The Soul-Song
From Ali’s Meadowsweet and Myrrh blog:
In Druidry, I learned that everything has a Song, and that the world, too, has a soul-song. The Song of the World might be called a Divine or True Will; we join with it our own voices, the music of our bodies humming, pumping blood, inhaling and exhaling, neurons and nerves buzzing and vibrating: the songs we cannot help but murmur to ourselves as we go along our way, same as the heron and the oak and the rain and the stars. The air we move through shifts around us with every stride, and our laughing and crying shape it, too. When we sing and move and live in harmony with the World Song, our own songs are amplified, modulated and carried along. Mark Strand wrote, We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole. The Druid listens for the song her soul is singing, and she attends with reverence to the part her soul-song has to play in the greater whole.
5 Responses to “The Soul-Song”
I love Ali’s writing – her Blog is wonderful; found it a while back via Erik’s equally wonderful Blog. This is so beautifully put. I think sometimes we can forget our soul-song, sometimes sing someone else’s because that is what we feel is expected of us or perhaps because we lack courage to add our voice to the many voices, not feeling that ours is worthy. Singing the wrong song feels a bit like being a cat having one’s fur stroked the wrong way. I know a lot of disgruntled cats! I think Ali is right, when we sing the song that is truly us, we resonate with life, we feel a part of something greater and there is a momentum to what we do, to how we live; when we don’t, something in us stagnates, things become a struggle. I love the Mark Strand quote -gosh I think I move to keep things whole! When Ali writes about attending ‘with reverence to the part her soul-song has to play in the greater whole’,it strikes me that this is the art of living well. And if I’m honest, it scares me a little too -that fear that I might fail to recognize my own soul-song; fail to add my voice. This all brings to mind that wonderful poem my David Whyte ‘Everything is Waiting for You’, he writes ‘Surely even you at times have felt the grand erray, the swelling presence and the chorus crowding out your solo voice…Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation.’ As Ali so beautifully writes, every song counts.
I agree Maria – I’ve only just discovered her blog – it’s inspiring stuff! This metaphor of the soul-song is very powerful and it’s nice to think it may not simply be a metaphor. Planets hum as they whirl through space, so as we move we too are sounding a note or song (and we’re always moving even when still since our universe of cells is thrumming away). Emerson and Thoreau speaks well about our ‘under-song’.
I love that idea that at the heart of movement there is stillness and at the heart of stillness, movement. I often think of my thoughts, emotions and my movements in terms of sound, particularly melody -probably comes from being a musician for most of my working life. I think of writing in terms of sound too – melody and rhythm particularly – it’s how I judge if something works or not. Everything has a colour too.
Speaking of movement and sound, do check out on Ali’s Blog the wonderful little film of the singer Bobby Mcferrin, proving how we all resonate very beautifully together.
Also, there was a really lovely piece by Susan Leigh in Touchstone (Aug.2009) called ‘Your Song’ about pregnant mothers in an African tribe praying and meditating to hear the song of their child, believing that every soul has its own unique song and that this is linked to their purpose and reason for being here. The tribe sings the child’s song when it is born, at each rite of passage and when it dies. I love the thought that those that truly love you, know your song and sing it to you to remind you who you are and what you have to give to the world.
Ali is a wonderful writer!
I’ll just chip in a word or two from the “scientific” community here:
There is a theory in physics called “superstring theory” which tries to explain the very most basic underpinnings of our universe. Molecules are made of atoms, which are made of tinier things called quarks, and even tinier, and so on.
Down at the bottom, the very tiniest thing, this theory believes there is a “cosmic string”, a little loop of energy, and it vibrates.
Each string is different because of its resonant frequency – in short, it’s “note” that it “sings” – quite literally.
Expanding this idea, we understand that the Universe is all the voices of all the tiny strings together, and it is a song. A very real song.
This idea is very dear to me, and to see Ali writing about this same idea makes me go all gooey inside.
Thanks for mentioning it!
In the Dolmen Grove there is a small training course called the Stag Circle and they discuss the String Theory and The Schumann Resonance. There is big emphasis on Sound and Resonance and the key F#. Very interesting stuff, it has caused me to look deeper into the science of resonance and to learn as much as I can on the subject. Great stuff, great post.
http://www.dolmengrove.co.uk/stagcircle.htm
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