There is Music in Us - Jack Gilbert

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us.  Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.

The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets.  It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.

What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,

can hear them breathing.

Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells the flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.

Jack Gilbert, 1925-2012
Horses at Midnight Without a Moon

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Me on path into the woods

 

The Thin Door - Lisa Marguerite Mora

Tell me about the passing of life,
its thin door which is as fragile as life itself.
I can hear the music on the other side,

and the shadows of bird flight
move under the door frame
with the tinkle of wind chimes.

Tell me about how life passes into life,
hope into beginnings.
There is no reward for having lived...

There is only continuity and re-emerging
from room to room and the love
that perfumes this place and the next.

Lisa Marguerite Mora

Originally published here

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Muse-ic of Life...

Last night... while waiting for sleep...

I noticed I could hear "sounds" differently:
the ceiling fan whirring
through the air overhead
had the vague sound of violins
playing in the distance...  The distant
"traffic" noise from the highway hummed some
unidentifiable melody...

Everything sounded " different" -

I had the feeling that I was
"waking up" to the world -
to the "magic" of the world;
that they weren't ceiling fans,
or cars, or trucks, or planes -
but some magical symphony
playing in the night...

Every sound was the sound of an alive Universe...

My heart opened to the delight
of life playing its song -
and I melted into sleep, totally immersed
in the music of the world;
as an owl softly hoooo'd in a distant tree...

Magic...

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 26, 2021

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Living the Fantasy of Becoming - Jim Harrison

 Nowhere is it the same place as yesterday.
None of us is the same person as yesterday.
We finally die from the exhaustion of becoming.

This downward cellular jubilance is shared
by the winds, bugs, birds, bears and rivers,
and perhaps the black holes in galactic space
where our souls will all be gathered in an invisible
thimble of antimatter.  But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

We whirl with the earth, catching our breath
as someone else, our soft brains ill-trained
except to watch ourselves disappear into the distance.

Still, we love to make music of this puzzle.

Jim Harrison

from: Saving Daylight

with thanks to Death Deconstructed

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

"Only the rocks live forever."

James Michner
from - Centennial

 

What Can I Say - Mary Oliver

 What can I say that I have not said before?
So I'll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinished story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until it ends.

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the
chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you
were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still.

Mary Oliver
from her anthology - Swan

With thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Aspen leaf floating in a creek

Morning Grace - W.S. Merwin

 It is at last any morning
not answering to a name
I wake before there is light
hearing once more that same
music without repetition
or beginning playing
away into itself
in silence like a wave
a union in its own
key that I seem
to have heard before I
was listening but by the time
I hear it now it is gone
as when on a morning
alive with sunlight
almost at the year's end
a feathered breath a bird
flies in at the open window
then vanishes leaving me
believing what I do not see

W.S. Merwin
From Shadow of Sirius
original title of poem - "Grace Note"

~

Photo taken by my brother in MA

Allow yourself to be used - Thomas Merton

You are fed up with words, I don't blame you.
I am nauseated by them sometimes.  I am also,
to tell the truth, nauseated by ideals and with causes.
This sounds like heresy, but I think you will understand
what I mean.  It is so easy to get engrossed with ideas
and slogans and myths that in the end one is left holding
the bag, empty, with no trace of meaning left in it.  And
then the temptation is to yell louder than ever in order to
make the meaning be there again by magic.  Going through
this kind of reaction helps you to guard against this.
Your system is complaining of too much verbalizing,
and it is right.

...The big results are not in your hands or mine, but they
suddenly happen, and we can share in them, but there is
no point in building our lives on personal satisfaction,
which may be denied us and which after all is not that
important.

The next step in the process is for you to see that your
even thinking about what you are doing is crucially
important.  You are probably striving to build yourself
an identity in your work, out of your work...  You are
using it, so to speak, to protect yourself against
nothingness, annihilation.  That is not the right use of
your work.  All the good that you will do will come,
not from you but from the fact that you have allowed
yourself to be used by Love [Grace].  Think of this
more and more and gradually you will be free from
the need to prove yourself, and you can be more
open to the power that will work through you
without your knowing it.

Thomas Merton

~

"We are an instrument of Grace...
We are being played...
Keep the instrument tuned so
that Grace can play the music."

Mitch Rosacker
Self Discovery Studio

~

Photo - "The Mystery" playing :)

Uni-Verse: One Sound - Fred LaMotte

"Om is the primordial word.  All that is, was, or will be is Om."

Mandukya Upanishad

"Adau Bhagavan shabda rasahi: In the beginning, the Lord
created the cosmos through a subtle stream of sound."

Rig Veda

Creation is sound.  The universe is sound.  The subtle essence
of light shines in darkness as sound.  Each star has a sound.
Every galaxy is a revolving chord, the harmony of a trillion
worlds.

