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.

Vocation Better Endings

One of my favorite classic movies is the Deborah Kerr/ Cary Grant version of An Affair to Remember. One of the reasons for the enormous popularity of this story is not just the romantic kismet between the main characters Nickie Ferrante and Terry McKay but also because of what they represent to each other as opportunities to Follow Their Hearts and Realize their Dreams, apart from the normative, mediocre lives/ relationships they have been oriented to before they meet.

They each have ardent vocations: Miss McKay’s as a working class children’s vocal teacher and Nickie’s as a painter.  Once they meet Nickie vows to give up his money-seeking, playboy lifestyle to earn a living for his wife from his painting, though he could instead marry into money and continue with a carefree, empty life instead. Terry is willing to risk pursuing true love with Nickie rather than settling for a predictable life where her own career is likely to be sacrificed or to come second to her husband’s.

Both Terry and Nickie’s vocations fulfill their deeply artistic natures.  They are following their hearts as well as recognizing kindred Souls in one another.  Both have “gone to Sea” on an ocean liner seeking deeper truths than their engagements of ‘convenience’ offer. So, An Affair to Remember is a Better Endings tale, through and through.

images are from pixabay.com

Of course the ending of this film is itself a Better Ending conclusion, wonderfully acted by Grant and Kerr.  It is Nickie Ferrante’s art that saves their relationship: a painting of Terry wearing his Aunt’s shawl, in Terry’s bedroom, that Nickie had been told “a crippled woman” had purchased.

“If you can paint, I can walk!” 

May you, too, Follow Your Heart. Listen closely to the beat of your own drum. This way you, like Terry and Nickie, can embark on the Journey to Live Your Best  Life!

I welcome YOUR Comments and STORY

 

The Elixir of Musical Harmony

On Fridays I am doing a “negativity fast.”  That means that any critical thought or negative emotion that enters my mind, I wash it away or dissolve it immediately, focusing instead on only neutral or positive thoughts and experiences.  Because I have made a conscious choice to do this fast, it works wonderfully!

The goal of this fast is to help me maintain a greater harmony in life overall. I tend to be fairly overwhelmed at this stage as I am teaching several extra classes to prepare for retirement and relocation, plus I have a book release coming up that I need to shepherd by preparing for a book event tour.  With all that in addition to health matters requiring daily maintenance, I find my nerves are often somewhat frayed. All these changes looming on the horizon are unsettling to my introspective, balance and security seeking Cancerian nature!

One great elixir that helps me achieve a greater harmony and positive acceptance of what I can do to press forward day by day is music.  Thank heaven for Pandora as a musical companion while working!

Music weaves harmonies that can lift, inspire, soothe and encourage us to face our challenges with grace instead of acrimony.  Such a gift!

My love of musical companionship pervades my life history; does it yours too? My mother would play piano on many an afternoon while her five children did homework or played at home. “Moonlight Sonata” was one of her favorites and so it is one of mine always.  I played violin in several orchestras and took private lessons for many years. My sister Lee and I spent countless evenings during high school years talking and playing cards in her room while listening to Simon & Garfunkle, the Beatles and other popular songsters of the 60’s and 70’s. Lee’s favorites were “MacArthur’s Park” and “Delilah”; some of my favorites then were “Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding, “King of the Road,” “In My Life” by the Beatles, and “Imagine.” Lee and I both loved, and still do, Ravel’s “Bolero.”

images are gratefully from pixabay.com

A musical Life Map can be revealing of the trends and focus of your life over time.  What are you listening to now compared to during earlier life stages? I listen more now, in my sixties, to melodious Classical music and to Celtic artists, who seem more in touch with harmonies of place and family rather than romance or intrigue.  Yet I still enjoy most of the music I have always enjoyed.  Music weaves the various stages and experiences of life together as a unified whole!

Here for your enjoyment then, a song that bares my Soul, In My Life :

I welcome YOUR Comments and Stories. What was/is your favorite music or song, and why?

 

A Musical Tonic

We are focussing on Elixirs this month as bringing  welcome encouragement and strength  that allows one to move forward from a personal achievement to ever new cycles of continuing  growth and development. The other day, I was feeling overwhelmed from a very busy schedule and at the same time feeling grateful for my book going forward (March 6 is the publication date for Your Life Path and I will post pre-ordering info soon!). One of my favorite of all time W.B. Yeats poems in the form of a song by Loreena Mckennitt, called “The Stolen Child,” played on my Pandora station. I replayed it several times and it was just the Elixir I needed then to reconcile my movement from where I am currently to where I am going as I will retire from Academe and relocate in under 9 months. The coda verse of this poem conveys where my heart is these days:

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping

than you can understand.

Beautiful music and poetry can be a balm unto the Soul.  They lift us to a realm of Spirit and to an eternal Presence of divine love and companionship that the outer, day-to-day reality can appear to remove us from, if we let it.

images are from pixabay.com

So for your enjoyment, here is a Youtube version of Loreena McKennit’s “The Stolen Child,” composed from W. B. Yeats’ deep-hearted poem:

What music lifts your Soul? I welcome your comments and stories!

 

Music for Your Apotheosis

Dear readers, be Listeners! Here is a piece of music I found at the top of the search from looking up “Beautiful Music.” It is called “Everdream” by Epic Soul Factory.

May this music help you today to attain your apotheosis, that state of inner peace and balance that can inspire and uplift you to advance in the direction of fulfilling your highest Life Dream!