Sunday Messages

This Week’s Message

The Music of the Soul

The Soul is touched by many things – spring, love, prayer, and music, and especially the sounds of the drums. Drumming began in ancient times and every culture on earth drums, because drumming is a musical expression of the Soul. Besides being an important sacred accompaniment for celebrations, ceremonies, and rituals, drumming is used by shamans to take them to the dimension of the Soul. Drumming stimulates the energy that we are, and the energy all around us, to vibrate at the same rhythm as we move into harmony.

There is Soul Wisdom in a drum circle, a subtle wisdom of which we are often unaware. Christine Stevens in her book, “The Art and Heart of Drum Circles,” says, “Being a part of a drum circle taps you into the primal need to share and support one another through one of the simplest ways to connect without words.” As you listen to a drumming round you can observe that the rhythms begin tentatively trying to follow the central beat. The rhythms become stronger and more in tune with each other. This is followed by a discordant sound as the drummers are uplifted into different rhythms to move the circle into a new level of harmony. As the drums once again become synchronized, harmony fills the air. Each drum, each instrument, supports the rhythm of the circle in a cooperative and cohesive manner. Souls are singing together.

Drumming together in harmony is our first lesson in cooperation. Everyone needs to do his/her part in order to create harmony. Each instrument has a place in the circle to create a unity of sound. The Soul’s wisdom is the process of harmony is a healing experience.

Did you know that sound is sacred? It is sacred because it causes energy to vibrate and stimulate the subtle senses. It is sacred because it is the “central means” for invocation of the spiritual realm. Particular sounds form a connection to all the elements of the universe, such as OM. We also know that music and sound vibrations can affect and heal the body, mind, and heart and spirit.

Sacred sounds are spoken words, hymns, music, or any form of sound that transcends you and helps you connect with the Divine. Every religion, spiritual path, and tradition from the beginning of our time uses sacred sound to define and improve spiritual states and connections with each other and the Divine. Sound also is a powerful tool for spiritual alignment and healing. We experienced an example of sound healing with Deborah Barber and her singing bowl. Sound enhances meditation and strengthens our connection to Spirit.

There are also the sacred sounds of the Soul of Mother Earth. In ancient times, natural phenomena such as thunder, volcanic eruptions, storms, and so on, were regarded as sacred noise, as they were believed to represent divine communication from the spiritual realm.

The sacred sounds of the Souls of the oceans and rivers, the mountains, the birds, the animals, the plants, and the minerals all speak to our human souls. Contained within every sound is a bit of Soul Wisdom. If we want to hear it, all we have to do is listen, listen carefully. The next time you are out walking and a stone calls to you, pick it up gently and put it to your ear. Listen deeply to the message it has for you before you put it back in its chosen space.

Claire Davey shares with us the Wisdom of her Soul as she writes: “The feminine and the sacred have always been intertwined with breath, voice, and vibration. Our bodies hold rhythms older than language, and yet, so often, we suppress what longs to emerge... The journey from the unseen to the seen, from the internal to the external, from the felt to the spoken, the perfume spittle of the voice. Sometimes it’s so easy to forget that we’re porous, that we are in constant conversation with the cosmos, that the sacred is not separate from us but flowing through us, resonating and vibrating within us.”

“We are in constant conversation with the cosmos.” What a profound way to remind us “that the sacred is not separate from us but flowing through us, resonating and vibrating within us.” And when we drum together, we are in conversation with the cosmos, especially if we let our hearts take over and let the energy flow. All of our systems join in harmonious conversation with the sacred.

The music of our Souls is also in how we express the Divine in our everyday lives. Poets help us hear and see the beauty of the Soul’s wisdom through the lyrical sounds of words. I share this example with you from the poetry of William Wordsworth. This beloved and still popular poem was written after an encounter with a soul-stirring sight of overwhelming beauty that ignited the music of his soul. He was walking with his sister, Dorothy, in the English Lake District, along the shore of Ullswater Lake on April 15, 1802.

Daffodils by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once, I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Whether it is a poem to describe overwhelming beauty or a sacred moment in our lives, or whether it is the words that come out of our mouths, the thoughts that come out of our minds, or the feelings that come out of our hearts, our everyday expressions of the Divine are inspired by our Souls. Gary Zukav writes about the Soul. In his book, “Soul Stories,” he gives examples of how the Soul speaks to us. Young children have no filters on their Souls’ wisdom.

Spaghetti slipped from Jamie’s fork. Tomato sauce covered her mouth. At two and a half, she had not yet mastered the fork. She put it down and ate with her fingers. I was very happy. My daughter sat across from my wife, Linda, and I sat next to Jamie, my first granddaughter. Candlelight softened her tomato-sauce face.

Suddenly Jamie stopped eating and turned toward me. Her face became serious. “Be gentle,” she said, looking directly at me. Her entire presence had changed. I playfully changed mine to match it, in a grandfatherly way. “Be gentle with what?” I asked her. “With yourself!” she replied. Then she returned to her dinner. Suddenly she was a child playing with spaghetti again. We sat in silence. I was stunned, and so was everyone else, except Jamie. How did Jamie know that self-severity had been a lifelong burden for me. She was only two and a half and had only seen me once.

I think Jamie’s words were a song her grandfather needed to hear – music for his Soul from hers. It is a reminder that our eternal souls are wise no matter our physical age. And the music of Souls is all around us. Namaste.

Heavenly Spirit of Sacred Sound, help us to listen to the soul music that fills our hearts in every moment. May we be grateful for each melody and each rhythm and may we share our Soul’s song with each other in harmony and love. And so, it is. Pau.