THE HEALING POWER OF MUSIC AND

OTHER THINGS THAT HEAL AND HELP

If we have food, clean air and water (and maybe wine), a roof over our heads and all the tools for spiritual attainment, what more do we need? 

The rule of 3 for survival

- you can live

3 minutes without oxygen

3 days without water

3 weeks without food

3 months without human contact.

(these rules have been broken many times but they are guides.)

The Ancestors

  We still have these ...

Laughter the best medicine

Norman Cousins cured himself of an autoimmune disease unresponsive to medical treatment by watching funny movies. He wrote a book on it called "Anatomy of an Illness." 

Hunter Campbell M.D. (of Patch Adam's movie fame) built a healing clinic based on the same principle. When it comes to laughter, there is nothing as beneficial as a good belly laugh. The diaphragmatic movement is said to stimulate the nearby vagus nerve helping to induce a relaxation response. Convulsive reactions free up muscular tension and release "armoring and previously locked down holding patterns." Laughing (and crying) release endorphins and decrease sympathetic tone (flight or fight.)

Other things that create a parasympathetic relaxation response include:

Exercise such as the "runner's high." 

 Yoga (and breath work or pranayama,) chi gong, hiking and other forms of active meditation.

Eco-psychologists have found that hiking in a natural environment is better than a walk in an urban one. Patients who can see a nature scene out of their window do better. Jail inmates who work in gardens have been shown to have greater restorative effects. Nature heals, even the tending of potted plants.

Aromatherapy, scented oils, incense and eating chocolate increase dopamine, serotonin and endorphins - the latter - spicy food too. Sunlight betters our mood and the opposite can depress as in Seasonal Depressive Disorder.

Then of course as a last resort there are SSRI's - selective serotonin uptake inhibitors.

                              

"You enter the forest at the darkest point where there is no path ..."

Joseph Campbell

The opposite is true. Best not to enter too deep, unless we are on a hero/ine's journey and have the transformational tools. Do not watch too much news, use excess media or look for bad tidings.

In the upcoming blogs the Hero's journey will feature and we will begin a new theme but then for our spiritual transformation and not just our restoration. The Ancestors hope to show how we can turn the shit into manure and how covid can be grist for our transformational mill. The Phoenix will rise out of the ashes - not just materially but also transpersonally.

Click on the music links to highlight, play and skip the ads.

3:43Society - Into the Wild Theme

Maybe now we can all better attend to our needs and not our wants.

For most, restoration will still be about returning to the old "way" which is becoming more and more unsustainable. 

However, for an increasing number of us covid is a wake up call for a serious spiritual change. Usually it's loss of a job, a loved one or an illness that motivates - now it could be all of the above plus a global crisis.

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something; build a new model that makes the existing one obsolete.

Buckminster Fuller

So meditate, ponder your questions, concerns and goals while listening to this collection of eclectic songs.

The 60's were a good time for catharsis though the questions and challenges were different then.

                               

BLOWING IN THE WIND
                            2:36 Now playing Watch later Watch later Add to queue Add to queue          

When I lose my way, God will come along another road and reach me. When I grope in the land of forgetfulness, God will remember me. When I no longer know who I am God will call me by my name. When darkness is my only companion, memories and old prayers will be stars and in time or beyond it, someone will be sent, bringing a lamp. Christine Fleming Heffner

Messages from the ancient ones, our ancestors - on whose shoulders we stand - will be the lamp.

I had a dream message before covid hit, the words were

Someday we'll have to be, someday we'll have to be, together - all alone.

Had no idea what it meant until now.

Maybe here close your eyes so as not to be distracted by the visuals.

SPIRITUAL CELTIC

PreviewPreview3:42Enya - Only Time (Official Music Video)

The Ancestors

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE     

                            3:57 Now playing Watch later Watch later Add to queue Add to queue                

 

The Ancestors

Mbube (Wimoweh)Ladysmith Black Mambazo · 1990

https://youtu.be/q7pzic4mf7o

MORE MUSIC AND ITS VIBRATIONS

These last blogs, on the spiritual power of music, have focused more on song itself rather than dialogue. Click on the links to highlight the songs, skip the adds, close your eyes and meditate 

(or dance.)

