Category: Chant

I am a song writer, not a singer. Although I do record myself singing, it’s illustrative more than anything else.

I love singing!

The joy that comes from the simple act of air moving through the vocal chords always catches me by surprise. Even on my worst and most negative days singing along to my favourite songs, or just singing the words in my heart, never fails to lift my mood.

Singing is one of the hidden wonders of our world; a sacred act. It connects us in profound ways to the vibrations of life; the beginning and end and renewal of all things.

Singing brings us home.

Writing songs is not something I do. It’s who I am. The songs come as naturally as breathing and are as nourishing as the most exquisite feast. They spiral through my heart, my soul, to my head and give me no peace until I capture them. Sometimes I imagine them as butterflies dancing around my eyes. Their colour, beauty and design so close, so wonderful. And yet if I reach out and grab them it’s so easy to end up with something squashed and twisted beyond all recognition. My songs as I catch them are never the way I hear and see them. My voice is not good enough; I can’t sing that high, or that low; I’m not a soul singer, a jazz singer, or whatever the song calls for.

What I catch is an impression of what I experience in my head.

The other week I was watching the X-Files season one. It was the episode of the Jersey Devil. The wild woman lay dead in the leaves and Mulder, his eyes filling with emotion, looked into the smug face of the Alpha Male who shot her and said ‘why’.

And my head sang:

In the  thrall of our own trauma
We thrive on the pain of others
To numb our own.

It came as a Gregorian Chant, repeated over and over again like a delicate bell tolling the marking of some special occasion. And I kept seeing Mulder’s face, hearing him asking ‘Why’. And thinking of the Wild Woman dead in the leaves. The Man of Authority who shot her. How happy he was to have done so.

I wondered: why those words and that scene – together?

Singing the chant over and over as I moved through the next few days I began to realise why the Wild Woman had to be dead in the leaves. Why Mulder’s face while he asked that question was so haunting. Why it called to me so profoundly and touched me so deeply.

I am Mulder asking myself – that part of me that curbs my passions and corrals my creative imaginings into something ‘acceptable’ – why I am laying dead in the leaves. My wild soul; my true self.

Focusing on the pain of others means I don’t have to focus on my own. Confronting my shadows is a revolutionary act if I can allow myself to feel the pain, and see the beauty; to experience love, truth and wisdom in the darkness as well as in the light. And yet facing that particular mirror is terrifying.

I don’t trust many people – especially myself. Anxiety traces the spider’s web of fears that threaten to splinter my soul. It creeps out of the corners and lurks just out of sight.

And yet that simple, almost childish question of ‘why’ reminds me of how beautiful and freeing compassion and empathy are. I remember that they are my strength. The innocence of the Wild Woman, killed for following her nature and daring to be her true self, contains such courage. It’s the kind of courage that I constantly forget because society continually tells me that I should be something other than who I am.

And I am complicit.

That chant, that scene, is my call to arms to myself to be courageous again. To act with compassion and empathy. To be in tune with my heart as it sings that silvered otherworldly glow fluttering behind my eyes into life.