The Eternal Embrace
The Eternal Embrace is music to relax the body, still the mind and open the heart. The only instrument on this recording is the human voice. The CD is a meditation on the 8 Limbs of Yoga.More than 2000 years ago, Patanjali, a sage in India, said "Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind". In his work the Yogasutras, he offers the precepts for the practice of yoga through its Eight Limbs: 1. Self-restraint, 2. Internal discipline, 3. Postures, 4. Breath control, 5. Withdrawal of the senses, 6. Concentration, 7. Meditation, 8. Complete Union. The object of the eight limbed path is to lead us to stillness of the mind.After the release of "Waking the Cobra", Baird's solo CD, he began work on a new solo project: "The Eternal Embrace", a musical meditation on the Eight Limbs. It was supposed to be an album of solo voice overtone singing with instrumental accompaniment; tamboura, gong, marimba, bull roarer etc. One instrument per piece. One piece per limb. Shortly after he had recorded all of the instrumental tracks he put the project on hold to formed his 8 voice choir PRANA.After a year of performing pieces from "Waking the Cobra" with the group, he came up with a new approach for the "The Eternal Embrace". Using the essential sound of the recorded instruments as the starting point for vocal arrangements, he would substitute the voices of PRANA for the instruments on each of the pieces for the 8 limbs.The result is a suite of pieces to find a deeper understanding of the meaning of each limb through pure sound. The twelve pieces are sung by the unaccompanied voices of Prana, without text. Instead they use the perfection of harmonic intervals to bring the listener limb by limb into a deeper state of relaxation and peace.