Ocean Psalms

Australian Presentation

Lorna Collingridge — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:18:51 +0000

On 13 Juky 2008, Lorna presented a seminar “Ocean Psalms: Exploring an Ocean Spirituality” to a group of Uniting Church members at the Warehouse Cafe church in Fremantle, Western Australia. at this seminar she presented sample meditations fomr the CD-ROM. The organiser, Rev Marion Millin, Associate General Secretary (Pastoral), Uniting Church WA, was well acquainted with Lorna’s music through her CD Walking in the Wilderness produced in Brisbane in 2000.

CD-ROM Available March 1!

Lorna Collingridge — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:14:02 +0000

CD-ROM now available! This powerful and inspiring CD-ROM offers space for a contemplative engagement with the “depths of the sea” (Psalm 68:22). Through its multimedia integration of visual art, music, and texts, Ocean Psalms invites people into the both ancient and ever-new world of maritime mystery, as a way of deepening the life of the spirit. Click here to view two samples. Ocean Psalms is the first production from MysticWaters Media. Directors Teresa Berger and Lorna Collingridge have collaborated previously in Teresa’s latest book, Fragments of Real Presence and in the documentary Worship in Women’s Hands.

Order CD-ROM
View Samples

Ocean Psalms at Yale Divinity Bookstore

Lorna Collingridge — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:09:18 +0000

Ocean Psalms is now available at Yale Divinity Bookstore. For more details go to http://www.yale.edu/divinity/sbs/index.shtml or visit the store at 409 Prospect Street, on the Yale Campus in New Haven, CT.

Introduction to Ocean Psalms

Lorna Collingridge — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:55:46 +0000

Ocean Psalms is an interactive CD-Rom presenting meditations, music, prayers, songs, photography, psalms and art, all focused on the sea. In multimedia form, Ocean Psalms invites people into the both ancient and ever-new world of “ocean depths” as a way of deepening the life of the spirit. At a point in time when the environmental assault on the world ocean has become life-threatening, Ocean Psalms witnesses to the primal bond between ecological and religious commitments. This witness focuses on highlighting possibilities of contemplative engagement with the “depths of the sea”.
As an interactive CD-Rom, Ocean Psalms crisscrosses the use of ocean imagery in biblical allusions, ancient hymns, and mystical texts with the particulars of contemporary lives, where the sea is present in a number of quite different ways. These include the sea as a symbol of pleasure (as in meditative music and images of peaceful shores), of threat (witness the 2004 Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina), and of profound environmental concern (rising sea-levels and intensifying storm activity, coastal erosion and habitat destruction, industrial and municipal waste pollution, and over-fishing). Taking contemporary realities into account, Ocean Psalms at heart seeks to foster contemplative engagement with the ocean as a site of encounter with Ultimate Reality, in the hope of awakening both reverence and compassion for our threatened oceanic ecosystem.

What is a CD-ROM?

Lorna Collingridge — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:06:48 +0000

A CD-ROM is an acronym for Compact Disk – Read Only Memory. It is a CD that is played in the CD drive of your computer. In Ocean Psalms, the CD contains text, graphics, images, sound and video. It cannot be played in an audio CD player. It is not a DVD so can not be played on a DVD player linked to your TV. Once you put the Ocean Psalms CD-ROM in your computer or laptop CD drive, you are able to sit and watch, listen, read and meditate on one of the 31 segments in the four sections, Dawn, Midday, Evening and Dark. You can access the sections and segments through the main menu or the CD Map.

Conference February 2008

Lorna Collingridge — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:01:22 +0000

“Ocean Psalms” premiers at Yale Conference on Religious Environmentalism

From February 28^th to March 2, Yale Divinity School hosted a multi-faith, interdisciplinary conference on religious environmentalism that attracted a host of activists, scholars, theologians, ministers, and artists from around the country.

Ocean Psalms, which had been published just days earlier, was a gift to every participant of this conference, thanks to the Institute of Sacred Music and its director, Prof. Martin Jean. The Institute of Sacred Music also made available its Great Hall on Saturday and Sunday for people to encounter the music, images, and texts of Ocean Psalms. The multimedia CD-ROM ran on a continuous loop on the big screen; the room itself having been transformed into a contemplative space, with many-colored cloths, sand, shells, candles, driftwood, and stones. Conference participants came to the Great Hall to be able to sit quietly, kneel amidst the shells and candles to pray, or simply to watch and listen to Ocean Psalms unfolding.

On Saturday afternoon, Teresa Berger and Lorna Collingridge both participated in a break-out session dedicated to “Water” and presented on Ocean Psalms.

Finally, the Sunday morning Eco-Service Harmonizing Hope included a blessing taken from Ocean Psalms, which the multi-faith congregation sang together. Lorna Collingridge, the composer of the blessing, led the congregation. Accompanying her on his alto saxophone was Grammy-award-winning musician Paul Winter. This “Ocean Blessing” proved a fitting and deeply moving conclusion to the Yale premier of Ocean Psalms.

Credit Correction

Lorna Collingridge — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:45:38 +0000

Robert Lentz very kindly gave permission for the use of his wonderful image of St Hildegard in Ocean Psalms. We need to make a small correction to the citation for the this permission and the correct text should read:

Hildegard of Bingen, by Robert Lentz. © Robert Lentz. Color reproductions available from Trinity Stores. www.trinitystores.com. Reproduced by permission.