Listening is our bridge from the outer world to the inner world

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.

As we listen to music

As we listen to music we enter into the mystery of another person’s inner life.

Music is a celebration of meaning

Play needs no purpose. That is why play can go on and on as long as players find it meaningful. After all, we do not dance in order to get somewhere. We dance around and around. A piece of music doesn’t come to an end when its purpose is accomplished. It has no purpose, strictly speaking. It is the playful unfolding of a meaning that is there in each of its movements, in every theme, every passage: a celebration of meaning.

Singing Sand

On a desolate island off the west coast of Scotland, the sand "sings" when it’s touched. Walking across the beach produces a wide range of musical tones, like playing a musical instrument.

Scientists think the structure of the sand creates the sounds. The grains of sand are tiny pieces of quartz, rounded by the sea. Each grain is surrounded by a pocket of air. When the sand is touched, friction between the air and the grains produces musical tones. We may not have a chance to hear the strange music of singing sand, but we all have a chance to hear the music of rustling leaves. Happiness need not be pursued in exotic places. The joyful music of Creation surrounds us. All we need to do is listen.

All that is ripest and fairest in the wilderness

All that is ripest and fairest in the wilderness is preserved and transmitted to us in the strain of the wood thrush. This is the only bird whose note affects me like music, affects the flow and tenor of my thought, my fancy and imagination. It lifts and exhilarates me. It is inspiring. It is a medicative draught to my soul.

June 2002 (Vol. XV, No. 6)

EVERY BLESSING, dear friends! As we enter into the summer season of fullness, may the music of our hearts become One in a symphony of souls united in the Silence. May we pause each day in the silence to listen to the deepest Song in our hearts ... then sing it in our actions and interactions in work and leisure.

In a sense great music exists for the sake of its pauses

In a sense great music exists for the sake of its pauses; for instance, the pauses that occur in the middle of a Beethoven symphony. These pauses are of course quite unlike bits of ordinary silence, because the whole symphony has led up to them — they are held and defined, and the music goes on the other side of them. Such pauses are silence charged with meaning. Music transcends music by producing charged silence.

~ from THE WISHING TREE by Christopher Isherwood
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Creation began with a big band

While I was writing about silence and explosíons and the moment, of creation, I made an ínteresting typing error. I wrote "big band"" instead of "big bang." I'd like to think that ít was not an error but the voice of creation typing for me.From now on that's my theory on the origin of everything. Creation began with a big band, and ever since there has been rhythm, style and beauty throughout the uníverse. Our job is to look and listen for the big song, and then to join in, following the beat established by the Conductor leading the big band.

~ from PRESCRIPTIONS FOR LIVING by Bernie S. Siegel
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Something about a song is nearly irresistible

Something about a song ia nearly irresistible in that it reaches both the mnd and the heart,the former with meaning, the latter with beauty. The Spírit found her way into my shut-off heart through the songs I learned through that very same heart.

~ from "Spirit's Songs" by Kay Collette
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My heart makes songs

It is my heart that makes songs, not I.

~ by Sara Teasdale
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Sing and your life will continue

Song is not a luxury, but a necessary way of being in the world. If you are cut off, in pain, estranged, numb — sing, give voice to anything. It needn't sound pretty. Simply, bravely, open despite the difficulty, and let what is in out, and what is out in. Sing and your life will continue.

~ from THE BOOK OF AWAKENING by Mark Nepo
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The voice of God whispers in the heart

The voice of God whispers in the heart
So softly
That the soul pauses,
Making no noise,
And strives for these melodies,
Distant, sighing, like the faintest breath,
And all the being is still to hear.

~ by Stephen Crane thanks to Peter Venable
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And then your heart breaks open?

The silence of the marsh was so profound that it could have been the flip side of the singing in my church. Just last Sunday the people had sung the old spiritual, "Go Down, Moses," a cappella because the pianist was gone, and a bunch of people were crying, singing very loudly with their eyes closed, and the singing of that cry of a song was a wonderful form of communion. How come you can hear a chord, and then another chord, and then your heart breaks open?

~ from TRAVELING MERCIES by Anne Lamott
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What is the song of my life?

