Music, Our Portal and Passport

Music is a galvanizing force for bringing people together. The energy of music can bring people together quickly, creating good feelings, warmth, humor, lightheartedness, joy and pleasure.

Music can also bring healing. Why do you think that massage therapists and other body workers always have music playing while they are working on you? It helps a person relax, soothes the muscles and relieves tension, making it easier for the therapist to do their work.

It is also an aid to digestion, which is why soothing music is played in restaurants. It can also stimulate the flow of healing cells and energies in our bodies.

All of these things happen because music is a portal. It connects us with other people, it is a universal form of communication, which is why it is included on space probes we have launched. There have been many instances where people of different cultures who could not speak each other's languages have been able to play music together. There have been many ne recordings in recent years where we can hear people of different ethnic groups bridge the gap by finding ways for the musical idioms to come together and play.

What about as a portal for the imagination? how many symphonies, ballets and operas have themes drawn from great myths, fairy tales and folklore? Why is it that sacred chants, whether the Gregorian, Sufi, Hindu, Hebrew or any other can immediately transport the listener into an altered state of consciousness? At Renaissance Faires the period music is just as important in creating the feeling of that time and space as the costumes and decorations.

How many times when you are watching a movie can you tell whether coming actions and scenes are going to be sinister, tragic, hilarious or romantic because they are foreshadowed by the music?

Music can energize to make work lighter as well. Think about chants that people have done at work so that they could get enough of a boost to get things done. This is the common thread between the work chants of the slaves, the chants of the sailors, the cadence of the soldiers, cheerleaders in sports, chants of the warriors, songs people sing at harvests or plantings, and so many other examples. Music unleashes energy we didn't even know we had and makes that available to us when we have tough jobs to do. Sometimes I chant and sing during the work day simply to relieve tension and inspire me to keep going.

Music is a portal that opens the way for us to heal, shift into sacred space, to become engaged romantically with another person, to build excitement and energy, give us courage, give us strength, helps us grieve and to celebrate.

From the heartbeat we first know in the womb, the sounds we make when we go to war or go to work, and the songs we sing at weddings, funerals, the music we hear when we make love and the sounds that surround us in the world, we find our way to the places we want to go with music.