Music, Nurturing and Healing.
At the very deepest place in me there is a conviction that music is the universal language of healing. Music evokes an emotional response in people, and at the very core of all healing is emotion. If you feel better...you are better. Even in the face of terminal diseases, almost all people turn to music for solace and comfort. Music is used to express extraordinary love, love of all kinds, which is the ultimate healing force. It is the one thing in the world I know of, where the solitary heart can find peace, and feel the purity of love.
Above all other art forms, music is the one form enabling the communication of emotion without dilution. Thats the real beauty and timelessness of music...emotion can transcend time, language, social mores, and personal history. No matter what has happened to someone, how they were raised, or what kind of social imperitives they have been taught. Music connects to that mysterious and marvelous place of sacredness at the core of our being. It is part and parcel of the spiritual well in all of us, it calls on us to be true to ourselves.
Music touches our hearts, and resonates within our bodies. Joyous music can truly renew us, helping us to feel relaxed and rejuvenated. Great musicians have always recognized this therapeutic power of music, and researchers are finally proving them right.
Your body is a self-healing instrument. If you give it a chance it will always tend toward homeostasis or healthful balance. Often the natural response to wonderful music is associated with feelings of bliss, delight, contentment, and well-being.
Healing occurs when we are drawn into the present moment and away from the ruminations about past and future that consistently dominate our lives. It requires a letting go of literal, rational, linear patterns of thought and an acceptance of an intuitive, imaginal, metaphoric way of experiencing reality (expressed in some traditions as a shift from head to heart). It is associated with a sense of enriched personal meaning and a sense of connectedness. We may experience these healing connections at four levels: at an inner level, between ego and the essential self, our core essence, secondly, healing connections with others, in community, thirdly, connectedness to the phenomenal world, as perceived through our senses, for example, in response to music, nature, long distance running, the creative arts; finally, through a sense of connection to ultimate meaning, the universe, the creator, God, or however that is perceived by the individual.
Music can bring out tremendous joy, summoning energy that ignites one to get up and dance! Dance is also healing, it is emotion in motion, a delightful, beautiful, healthy way to express oneself, and also get wonderful exercise!
Newtonian physics told us that at base we are particulate; quantum physics, that we are "vibratory." It seems that the reality is that we are not either/or, but both/and. Perhaps, in its vibratory nature, music opens us to a greater appreciation of our essential connectedness to the cosmos, our oneness with all that is..