The Sound of Silence

Do you hear it?  It's a beautiful thing.  Your ears are not going to hear sounds outside of the range of 20-20,000 Hz, but your body will.  Right down to every little cell. Sound is experienced all through your body.  Think of ultrasound....it is soundwaves, but you don't hear them. 

Hello darkness my old friend. I've come to talk with you again. Simon and Garfunkel's song. Powerful.  Like silence.  

Japanese Sandman

"That" was the name of the song going through my head I wrote about previously. (in case you wanted to know!) Thanks to my Mother who knew what it was after I hummed just the first line to her.

I woke up this morning with the same song in my head for the past three mornings, and it's funny because I do not know the name of the song nor the words, but I can hear that melody over and over and over and over. It's from the 1920's, upbeat, and quite repetitive.  All I can think of are flappers dancing merrily about on the dance floor without a care in the world.  Is that my "message?"  Maybe lately I have been trying too hard and caring too much about things that I can't do much about anyway.  Yep, I think that's what it is.  Got it.  Short and sweet.  (and sometimes a little slow...)

Sound Transitions

Question:  Do you ever listen to the sounds of the seasons, I mean really listen?  Around the end of the year there are music formats and concerts and special events called "Sounds of the Seasons."  I would ask you to think about the sounds of the other seasons.  The "real" sounds.  What are summer sounds?  You could include songs like Summer Time by Gershwin, or Summer Breeze by Seals and Crofts and that would be a good start.  What about those other summer sounds?  The sounds of the children screaming at each other on a hot day in a cool pool or running from ocean waves, the sea gulls squawking overhead as you sit on your comfortable beach chair, the crickets and cicadas chirping away on a warm evening, the crackling of a fire at your campsite, the nearby trickling brook, the ice cream truck's toy piano tune, the crack of lightning during a refreshing August storm or the fireworks booming in the distance on a hot July 4th.  Sssh....listen to all the sounds in the silence of your memories. You'll hear them. 

And what about Spring?  You think of some sounds this time.  What are some sounds of spring?  Think about it for a moment or two, close your eyes and listen to the sounds of the spring memories you may have forgotten about.  Then of course beautiful Autumn, leaves crunching under foot, and what else? Early Autumn, Autumn Leaves, Autumn in New York.   The silence of a new fallen snow in winter in some parts of the world. What else do you hear?

My point is that if you can pause and recall these sounds with the intention of drawing on each season as a time of transition, one season into the next, you will reinforce them there in the memory of your heart to listen to, to hear, to transport you to that feeling and that time.  You don't have to wait for that actual season to arrive.   As each new season comes and goes, commit to memory what "is." As we transition from one season to another in our personal lives, what are the sounds you remember?

What a powerful force sound is!  I hear my mother calling me to come in for dinner, not so much during the memories of summer, but during those winter afternoons where my sister and I were making the best snow man anyone in the neighborhood had ever seen in their whole lives.  I hear my children laughing and yelling excitedly for us to "Hurry Up!!" when we were walking from our campsite to the free outdoor movies being shown.  I hear the phone ringing in the middle of the night unexpectedly yet knowing the sad news that will come from the voice after I say "Hello?" 

Sound is a fundamental part of the transitions in our lives...treasure what you hear, and hold it close.  When you hear something you don't like, realize it is serving a purpose, perhaps a painful and maybe necessary one.  Yet it is a marker in the transitions of your life, a milestone in every day beingness or something as monumental as "I Do, " or "It's a boy, " or "I'm sorry." 

Do you hear the sounds of times of transitions in your life?  They really are all around us, in songs, in voices, in nature, in the connections of all living things and perhaps most precious of all, our relationships.  Who wouldn't love to hear the voice of a loved one who has transitioned to the other side?  One day we will all hear what we have heard before...laughter, life and love.  And we will know as we have known. Listen ......
Memories light the corners of my mind....of The Way We Were. 

Sound Dreams

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?!)

What does a blog sound like?

Hmmm....sounds come in many forms.  What do I want the tone or sound of my blog to be?  I confess that it will not stay the same.    Tonight I feel as though I need to sound off.  Not in an angry way, but to vent in a positive and healthy way.  I mean I surely do not want to create any more negative karma in my life.  Still there are a couple directions I could go with this.  I mean I could write as a mother of two grown children, or as a woman in her second marriage after the one of 35 years fell apart, or as the friend of many different types of women with whom I have long-standing and yet different types of relationships, or as the daughter of an 88 year old youthful mother...or a daughter who misses her dad....or the joys of being a grandmother...or how I love to write, sing, dance, paint, walk in the woods along the creek, stroll along the beach on a crisp autumn day, or play fetch with my sweet little dog...you get the picture. 

The song I heard a little while ago in my car was the old standard For All We Know (We May Never Meet Again).  It brought tears to my eyes, thinking of a few loved ones that I will never see again at least not in this present life.  Then I thought of how there are people I cared about but have lost track of and even with the advent of facebook have not found them.  There are people I have loved and will always love that are no longer in my life.  I wonder why that has to be.  If you have truly loved someone, why can they not be a part of your life always, not just in the memories, but in a tangible way?  Love does not end, if it is truly love.  It may be placed on a different shelf in the memory of your heart, but love is love.  Then there are my grown children. I long for them to see me for who I really am and not simply the imperfect mother I was or can still be.  When my Dad was so sick and I realized he was not going to be around much longer, I regretted not spending more time with him, not getting to know him and his ways as a man, a human being, not only as my dad.  I learned so much from him on a friend-to-friend basis the last couple years of his life.  I treasure those times, those memories, his words that cut to the chase, offering concise and wise observations about my life and my family.

When Dad was unexpectedly admitted to the hospital and on life support, a song that he liked came to my mind.  I softly sang to him, "You'll never know just how much I love you.  You'll never know just how much I care...."  I realized the real reason after he died that my dad had kept people shut out and away from him because he didn't want to be too close to anyone, even his own family.  It had hurt too much in earlier years.  So, my singing those words to him were really a "ministry" or something he needed to hear before leaving this life.  When he came off life support and managed to hang on for about another two weeks we had a few conversations, although mostly he had no voice left, and the words he said were brief.  When I asked him if he remembered being on the breathing tube and being in the emergency room, he said no.  He then said he heard music.  I asked him what kind of music.  He said, "singing."  I asked him if it was good singing(we both laughed a little at that because we were both selective about what good music is).  He said, "yeah, it was nice."   Was it the love, was it the music, was it the familiar sound of  a loved one's voice intending to be comforting?  What if I had not listened to that prompting to sing that particular song?   It reached right through and touched my dad, so that he heard something "nice" while in such a not nice state.  

 Well, as I started out saying, the song for this moment is We May Never Meet Again.  Don't take for granted that any one of us has another full day of life.  For all we know, we may never meet again.  And like the final sentence my dad managed to whisper to me, "Honey, if there is anything you want to do, don't wait because you never know what life is going to throw at you."  Indeed, Dad.  After we have done all we can do in any given situation, we cannot force people to change, to see things differently, to let go of their unforgiveness or their need to hold onto anger or their need to punish others for just being human.  We can love them, simply love them and hold fast to the hope that some day perhaps the Spirit will use a certain song to speak to them, get through to them where my spoken words have not been able to do so.  And, if We May Never Meet Again, You'll Never Know Just How Much I Love You.  I love you enough to let you go.