Music Gives a Soul to the Universe

On New Years Eve, my nephew got married in Bullhead City, AZ. We stayed in Laughlin, NV and then went to St George to see my Aunt. We came home Saturday the 2nd, leaving around 1:00 PM and driving back to LA was a nightmare. I foolishly thought that leaving on Saturday would be escaping the crawling traffic on Sunday. The six hour drive took nine hours and would have probably been more if I hadn’t cut off at Highway 58 and cut across to I-5 that way and then down to 118 and home.

I share this because when you are in solid bumper to bumper traffic people seem to lose any manners that they might have had. People were driving on the shoulders, driving alongside the road on the desert, they were cutting people off, honking horns and of course the hand gestures. Every once in awhile I would have to take a deep centering breath because I could feel the frustration, anger, anxiety coming into my car from the people surrounding us. Music has a way of soothing the soul when you are in these types of tense feeling situations.

The other quote I loved and considered for this post was, “music speaks what cannot be expressed, soothes the mind and gives it a rest, heals the heart and makes it whole, flows from heaven to the soul.” I went with Plato because of “wings to the mind” and “flight to the imagination”. I love the visuals I get with the words, wings and flight.

The beats in a song are like the heart beating. A steady comforting sound. We hear the beating of our moms heart at conception. We put our ears against our lovers chest and hear the beating of their heart. It is life pumping through our body and soul until the last heartbeat echos off in the distance, and we return to our heavenly father.

There is also a rhythm to music and to beating of the heart. There is even a genre of music called “soul music”. It is a mixture of gospel and rhythm and blues music. It draws your body to move with the music. You might start dancing or clapping your hands, you just have to participate with your body.

When words fail us, music can still transport us up the vibrational scale from the depths of despair back into the nirvana of the soul, where beauty, joy and happiness live. It fills in the emptiness that we feel in our soul and like a string draws the soul up towards the light.

Martin Luther called music, “the art of the prophets” and said “it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.” Music transcends generations of men. It lives on long after the composer has left the earthly realm. It doesn’t require to be translated like words into one’s own language but exists in all languages.

Think about the musical scores to the movie soundtracks. You can hear the music and your mind will take you directly to the scene in the movie that it applies to. It creates a wide range of emotional responses when you are watching a movie. You can be in another room and practically describe what must be happening in the movie based on the music that you hear. You can tell someone is experiencing great joy and happiness, that someone is dying or has died, that the climax of an action scene is happening, etc…., it can induce goosebumps, tears of both sadness and happiness, and joyous laughter.

It has even been said that “music is the prayer that the heart sings.” I know that there have been many times in my life that music was my only escape from the problems I was experiencing. It allowed me to regroup, put myself back together emotionally and go back into life feeling like things would be ok.

Years ago when my children were young, I would put on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and clean my house. It made the housework go so much faster and not seem like such a chore. So whatever is going on with your life, just know that there is some music to go along with it, or to transport you away from it. You can go into deep meditation or get your party started and rock out your soul!