David Cumes Surgeon/Sangoma (Zulu for Shaman)

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

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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.