It's universal, transcends culture and language and class and for me, at least, is a lifesaver.
For the past six months, I've felt little but anger and grief. I've tried to pray, to meditate, to light candles, to read, to connect with nature, but the all-consuming nature of this level of grief is an effective trip wire to all the usual practices that brought me comfort.
Only music has succeeded in making me feel connected, again, even temporarily, to this place that I'm not entirely sure I want to be right now - life - and beyond that, to the universal, to others, to God/Goddess. I'd always taken music for granted, but now, even on days that I forget to eat, I cannot forget music, because otherwise, I don't find the energy to do whatever it is that needs done to function. Not poetic, but raw: I never realized that it is a necessity, not a luxury; that music, perhaps as much as love, is essential to being human.
I'm from a Jewish background and still embrace many Jewish traditions, but really, my beliefs are reflected better in my altar and my bookcase. I practice an earth based Goddess embracing faith, and the music I have found most sustaining recently are songs that evoke, for me at least, those beliefs.
This is "Feel so Near" by Dougie MacLean. He wrote it about the Isle of Lewis, New Hebrides. It's evocative in a way that's energizing, and contains one of my favorite lyrical references to the "veil" between the worlds....
"The old man looks out to the islands
he says this place is endless thin
there's no real distance here to mention
we might all fall in, all fall in....
No distance to the spirits of the spirits of the living
no distances to the spirits of the dead
and as he turned his eyes were shining
as he proudly said, proudly said
"I feel so near...."
Dougie is one of my favorites. Almost all his songs are gorgeous and earth based in some way. This one won't embed, but it's magical http://youtu.be/... "Turning Away".
Chorus: In darkness we do what we can
In daylight we're oblivion
Our hearts so raw and clear
Are turning away, turning away from here
On the water we have walked
Like the fearless child
What was fastened we've unlocked
Revealing wondrous wild
And in search of confirmation
We have jumped into the fire
And scrambled with our burning feet
Through uncontrolled desire
There's a well upon the hill
From our ancient past
Where an age is standing
Still holding strong and fast
And there's those that try to tame it
And to carve it into stone
Ah but words cannot extinguish it
However hard they're thrown
On Loch Etive they have worked
With their highland dreams
By Kilcrennan they have nourished
In the mountain streams
And in searching for acceptance
They had given it away
Only the children of their children know
The price they had to pay
There's Libana, of course, a wonderful a capella group of women. They have recorded too many wonderful pieces to choose a favorite, but I think their rendition of "The Earth, the air, the fire, the water", that chant so many of us know, is the best I've ever heard:
Lilting and uplifting, but also comforting in a rosary-chanting like way is the Protection Chant by a group identified as the "Secret Temple".
Anything by Lisa Thiel calms me and reminds me, because I am not a confident person when it comes to my own beliefs, that there were and are reasons I want to believe, and do - at least at times - believe.
Music has, and is, the single consistent thing that lifts my spirits and gives me hope during this darkest time of my life. What music do you find magical?