Dear Friends ~ The world we perceive with our senses is resplendent with texture and color and form. I am in love with this tangible world–the one of weight and substance, the one I can hold and stand upon, see and touch. And yet the iridescent blue in a butterfly’s wing comes not from pigment but from the way light bounces off myriad tiny scales, one wavelength converging on another, the unseen world creating color in the perceived world. There is a pulse beneath the flesh and blood, a resonance even within the stone, that cannot be explained. The alchemy of unseen interactions is at play and we humans need help in order to perceive them. Perhaps that is why music penetrates so deeply into our souls–because it is so much more than the wood of the instrument, the vibration of the strings, the touch of fingertips. A doorway through our senses into mystery, it can take us beyond everyday perception into the realm of feeling and of wonder. Cynthia Bourgeault recounts a narrative about a doctor who treated an entire monastery of monks for a baffling and debilitating illness. Months before, a new abbot had replaced the age-old practice of Gregorian chant with activities he believed served a more useful purpose. When the doctor advised them to sing again, however, the monks’ wellbeing returned. "Unbeknownst to all, the Gregorian chant, perfectly captured by the acoustics of the monastic chapel, was an energy directly feeding not only their souls but also their bodies." As the old hymn says, "Since love is lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?"
Civilized people feel a loneliness and even an extreme melancholia in the jungle of the mind that may make stillness a terrifying experience, but we can pass through this barrier if we will learn to understand it. Then we would discover, as the Indians did long ago, that to stand in solitude on a mountain top at sunrise or sunset, or by a waterfall in some hidden canyon of ethereal beauty, and to absorb this majesty with utter peace and awe, in which the soul merges with creation, and self is forgotten, is to become one with a joy and happiness so tremendous that no mere earthly pleasure can compare.