Each of us is a new creation, a singularity, a facet of the glory of God, Love's presence made visible. "The greatest glory of God is a person fully alive." Everything in creation has íts own language, its own radiance, its gift to the universe. Dante's music of the spheres, the movement of the planets and stars in their orbíts, is an unrivaled symphony. And I am not a single note, sound, or chord -- I am a symphony of a lífetime. What is the song of my life, the inner music of my being, the background music whích softly accompanies me? Each thing has its own song and each sings it ín silence. What a chorus when each life song is blended into and harmonized with all the others!

~ from NO ONE ELSE CAN SING MY SONG by Edward J. Farrell
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The poet, the artist, the musician

The poet, the artist, the musician, continue the quiet work of centuries, building bridges of experience between people, reminding us of the universality of our feelings and desires and despairs, and reminding us that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide.

~ by John F. Kennedy
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Her Beloved is silent music

In that nocturnal tranquility and silence and in knowledge of the divine light, the soul becomes aware of Wisdom's wonderful harmony and sequence in the variety of her creatures and works. Each of them is endowed wíth a certain likeness of God and in its own way gives voice to what of God is in it. So creatures will be for the soul a harmonious symphony of sublime music surpassing all concerts and melodies of the world. Thus there ís in it the sweetness of music and the quietude of silence. AccordÍngly, she says that her Beloved is silent music because in the Beloved she knows and enjoys this symphony of spiritual music.

~ from SPIRITUAL CANTICLE by John of the Cross thanks to Gav Grissom
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If I separated the religious goal from the musical one

I can't think of any way to explain the existence of art other than as a means to express something greater than ourselves. I can't reach a single musícal decision except wíth the goal of making a connectíon to God. If I separated the religious goal from the musical one, music would have no meaning for me.

~ by Sofia Gubaidulian
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The face of this singing nun would forever be unknown to us

They sang a capella: one voice began to mount like a skylark and detach itself from the rest, from those mingled voices which together sounded well, but from whose conjunction with this single one soared in an intensity of beauty — a voice so clear and just, yet vibrant with such warm sweetness, I have remembered it always. The fact that this great, this glorious and rare voice was singing behind bars, that the face and identity of this singing nun would forever be unknown to us, shadowed the music. Mainly, we were awed to think this treasure was so hidden.

~from TESSERAE by Denise Levertov
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Naught are yet but songs, and as ye sing, ye are

With a song came the Word and by music it is sustained, And the soul ... is a note of revelation. Naught are ye but songs, and as ye sing, ye are ...
~ from CRESCENT AND HEART BY Samuel L. Lewis
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Sing the Song of your life

How can you keep from singing the Song of your life? Make it LOVE!
~ Anonymous
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May your days be filled with merry music

May your days be filled with merry music;
May your life be filled with sacred songs!
May the Great Conductor lead you on ...
~ Anonymous
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I started dancing to the tune of a heavenly drummer

What happened next is difficult to put into words... A Spirit of adoration and celebration sprang up within me, and I started dancing to the tune of a heavenly drummer and singing words unknown to my conscious mind.I sang with my mind too — hymns and psalms springing up from distant memory as well as spiritual songs that cascaded down in impromptu splendor. Thanksgivings poured forth for all things great and small. Praises joined the river in joyous exaltation. It felt like I was being invited to join, in my feeble way, into the ceaseless paean of praise that ascends before the throne of God.
~ from PRAYER by Richard J. Foster
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June 1998 (Vol. XI, No. 6)

SUMMER BLESSINGS, dear friends! May we pause long enough each day to move from the sounds and birdsong into the depth soundings of our own soul songs and through to the sound of Silence.

The silence between the notes

Music is not merely a rhythmic arrangement of notes, but derives its life from the matrix of silence out of which it arises and into which it flows. And it is the silence between the notes that gives them meaning and grace.

