Angela Hryniuk

Melisma - Buddhist Pilgramage In India

Genres: Spoken Word

Price: $14.99

Other CDs By Angela Hryniuk

• Sitting In The Light

Songs and Samples

1. The Flight Begins
2. India Is No Land For the Myopic
3. Delhi
4. Email: Safe Dehli Arrival
5. On The Road
6. Visions Arise
7. Rain And Wind In Tandem
8. Email: Race Horse And Dreams
9. Kora
10. Kechara Paradise
11. Emptiness/Sitting Walking Standing/Postcards From Beyond
12. Uncomfortable
13. Overcoming The Dragon
14. Night Train To Gaya
15. Email: Sickness And Bliss
16. What Is Pilgrimage?
17. Thought Is The Thinker/Line Up & Wait/Dog Stretch
18. Gun Shots
19. Email: Melisma
20. In An Impermanent World/Metta Meditation/Rest In Silence
21. In The Darkness
22. Vulture's Peak/Existential Angst
23. Email: Meet In Delhi?
24. Learning To Be Human
25. Vertebrae Out of Alignment
26. Email: No India
27. Mahakala Cave
28. We Are So Bothered/Om Is Where the Heart Is
29. Maha Gopa Charnel Ground
30. The Space Around
31. Gaya-Varanassi Train
32. Email: Relic Town
33. Tibetan Lama
34. Suffering/45 Minutes An Eternity/When Words Stop
35. Email: Dhammapada Quote
36. Varanasi/Benares
37. We Need This Boat
38. Email: Brain Mush
39. Equanimity
40. As Western Buddhists
41. The Headstone Reads
42. End Of Journey

CD Credits
Produced by Stephen Fearing
Executive Producer Angela Hryniuk
Original writing by Angela Hryniuk and Penn Kemp
Punjabi translations by Ajmer Rode
Recorded by David Travers-Smith at Found Sound Studio and Canterbury Studio, Toronto Ont. - March-April, 2003
Additional recording by Ryen Froggatt at Thousand Roads Studio, Vancouver, B.C. March 2003
Mixed and Mastered by David Travers-Smith at Found Sound Studio, Toronto, Ont.
Package design by A Man Called Wrycraft
Cover and interior photos Michael O’Shea
Readings by Angela Hryniuk and Penn Kemp
Punjabi Translation read by Ajmer Rode

About Angela Hryniuk

Angela has worked as a street youth worker, suicide and rape crisis counsellor, bookkeeper, with teenaged prostitutes and in Eaton's meat department. She's also worked as a publisher's sales representative for the Literary Press Group, as a freelance publicist and facilitator of creative writing workshops.

She is author of walking inside circles (Ragweed Press, 1989) a poetic narrative about healing from sexual abuse and a book of poetry no visual scars (Polestar Press, 1993) which deals with women’s sexuality, abuse and transcendence in love.

Angela and poet Penn Kemp have collaborated on a book, Sarasvati Scapes (Pendas Productions, 2001) about their travels on a Buddhist pilgrimage in India. She has a few works in progress, a book of spiritual ruminations and meditations entitled St. Teresa: Mystic as Mentor, and pearls and forbidden fruit, a book of poetry dealing with love, unrequited love and grief.

Over the past two decades Angela has been guest editor of the Capilano Review, co-editor of (f.)Lip, JAG, Island and Writing literary magazines and has had her poetry, book reviews and articles published in numerous Canadian journals and anthologies including The Vancouver Sun, Shared Vision, Prairie Fire, CV2, Fireweed, Paragraph, Brick.

She is an alumni of the now defunct David Thompson University Centre which she attended in Nelson B.C. in 1983-84 before the Social Credits shut the fine arts school down.

From 1993-1995 Angela sat on the National Council of the Writers' Union of Canada as the BC/Yukon regional representative and was involved in 1994 in the Writing Thru' Race conference that the Union sponsored that year. She participated in numerous International Feminist Bookfairs, Montreal (1998), Barcelona (1990), and Melbourne (1992). Her most recent project (2003) Melisma: Buddhist Pilgrimage in India, is a recording of her latest book to CD, co-authored with Penn Kemp, produced by Stephen Fearing, Ajmer Rode (translator) and Kiran Ahluwalia (composer/singer).

In the early nineties Angela's life took a turn towards things spiritual and she began serious Buddhist study.

She travelled to India (1996, ‘98, ‘00) on pilgrimage, to study with the Dalai Lama and journey throughout Southeast Asia. Her current writing is reflective of this path.

She sat on the Interfaith Committee for Corrections Canada, was Buddhist Chaplain to women at the Burnaby Correctional Institute, is Past President of her Tibetan Buddhist Temple and taught meditation and philosophy at Zuru Ling, a Buddhist centre in Vancouver, and out of her home. She was the Co-ordinator for the Spiritual Talk for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s visit to Vancouver in April, 2004.

Currently she guides/advises people in recovery from alcohol addiction. sits on the Board of the (newly formed) Interspiritual Center of Vancouver, and prepares income tax for self-employed artists. She is committed to anti-sexist and anti-racist work both in her writing and in the community.

Angela is currently teaching meditation and Buddhist philosophy.

A Message From Angela Hryniuk

Pilgrimage is the act of searching for and tasting the mystery. It is an intensely personal yet spiritual journey with purpose to the holy places the Buddha walked, prayed or meditated. It is to touch the same ground, drink of the same water and smell the same wind the Buddha did. The content of this CD encompasses three different pilgrimages to India (’94, ‘96, ‘00) with the same spiritual master, Zasep Tulku Rinpoche and a fourth journey to India to take teachings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala (’98). The two writers, myself and Penn Kemp, each chronicled our observations of both journey in a holy land, and journey with spiritual intention having some of the writing published in a co-authored book Sarasvati Scapes. New material was also written and other work was pulled from two other collections of poetry, Timeless Time and on our own spoke.

Once the words were written the notes of another kind emerged. I wanted to bring to the listener the experience not only of pilgrimage but of India. This is when vocalist and composer Kiran Ahluwalia and translator Ajmer Rode were called in. Ajmer with his adept ear for translation, nuance and cadence graces our ears in the rendering of some of our pieces in Punjabi. Kiran vocally improvised over various poems in her own luscious, melismatic and unique way. Along with her contribution she brought to the CD musicians who have feet in both the east and west musically and culturally. Musicians who brought their entire being into the playing. They followed the commitment Kiran demonstrates as the musical leader she is.

The most difficult part of this project to realize was the Tibetan chanting of monks and nuns. The nuns of Ghachoe Ling in Nepal were so gracious to allow us to utilize portions of their own CD, The Bliss Swirl of Sky Dancers and my venerable teacher, Zasep Rinpoche without hesitation offered the use of chanting on his CD, The Melodies of Chod. Three enthusiastic monks from the Manjushri monastery in Montreal graciously recorded their chanting which is intertwined throughout the project.

Finally, the entirety of the CD was trimmed, tweaked, tucked and embellished by the irreplaceable producing of Stephen Fearing. From studio directing schedules, musicians, poets and engineers, choosing sound effects, multi-tasking between his own various musical projects and injecting his own “je ne sais quoi,” Fearing aided in reaching the next level of creativity. As a guitarist he laced and graced the entire project with the indefinable beauty of his signature acoustic, electric, and steel guitar playing.

Whether you are a literary or world music lover, a Buddhist or India-o-phile or none of the above, just simply an appreciator of the manifestation of the Divine in a CD, may you enjoy this unique collaboration of talented and inspired artists. Today, this story of Buddhist pilgrimage in India, are my vision, my gift to you.