Music: the Mysterious Intangible Healer
Music is something you can't see; an element.
Think of Air - you can't see it, but you need it to live.
Sound - you can't see it, but you need it to communicate.
Emotion - You can't see it, but it can rock your foundations.
Soul - You can't see it, but it moves you constantly and purposefully.
The realm of the intangibles is a privileged one, another dimension that we try to know through direct experience or teachings.
This quality gives intangibles like music the air of mystery.
Music is like another dimension, a mythical place that spellbinds and yet eludes us. Try to penetrate these mists too forcefully and you will power right through the mystery, only to find yourself on the other side of the fog, where you will have missed the encounter.
Music asks that you surrender your control to the force that wants to enter you. Your efforts will be well rewarded.
The exact right phrase, melodic or lyrical, will enter your soul and bring you the healing you needed - the guidepost to the next leg of your journey.
When the sounds and words and messages wash through us, they help us know how to grow.
Music has the power to speak to the other mysteries within us, such as our spirits.
Music is medicine with the power to heal the soul. In countless cultures, the sick and troubled are sung to, chanted over and blanketed in a shamanic wall of sound to heal their wounds.
Performing music is even more intense. It is a direct connection to source, and an agreement to channel source through your own body.
It is one of the most challenging things to agree to that I can imagine. It requires a total departure from ego--which is a healing experience all in of itself. And it requires connection to your own heart and to the hearts of those that you are singing to.
To fully exist within the experience, you must leave your little self behind, and become your great self. You must forget what you look or sound like, and only concern yourself with the greater exchanges of love, sadness, forgiveness, the human stories of denial, defeat, and at last, victory.
My musical storytelling is meant to marry meaning and content with sexiness and fun. I am joining the ranks of those who believe that we can have meaningful ritual and content in our lives as well as scandalous fun. In order to be whole, we can't be cut off from any of these aspects.
Abandon can be positive, we can abandon ourselves to joy and celebration. It does not have to be self-destructive, mindless and soulless.
It's all about integration, communication, having all of the pieces of ourselves in one massively bubbling cauldron, and then letting these fragments intertwine. That is the healing.
And that is also how we learn to accept other people: by first accepting all the pieces of ourselves. Self-acceptance and self-love is the movement toward peace. If you can achieve a peaceful and balanced state within yourself, you have healed a piece of the world!
Music is my path and my ferryboat. It carries me over to the next piece of knowing the mystery.