Magic

I found my way up to the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre today. The Ethiopian Coptics camp up there. I've been looking for the access to it since I arrived. "Follow the signs to 'Mike's Internet Café"' someone told me. Right.

Well, he was.

On my way there I got tangled up in a group of Italian Christians doing the stations of the cross with a great deal of passion.. Desperate to get away from them I slipped into Queen Helen Coptic Orthodox Church. Through the chapel and down a precarious, narrow, and low set of steps there is a cistern that reputedly was discovered by Queen Helen, Emperor Constantine's mother, in the 4th century of this Common Era.

I slipped the priest ten shekels and went down.

There was a group of "mystics" from a kibbutz there. They were singing Hebrew folk songs, laughing, splashing in the water, dancing, harmonizing. The acoustics were extraordinary. Their energy and joy were contagious as they generously included me.

The songs gave way to one sounding a mantra. Everyone went quiet, then, one after another, joined him, then breaking into harmony. This went on for minutes, the reverberations moving into and out of the curves and indentations of the cistern and off of the water.

Magic.

A single voice then began the most haunting Hebrew song.

The other voices fell away and this amazing voice, and its emotion, filled the cavern.

As he ended his voice just hung there, only slowly fading, being replaced by the sound of dripping water.

When I opened my eyes everyone was standing motionless, arms uplifted, as if in a trance.

Without another sound the group made their way up the steps and out.

I was left there alone, the water dripping the only sound.

Awesome.