Alice Coltrane, Transcendence Embodied
For months, I have been steeping, marinating in the life and teachings of the great Bengali saint, Ramakrishna. One evening not long ago, I was hoping to find a documentary about him. Instead, I stumbled upon a recording by a woman I had never encountered, the other Coltrane, Alice. The track was Turiya & Ramakrishna. I am listening to it as I write.
How to describe this discovery? Maybe the best way is to say that if she were still alive, I would drop everything to be in her presence.
After I listened to some of her recordings, I went looking for more about her spiritual life. What had inspired this woman to create this music? What I read took my breath away.
Probably you know this feeling. Someone you’ve never heard of pops up in your YouTube algorithm. You are galvanized. You wonder, “How have I never come across this before?” You know the feeling of excitement, like being on the precipice of some beautiful undiscovered valley and leaning over to see what else is there. It’s all yours, this discovery. It’s intimate. It speaks to you. It grabs your heart and won’t let go. That’s what Alice did to me.
I could say so much more about her, but any words would pale next to her transcendent beauty and her soaring devotional music. May I invite you to listen to one of these? Close your eyes and let the music do what it does, take you wherever it wants you to go. And if you feel moved to, drop a comment to share your experience.
Pulled into Alice's sphere in college I reveled in "Journey in Satchindananda"and "Universal Consciousness" (as well as John Coltrane's Aand now enchanted again with the song link here...Alice would have been 99 years old on August 27.