. A smile forms upon my lips. Pharaoh’s saxophone summons babies crying, our newborn infants wailing. Tears fill my eyes. I pause. Cecil’s bass rumbles like thunder and Rashied’s drums patter like rain. Tulsi’s tamboura takes away my tears. My fingers find the black and white of the piano keys. White like the streetlights of New York when we played late at the nightclubs, white like the snow that fell that first Christmas without you when I felt so alone. Black like your shadow, your silhouette, standing beneath those streetlights.

I sigh. The embers fade from the incense. The magnetic tape recording our sounds stops.

We bid farewells.

I cook vegetable soup and eat it with our children.

I tuck them into bed. They are asleep.

I gaze out the window, my eyes find your eyes in the moon.

by Mark Lager