Music; The Light & Language Within

A shadow moved over the mountain, running off the heat hanging so heavy in the air. The brutal summer was starting to calm down. Small moths from the night still clung to the mosquito netting over the door. The lantern was cold, sitting in silence on the nightstand. A gust of chilly rain poured down over the little cabin in the woods, ordering everyone into their nests for awhile. The birds took shelter under thickets, and raccoons stayed banked in their deep dens. The woman of the wood settled her wild heart and poured a warm beverage to take the chill off her skin.

There's a rhythm to it; these messages received from the depths of this place. They're strict, clear, and are in constant movement according to all that exists in this impressive coalition of life and death, action and rest; the unified dance of all that is. To denounce our connection to it is to rip a child away from its mother. It sets up a dysfunctional cycle that will last until we find our way back. It's cold and wet this morning. The creek is in her serious, busy mood, cooling down the earth and its heated root systems, preparing for the season of sleep. The springs in her belly are icy and fresh, killing off toxins and healing the skins of river stones. The sky is laying down a clean, filtered atmosphere, much easier to breathe than the fiery heat that squeezed our breath over the summer. Something that has no humanly comprehensible explanation whispers to me through the flow of the water. It talks to me through the actions of wildlife, and through the music of what I hear coming through the deliberate stirring of the wind as it plucks the leaves of the trees like the strings of a harp. Rain only amplifies this orchestrated grace.

For one who's never heard the songs of the mountain, it's a composition to be respected. It's more than a couple of unidentifiable noises coming from the throats of unseen critters in the wood. The water itself is a tune that never stops; it takes its audible rushing and winds through culverts and around earthen walls. It rushes down with gravity into pools and spreads out, forever searching for new highways. The wood has its own section, with whistles, rattles and chimes; creating such a complicated system of sound that you don't know where half of it's coming from. Wind courses through, lending its hand to the flow of the water and the brush of the trees. And the creatures with eyes! Buzzing and chanting; the crickets alone keep a steady mantra before frogs move in with their harmonies in what seems like some miraculous timed performance. Layers of birds begin filling in spaces, and any solo coming from the throats of larger beasts literally echo across the hills. It's the most astonishing thing in the world to me, the music of the mountain. It's so dynamic it pulls at a hundred emotions at once. I'm captivated, stricken, startled, calmed, excited and yearning for more. And as my heart is wound onto the strings of this melody and I'm drawn up into its verse, my spirit recognizes which way to fly. It always begins with the song.

Music is the most powerful language I know. You instinctively understand its message without words, and it takes you past that limited space where belief only lives in tangibles and in what physical, imperfect eyes want to anxiously explain away. It is forever there, rising up through the depths of earth and across the highest peaks, singing to us every single day and night. If we can't hear it, then we've deafened ourselves to the oldest and wisest conversation in existence. Music is life and it is death. It's everything. There is nothing- absolutely nothing, that can ever take its place. Those who want to continue to conjure it with their instruments and their voices must keep this connection moving in order to retain that power and captivate others in a magical kind of joining. Losing influence in the composition of music happens when its maker has strayed from that honesty; that thing that keeps their heart wound in unison with what's natural. But it's easy to come back and tap into this symphony when we remember how much we're caressed by the songs of night, nature and beast. It's easy to begin hearing the melodious lyrics and the messages behind them, guiding your hands and your soul. It's like coming home.