I gazed across the swamp, its beauty overwhelming. I prayed for guidance, then slipped deep into the realm of silence, still not sure as to where I was going or what I was searching for. It did not take too long to reach deep into the quietude of the sacred silence, and in a flash of clarity all body and mind were gone. I emerged into the dazzling brilliance of the swamp in full light. In my imagination the swamp took on a new feel, a feel that reached into the consciousness of my very soul, purifying and healing. All around me was the flow of life ... green carpets of moss, tranquil pools full of frogs and fish, choruses and movements of all manner of birds, other animals dancing to the rhythm of the Earth, and a sense of beauty the like of which I had never experienced before.
When we express our creativity, we are a conduit for the Great Creator to explore, express, and expand its divine nature and our own. We are like songbirds. When one of us gives voice to our true nature, it is contagious and others soon give tongue as well. We do not live or create in isolation. Each of us is part of a greater whole and, as we agree to express ourselves, we agree to express the larger self that moves through us all.
Symphonies aim at healing the soul by taking human emotions and concerns and, through the alchemy of art, make us somehow feel better about all of life--and us. Music touches something higher in us directly. All of the arts touch something that is beyond the ordinary machinations of life. And this "something higher and more" makes even the most homespun art somehow therapeutic.
