What Music Are You Hearing?

You may think that I’ve just been bee-bopping to the music here since my last post on “hearing the music.” Ah – that would be nice wouldn’t it… However, I took a rather deep dive into a more somber space of feelings this past weekend. The upsurge of enthusiasm and “new direction” for life waned. I tried listening to different kinds of music, but nothing resonated. It was like putting on a band-aid – the feelings underneath were the same. The band-aid changed nothing.

I happened to read a blog that had a short video clip of Pema Chodron talking about “feelings”! In it she said that many times we “attempt to entertain ourselves out of the feeling” – but that “what we feel is a key to something” that needs to be seen. It occurred to me, when I heard that, that I was attempting to use music to try to fix my feelings, or cover them over; to hang on to the enthusiasm the music had instilled just a couple of days before… I was attempting to *feel* “better” – to *try* to create a shift – rather than allowing and acknowledging the feelings. So I stopped the music, and sat with the feelings. They were pleased to be heard. No longer sounding like heavy metal music screeching in my body-mind, they moved into a new rhythm.

As an on-line friend recently pointed out to me, feelings whether labeled “good” or “negative” are just currents of energy that carry a message, if we are willing to listen. I know this from experience. And sometimes, as with life, the only way out is through. So I went through what I was feeling – allowing them, meeting them, allowing myself to hear them. And what I discovered, basically, is that I have been swept up in the surface currents of life – the choppy waves of thought and emotions – responding and reacting to life circumstances – going from circumstance to circumstance putting out fires, so-to-speak. There was a sense, in sitting with all this surface commotion – aka feelings - that I needed to go deeper – to open myself more fully to the Life Current that flows through everything – including feelings. For months now I have been bobbing around on the surface of life, trying to keep my head above water, when what I really need is to open fully to the inner Current of Life – to swim in the “deeper” currents – to *hear* the inner music – The Rhythm. But it seems that life events pop me to the surface and carry me to a different tune than what I hear inside…

Life keeps requiring me to dance to the music of others it seems – through life circumstances that I have no control over. My sister called me Weds afternoon to tell me that my mother had been taken by ambulance to the Hospital ER in severe pain and shortness of breath. I immediately went to meet my sister there. The doctors could not determine exactly what was wrong, except they *thought* that she may have a perforated peptic ulcer that had somehow closed itself off – but they weren’t sure. It was a guessing game even with all the testing they did. Her pain subsided after she had some medication. She spent the night in the hospital for observation. We took her home the next day. Both my sister and I are dancing to this new music with my mother out of necessity. It appears that this particular tune is also part of the Flow of the Current… And yet – it feels so dissonant – like I’m hearing the “wrong” notes or dancing to somebody else’s tune… I wish I could say that I am resting in Awareness with it all, but it feels more like wave surfing 101. Sometimes I stay on the board and sometimes I wipe-out… Aware-ing may actually be a new skill I have yet to master – surfing the waves of life.

Last night was a sleepless night – after 2 days of choppy waters – and not feeling well myself physically. After only a few hours of restless “sleep”, I was up at 3am, went to my desk and just started listening to the silence of the night through the window. I became aware of the *depth* of stillness - a deep space of Silence – feeling the breeze. My mind and heart relaxed. I felt my-self drop down below the surface and hear the music from within, from the still space of pure Awareness – the beautiful Silence that sings. Dropping into the Silence inside - listening, feeling the music within - I could experience the Current without the choppy surface waves, without the distractions that come with living on the surface… It reminded me that maybe it matters what music we are listening to, what music we are hearing – the cacophony of the surface, or the deep melodious music of the inner Rhythm.

“I must find the song lines that run through my life,

the melodies that remind me of what I really am,

and call me gently back… I must learn to dance…”

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Hanging 10 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~*~

Photo is of a poster we have.

I do not know the artist...