The Wine that Inspires
(First published in Goodlife Magazine.)
"Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken. " (Ludwig van Beethoven)
We all have favorite love songs, dance songs, hang out and chill songs. And, we've all experienced the spiritual drunkenness from the musical inebriants poured by the likes of Beethoven. Music carries the memories of our most intimate experiences and waltzes us through times of immense joy and deep sorrow. To this day, I can viscerally relive a few favorite rock concerts, my first Opera under the stars in Rome, and the Ave Maria sung at my Grandfather's funeral.
Go ahead, admit it: you hear an African drum beat and you can't help but move with it. And, although the disco days are long gone, can you keep from dancing when you hear the first few notes of Stayin' Alive? How about gold medals and the Star Spangled Banner? Does that combination tug a few tears from your eyes?
Music raises and intensifies your energy just as easily as it calms and soothes. Music can conjure a tender moment gone past. Feelings of joy, intimacy, sorrow, even rage find release through music. From a physiological perspective, modern studies acknowledge numerous physical benefits from music, including an increase to the amount of oxygen flowing to the brain and feeding the entire body.
Creating your own music is one of the most effective, primal means of raising or calming your energy and affecting your overall well being. And, it's fun. Here are a few suggestions:
Drum or play other percussion instruments to affect your body. Dance and stomp to the beat.
Strum a guitar or other stringed instruments to affect your emotions. Feel the vibrations entrain with your heart strings.
Play a flute or other wind instruments to rise into spirit. Find a quiet spot in nature and let the fluttering tones carry you to the Divine.
Play bells and chimes to affect the mind. Chime quietly to calm mental churn.
Create a cacophony of bells and chimes to snap out of a mental funk.
Play the human voice to connect with your soul essence. That's right: sing! Allow the song of your soul to release the luminous.
Somewhere between 43,000 and 82,000 years ago, Neanderthal man followed the inspiration to create the first known musical instrument: a flute made from a hollowed-out cave bear femur with four purposely placed holes. No one can say what inspired such a creation. Perhaps it satisfied a primal need to connect with the Divine. Or, maybe it simply helped him express what he felt inside and connect in a meaningful way with others.
Isn't that truly the gift of music?
Like Aldous Huxley once said "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”