Music that Lifts the Soul

After last week’s post around the song lyric, “Don’t worry, be happy!”, I have been contemplating how music can relate to ‘better endings.’ Here is a list of ten more songs that come to mind as songs that foster ‘better endings”:

Over the Rainbow (esp. as sung by Israel Kamakawiwo’Ole)

Higher Ground (Barbara Streisand)

The Impossible Dream (from Man of La Mancha)

Imagine (John Lennon)

The Long and Winding Road (Paul McCartney)

The Highland Journey Home (as sung by MiMi Faithwalker and Amazonah Elam)

Winter Into Spring (piano, George Winston)

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Barbara Streisand)

Bridge Over Troubled Waters (Simon and Garfunkle)

Michael, Row the Boat Ashore (Peter, Paul and Mary)

Every one of these songs has an alchemical quality that transforms the state of consciousness of the listener.  When I reflect about what these sorts of songs have in common I realize they move me—often with motion themes, or they are emotionally moving—and they lift me, as a listener, to greater heights of vision, hope, healing, or love.

Music can be therapeutic, illuminating, supportive, freeing of our deepest heart’s desires.  We listen when we want to gain a higher perspective or to reinforce unconditional love despite the hardships and troubles of the boxes we may feel ourselves bound to in our day-to-day life. In those boxes we may learn the lessons, gain the experience we need to pursue our dreams and develop our Soul; but the music is available always, to lift us up, to give respite, to remind us that we are so much more than whatever immediate circumstances we endure.

images are from pixabay.com

So, find a song or music that helps you to find your Shangri-La, your better endings. Even as I write I am listening to my favorite, Loreena McKennitt celtic music station on Pandora. The song I am listening to, “Into the West” by Annie Lennox (theme song for The Return of the King), transports me. Have a listen!

Music that Lifts the Soul

Make a list of songs or music that transports you to ‘higher ground.’ Write in your Better Endings Journal (any looseleaf journal) about how this music inspires you. Listen to a song or two, reflect on how it helps you to find greater calm, contentment, or wisdom.

Cycles Within Cycles of Healing / A Long and Winding Road

Chartres Cathedral  Labyrinth  Chemin Neuf

©jillkhgeoffrion www.jillgeoffrion.com, www.praywithjillatchartres.com

I’d like to add a postscript to my Sunday post last week about Walking the Labyrinth: A Healing Path. Part of the healing nature of walking a labyrinth, for me, and about invoking the Inner Healer Archetype while walking a labyrinth, is the very physical fact of TURNING, with 180 degree turns, throughout the pathway. You walk a segment of the path, pause, then turn around and go back over an adjacent segment until that comes to a turning point too. An online site I have read says there are some 112 such turnabouts or Turning Points within the Chartres Rose Labyrinth (shown above with gratitude to the photographer cited). This process of walking and turning about is a physical manifestation of the principle of Cycles within Cycles.

Isn’t any PROCESS, certainly including a Healing Process, a sometimes long and winding path with many turns, with many cycles within cycles of the WHOLE process over space-time? I leave it to each of you to ponder or contemplate the significance of this observation with regard to your own PROCESS situations.

A PROCESS brings one from position A to some destination, say X.  The pathway leading from A to X is the process itself, at least outwardly. So, what are the many turns along the way about?

Stepping back two steps to go forward three? That could be one sort of Process. How might that be helpful?

images except otherwise cited are from pixabay.com

For fun, select and click:  to listen to Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s beautiful song: “The Long and Winding Road”. Here are their lyrics:

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before
It always leads me here
Lead me to you door

The wild and windy night
That the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
Crying for the day
Why leave me standing here
Let me know the way

Many times I’ve been alone
And many times I’ve cried
Any way you’ll never know
The many ways I’ve tried

But still they lead me back
To the long winding road
You left me waiting here
A long long time ago
Don’t leave me standing here
Lead me to your door

Songwriters
JOHN LENNON, PAUL MCCARTNEY

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-long-and-winding-road-lyrics-beatles.html

I invite your Comments and Stories!