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| Music of the Soul ONE SOUND seldom heard on a prison yard is the sound of someone singing. Yet, unmistakably, I heard the joyful voice of my inmate friend, Ed, singing in the dormitory shower. It was positively liberating to hear him sing, totally immersed in the music.
Music is a dialect in the language of God. Based on mathematics (as is everything in the universe), music is the manifestation through sound of the higher vibrations of life.
Nothing is more commendable than to live lyrically, to make our lives
a continuous song of experience. Depending on how we choose, the vibrations
of music can calm us, stir us, and inspire us. Certain music, like f Touching the music of your soul, your feet begin to tap, and your lips start to quiver. When the rhythm infects you, you must dance, and when the melody catches you, you must sing. This is the law of living musically. To let go into the music, to dance, to spin and sway as the sounds resound in your bones, to feel your feet grow lighthearted as they sweep you along to the rhythm of the music, is to touch in to the harmonies of the soul. Vincent van Gogh said it so well...
In the end we shall have had enough Oh, but why wait until the end? The music won't allow it. The time to dance and sing is NOW. There will be plenty of odd days when your feet won't budge, your lips won't open, and any amount of music will leave you flat. So be sure to sing and dance - though it is only in your soul - on the even days.
Perfect Imperfections AS THE SUN was setting in the distant mountains, the glorious bursts of color were caught in the clouds. I stopped on my walk around the prison yard in order to fully absorb the magnificence of this desert sunset. Another inmate stopped beside me and I said, "It's really spectacular, isn't it?" He shook his head and replied, "Yes, but we have to look at it through the razor wire fence."
I was so busy focusing on the beauty beyond I hadn't noticed Instead of creating a life of beauty and meaning, we often simply become better at seeing only what is broken. As Abraham Maslow once said, "If a man's only tool is a key, he will imagine every problem to be a lock." We must at least be conscious that we are making a choice. It's never easy to face the fact that nothing is perfect. Everything is flawed. That's reality. Reality means taking off the rose-colored glasses and seeing the world as it is without distortion. Reality is what it is, forever free and untouched by our projections and interpretations, as well as our hopes and anxieties about it. We're often so filled with fantasies about what should be that we fail to acknowledge and appreciate what is. As we mature, we begin to look for the perfection in non-perfection. Enlightenment dawns when we are without anxiety about non-perfection. We meet the world as it is, unafraid of its beauty and its blemishes. We find trust in the body, the emotions, in life itself as it unfolds. After struggling with our humanity and awakening to the beauty in the ordinary, we learn to allow ourselves the space of kindness. We invite the heart to sit on the front porch and experience from a place of rest the inevitable comings and goings of emotions and events. One of the hardest things I still have to pass through is the realization that there is no final perfect condition to rely on. It's all fundamentally insecure, changing. We don't learn this quickly - as we have to let go into this ordinary perfection again and again.
© 2001-06, Tom Brown
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| ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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| The underlying philosophy of Planetlightworker.com is to provide a space for many different flavors of the truth. The views and opinions expressed by the authors of our articles and/or interview subjects are not necessarily those of the editors, management and staff of New Earth Publications. New Earth Publications does not endorse any individual product or concept, but rather, offers this information for your individual discernment. We are happy to receive your opinions and feedback and actively encourage you to send us your views for publication in future issues. Copyright: New Earth Publications, 1999-2007. This © also includes all art, photography and animations (unless otherwise stated). Please contact us if you wish to use PLW imagery. |
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Having no material goods, no family, and serious health problems, Ed
confided that he has no reason whatsoever to be happy and sing like
that. He said, "I have a happy spirit and it's just natural
to sing and dance."
requencies
of light, can also be very healing, permeating and affecting every cell
through which it passes.
the fence until he mentioned it. Then, I thought of the many times that
I, too, have seen the weeds instead of the flowers, the thorns rather
than the roses.
Charles "Tom"
Brown
was a successful investor who did very well in real estate, oil, and
the stock market. Friends began asking him to invest for them, too.
And he did. Things went well, and more people heard about his abilities
and wanted to be included in the investment strategies he had devised.
All went well until there was a dramatic change in the market. All
that went up turned down, and Tom wanted everyone to still have a
profit - his big mistake - as he wanted to be well thought of. Tom
was accused of defrauding investors. Although it was shown that he
had never diverted any money for himself other than a modest commission,
through unbelievable mishandling by an incompetent or dishonest attorney,
what should have been a one-year sentence became a 17-year sentence. At
the time of judgment, Tom was 62 years of age.