The Ancestors call this Active Imagination. 

See where you go, where does it take you.

The Ancestors

Many cultures have used the power of music to alleviate pain. When it comes to sub-saharan African music, the sound is often of such a vibration that it makes your body want to move. It tends to be uplifting and outwardly directed. If one chooses to dance it can lift you even higher. If music does this - it is sacred.

Pain is inevitable
Suffering is optional

But there is another way to go, as below 

Click to highlight ...

The Funeral

                            5:22 Now playing Watch later Watch later Add to queue Add to queue                

Most musicians have written or used sombre, mournful music to reflect the mood of how they feel or may want to feel more deeply. This genre tends to make one go inward and experience the pain in a different way. 
Experiments in neuroscience seem to suggest that trying to escape the pain can be a mistake. It is better to go into the pain for the purpose of healing. 

Two groups of participants were told that they were going to be timed while placing their arms in buckets of iced water.  The one group was told to experience and go into the pain, the other, try their best to ignore it and push the pain away. The former lasted significantly longer.

I would suggest that there may be two ways of moving through the pain, and that both are effective - moving through it physically - and moving into it emotionally. 
One may take you up and away - the other can take you down and in. They both can help us heal.

We are all different - each to his/her own - and I am relating my own bias which may be completely wrong for you. Hence apologies for the plethora of African music below. 
What have I learned from my African roots is that in spite of the most terrible suffering that the continent offers up to its peoples, the music coming out of this pain has a happy beat. This mirrors the existence of many rural Africans who seemingly have so little but regardless of adversity seem to be happy in the present moment. This "vibe" for want of a better word also can be felt in Tony Bird's  (a white African) song - Rift Valley. 

Rift Valley

Rift ValleySorry Africa · 1990

African music in spite of the words and sentiments behind the song makes you want to dance and dancing makes you feel good.

I would add dancing to "song" as well.

The Ancestors

In these times we all need to partake of liberal doses or these

 BIG FOUR.

I recall a Native American comedian presenting at a shamanic conference a while back saying; 

"laugh or die!"

Cultures that have suffered the most know this.

 Africans make no apologies for color, dress, dance, beat or sound.

Mtukudzi's music was no doubt inspired by the ravages that occurred in Zimbabwe but you can still dance to it.

Oliver Mtukudzi performing "Help Me Lord I'm Feelin Down" at ...www.youtube.com › watch


Lucky Dube - Release Me - YouTube

PreviewPreview5:20GWENN MUSIC/OLIVER MTUKUDZI - TODII

MUSICAL GENRES AND THEIR DIFFERING 
PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL AND SPIRITUAL AFFECTS

When you listen below it may be best to close ones eyes and feel what's going on inside, rather than watch any of the visuals which may distract. Click to highlight, skip the adds and play.







In every crisis there is opportunity.

In these troubled times we need to find any technique that can best help us lighten up. We are all different so what speaks to one may not speak to another. The same is true for music. 

Some will want to be uplifted, others go deeply in and find the "crack" - or both.

We have to find the medicine in the genre of music that suits our own soul and no one else's. My personal belief is that music genres that affect us profoundly often are a guide to our past lives.

The Ancestors

Ennio Morricone - Theme From The Mission (OST) - YouTubewww.youtube.com › watch

 Neuroscience tells us its best to go into and experience the pain but that may not be true for all of us.

"No matter how long the night the dawn is sure to come." 

African proverb

Now We Are Free "Gladiator " Theme Song - YouTubewww.youtube.com › watch

Inspiring music may help to see the rainbow but the sorrow must also be felt and acknowledged or ...

"What you resist will persist."

