Overdue

Things have been wild and crazy so far this year. How about you?
Sound and Vibrational Therapy Classes and workshops have been going well, and if there is any song that come to mind at all about that it would be The Sound of Music. "My heart will be blessed with the sound of music, and I'll sing once more."  Music is not only songs. It is so much more.  The music of the universe encompasses all sound....

more about that later...and the powerful energy of Sound, the energy of creation. Sound, the final frontier!

A new year of sound, song and silence

Someone wrote that each day of the new year is a blank page, pure with no blemishes just waiting for our entry, for our mark.  We often gather up our memories at this time of year and think back to what has gone before.  For me it brings to mind specific songs identified with both happy and sad moments of the past.  As I sang to my new baby granddaughter last evening going from one song to the next I found myself singing some songs I sang to my children.  If music is anything, it is the connector of our souls to memories, and the feelings we had at the time those memories were made.  The joy.  The Joy !   The power and continuity of a song to connect a memory of joy and hope from over 40 years ago to that same joy and hope in the now. 

What song is in your heart today?  Is it one of joy?  or sorrow? or somewhere in between perhaps.  Name it. Relish the memory to which it connects you.  When my time of crossing over, I have specific songs to be played quietly in the background.  We come into this place on a beautiful wave of sound, and we shall leave the same way.  I have read this somewhere and it so resonated with me I knew it to be true. 

People are reading this blog and clicking on the comments, yet no one has left a name or signed up to follow on a regular basis, and that's okay.  I am glad you are reading, and hope that you are enjoying them, being inspired perhaps, or taking something from them to give you hope or courage or insight for the moment.  Bless you. Listen to the music.

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?!)