The atoms of your body are chimes.  Each cell of your body is
a carillon.  Your music vibrates into my sound-body, mine into
yours.  Both are intermingled with that galactic harmony, the
gong of planets.  Our subatomic counterpoint trembles and
dances over the scale of humanity, and humanity's music co-
mingles in the cosmic chorus of angels.

You are a ringing bell.  Who struck you?  Even from a thousand
miles away, I am touched by the song of your body.  Each cell
of my flesh feels and recognizes your key, your rhythmic signature.
The memory of you brings a blue note, a minor seventh, a raga
into my inward ear.

My heart is a receiver of your elegy, and a transmitter of my own
love song.  Inside the ribs of every man and woman, the hollows
of a well-carved instrument resonate, softly playing notes
deeply personal, yet pervading the universe.

With the vibrant sound of our minds, we contribute to the
harmony of All, or we grind out dissonance.  The most
important question we can ask at any moment is, "Do my
thoughts right now create harmony on earth, or disharmony?"
Harmonious thoughts expand creation, bringing light out of
darkness.  Cynical or hateful thoughts unravel creation and
contract our energy, preventing waves of music from
manifesting as light.

We are each a unique resonance of grace notes.  Are you a
morning or an evening raga?  Are you the music of the wind
or rain?  A brook of Spring rain murmuring in the desert?  The
song of melting snow high above tree line, chanting under
stones?  Are you the sound of moonbeams falling softly on the
petals of an amaranth hibiscus, changing their color to burgundy?

The day will come, and now is here, when you will wake in the
morning stunned by a symphony of blossoms, polyphony of sun
and dew.  The day will come, and is now here, when medicine
will be music, and songs will heal us.  The day will come, and
now is here, when listening to vibrations of mantras, O most
silent melody in the ancient brain, will dissolve the mind of
war into pure love.

The day will come, the day is here, when you long for the
Beloved, O nakedness more intimate than form; you merely
call the Beloved's most secret name, and the Beloved is
with you, nearer than this breath!

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - via Uradiance

Solfeggio Frequencies - Attuned Vibrations

528Hz - The Love Frequency

Excerpts from articles found on Attuned Vibrations about the Solfeggio frequencies:

Solfeggio frequencies make up the ancient 6-tone scale thought to have been used in sacred music, including the beautiful Gregorian Chants of medieval times. The ancient Solfeggio scale can be traced back to a Medieval hymn to John the Baptist (above video).  The original Solfeggio scale was developed by a Benedictine monk who lived between c. 991 AD and 1050 AD.

According to Dr. Leonard Horowitz, 528 Hertz is a frequency that is central to the "musical mathematical matrix of creation."  More than any sound previously discovered, the "LOVE frequency" resonates at the heart of everything.  It connects your heart, your spiritual essence, to the spiraling reality of heaven and earth.

The Love frequency is the "Miracle" note of the original Solfeggio musical scale.  Independently confirmed by researchers, these core creative frequencies were used by ancient priests and healers in advanced civilizations to manifest miracles and produce blessings.

528 Hz is the bio energy of health.  It is the harmonic vibration that lifts your heart and helps you flow in perfect rhythm and harmony.  Tune yourself back to the perfect vibrations.

Albert Einstein stated: "Concerning matter, we have been all wrong.  What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses.  There is no matter."  All matter beings vibrate at specific rates and everything has its own melody.  The musical nature of nuclear matter from atoms to galaxies is now finally being recognized as science.

