Wouldn't you know it? Last autumn I became a seed and fell into the ground again. That is why I haven't written for a while. How could it always is in the soil. And dark. You can't imagine! But it doesn't matter whether there is light or not because you have no eyes. You feel all alone, and you don't know there are other seeds around you who are also trying to see. Then a little shoot begins to grow out of the top of your head and it starts to feel its way upward through what seems like all the dirt in the world. The ascent is long and hard; you believe it will never end. Then one day in May you break out and into the sun and air. Your eyes are restored, and, when you look around, there are poppies everywhere, all celebrating their own resurrection. What a feeling! I was just beginning to enjoy my own red blossom when a cold September wind stole into the valley and I returned to the ground. Now spring seems an impossible flower. I would surely lose heart if Jesus hadn't told us we are all seeds and that someday we will rise permanently and fall will be no more.
~ from JUNIPER: FRIEND OF FRANCIS, FOOL OF GOD by Murray Bodo
Listening is our bridge from the outer world to the inner world. Music creates multiple levels of listening. Learning to listen to music in creative ways provides the means for health improvement in the body, enhanced communication, and expression. For music has all the universal components of language, emotions, and expression. There is music in silence; thus meditation and hours of silence heighten awareness of our body rhythms and sounds.
~ Don Campbell in THE SOUL OF CREATIVITY, ed. By T. P. Myers
Driving home on a rainy day, Lorna was rear-ended by a truck just before the woman playing Rosina in Act I of the Barber of Seville was to sing. The impact was sudden and stunning. "But even as I entered a world of shock and pain, I found a world of bliss and order. I listened to the aria and fifteen minutes of the opera as firemen tried to free me from the wreckage of my car." Though told she had been unconscious until she was in the ambulance, she remembered listening to Rosina's voice throughout the ordeal. "My spirit stayed with my body. The music kept me alive. I was able to listen and stay conscious, alert, and at peace with the music. ... From the beginning of that aria, I knew I had to finish the opera of my life."
