Have you ever awakened first thing in the morning with a song running through your mind? This happens to me at least several mornings a week. For many years I thought it was just because music is such a huge part of my life. I was raised by a musician mother, surrounded by a family of musicians, married a musician, and became a professional vocalist myself.
Many years ago when I started studying sound, voice and music for healing, I began making the connection that the music I awaken to in my mind has a specific message for me for that day or about something that is going on in my life. It wasn't an entirely new thought. I know that music "speaks" to many of us in ways that words alone do not. Being involved in music ministry in the evangelical church club for many years, I heard repeatedly from people that often the music reached right in and was comforting and inspiring in ways that the spoken sermon was not. Singing at weddings, funerals, private functions and publicly in clubs and other stage work, again many people would comment how a particular song really meant something to them. Listeners told me how some songs were actually healing them right in the middle of my singing. Funny that it took me until a few years ago to realize that the music in my own mind was speaking to me as well.
When I woke up the other morning I had a few tears on my pillow and a song by the Beatles, "Long and Winding Road" was clearly in my mind. I knew I needed to think immediately about what I had just been dreaming or it would be forgotten(dream analysis classes paying off again). I had been dreaming about a time in the late 1960's when my life had just drastically changed. I had very mixed feelings about those changes. Happy. Sad. Regretful. Accepting. Worried. Anticipating the good that would come out of a decision that was not mine alone to make. I had to give up so much, and yet thought I would probably be gaining a lot, too. I was so young, and not really equipped to make the best decisions for myself, so I entrusted that to those "older, wiser" souls hovering about me. Then feeling like I had very much lost control of my life, I made a number of foolish decisions. Things were very different 40 years ago. Women did not have the support and options as available to them as we do now. Not making excuses, just explaining.
Anyway, the dream put me in contact with those feelings and with some of the people in my life from then whom I have not seen since then. It is amazing to me how I could see a particular face, and feel the same feelings, touch the same hand, smell the walk in the meadow just as if I were transported right back to that same place and time. If I could do it all over again, what would I change?
Honestly...I don't know, but maybe that song, its words and the tears hold the answer. It's been a long and winding road indeed....with tears on my pillow(yes, another song, but that wasn't the one to which I awakened). :)
And this morning, the Hallelujah Chorus inspired my aging body-timeless soul to bound to her feet, throw some clothes on and walk briskly through the woods and by the creek with quite a smile on my face, just to be alive and thankful for yet another day. A Brand New Day.
(Okay, pop quiz - how many song titles are in this blog post?!)
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