My week has proved to be full of much downtime. Wednesday, Jon and I got caught up on cleaning and yesterday, I chilled while Jon was at church. Oh yes… a belated “Happy Canada Day” to the Canucks on my blogroll and others who visit Meditatio regularly.

Last night was a free concert at the local branch of OSU and Jon and I decided to go. It’s a pretty campus and we brought a blanket thinking that we might need it. Well… everyone had brought lawn chairs and stuff and we hung out with our cat care people and their family. The music was some rock classics, the Land of Legend Philharmonic Orchestra doing patriotic fare, and the Scioto County Brass and Percussion. It was a lovely concert and the fireworks were pretty sweet as well. Unfortunately, I accidentally hit another car trying to get out of the parking lot. 🙁 (I was trying to get into a space that someone had opened for me and I accidentally went too far to the left and dinged someone’s door. We left a note and they called us this morning. The nice folks at our insurance company are taking care of it thankfully.)

This morning, we went to Meijer and got fruit for salad, some spinach (mmmmmmm… spinach salad), honey (for granola), and some other granola ingredients. We ran into lots of people from church there and we also ran into people at Kroger and Festival Foods. I made a batch of granola this afternoon before I realized that we were out of milk and had to make a Wal-Mart run. The Wal-Mart run turned out to be very interesting because a thunderstorm was about to hit and there were a few dust devils in front of it. Trying to turn into the Wal-Mart parking lot was really bad because of it and I think I just avoided being hit by a car because visibility was so low. We were also having to dodge runaway carts being propelled by the wind.

Mood Music
I’ve also been in a Loreena McKennitt mood for the last few days. For those of you who don’t know who she is, she is a Canadian singer who does a lot of Celtic music and music that also incorporates famous poetry (her renditions of “The Lady of Shallott” and “The Highwayman” are stunning) and her research into other areas of history and spirituality. I saw her in concert in December 1994 and unfortunately missed seeing her in 1998 because I had pneumonia and was stuck in bed (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Anyway, her music is what I listen to when I need to ponder and when I also want something to sing along with where my voice actually blends.

Anyway, one of the songs from her latest CD (Book of Secrets) is really fitting my mood right now. It’s called “Dante’s Prayer” and it starts out with some Russian chant before going into piano music accompaning Loreena. (Click on the link for the text of it.) As I’ve been trying to make sense of grief and emotions during the last few days, it has been one that works for a way of describing me. When I’ve needed some instrumental music for meditation, “La Serenissima” has been my choice. The music moves but it’s quiet and conducive for my thought processes to work. I’ll post my mental ramblings tomorrow or something. 🙂