The Ancestors

The Flight of Iolar - Uplifting Celtic Music - YouTubewww.youtube.com › watch

"If you do not want to see the shadow, turn your face to the sun."
Aboriginal saying

7:45Basho's Pond (Part 2) Music from the World of Osho

THE POWER OF WORDS

"See yourself in others then whom can you hurt, what harm can you do." 
Dammapada

I thought I would digress a bit from the spiritual power of music to that of words (in and out of music.) Intention creates words which lead to our actions and which can have profound vibrational affects - positively or negatively. More so positively when used in poetry and prayer - always depending on our intention.

Leonard Cohen would spend countless hours perfecting the lyrics to his songs for good reason. They were not just songs - this one below is a prayer. David's psalms were songs and prayers.
This rendition by Roedean school in Johannesburg is stunning. Roedean was an exclusive white school in the Apartheid era. Look at it now, and listen to the African flavor at the end of the song.
Apartheid fell and so will Covid 19.

https://youtu.be/3y51WWrYodI

It behooves us especially in these difficult times to give our fellow beings a lot of slack. The irritated person who is objectionable while shopping for groceries might be terrified and in a flight or fight, survival situation. Many are just detached and unaware and do not physically distance out of habit or not thinking. We need to be diligent and protect ourselves. Only a few do not really care.

"When you talk to people do not weigh, a soul that weighs suffers harm." Talmud 

If we see someone marginalizing another we should support the victim. Asians are suffering significantly in these times and being blamed and acted against for something that has nothing to do with them. Covid 19 is not racist and spares no-one.

G. K. Chesterton

Even the most trying of characters may be the one, who, when someone is under severe threat or duress, will extend a helping hand - we never know. 

The Ancestors

As we said in a prior blog, what comes around goes around, above and below, sooner or later. We all have connections to the supernal realms and can create positive or negative word vibrations which have affects not only around us but "above" us as well. They may come back to greet us later. The "Field" on the other side of the veil also pays things forward - good or bad - sooner or karmically later - on this side or on the other side of the veil between worlds. 

The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there." Roshi

At the end of the day, we don't get away with nothing, so its best to have compassion for the unskillfulness of others as well as ourselves.

We should try and practice discernment rather than judge. It is almost impossible not to judge but we can 

"Sweeten the judgments!

Do not refrain from judging but judge favorably rather than harshly."

The Ancestors

Sometimes when we see someone behaving in a contrary manner we can look at one of our own faults and make a swop. Forgive both ourselves and them for being human. Look inwards and make a trade.

“When you see a worthy person endeavor to emulate him, when you see an unworthy person then examine your inner self.” Confucius

               At the end of the day when we cross over to the other side we will be accountable. 
Our thoughts, intentions, words and actions will determine our karmic imprint and our next incarnation. 
These troubled times are a challenge to our Higher Selves. Buddhists would greet Covid 19 as a test of their spiritual practice. They would strive to enhance it so they might inherit a future lifetime where they can heighten their vibration - or better still earn entry to "The Pure Land" of enlightened beings.

"Rejoice not when your enemy falls and let not your heart be glad." Proverbs

Vengeance is mine saith the Lord

The good news is that ...

Each one of us has a Shadow or an Evil Inclination. It is only by looking at our Shadow that we can see the light behind it. Spiritual practice will allow us to subordinate our Shadow to our Good Inclination. Everything we do is a test. We should also be compassionate towards ourselves and practice U.S.A. - universal self acceptance.

Those that have the biggest Shadow may have the potential to radiate the potentially powerful light hidden behind it. Someone who has come up from the bottom of the barrel will usually be more powerful spiritually than those who have had all the advantages in life.

Without the Shadow, the Evil Inclination or the Red Worm, all of which are different descriptions for the same thing, we would not be able to attain spiritual perfection. We have the additional challenge of subordinating ego to the Higher Self.

Noone said it was easy but now is the time for a spiritual reality check.  Spiritual practice can be solo event that spreads equanimity and coherence all around itself to others.

.

"Kabir says; friend, there are very few who find the way."

Druid Vow of Friendship

Click to highlight and then play

03_Druid_Vow_of_Frie..>