A Musical Quest for the Self (Part II)

Music as an expression comes from a place, or places, not always reachable by our conscious mind or mere desire. There is something else. There is a lot more in our beings that makes connections with the tangible world.

In some cultures the connection between music and spirituality is even more developed. I would even venture to speculate that those cultures that have deep-rooted spiritual beliefs/practices have used music as a mean to achieve that connection, such as the Central Javanese musicians and their stories, outlined by Judith Becker in Gamelan Stories,
“While these stories focus on the events of music and dance, those activities also become metaphors for the strongly felt, extra mundane connections between human and cosmos, between individual and a greater, more enduring, more powerful realm…”

And I believe that in a way we are all trying to transcend that window of existence between the “real world” and the spiritual one in one way or the other, weather we realize it or not, and that is the very reason we look for answers in many different places and continue to go to church and pray in silence every night. Even if a person claims to be an atheist, the very moment he turns on his radio he or she is having a spiritual experience related to him/her by the artist who created the music, so that this person who believes in no god can find himself singing along ecstatically and completely oblivious to the external word, feeling whatever emotions the sound evokes in them.

“Traditional spirituality, according to Wuthnow, emphasizes habitation- ‘the notion that God occupies a definite place in the universe and creates a sacred place in which humans can dwell as well’”.

The more I learn about music and its vibrations, and the more I read about the soul and the source of inspiration I can see that is evident the connection between these two. I can see the strong correlation between a feeling and a beat. I can see the harmonious way in which a soul vibrates and how sound, existing in a plane of existence closer to the spirit, can connect with it in a much closer level, and thus bringing it forward to our awareness.

Something similar happens in shamanistic ceremonies. I had the opportunity to experience it firsthand when I attended a spiritual ritual with a Peruvian Shaman, a female Shaman, in which the rhythmic beats of the rattles and harmonious whistles by the performed by the female shaman transported one to remote corners of the Amazon rainforest. It is difficult to explain the experience just as it is difficult to attempt to explain love in scientific terms, but the feelings were there. The experience was real. The music had a tremendous impact on those of us who were present in the ceremony, and when talking about it afterwards, the general consensus was that the melodies did, indeed, had the power to evoke powerful feelings and a sense of peace.
The closest evidence I found to this experience is Gamelan Music and Meditation, which is said to bring a person “to achieve the desired spiritual state of heightened aesthetic perception”

A Musical Quest for the Self (Part I)

Life in this world can be a long and hectic journey, but somehow most people seem to believe that there is “something” else out there. Even more, a lot of us have a fervent belief in that there is more to our lives than what we experience in the physical world.

I can accept, for the most part, the everyday occurrences I live. I can feel the cold in the morning when I wake up and get up from bed. I can accept the fact that there are miniscule floating particles of steam carrying around the smell of a fresh batch of coffee. I have no problem dealing the mundane conventionalisms of paying for gas with cash, and now often times with virtual currency packaged in a fancy golden debit card. But then I start questioning what can’t be as easily perceived. Especially when I turned on the radio or play one of my favorite songs and feelings overwhelm my whole being. I have to question what I know, or think I know, when a melody brings a tear to my eyes. I think about the possibilities when glimpses from the past begin to fill my mind when I hear certain tune.

What is happening to me?
What and how are these vibrations touching when they travel trough the air and reach my ears?
Is my soul being touched by these sounds? Is my spirit being elevated by these harmonies?

It would be really difficult to assess and ultimately reach a final conclusion on these questionings, but based on personal experience and the way music has contributed in practically every aspect of a person’s life, I would like to venture the notion that all questions posed have definite answers, that these answers will be different from person to person, and that they are all probably right.

Oscar Wilde on the Importance of Editing

"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."
- Oscar Wilde

Top 10 Novels of the 20th Century

According to the Modern Library’s Board these are the best novels of the 20th century:

1. Ulysses by James Joyce
2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
6. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
7. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
8. Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
9. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
10. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

My personal favorite is Lolita, but I'll be the first to admit I haven't read all of them. I'm working on it though.





They supposedly had a preliminary list of 440 novels. I hope that at the very least each member read ALL of the works in that list.

Oh, by the way, they only considered novels written in English.

Mmm…

In any case, here is a recommendation for everyone: 100 Years of Solitude

Life is a work in progress

Nothing is ever truly finished.

