“Music speaks the language of the soul, penetrating into the past and resonating into the future, unearthing pain and tenderness and sorrow and joy, reminding us of our infinite fragility and extraordinary strength, reigniting our dreams and passions once again to remind us of who we are meant to be.”
― L.R. Knost
“Songs hold the stories of our hearts, illustrate what we often cannot say in words, and bypass the linear mind into our right brain consciousness where our soul resides.”
― Paula Marie
Pilgrim, how you journey On the road you chose To find out why the winds die And where the stories go?
All days come from one day That much you must know You cannot change what's over But only where you go
One way leads to diamonds One way leads to gold Another leads you only To everything you're told
In your heart you wonder Which of these is true The road that leads to nowhere The road that leads to you
Will you find the answer In all you say and do? Will you find the answer In you?
Each heart is a pilgrim Each one wants to know The reason why the winds die And where the stories go
Pilgrim, in your journey You may travel far For, pilgrim, it's a long way To find out who you are
Pilgrim, it's a long way To find out who you are Pilgrim, it's a long way To find out who you are
― Pilgrim, Enya
In my journey to reclaim my inner child and reconnect to the higher Self, I am often surprised when a moment occurs during which my consciousness is opened, and something becomes newly revealed to me.
Today was one of those days.
Songs often come into my awareness throughout the day, and I have more recently become accustomed to this as being one of the ways that my soul speaks to me.
If I listen and follow the impulse, I can allow the song to move through me with its message. Sometimes it is hanging on one line or verse. Other times it is in the melody that stirs the emotion that is trying to make its way into my consciousness. Sometimes the message is for me. And, sometimes the message is about our collective healing on the planet.
As an expressive arts therapist, I have used song in the past to help connect individuals to their deeper emotions that were held in the unconscious. So, playing song and music are a welcome comfort to me and I am grateful that music is part of my new repertoire of healing gifts.
Pilgrim, by Enya brought a wave of emotion through me today as I came to a deeper understanding of our invitation to step into more Self (soulful) energy.
I came to understand how we each become torch-bearers for one another as we call the Self forward. When we come across a person who matches an aspect of our individual uniqueness and that person is able to stand unapologetically in their truth of who they are, it creates a space of safety, allowing us to step more fully into this aspect of our unique vibration that we also hold.
A vibration is simply an energetic pattern of our unique expression of Self which is expressed through our gifts, perceptions, and engagement with the world.
Most of us are not connected to ourselves in this deeper way. Rather, we tend to express an adapted version of ourselves that was formed by the influences of the world around us.
In other words, many of us form an identity based not on our truth, but on what is accepted in our dominant culture or our family.
In a flash I saw her face, the female psychologist with the very large and impressive coke bottle glasses and the loud clanky bracelets that made music every time she moved. She was a transpersonal psychologist, deeply engaged in the cutting edge approach that has just made its debut in the 1980’s. A type of trauma therapy that required her to move her hands across the air in front of your face and this was somehow going to help you reprocess your trauma?
Today, EMDR is one of the many approaches to trauma healing that engages with the body-brain through a process known as “state dependent memory processing”. I am trained in a version of state dependent memory processing called, Somatic Experiencing.
As Enya’s voice and song story came through my phone, I had a a moment of recognition and reclaiming of the part of me that is drawn to the transpersonal. Transpersonal simply means beyond the ego. I have from a very young age been drawn to spirituality, consciousness, and the mind-body connection. Even at the tender age of 23, as a budding social worker, I was drawn to those mentors who had a similar affinity to non-traditional methods of treatment.
The path to self-realization is as Enya notes, a pilgrimage. We are meant to find the diamond that we are. We are meant to keep choosing the road that reflects our unique vibration.
For many of us, this path of self-discovery is not clearly defined and not usually outwardly supported by those around us. Therefore, we tend to draw from a well of inner resources that keeps us moving in the direction of our inner knowing without much outside support.
Can songs and music help us to tune-in and hear the message of the soul?
Here’s 3 Simple Steps to Get Your Started
Remember, songs carry vibration. Vibration is a universal language that we all speak. We are all vibrational creatures. We express our vibration through our nervous system and this is carried in our tone of voice, gestures, thoughts, and behaviors.
We can shift our vibration inside and out through the mechanism of music and song. I invite you to give yourself the gift of song today and see what happens.