That is why these frequencies are so powerful.  They can literally bring you back to the original tones of the heavenly spheres and put your body into a balanced resonance.  Solfeggio music is the key to the Universe.  You can either throw it away or you can find healing and harmony, health and well-being.  Just play the music!

~~~~~

I am fascinated by this topic.  I have no idea how valid it is or how effective, so I will continue to do some research on the phenomenon, and am going to be listening to music containing the Solfeggio frequencies for the next 4-6 weeks.  Will let you know how it impacts my health.  There is a plethora of this music on You Tube, if you are so inclined.  Read more of the above articles on Solfeggio frequencies.

Also - if any of you have had any experience with the Solfeggio frequencies please leave a comment and let me know what your experience is/was.  Or you can email me at: mysticmeandering@gmail.com  

Thanks to Alixe at Love Is A Place
for bringing this to my awareness...

The Rhythm behind the rhythm...

I've heard a deeper rhythm...
Composed of cello, viola and oboe, I think.
I heard it when I was in the kitchen
cooking dinner one night,
a few years ago,
and every other night after that,
for several weeks,
until it stopped...

when the noise of my life
became too loud - again,
and the weight of a weary heart
drowned it out...

There was no music playing on the stereo,
just the sound of the meal cooking,
and the sounds of daily living
outside the window:

children playing,
dogs barking,
lawn mowers,
power saws,
and birds -
chirping...

Underneath it all was a Rhythm
so melodious I could even hum it.
I just listened, and hummed, with wonder...
Where was this coming from -
this music -
this slow, deep, melodic rhythm,
drawing me into itself...

I didn't even have to try to listen,
it was just there
soft - in the distance,
barely audible,
as if in another room,
through another door,
maybe even in another realm;
a cosmic rhythm...

I knew then, somehow, that my own life rhythm
was hidden in this deeper Rhythm...
But I no longer hear it now;
drowned out by the
noise of living
other people's
rhythms -
and
the endless
rhythms
of daily
existence.

But I know it is there -
playing somewhere.
And I listen for it -
this deeper Rhythm,
that underlies
all other rhythms...

The Rhythm behind the rhythm...

Love mysteriously playing its song...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 5, 2015

~

Photo - the inside of a sea shell

digitally altered

The Universe is Vibrating Strings - Kaku

...the subatomic particles we see in nature,
the quartz, the electrons,
are nothing but musical notes on a tiny vibrating string.

What is physics?

Physics is nothing but the laws of harmony that you can write
on vibrating strings...

What is chemistry?
Chemistry is nothing but melodies you can play on interacting
vibrating strings...

What is the universe?

The universe is a symphony of
vibrating strings...

What is the mind of God?
It's the cosmic music resonating
through hyperspace...


Michio Kaku

Physicist

Photo - Indra's Net of Jewels Mandala Art
digitally altered

The Second Music - Annie Lighthart

Now I understand that there are two melodies playing,

one below the other, one easier to hear, the other

lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard

yet always present.

When alll other things seem lively and real

this one fades.  Yet the notes of it

touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound

of the names laid over each child at birth.

I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.

If the truth of our lives is what it is playing,

the telling is so soft

that this mortal time, this irrevocable change,

becomes beautiful.  I stop and stop again

to hear the second music.

I hear the children in the yard, a train, then birds.

All this is in it and will be gone.

I set my ear to it as I would

to a heart.

Annie Lighthart

~*~

Also see my post A Deeper Rhythm

~*~

Photo - The inside of a seashell 

Life Sings...

Life Sings:

I am the rustling of leaves,
the feel of the cooling breeze,
the call of the Magpie – displeased…

I am joy, sorrow, grief;
comedy and tragedy…
 

Even the sound of traffic,
honking horns, and
sirens screaming…

It’s all Life singing.

Just sit with Life,
listening…

Life Sings:

I am THIS
and this,
and this…

Life Sings:

I am everything…
being everything…
living everything…

Life is Awake,
Aware, Alive
and
Singing…

Life Sings:

Hear ME

Aware ME
Experience ME
Remember ME

the song of Life…
the singing of Aliveness…
the singing of the Heart for ItSelf…

Life is everything
and everything is singing Life…

Nothing is separate from this Life
that sings…

Nothing is discounted…

Nothing is dismissed
as illusion or dream…
Every thing is always
Life – singing…

Life does not see ItSelf as “duality”
or “non-duality”
as light or dark;
not opposing forces…

Life just sees ItSelf ~
Vibrant and Alive and Singing!

Playing, Loving, Living…
Whole in its expressions…

Everything is always Life living ItSelf,
expressing ItSelf…

Delighting in living ItSelf,
Life Sings!

Mystic Meandering
originally written June 2011
updated January 2016

A Deeper Rhythm...

I’ve been hearing a deeper rhythm lately…
Composed of cello, viola and oboe.
I heard it when I was in the kitchen
cooking dinner one night,
a few weeks back,
and every other night after that
until recently
when the noise of my life
became too loud.

There was no music on the stereo,
just the sound of the meal cooking,
and the sounds of daily living
outside the window:
children playing,
dogs barking,
lawn mowers,
power saws,
and birds -
chirping…

Underneath it all was a Rhythm
so melodious I could even hum it,
but I just listened, with wonder…
Where is this coming from -
this music -