~ from THE MUSIC OF SILENCE by David Steindl-Rast
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Deep song

Last night, after praying Compline in the darkness, the final verse of the last Psalm began to move around inside me, like the Spanish canto hondo -- deep song.I found myself cooperating with this music, leaning into it, knowing that when its last note vanished into the silence, another leaf would be living in the tree I call "myself".
~ from DANCING MADLY BACKWARDS by Paul Marechal
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The silent music of the night

Do not shun the darkness of the night.Learn to love it, learn to feel it.For in the darkness of night you will hear the silent music, music that runs through all eternity, and through us, as though we were not there.It is the harmony, the rhythm of all things.It is preludes, fandangos, great symphonies of joy, all things that are in harmony.One of the strongest of all is our heartbeat, which keeps us upon this earth, and the prayers throughout the world.So in your darkness, listen quietly, for it comes at such times: the silent music of the night ... the silent music of life.
~ from DESCENT INTO LIGHT by Dorothy Fielding
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All my being is song

How many songs I have I cannot tell you.I keep no count of such things.There are so many occasions in one's life when a joy or a sorrow is felt in such a way that the desire comes to sing; and so I only know that I have many songs.All my being is song, and I sing as I draw breath... It is just as necessary for me to sing as it is to breathe.
~ Orpingalik, a Netsalik Eskimo
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Music reproduces the dynamic variation of our inner life

Music reproduces for us the intimate essence, the temp and energy, of our spiritual being; our tranquility and our restlessness, our animation and our discouragement, our vitality and our weakness -- all, in fact, of the fine shades of dynamic variation of our inner life.

~ from THE CREATIVE PROCESS by Brewster Ghiselin
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Teach me to play the instrument of my Being

My soul sings, Beloved, You are the melody.
You are the strings on which I play.
You are the One for whom I sing.
You are all that is and my soul seeks Oneness with You.
Teach me the music of life, Beloved.
Teach me to play the instrument of my Being,
and of this world, that I might see and hear
and know more clearly the nearness of your Presence.
I would sing into the Oneness that You are.

~ David Spangler
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The entire world is a musical instrument

The entire world is a musical instrument, the pole of the world celestial is intersected where this heavenly chord is divided by the spiritual sun. Earthly music is an echo of this cosmic harmony: it is a relic of heaven.

~ Author unknown, with thanks to Anne Amerson
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Music and Silence

Music. Silence.
Two to offer to God
A magical mystery in my life.

~ Peggy Ripp
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Be like that bird

Be like that bird
Who, pausing in flight,
Feels the bough give way
Beneath her feet
And yet sings
Knowing she hath wings.

~ Victor Hugo
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The truly musical person

The gift of love is nothing short of a miracle, and the same is true for the experience of the singer who works with prayer: sung prayer is one of the many ways in which love is made audible and brought into the fullness of life... In sung prayer, one must risk burning and one must risk soaring, nothing less. Whether one falls in love or whether one sings in love, surrender is to be and to radiate love. In the case of the musician, this is done through the medium of music. In the case of the truly musical person, this can even be achieved through a silence which radiates interior harmony and, by extension, brings peace to those surrounding them.

~ Therese Schroeder-Sheker in SO THAT YOU MAY BE ONE by Joa Bolendas
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Some golden orb of perfect song

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either ... curved point, -- what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,
The angels would press upon us, and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence.

~ from "Sonnets From the Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Music is the breathing of our soul and consciousness

Music is the breathing of our soul and consciousness. It is through music that the soul manifests itself in the world. When our higher consciousness is awakened, when we develop our capacity to perceive the subtler realities, we will begin to hear the great and glorious symphony that reverberates throughout space from one end of the universe to the other, and we will comprehend the deepest meaning of life.

~ from CREATION: ARTISTIC AND SPIRITUAL by Aivanhov Omraam Mikhael
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Listen for the divine music

Listen for the divine music called the silence of the Spirit.

Within us, around us, the music of the spheres unfolds in rhythms celestial and melodies terrestrial... In the beginning was the creative sound, symphony, harmony and melody, every pattern and structure ever to be. The Word that was with God has not ceased to be; this very moment, it holds suspended within its vibratory magnificence, every atom, molecule, cell and organism. It sings the very earth into being. The sun, moon and planets share in a symphony of the heavens that includes every comet, asteroid and star-system in our galaxy -- and in a billion others.

Each individual who restores trust in God sounds a note in harmonic resonance with the entire cosmos. This magnifies the vibrations of the Holy Place.

~ from TERRA CHRISTA by Ken Carey
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Sing with me

O, listen!Hear!
Sing with me, for I am joy.
~ Cherokee Song
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