Languages of the Soul

Life should have a sound track.

I was just listening to Eric Whitacre conducting the Tokyo Youth Orchestra playing 'October' on iTunes.  That song should have been playing this fall as I went through my withdrawal from summer. Ah, that was tough.  The summer was so glorious this year that for the first time I didn't enjoy fall as much as mope through it. Hahaha, at least that was how it felt.  I usually like fall, but this year I just didn't want summer to end.

Iris from my garden.  Amazing! ...and the only picture I could
find that reminded me of a song...

In any case, maybe if that song had been playing in the background this fall, maybe I would have felt less need for comfort food.  Needless to say, I bought the song.

I have not been listening to my music as much in the last few years, but  I have been starting to reconnect with it again lately.  It is like an old friend that you have to get to know again.  I have been listening to old favorites and finding new ones, too.  

Music is really amazing sometimes if you can manage to give your whole attention to it.  It can help you to run a race, if the tempo is right.  It allows you to relive memories of feelings of anguish so sweet that the pain is almost joyful.  Ok, you can't tell me that I am the only one who has ever felt that strange juxtaposition of opposites...Music can make you get up out of your chair to dance.  It can give you hope, joy, commiserate with your loss, or music can simply stop you in your tracks, so that you have to close your eyes and just listen.

There is a song that I love by a person who I know is disabled.  The hope, love and despair in that song transports my soul.  

Well, I guess none of this is rocket science.  I am sure we have all experienced it.  It is just what I am pondering tonight as I go through my music and pick songs to listen to, and think of songs that I want to get and artists that I want to explore some more.

So what do I draw from this...don't I always have to draw some moral or eternal truth from my experiences?  Well, maybe I don't have to, but I seem to anyway. :o)  

I am sure there is all kinds of research out there, but I don't have to read it to know that music has a certain power in our lives, from the way that it affects us, to the simple fact that we still have music with us after the however many millenia we have been around...

Maybe I should see what the research says.  Maybe music is the language of our souls, or maybe it is only one of the languages, and artistic expression, and dance are other languages that our soul speaks.  
Either way, I think we should listen, truly stop and listen to these languages once in awhile.   The words they speak may be bittersweet, but they are filled, too, with the joy and beauty of existence. AND maybe, just maybe if we were to focus more on these things, we would create less of the ugliness and sorrow that takes up so much space in our world.

Today, I wish only beauty for you - music, or art, or dance to fill you with joy.  And I wish for the spirit of music and beauty and love to be infused into the earth so that everyone that partakes of the earth is filled with beauty too.  

Play a song, or sing one.  Maybe make one up.  I am sure it'll do the soul and body good.

And until next time....take care of yourself.

Peace out.