I don’t know about everyone else, but sometimes I learn things I already know all over again, as though it was the first time.

This most recently came to light when I was driving for an hour, heading home from a beautiful conversation with a friend.  Before leaving, I had asked for a musical recommendation for the ride.  I had listened to a combination of things on the way—U2, Natalie Merchant, Carrie Newcomer… “Lots of lyrics…” my friend noticed, before asking how I felt about violin (I like it just fine) and suggesting Angèle Dubeau and her ensemble La Pietà. Trusting her taste, I gave it a go and whoaaaaaaa. The music itself is stunning, soaring, spacious, full, inviting… But what really got me, after some consideration, is the difference in my body between music with lyrics and purely instrumental music or music without discernible lyrics.   I began thinking about this in earnest last night at a contemplative prayer service–no great surprise. The same instrumental music is used at the beginning every week and it beckons me in from all that brought me to that place and says You are Here, now…Be at peace…lay down what weighs upon the heart, mind, spirit. In that space, and with the other recent experience, I had this realization:

As someone who spends a lot of time in her head—(In general, if you ever ask me what I’m thinking about at a given moment, please get yourself a snack and buckle up)—music with lyrics helps me stay ‘outside’ and not be quite so internal…which can be a great relief.  Banging out the beat, singing along…Sometimes just staying in the moment, the here and now, at more of a concrete level, is exactly where I need to be.  

And there are also those times when my head is full and the ‘outside’ is a muchness, when lyrics are simply more to take in and what I want/need is to retract my antennae and simply Be.  To feel the grounded fullness of stillness internally and externally…such an easing and relief.  The wordless music seems to offer some kind of shelter where that level of letting go is understood, is invited, is safe and welcome and encouraged.   Writing also takes me to this place–and sometimes that more active approach helps–but there is a difference when I give in to the being, to the sigh too deep for words.

I love that music fills both of those roles so uniquely…to keep me ‘on the outside’ and to let me rest deeply on the inside…both a form of release and relief that affords time for other things to settle into some sort of place.  Either way, I tend to feel more orderly after the good has been offered…more literally and figuratively in tune… with the orgin of all of my senses, all of creation, all of Me.  I know that place of grounded fullness, blessed stillness, and the freedom of dance or drumbeat pounded on the dash with the windows down, as intense awareness of God, who is in the internal and external chaos too.  Sometimes music just helps that come into focus for me.  And that is a beautiful thing.  

This is not something I didn’t already know—it just occurred to me anew through the sanctuary of space and a friend and her musical sensibilities.