Songlines

Songlines

Clarence Harvey

I’d like to start by sharing a short story I was told recently, about a little boy, five years old.

This little boy, let’s call him Michael, is part of a small family and has the sensitivity, confidence and typical behaviours of probably most boys his age who have loving parents. His parents took him one day to meet some friends of theirs who also have a couple of young children that Michael was about to meet for the first time. During the introductions Michael became very shy, seemed ill at ease in himself, and then abruptly took himself off and went behind a tree. Shortly after, his father followed him to check what was happening. He found Michael sitting at the foot of the tree. With a bit of encouragement Michael was able to return to with his father and then things proceeded without any further unusual eventualities. Later, having returned home, the boy’s father checked in with him about what had happened.

“Well, I wanted to sing my scales,” he said.

“Ok, and why did you go behind the tree?” asked the father.

“I also wanted to sit cross-legged and I didn’t want them to see my power moves,” replied Michael.

It turns out that Michael had found himself feeling uncomfortably shy and awkward when meeting the new children. His response of wanting to sing to himself was a practice he had learnt from his grandfather. The singing was a way of taking control of his emotional state and of his mind. The going behind the tree was a way of carrying out his inner work without it being a performance for others. He had learnt that ninjas never tell people that they are ninjas, and that power moves are practised in secret. Michael, at age five, was already able to work with simple songlines to regulate his emotional and psychological condition and to recognise when he needed to apply his singing in himself.

Last week’s webinar was very interesting for me in focusing the theme of music in its importance as an expression of human culture. We were fortunate to have Barbara Velacore who shared with us from her experience as a trained classical musician, and I’d like to go back to a few comments that caught my attention in the chat box from last week that weren’t referred to during the interesting discussion that followed Barbara’s talk.

Firstly, from Suzanne, the simple observation that “Music is the language of the Soul”.

Swaan commented: “Thanks so much for this topic and the meditation. Also, singing with kids at home is another great way of experiencing music in relationship.”

And thirdly, David Trice, gave the following quotation from the book Glamour a World Problem: "Forget not [Page 260] that sound permeates all forms; the planet itself has its own note or sound; each minute atom also has its sound; each form can be evoked into music and each human being has his peculiar chord and all chords contribute to the great symphony which the Hierarchy and Humanity are playing, and playing now.”

This last quote obviously means that we are, all of us, personally and unavoidably connected to music. Barbara noted that the human body is a resonant musical instrument and that singers are taught to use the inherent resonant capacity of their bodies to generate the power and quality of their voice. It’s interesting that this capacity of the body to pick up and respond to sound vibrations has a long tradition both in spiritual practices such as chanting, toning and intoning, and in healing practices such as musical acupuncture. In musical acupuncture the meridian system (as known in traditional acupuncture) is understood as being highly sensitive to vibration. Applying musical vibrations to the body via the application of tuning forks to specific acupuncture points causes the transmission of chosen musical tones through the energy lines of the associated meridians. In this way we can come to think of the meridians as specific energy songlines within the web of the etheric body, tuned to specific and different frequencies which support all organs found along the given meridian. It follows that whether we sing with the voice or not, our etheric bodies are always vibrating, always emitting sound vibrations based on the keynote of who we actually are, and that the musical vibrations of one or other of these etheric songlines can and do go out of tune at times.

It seems that modern humanity as a whole is in a sense out of tune, which means that the keynote of the vibrations of our collective songlines is not in harmony with the musical theme and rhythms of our planetary life. I think it would be a mistake to assume that the songlines are only physical or etheric. The lines that link us to each other also exist in emotional and mental substance, and these can also vibrate healthily or harmoniously, and the musical condition of the vibrations of our emotional life and of our mental life is reflected in the patterns of our emotional and mental experience. The concept of songlines provides a way of picking up the thread of our life at any moment in time and giving it a musical boost or input of harmonious sound. One of the overlooked powers of the human voice is that at any point in time, and under all circumstances, we can use our capacity to sing in order to sound a note aimed at introducing a musical vibration into the place where we actually are, that is, into the here and now, into the “this” of our present place in consciousness. The power of the intentional voice that “seeks to heal not hurt” can be used to introduce healing vibrations into our personal songlines. Indeed, it can be used to introduce Soul vibrations into our lifeline.

On this point, it’s worth affirming that the use of the voice in what I like to refer to as ‘self musicalisation’ is likely to be part of a universal cultural practice on which the new world civilisation will be built. a major task of education will increasingly be recognised as giving children the tools, skills and environing conditions that support them in building the inner bridge that connects the personality with their soul nature. This bridge is technically referred to as the antahkarana (meaning inner instrument,) and is described as a triple or threefold thread of energy that exists in consciousness and links our minds to higher reaches of mind and Soul. This antahkarana may well be the most important of the many songlines that we can learn to work with because it is through this songline that the personality can be retuned to the musical vibrations of the realm of the Soul.

Imagine a culture in which our education systems are based on understanding that the soul is a vital aspect of human living and that human well-being, right values, right relations to self and other, sustainable human and societal development… all in the end depend on the right attunement of our outer waking consciousness with that higher realm of positive vibratory life that we call the Soul. Human beings can be taught to vibrate positively and musically in all their bodies – physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual – and it is interesting to consider this from the angle of implications for Triangles because if it is true that everything in the universe vibrates, then the implications are profound and far reaching.

Clarence Harvey

Shamballah Dojo

_______________________________________