Artist	Song
Monks of Balamand Monastery, Lebanon	Trisagion
Shoshana Damari	Yome, Yome
Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silas	Ave Mundes Spes Maria
Hamza Yusuf	The stations of gratitude (part 4)
Heartbeat Drummers of Japan	O-Daiko
Nina Hagen	Shark Invocation, Ganesha Mantra and Om with Digeridoo
Narodna	Ajde Jano
Yusuf Islam	99 Names of Allah
-	Sufi Music of Damascus
Monks of Simonopetra Monastery	Evlogiso to kupion
Monks of Maitri Vihar Monastery	Three Mantra Chant
Shlomo Carlebach	Meditation
Noirfn Nf Rfain and Monks of Glenstal Abbey	O Frondens Virga
Capella Gregoriana	Pueri Hebraeorum
St. Sophia Choir	Dreifaches
(Writings of the Dalai Lama)	Fundamentals of Buddhism, part 1
Hisham Abbas	Asmaa Allah Alhosna

Comment:

Though I wasn't able to this year, during the last couple of years I have been twice on retreat to a Benedictine monastery in the North-East of Scotland. You go, you look at the abbey, you think about how quiet it is, you go to services, you pray and, if the mood takes you, you can head over to the abbey at 4:45 a.m. and observe vigils and lauds. Initially it's a bizarre experience if you're not a monk - you make your way there in total darkness (being rural northern Scotland!) with just a torch, and the service is semi-lit by candles and consists of about 2 hours of Gregorian chant - there's nothing else like it. Since the last visit, I have wanted to attempt to recreate that sense of meditation, and as such I did begin by concentrating on Gregorian chant - but then I started to wonder how meditative music and reflections from Byzantine and Orthodox rites might sound juxtaposed with traditional Latin chants...and, being interested in all religions, this, in turn, led to the exploration and incorporation of meditations from Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Islam and Sufism. It was completely fascinating. Notes: 1 - From the Byzantine rite, sung in Arabic. 2 - Jewish; sung in Yiddish. 4 - spoken word sermon, half Arabic, half English (the title comes from here). 5 - Included because of its crossover appeal into Shintoism and Hinduism, but Taiko drumming can be found in either religious or secular contexts. 7 - Serbian, and often cited as simply a folk song, but frequently crosses over into Judaism. 8 - Cat Stevens! 9 - In the "anthology" which this came from, there was no particular group of singers cited. 10 - From the Greek Orthodox rite. 13 - Written in the 12th century by Hildegard von Bingen and is para-liturgical - in other words, it was written with a liturgical theme in mind, but does not have to be used in this context. 15 - From the Bulgarian Byzantine rite. 16 - Spoken word reflections; some thoughts on Hinduism too. Pax :)

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