Many, many moons ago, I went to see the musical ‘South Pacific’. It’s so long ago I couldn’t tell you a thing about it now; not where I saw it, who I was with, or even what the show is about. Not a scooby doo I’m afraid.
The only exception is one striking snapshot of memory. A 3-minute memory so vivid I could tell you every detail, down to the cotton thread of the trouser hem.
It was one of the actors.
He had a beyond extraordinary voice and I can tell you exactly what he looked like, what he wore, where he was standing, and every nuance of his movements. He had already bewitched me with his singing, but towards the climax of the second half he sang a song so powerfully and so passionately that it immobilised me.
It was beyond anything I had ever heard the human voice do.
It was just a few seconds of crescendo but in those few beats I lost all sense of time and place. Something in his voice, in the sound he created, took me to another place. All separation ceased to exist and this actor and I became one; he as the purveyor of sound and me as the receiver. We weren’t humans anymore. We were a collection of atoms dancing around each other.
No sooner had the moment arrived it had passed.
I looked around to see who else had been immobilised by this man’s voice, but it seemed I was alone. I wanted to cry laugh shout scream as I felt myself re-arranged. I wondered whether my body would break apart such was the intensity of the experience.
Inadvertently, this man had introduced me to the power of sound. The power of frequency. Every joyful, sad, and powerful moment I had experienced through music up until that point, I now fully understood. Sound is the lifeblood of the Universe and sound is what we are made of.
Music is sound re-arranged with intention. Whether its a voice, an instrument, or other device. It is the healer of healers, a transport device to take you wherever you want to go. It has always been with us. Our ancestors hummed and created sound even back when they were still learning about fire.
Like many, music has saved me. During a crushing heartbreak I listened to the same track every night, over and over, for months, because it took me into the arms of The All That Is where there was no pain or separation. I would find myself floating in a place connected to everything, from a star in the furthest galaxy to the smallest blade of grass, and held in pure peace. Night by night my heart was healed by this collection of notes.
Music has also taken me to places of ecstasy and euphoria, where I lose myself in bliss. I am not alone in this I know, and I can’t imagine our world without music. Every culture has its own song, its own trance-like initiations into sound, whether it be the voice of a tenor, or the Shaman’s drum.
I also meditate to sound, whether it be music or drumming, birdsong or rain. There are some tracks that send me stratospheric, such as this one by Stellardrone. Not an obvious meditation choice I know, but there is something in the frequencies here that activate the beyond human part of me. I see existence so differently when listening to these notes. I enter an altered place of consciousness, a place where there are so many dimensions, parallel realities, beings, consciousness. Where I am my true, multidimensional self.
I find the human voice in choral arrangements equally powerful, and often see Angelic light pouring through. Voices in harmony is when a human is fully revealed as an expression of Divinity, through the beauty of their voice.
As always, there is a dark side too. Aggressive, violent, intentionally distortive music made with mal intent is like kryptonite, it drains the soul of life.
I know that if every day in every home started with intentional music that uplifted the body and mind our lives would become unrecognisable. We would be transformed. We would know our true nature and our true power.
In the future, I can see an explosion in the use of sound as healing device. We are coming full circle. Our hidden predecessors knew the power of sound, and we will once again know it fully. I have seen sound devices in homes used regularly, and sound as integral part of healing in a new, more integrated versions of current hospitals. What we know about sound now is dwarfed by what we will know about sound then.
If you find yourself grieving, heartbroken, lost or confused, find your music. Find your sound.
Find the voice that fills your soul. The tune where you lose yourself. And give yourself permission to be lost. Let yourself feel the beauty, the power of the human voice or music and be fully present. Eyes closed, headphones on.
Find your sound, and you will find your healing.