High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘Music’

He had no idea what would happen next.  (But then none of us does.  And that, of course, is what makes it so exciting.)  In fact, he never even thought about it.  For him, “next” might as well have been a thousand years away.

Far too much was happening for him to even care what the next hour might bring. Whole symphonies were playing inside him.  His veins throbbed with the pulse of thick and luscious juices.  Cells were being born by the thousands.  New structures were taking shape.  And all of it was following some grand, invisible plan.

His skin felt the rush of passing air, now cool, now warm, and his pores opened to drink in its sweet moisture and its powerful waves of light.  It carried fragrances and music to him and stroked the tiny hairs on his surface as it danced by.

He was simply heady with the joy of it all, even more so because the same spectacular experience seemed to be happening for every other living thing as well.  He could hear his neighbors’ sighs of bliss rising in the night and their laughter greeting the mornings.  Life!  How grand!  How stunningly, amazingly grand.

Not all universe creatures can detect the wondrous music of the spheres.  Some worlds are too dense, you see, for the delicate mechanisms that receive its sounds.

And so, long, long ago, the Celestial Artisans created a way to downstep the melodies for the benefit of the spirits who were embodied on the heavier worlds.  No one, after all, should be deprived of their inspiration and beauty.

Thus, the School of Sound Designers came to be, and they carried semblances of music to the outer worlds.

But then the Artisans discovered that on some worlds, and even within any given species, some creatures were more attuned to sight than to sound.

“What if,” one of them asked, “we could translate the music into some kind of pattern they could see?”  It was a brilliant idea and the master Artisans immediately set about developing it.

When a method was perfected (And that is a whole story in itself!), they took it to the Ministry of Planetary Graces for approval and adoption.  The Ministers marveled at the possibility of entire worlds swept with visual rhythms and harmonies.  They delighted at the prospect of multi-colored birds and fishes and flowers in the fields.  And they were moved to awe by the grandeur of sunrises and sunsets, by the hues the sea could display and the sands of the deserts.

Not only did the Ministers approve the idea for immediate adoption, they awarded top honors to the Celestial Artisans for inventing color and bringing it to the outer worlds.

One day, if you so choose, you can view the entire story in the archives of the cosmic library.

But for now, I thought you might like to know that when you are invigorated by a dashing flash of red, or comforted by a blanket of blue, when your spirit is moved by the magnificence of a painted desert, or sea, or sky, the colors were put there just for you, for your inspiration and joy.

In the magical space between waking and sleep, the morning dreams flow down.  “Come,” they whisper, “Step inside.”

Their voice is smooth and silver, like moonlight on water, and it echoes in the tunnels of your mind, beckoning.

You must be very still now, or day will come and cover them with forgetting.  But if you are very still, they will swirl over you and reveal their secret worlds.

Listen now, this is important.  The first stories they tell you aren’t real; they’re only bits and pieces of your yesterdays strewn like socks on the floor. Pay them no attention.

Look for a path or a stairway, a door or an opening of some kind.  Look closely at the quality of light around it; listen for faint music.  Follow where it leads you.  Describe to yourself what you’re seeing so you don’t sink into sleep.

Pick one object as a key and bring it back with you to help you remember.  Write the dream down.  Ask what it means.  Listen to what it tells you.

Tomorrow, the morning dreams will flow again, in the magical space between waking and sleep.  And tomorrow the door will stand open for you, and all the secret worlds will sing their songs.

Even though it was nearly dusk when I drove home, I could see that the day’s icy rain had coated the branches of the trees.  In sunlight, the scene would be dazzling.  Even now, in the early evening gloom, it had an air of enchantment, as if some secret fairyland lay just behind the frozen mist.

Parking my car at the base of the driveway, I picked my way across the slick surface to collect the day’s mail.  The sound of the ice drops falling all around me was like a thousand tiny tambourines, and I stood listening, the sense of enchantment captured me again.   I felt as if I had stepped into some parallel world where magical beings danced in the woods.

“You’re right,” a small voice laughed.  Startled, I looked up to see a barely visible elf-like being sitting atop my mailbox, a tiny zither on his lap.  “They are dancing, all around you,” he said as he strummed the strings of the little harp.  “It’s a celebration.”

“What are you celebrating?” I asked, as if he were real.

“The gifts!” he said, sweeping his hand in a great arc.

As my eyes followed his hand, I saw what he meant.  In the glow of my car’s headlights, I could see how the ice had transformed the world.  Every twig shimmered in the light.  The air itself shimmered.

He started strumming his zither again, closing his eyes as if he were enraptured, and the melody danced with the sound of the falling crystals.  “Ahhhhh,” he breathed, “Isn’t it beautiful?”

My eyes fell on a weed heaped with ice-jewels caught in the beam of my car’s headlights.  “Yes, yes, it is,” I agreed.

