There is a very unique and personalized fashion in which live music actually sings out from the lungs of the universe!  It could well be that Music is the very touchstone of all of life in the universe.  It’s characteristics of being both mesmerizing and energizing bespeaks of the wonders of the Universe from which its song bursts forth.  It is the most intimate expression of the vibration of Life in and around us.  Each note seems to portray a specificity that is both singular and universal.  The combining forces of chords and syncopation played out in wonderfully varied modes of brass, woodwind, percussion, strings, etc. narrate the ongoing story of the “history” of the universe in the playful exuberance of awareness and mindlessness.  It is the galvanized signature of all creation – it is the consciousness and unconsciousness of VIBRATION itself!  The ripples of movement moving at various speeds in waves of light and sound and sub-atomic molecules of what we call matter come together with seeming intention that express and magnetize both at the same time.  It is the seduction of life unto itself, played out in notes of color that swell, crest and fall in and out of consciousness.

There are times when I listen to the music playing on the sprawling lawn of a festival, covered with lying and moving bodies being penetrated and invigorated by the personal tunes of any given band, when I feel mystified and mindless.  The instruments seem to play themselves inasmuch as they are played by a seemingly “other.”  And, I wonder.  My body reacts or responds in wordless understanding of familiarity.  I can feel the notes and rhythms playing WITHIN me, simultaneous with the music in my ears that I am hearing.  I am both conductor and conducted.  The music is playing me…me…me…NO…us.  There is a dissolution of borders, margins that become so porous that the vibration flows. There is another dancing next to me – hearing… feeling…flowing in the music.  And then, I, you, them, the grass, the birds that play above in the waves of the sky, we, ALL EVERYTHING flows by, in, and through the music.  As our bodies dance, they become still another ocular and literal translation of the vibration of the universe.  There is a Loss that engulfs us that we cannot speak – its greatness welcomed with unconscious embrace…  The music vibrates in us, we vibrate in the music.  We are VIBRATION…We VIBRATE!

In my passionate appreciation for music, I have often wondered how deaf people experience music.  From what I understand, deaf people actually sense vibration in the same part of the brain that other people use for hearing.  That would mean that deaf people could experience perhaps the vibrations of the musical sound in a way that would correspond with the experience of the equivalent sounds that others hear.  It appears that some studies reveal that the brains of children, who are deaf, when exposed to music at an early age, can adapt or “rewire” so as to provide the capacity to enjoy music and sound through vibration in the same way that a person with hearing can through the audial function.  I hope this to be true!

So what is this universal aspect of vibration that we all have the opportunity to experience in one way or another?  Two of the definitions from Merriam- Webster online are the following:

1.a) a periodic motion of the particles of an elastic body or medium in alternately opposite directions from the position of equilibrium when that equilibrium has been disturbed (as when a stretched cord produces musical tones or molecules in the air transmit sounds to the ear) (b) :  the action of vibrating :  the state of being vibrated or in vibratory motion: as (1) :  oscillation (2) :  a quivering or trembling motion :  quiver

2.(a) a characteristic emanation, aura, or spirit that infuses or vitalizes someone or something and that can be instinctively sensed or experienced —often used in plural (b) :  a distinctive usually emotional atmosphere capable of being sensed —usually used in plural

Regarding definition one, we have a description of vibration as disturbed equilibrium that can specifically produce music as well as creating the action of vibration in the person “receiving” the vibration.  This vibration can be manifested in the movements that we call “trembling” or “quivering.”  So, vibration is unsettling.  This seems to support the notion of the Universe as energy, “moving” or vibrating, even “trembling” or “quivering,” as it whirls about in subatomic particles that seem to comprise the very “foundation” of everything! Vibration can then be viewed as a moving environment that places and displaces everything in the environment, because there is nothing that is NOT moving.  Everything is Vibration, moving back and forth, going up and down, and all around.  It is a community of commotion! Perhaps an analogy, completely unscientific, of energy and vibration would be the dancer and the dance, or more appropriately, the dancing.  The dancer is a dancer specifically in the dancing.  And dance requires a dancer dancing.  There is nothing outside of movement, no “outside” of vibration.  There is no dance, no dancer, only dancing?!

Light and matter are considered to be vibration as well, distinguished only by the repetition and speed (frequency) of the vibrations.  The color spectrum itself is simply the differing vibrations of light “waves” as visible to the eye.  And matter though seemingly “stable” consists of nothing other than whirling sub-atomic particles restless in their own massive space. Everything is SOUND or VIBRATION!

The second definition given by Merriam Webster online describes vibration as a “spirit” or even an “aura” or environment that can be instinctively intuited and actually infused into a landscape.  This is vibration as engagement.  It’s the sense that I attempted to describe above in my experience of listening to live music.  It is the appreciation, either conscious or unconscious, of any given moment in time.  Paradoxically, to be still and to pause is to actually engage vibration.  The practice of striking a chime to allow the vibration to “create” the stillness is a perhaps familiar example of this.  The resonance of the vibration through the sub-atomic particles of air surrounding it simultaneously “resonates” within the “hearer” (deaf or otherwise), stilling the mind, centering the heart, allowing the universal to rest in this particular and personal space that is not ego-born.  This is the ocean’s surf constantly vibrating on the sands at its edge, luring and… yes….loving…the one(s) who can feel, sense, or hear the vibration.   We are lulled into awareness and alertness that are not mental consciousness, but intentional engagement.  We pause to pay attention.  This is communal prayer.

So, is the universe simply a lover, who can do nothing but love?  Is Love simply vibration, or reverberation that vibrates of “itself?”  That is to say that there is “no thing” vibrating – there is just vibration – Energy, movement, music, dance, sound, sight, touch, taste!  And this is universal and particular both at the same time.  The universal “seeks” itself in the particular, as does the particular in the universal – the lovers’ eternal tryst growing ever more personal and complex – creating, destroying, and recreating… becoming always MORE and less without judgment, and always One.  Dancing around one another, bumping and whirling, resonating in dissonance.  VIBRATION is communion!

And finally, if All is Vibration, where does it end?  What could death mean here?  Could it just be, as has been said by others, that it is the illusory end of an imagined ego?   I’m also unsure that the use of the word “transition” would be appropriate, as transition seems to be prejudiced toward cognitive consciousness!  Transition cannot capture the totally transformative engulfment of something that would seem terrifying and hapless in the eyes of the ego, but seen through mystical and awakened “eyes” IS “home.”  Is death (both the little ones we encounter each day as well as the ultimate forced finality of the ego) then simply learning to ride the resonance of the VIBRATION of love (struck “long ago” and known as a Big Bang) that condenses our personality so intimately that our universe can only expand in communion?

 

April 28, 2016