~~A Circle of Sound.~~

~Dave's ramblings (2)~

Question: What is the difference between spiritual and mundane music?

…Now put that on one side for a bit and forget it till later.

A thought cropped up into my head this last week and I have been pondering it now for some days. It’s not strictly musical, but can be linked to music. The reason I feel able to talk about it here is that often, when you choose a pathway through life, thinking you’ve got your self all settled and comfortable, the Goddess will give you a kick, and say, “Hay you…Bet you never thought of this did you”. I’m sure all of you will have experienced this at some time or other… yes, no?

Now… you will have to bear with me for a few moments, but don’t worry, this will all begin to make sense by the end of the section.

I was lying in the bath, as is my usual wont, thinking about how waves move up and down and how the slopes they create, twist and writhe as the different influences and currents act on them. If you floated a match on the water this would show the slopes more clearly still. Thus you would be seeing the result of the interaction of all the many forces involved, but in a simple way.

Now get a piece of paper and draw on it a perfect square (well as near as is practicable) making it about 4” by 4” with a flat side to the top. Then draw in the diagonals from corner to corner. At the top left write the word “Esoteric” and at the other end of the line (bottom right) write “Exoteric”. In the top right, write “Private” and in the bottom left write “Public”. Now, are you sitting comfortably ‘cause we’re ready to start!

Think about a single action in your life. It doesn’t really matter what it is, just don’t at this stage make it to complex. For example making a cup of tea…

Try to consider it in detail.

Did you do your action on autopilot or did you think about it as you did it. If you did it on autopilot when and how did you learn to do it? Chances are you were at some time in your life shown how. This would be an exoteric approach. It’s an external; fact based “scientific” approach and does not need a great deal of analysis to learn this way. Or were you at some time in your past (even as far back as a child) in need of making tea (to continue the example) but no one was there to help you. You had to experiment, try and remember what had happened when you saw other’s doing this. Maybe you had to make some bits up as you went along, putting things together as you felt right. This is an esoteric approach. You needed to think for your self, make sense of the process for yourself and call on un-quantified inner resources. So along the line that joins esoteric and exoteric, place a mark that, to you, shows the balance point between the two, through considering your chosen action.

Now carry out a similar course for the line between public and private. Did you in your action use a standard, well-accepted approach, known to many? Or did you use strategy personnel to yourself, or maybe a combination of the two? Place a mark in the same way as before to indicate a balance point on the public private line.

***NOTE this works for me, but you may need to choose your own words instead of Exoteric, esoteric etc so that this all makes personal sense to you. All that is needed at this stage are two extremes of any continuum. One end rooted in the physical and the other in the spiritual. For the square you need two sets of words. If you get good at this you can extend into a cube…then ever onwards, maybe even to an Isoscedodecahedron. (You’ll have to go look that up yourself. LOL)***

Now join your points together with a single strait line. This line, its length, its angle of slope and its direction of slope are unique to you. Now try this with other events. You will begin to see a pattern emerge that visually indicates how much worldly effort you put into an action and how much spiritual effort. This pattern can be used in your everyday life to give an indication of the balance within your life. Try to seek this balance. Too much spiritual and you may be neglecting the world around you. Too much to the physical and you may be neglecting your spiritual self. If you have no line: begin to worry, as you may be dead.

I call these “Spirit Squares” and they have been my kick from the Goddess to check what I am up to and not become complacent on my path. I was actually quite surprised by some of the results and have since tried to change the way I do certain things…and no, I’m not going to reveal all here. These results are personnel and should be kept that way. Especially mine.

So, how does music fit in with all this? Well. People have asked me in the past, what makes spiritual music and mundane everyday music different? I can only explain this by saying. Look at the Spirit Square for how and with what feeling and expression you play a piece of music. Quite simply, you will *see* the answer on the paper before you. If you are listening to music, ask yourself what does the music want to make me do and what pictures and emotions does it inspire. Then apply this to your spirit square.

If you talk to others about how their results came out I believe you will find all of them highly individual to the person. As far as I am concerned that is all to the good. People are individuals within the Spirit of Tribe and that is a cause for celebration.

So even if it’s only whistling or humming as you go through your daily life…do it with spirituality and do it for your Goddess and God. Go make sacred, prayerful music.

Dave the flute

Copyright...You are free to use any of this article in any way that you want. If you want to claim it as your own, so be it, it’s only up to your conscience. I just hope it lifts someone’s life.