“That one is for you,” he said, smiling.

“Why for me?”  I asked.

“Because the music is for the boys.  The diamonds are for the girls,” he said.  And then he rose and danced away, the haunting sound of his song trailing behind him.

I blinked, and woke back in my ordinary world to see my hand reaching for the mailbox.

But there in front of my car, a weed heaped with diamonds glistened in the light, and as I snapped its photo, I thought I heard music in the falling freezing rain.

It’s hard, of course, to describe.  You can make only very loose analogies.  But that doesn’t make it any less real.

In a dimension just a few removed from this one, in the music division of the College of Elementals, one cadre of senior instructors is charged with bringing the harmonies of the cosmos to earth in the form of birdsong.

All those legends you’ve heard about the angels and their harps hint at it.  But like most legends, the kernel of truth is hidden.   As I said, it’s hard to describe, happening as it does in another dimension and all.

The intelligences that work with elementals, you see, train them to embody concept-fragments and express them through time.  And oh!  With what eager delight the tiny spirit particles embrace the task!  For they know the destiny that awaits them once they have mastered their art.

So, what happens is this:  In the laboratories of the music school, each teacher coaxes out a single strand of music from the great symphony of being and with enormous patience and magnificent technique trains a group of elementals to embody that one sound.

As the skill of the elementals increases, they begin to form into shimmering geometries, something like vibrating crystals, each holding its own pattern and expressing its own note of love and joy.

When they are flawless in their performance, the instructors group some of them together, creating trills and phrases, and some stand on their own, beautiful solitary notes, strong and clear.  Then the class as a whole is formed into a great choir, and they rehearse together the morning songs, and the songs to be sung before the rain and afterwards, and the lovely benediction of the evensong, and the songs to be sung in the night.  And the whole realm swells in wonder at the beauty of the love the elemental choirs express.

Finally, it is graduation day, and the elementals are sent to live in the hearts of new-formed birds, snug in their nests, here on Earth.  And the songs of the elementals make the hearts beat and the birds come alive, and they are so filled with the spirit of music and love that they burst through the shells that held them and fly free, gladdening in turn the hearts of human beings and of all the creatures of the Earth.

“Peace has to dance and silence has to sing. And unless your innermost realization becomes a laughter, something is still lacking.” ~Osho

“I was always in trouble at school,” Ruth said.  “The teachers said, ‘Sit still!’  But God said, “Wiggle!”

That’s the secret that children know, before the stiff conformity of adulthood weighs them down.  They hear the animating music of their souls; they know that life is motion and meant to be lived with zest and joy.

They understand fiddles and banjos and tubas.  They know how skipping frees you and how beautiful it is to twirl like a flower in the breeze.  Children strut and slide and march and glide everywhere they go, just for the joy of it.  Even their fingers know how to tap dance.

We should pay attention.  Our gravity is a trap and a lie, miring us in lethargy and inertia.  It deafens us to the melodies of our own hearts and puts blinders on our vision.  To be hale and hearty and free, we need to relax into a spirit of divine nonchalance and listen again for life’s music.  And if it moves us to whistle as we walk down the halls, let us whistle.  If we want to dance at the bus stops, let us dance.

Happiness isn’t something you do, although in doing you may find joy.  It’s not something you acquire, like an apple or a new pair of shoes.  It’s not a hidden treasure that you find by following the right map and digging next to the right tree.

Happiness doesn’t come from lucky circumstances, however glad you may be for the pieces of good fortune that come your way.  It’s not a product of winning approval or prizes, or of having your wishes—even your best ones—come true.

Happiness isn’t something that someone else makes possible or prevents. It doesn’t depend on things going your way or on meeting your preferences.

It’s more like a signal that you tune into, one that’s broadcast from the core of your heart.  And although it’s clear signal and strong, it’s subject to interference.

To pull happiness into your awareness so that its music steadily fills your life requires a little practice and attention.  You need to learn to still the things that block it or bury it in noise, to identify and eliminate the sources of interference, to keep your antenna pointed in its direction.  You need to develop an ear for its sound so you can hone into it instantly when you happen upon it.

But it broadcasts ceaselessly, every minute of every hour of every day.  Always.  There’s nowhere you can be that it is unavailable.  It comes from the same place in you that blinks your eyes, that pumps your lungs, that moves your muscles, that flashes messages from your fingers and toes to your brain and back again.  It belongs to you; it’s woven into the very fabric of your being.  It’s not something separate or apart from you.  It’s not out there in the world waiting to be bought or found.  It’s already yours.  There’s nothing different that you need to be, or anything more that you need to have, or any place else that you need to go.  And if you listen for it quietly, you can hear it.  Right now.  Just as you are.

It sounds like beauty, and wonder, and awe.

It sounds like love.

It sounds like you.