Words Slithering From Me

It happened this morning.

It started somewhat sluggishly, but quickly sped up as I rose from bed. The only explanation of sorts that I dare venture fort about this odd phenomena is that gravity, accusing its ill effects indiscriminately over all the elements in the universe played a practical joke on me taking advantage of my morning lethargy.

Without any notice, after a strident beep of the alarm clock, every single word I have in my brain, the ones I use regularly and the ones kept concealed in a corner of the right side of my brain, plummeted down from the center of my cerebral system to the back of my neck, through my spine and down my back.

Sitting down on the edge of my bed, wife sleeping soundly, one by one they sled and fell to my sides without me being able to do anything to stop this incidence,

And it wasn’t a dramatic fall.

It wasn’t a memorable or transcendent event. It was more of a circumstance. Things are usually a lot less painful and easily justifiable when they are circumstantial. The drop, unhurried and somewhat measured was, however, with a touch of dignity and almost with sophistication.

As I stood up, half asleep and numbed by the internal silent revolution taking place in me, words like “stuck,” “diligence,” and “nag” fell first like water from a cascade striking a rock on its way down, with the exception that verbs and articles found no rock on their way down, but joints, bones and ligaments.

A fraction of the words went down my left arm. In their journey they bordered the three scars on my elbow while bouncing due to the wrinkles in it. A whole bunch of them plummeted by my forearm until reaching my wrist, where they paused for a moment when noticing that the end of the way was near. Little by little they saturated the palm of my hand before projecting themselves very orderly taking turns using my fingers as trampolines.

The same took place on the right side of my body with a slight difference, while verbs and adverbs made their escape trough this side, adjectives and articles slipped very casually by the left. It was only 5:34am when I witnessed how each and every single one of my favorite words plunged into the air to a gracious fall until reaching the ground where they broke in individual letters when hitting the ceramic floor, turning the room into a gigantic bowl of alphabet soup.

I stood up feeling a tingling sensation throughout my body and arms. The rest of the words and expressions glided all the way down until reaching my ankles. Once below, with the proximity of the floor, the louder and empty sound that the words falling from high above were making became a barely audible toc sound originated by the words jumping out of my toes. The words diving from such a low altitude remained in one piece and scattered all over the room, hall and bathroom floor as I made my way to the shower.

As I was calculating the ideal temperature for my morning wash words kept tumbling over and exploding in miniature splash sounds. In this way the shower was soon saturated with consonants and loose vowels and even some complete words, like “cohesion” and “adhered,” who faithful to their meanings stayed in one piece.

I have to admit that I felt a bit of joy when I say words like “politics,” “tyranny” and “failure” go down the drain, and became worried when I saw “unconditional” trickle down my right arm mixed with the shampoo foam. I truly believe that it must have been the inevitable nature of conformity that kept me from grabbing that last word, same with others like “caring” or “friendship,” which was stuck on the edge of the drain practically the whole duration of my shower.

Once outside the shower I found the words that had fell on the floor all over. Tania, my wife, still asleep hadn’t noticed what had been going on during my morning, which was a good thing. I didn’t want her to become alarmed, especially after seeing Nini, our cat, battling in silence in the corner of the living room a couple of verbs that were floating about for some strange reason.

Before I knew it, every word and letter that had been on the floor was now levitating, reaching the ceiling very quick, after all I live in a small apartment, and since they had no other place to go they dissolved in the air, popping like bubbles.

I was almost certain that there wasn’t a single word left in me, that’s why I didn’t even bother to ask Tania if she wanted some coffee. I walked into the bedroom to get ready to go to work, although I did wondered how much help was I going to be without the means to communicate.

I was pondering about this when Nini approached me purring and holding a word between her teeth. I didn’t pay much attention to her as I though it was just another joke of an unusual morning, but I realized that the word she held in her teeth was “infinite.” She let go of the word and it didn’t fell, it floated and reached the height of my forehead. It started to shine in a warm incandescent glow that turned the bedroom into a comfortable place. Then I felt every single word, the ones I use quite regularly as well as the ones kept concealed somewhere in a corner of the right side of the brain, seeping back to me there, sitting on the edge of my bed one by one they all took their place back in my mind without me being able, or even wanting, to do anything about it.

“Good morning honey,” Tania said to me.
“Good morning sweetheart,” I answered. “Do you want some coffee?”