The Berekah Project

For over six months now I have not been able to listen to music without crying. So I have not listened to music: I have not wanted to let myself cry. I have been afraid to cry. There is too much to deal with and too much to do, and if I stop, what then? If I start crying, what then? That was how it was for six months. I was frantic, too frantic to stop moving, stop doing and just be with myself and the grief and the sadness and the anger. So I wrote, I worked, I ran around doing stuff. I didn't deal with it all at once: I couldn't. People worried about me; they are starting to tell me now how worried they were.

It is getting better. I can now deal with the radio being on in the office, I can teach dance classes because that is not really listening to music. That is doing something, working, whilst music is on in the background. Although, sometimes it still breaks through and the emotion hits me and it makes me cry. I wrote about this before, and it was for a long time one of the sadnesses after the summer, that I couldn't cope with listening to music that moves me. And that is really embarrassing, if you start crying in the office, in a shop, at somone's house when they have invited you round for dinner. People invited me to gigs and I couldn't go.

A few days ago, I was contacted about this - The Berekah Prokect.

"My heart has taken up all forms.It has become a pasture for the gazelles, a church for the Christian, a synagogue for the Jew, temple for the Buddhist, a mosque for the Muslim" - Ibn Arabi ,Sufi

'Introducing a new ensemble featuring musicians of Jewish, Christian and Muslim heritage, celebrating harmony, raising awareness and bridging cultures through the power of music. Click the picture to see the band in action.
Featuring virtuoso musicians such as guitarist/composer Mo Nazam, violinist Serena Leader, Algerian percussion master Abdelkader Saadoun and TV/film composer Mark Hinton Stewart, Berakah brings audiences together through the healing qualities of music, challenging cultural stereotypes, raising awareness, encouraging acceptance and building bridges.
Each performance showcases dazzling interplay and deeply moving compositions with Jazz, Classical and Middle Eastern elements combining to create a memorable live experience.'

Latest Venues (click for details)

Berekah means grace, healing, forgiveness.

I'm going to try and attend.