Velvalee and the Pool of Prayers - #17
Velvalee and the Pool of Prayers - #17
The transformative power of The Mass for the 21st Century
I always feel a little embarrassed that I was given credit as co-producer of the Mass for the 21st Century at Lincoln Center-Out-of-Doors in August 1994. It took a massive (pun intended) collaborative effort to pull off a multimedia production with the Skymusic Ensemble musicians, two large choirs, a half dozen vocal soloists, and a United Nations of modern dancers. Only a portion of Carman’s volunteer production support team was already in New York. The first to arrive from other homes was his lady of those many years, Billielee Mommer, the core and soul of the team.
Carman was excited to have us meet. So excited that he insisted on cooking a lovely dinner of fresh fish and vegetables for me as we waited for Billielee to make her way into Manhattan from the airport. I am still not sure why the introduction couldn’t have waited 12 hours, but I was happy to be fed. After a bit of instant female bonding, I retreated down the many flights of stairs to give them space to reconnect. We had months of work and play ahead for our relationship to unfold as we brought the Mass to the stage.
The first half of the Mass for the 21st Century dramatizes the human excesses that threaten Mother Earth and inhibit any possibility for creating a peaceful, equitable human community; the second half offers a vision of hope and healing for the 21st century. With three decades of hindsight, what is most striking to me about the process of pulling together the Mass’s first major performance was the integrity with which the composer, the production team, and the performers modeled respect, connection, openness, love. I recall no harsh words, no tears other than the occasional happy tears that flowed from an opening of the heart, from a moment of shared joy. Carman surrounds himself with people who embody the core message of love and healing that is perhaps the most important and recurrent theme in his musical oeuvre.
Billielee greeted every hiccup, every problem that arose with the question, “What would it look like if it were easy?” Years before I encountered the power of positive psychology in multiple domains, from training a new puppy to consulting through the framework of Appreciative Inquiry, I learned that this simple framing shifted the mood from frustration to curiosity and optimism. Then new possibilities quickly showed up. “What would it look like if it were easy?” is a mantra that I repeat often in my personal planning and work design, and to bring myself back to center and confidence in the face of challenges small and large.
Carman and Billielee told me their friend Velvalee would be flying in from Oklahoma a week before the show to coordinate the Pool of Prayers. They asked whether she could stay with me at 16 St Lukes Place, since Carman’s place was bursting at the seams already. The Alchemist was well launched by then, and although Paulo and I were in frequent contact and still relying on our mutually supportive friendship, he had no need of my apartment. Many nights I slept over at Nelson’s apartment. I readily agreed to host a new guest.
Velvalee was invited to lead a single but critical piece within the composition. Carman wrote a Pool of Prayers in place of the Credo or “I believe” movement in the classical form of the Mass. As the musicians vamp softly in the background, nine representatives of different faiths take the stage in a circle, praying simultaneously. One by one each of their microphones comes on so the audience can clearly hear an individual prayer. When I first experienced the Pool of Prayers at rehearsal, I imagined that if there is a Creator consciousness somewhere out there, this is what we must sound like to She/He/Them. A constant cacophony of prayers in thousands of languages, of every kind from the wailing of grief to whispered entreaties to ecstatic communion without words. And yet Creator must have the capacity to tune in to each individual prayer with full presence and attention. Brilliant.
“Of course,” I answered, “I look forward to meeting Velvalee. Which tradition does she represent?” Carman smiled. “She’s just Velvalee,” was his response.
Mysterious. But it resonated for me. Carman’s spiritual leaning is the Tao. The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name, begins the Tao Te Ching. Although I was finding the practice of meditation and my study of Buddhist teachings valuable, my experienced connection with the Divine was almost always found in the natural world, or in ceremony and ritual, even in music. “Just Velvalee” seemed to represent something like that, unmediated relationship with Spirit.
Velvalee spent her first night in town at Carman’s, then Billielee brought her to my apartment before I left for work the next morning. Velvalee was not at all what I expected of a spiritually evolved master teacher. I opened the door to a woman of ample proportions, her face glowing with a warm but droopy smile, already in full makeup and coiffed hair at 7:30 am, her voice a smooth Southern drawl, just a bit raspy from a lifetime of smoking.
I welcomed Velvalee and invited her to make herself at home. I was in a hurry to get to work, but Billielee could show her around and get her settled and I would be back by early evening for us to share dinner and get to know one another.
“Thank you, honey,” Velvalee replied. “Would you like me to put my hands on you before you go?” she offered. “Sure,” I answered. I could let her do the blessing thing.
Billielee quickly stepped behind me. Velvalee put her right hand on my forehead and her left hand on my heart. An instant later I was looking up at her from the floor. With a practiced move, Billielee had guided me to a sitting position as I fell.
Wow, I thought silently. This one’s the real deal.
I turned from staring in shock at Velvalee to look back at Billielee with a big question mark on my face. “It happens about 80% of the time,” Billielee explained. “She has to have ‘catchers.’ At large events, people will stand in line for hours while Velvalee sits on a stool and does what she just did to you.”
“I look forward to learning more this evening,” I managed to say as I stood up, dusted off my skirt, and hurried out the door. Learning more turned out to be more than an evening’s conversation. I had just met one of my most important teachers, with whom I would travel and share space for months at a time over the next three years.