As I approached the house, I heard the tune whistled of a little song coming from the upper window. I did not know anything yet, but I listened. The tune stirred my memory and some dormant recollections came to the fore. The music was banal but the whistling was wonderfully sweet, with soft and pleasing notes, unusually pure, as happy and as natural as the song of birds. I stood and listened, enchanted, and at the same time strangely moved without having any kind of accompanying thoughts.
Life is a spiral, slowly moving through the seasons and cycles o four lives. If we are balanced in our actions, creating beauty and harmony within our spiral, we are following the path of right action, the path we strive to follow... To balance the spiral we must participate in our becoming well. We must learn not to be judgmental, not to be dragged down by grief, anger and negativity, forgetting the joy, passion, generosity and kindness of life. Beauty is no threat to the wary. You can walk in beauty and still sack groceries or change diapers...
Beyond finite beauty — the beauty that we see — is a depth of infinite beauty from which all created beauty comes, and to which it must return to find its fulfillment. This is the light in which all works of art must be immersed, if they are to touch the depths of all being and of all hearts.
God is at the deep center of all things; there we find eternal life. Every creature gifted with reason has received light to see in all created things both their own individual beauty and that of the Supreme Being, from whom they have received their being, and who sustains them in it. With the light given us we can see God in all things and come into harmony.
WELCOME TO SUMMER, dear friends! Silence and music .. ebb and flow: the mystery of bird song and the silence that follows -- afterglow that warms the heart and sets us yearing for our own soul son.g Journey to the silene an music of your heart.
Warm sun. My worship is a blue sky and 10,000 crickets in the deep wet hay of the field. My vow is the silence under their song. I admire the woodpecker and the dove in simple mathematics of flight. Together we study practical norms. The plowed and planted field is red as brick in the sun and says: "Now is my turn!" Several of us began to sing.
Music is sound AND silence. It is the spaces BETWEEN the notes that create rhythm, melody, and meaning, and the greater the composer -- and the perfornance -- the better the quality of the silence. Legendary pianist Artur Schnabel said that it wasn't the notes but the silences between them he played better than other people. A few seconds more or less at crucial moments in the performance of a piece may mean the difference between a mundane and a transcendent experience.
~ from THE NATURE OF MUSIC by Maureen McCarthy Draper
Music has a divine message and messenger of life. It was quintessentially the "Quickening art" -- quickening my soul with this my body, so that suddenly, spontaneously, I was quickened into motion, my own perceptual and kinetic melody, quickened into life by the inner life of music. I was carried ahead by the ongoing musical stream.
Suddenly from where I lay, I did see. I saw that as he shoveled, the coal had a song. Grandfather had a song, even the pickup truck had a song. I saw that Grandfather heard the song and that he shoveled in harmony with it. He was like a symphony conductor. I realized that what I saw was the maximum-efficiency, minimum-effort law he had been teaching me earlier. While I had struggled against myself during the long hospital ceremony, Grandfather had been conducting an orchestra, a ceremonial symphony.
"I see you got it. You see, everything has its song. Find the energy, the song, and merge wíth it. You must seek the harmonic and merge with it."
When I asked the old man if he believed in the healing power of music, he laughed at first, and then suddenly grew serious. "I forget everything when I play. All my heart goes into the music. If I don't concentrate, the music changes, so it's best to forget all distractions and just play."
The world is full of implicit religion, and the inspired saints and poets, who say that the birds "praise God" when they sing, are in no way mistaken. Because it is their tiny life itself which sings the "great life" and makes heard, through its countless variations, the same news which is as old as the world and as new as the day: "Life lives and vibrates in me." What homage to the source of life is expressed by these small streams of life: the birds which sing!"
~ from MEDITATIONS ON THE TAROT by Valentin Tomberg
As I approached the house, I heard the tune whistled of a little song coming from the upper window. I did not know anything yet, but I listened. The tune stirred my memory and some dormant recollections came to the fore. The music was banal but the whistling was wonderfully sweet, with soft and pleasing notes, unusually pure, as happy and as natural as the song of birds. I stood and listened, enchanted, and at the same time strangely moved without having any kind of accompanying thoughts.
The fitness of our hearts and thoughts to receive God's spirit is like that of violin strings. If they are properly tuned, in harmony with one another, then the touch of the bow produces beautiful music. If not, then there is only discord. Whenever our hearts are truly ready to receive God's spirit, they will produce heavenly airs and joyous harmonies -- both in this life and in the spiritual world.
A few girls were taken to a performance of Johannes Brahms' "Requiem." Teak was the youngest to go, and she sat next to Frau professor. Teak had never been to a concert before. The music was so awesome, so profound, so moving and stirring that Teak's eyes filled with unexpected tears, and she was grateful when the old woman put her arm around her shoulder as if she understood. The muscc to Teak was like an opening into what she thought heaven might be like. Brahms came like a thundering revelation.
When in our music You are glorified, and adoration leaves no room for pride, It is as though the whole creation cries Alleluia! How often, making music, we have found a new dimension in the world of sound, As worship moves us to a more profound Alleluia! Let every instrument, be tuned for praise! Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise! And may You give us faith to sing always Alleluia!
As I was listening I thought about being in conversation with God, and I was struck by how much this piece of music mirrors my relationship with God. When I first began conversing with God, it was very simple, like the opening of the Fugue. In reply, God did not repeat my melody but responded in a harmonic way, just as Bach's instruments do. Over time, our conversation — the Divine's and mine — has built in richness, complexity, depth and beauty, like the fugue builds. Ebb and flow occur in the dynamics of both the music and my conversation with God, but my soul is constantly stirred by the heatbreaking beauty of what I hear and what I know.
Peace be with you and within you, dear friends! How often do we spend a full hour in silence simply listening to the voice deep within our heart? How difficult this an be! Yt as we embrace times of solitude and embrae the Silence, we will come to hear the gentle voice of Love with our heart's ear. So Listen! listen to the still, small Voice for the Beloved's prayer to rise up within your heart. Listening is one way toward peace.
For nine years, the first and third Mondays of the month, I am in silence; I do not speak to anyone for twenty four hours. It's life-changing. It has taught me to listen. When we listen with no responsibility to respond, we can listen fully, which allows us to hear so many things we would not hear if we were talking. This did not start as spiritual exercise, but it has become a very spiritual practice. You hear the truth from deep inside yourself.
~ from "The Boston Globe" 8/5/2001 by Anne D. LeClaire, with thanks to Sandra Cosetti
Listen, listen, listen! All that you will ever need to know is already within you awaiting your inner ear. If you seek to understand your past, the answer is within you. If you need direction for today, the answer is within you. You do not have to seek "out there" for answers to your future. It is already within you awaiting your asking. You do not have to go here or there to find Go or the answer to your simplest or highest question. All you must do is be still and listen to the inner still small voice that forever sings the true song.
Listening requires entering actively and imaginatively into the other person's situation and trying to understand a frame of reference different from your own.