this slow, deep, melodious rhythm,
drawing me in…

I didn’t even have to try to listen,
it was just there
soft – in the distance,
barely audible,
as if in another room,
through another door,
maybe even in another realm…

I knew somehow that my own life rhythm
 is hidden in this deeper Rhythm…
But I keep losing it,
drowned out by the
*noise* of living
other people’s
rhythms -
and
the external
rhythms
of
life

But now I know it is there -
somewhere,
in an experiential way,
and I listen for it -
this deeper Rhythm,
that underlies
all rhythms..

The Rhythm behind the rhythm…

Mysteriously playing…

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 5, 2015

~*~

“The real music happens between the notes…”
Louis Armstrong

~*~

Photo: Mandala Art
Original: Winter’s Jewel Mandala
radially blurred

Listening to Life...

Sitting at the open window of Life,
wide open Awareness,
listening to Life’s Symphony
on a raw, cold, wet day
in May…

The chill in the air
touches my skin
caressing me,
 welcoming me,
allowing me to feel Life’s
Presence…

A canopy of lush green leaves
holds a chorus of birds
chattering and chirping.
Mourning Doves coo.
Blue Jays screech,
warning of impending rain…

The sound of rain hits
the leaves
in sharp pitts and dull plops
and splashy splatts
that barely rustle
in the light wind

The sound of cars pass on the street
leaving the crackle
of wetness as tires ride
over rain-soaked pavement -
which I find strangely comforting…

The brilliant blue, white and black markings
on the wings
of a Blue Jay

capture Awareness
as the Jay swoops
from fence line to fence line,
swiftly cocking its head around
looking sharply with each landing,
then moving beyond view...

Being takes it all in,
through these eyes…

A rabbit sits in the rain,
as if sitting vigil…
Big, black-pooled eyes
stare - watching…
ears cocked,
listening…
Being content to Be…

Beneath the “human noise”
of cars, and planes, and engines
There is just Life’s Presence,
Its inherent Aliveness
Its Awakeness…

Buds and Blossoms
bounced about
by rain and wind
nod - whispwering yes...

I exhale,
and mind lets go,
deeply listening
to Life;
deeply aware of
Life’s Presence;
communing
with the
Essence of Nature
deeply living…

Life living ItSelf…

Despite our busyness,
our harriedness,
our distractions,
LIFE lives…
holding it all,
allowing it all,
awareing it all.

Window sitting is my favorite meditation.
Aliveness flourishes in the deep silence of
listening…

Life watches ItSelf play ItSelf out
through my eyes...

silently gazing through
the open window,
while the music of Life
plays ITs own Symphony.

How intimately magical Life is…
How whimsically Life plays…

How do we miss such an enchanting spectacle…
How did we forget,
become blind and deaf,
to Life living ItSelf;
needing the kiss of a
”Prince Charming”
of Truth
to awaken to Life’s
beauty once again.

Life calls:

Are you awake?
Or are you still asleep -
pricked by the poison of ignorance -
waiting to be kissed…
to be enlivened…

Thunder rolls in,
louder and sharper.
The wind picks up,
blowing rain
 through the screen.
The chill is chillier,
coursing a deep shiver

through this body.

Life’s lusciousness
runs through the veins
and beats the heart…

Be kissed…

Awaken…

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
May 23, 2012

Can You Hear The Music?

Yesterday morning as I pattered down the hall after arising, heading for my office to check emails, on the way to the kitchen, I heard music wafting through the air. This was a strange sound, as normally we do not have music playing when we arise in the morning – let alone very lively Celtic music from the show “River Dance.” I checked my emails, then went to the top of the stairs and peered over the railing to the kitchen expecting to see my husband dancing the jig – in his underwear no less :) But - no, he was just making coffee, engulfed in the music. The next song I heard was from Smokey and the Bandit: “East bound and down, loaded up and truckin’, we’re gonna do what they say can’t be done. We’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there. East bound, just watch ole’ bandit run.” By this time I’m in full belly laugh, wondering what the hell is going on. The last time I heard this song we had packed up everything and moved to Washington DC – 26 years ago! It was our theme song riding across country. Is there a message here? Are we going somewhere? I mean I know we’re making some necessary changes here, becoming unencumbered with life’s encumbrances and all – turning grit into pearls, but I had no idea it would elicit such exuberance!

I was informed that he thought it would be a good way to start the day from now on - lively, get it in gear, get stuff done kind of music. It definitely got the chi going. I admit I like the new atmosphere. I like the sense of motivation, get ‘er done kind of attitude – the actual participation and engagement in where life is going at the moment, which is better than the stagnation we’ve been experiencing on all levels of living for several years now – despite my nagging attempts to affect change – silly me. Seems one does not *get* the “lesson” until one gets it. It has to be *seen* by the one needing to see it… Evidently it has been seen – thus the music…

And so here we go – life with a new attitude… Please hang on to the bar. Life is moving through…

This morning I awoke to the Moody Blues’ song - “The Voice.”

These lyrics captured me:

“…can you hear the spirit calling

as it’s carried across the waves

You’re already falling.

It’s calling you back to face the music,

and the song that it is coming through.

The one that it’s calling is you…

…understand the voice within,

feel the change already beginning…”

Life is changing. The piper is calling. I just need to hear the music that is coming through – and dance…

~*~