Finding Balance in the New Year
Happy New Year, everyone!
I have a suggestion for finding balance in the New Year: Listening to Chuck Wild's Liquid Mind CD series, starting with Liquid Mind III: Balance. (See the posting entitled Liquid Mind for an introduction to this series of reviews.)
I've so much enjoyed meditating to this CD that it hasn't been easy to pin down the dominant centers (chakras) targeted by his music. Time and again, after lying down on the couch in my living room with headphones on to listen to Balance, the first of his CDs that I encountered, I would drift so far beyond the thinking mind that any sort of analysis seemed impossible.
Yesterday, I finally found the perfect way to keep the thinking mind awake enough to accomplish this analysis. I can well understand why Wild's website contains a caution against using his music while operating vehicles or heavy equipment. It's so relaxing. My solution was to put on Balance while I was working in the kitchen: put a few dishes away, make a note; wash a few dishes, make another note; slice some vegetables, stir the sauce--you get the picture.
This has to have been one of the most ecstatic episodes of kitchen duty I can remember. I can only hope some of the love this music sent coursing through me got into the veggie dish I made for the potluck New Year's Eve dinner I went to.
Eighth center (cosmic consciousness) music is relatively hard to come by. In my book, Music and the Soul, I did the best I could to determine the characteristics of this music on the basis of listening to a few examples, often under ten minutes in length. The amazing thing about listening to Balance is that it accesses different aspects of the eighth center continuously for a whole hour, giving me an opportunity to discover various shadings of cosmic consciousness, as expressed through music, that I wasn't aware of previously.
Here's the makeup of the cosmic consciousness center:
Crisis point (transition from the seventh center--expanded consciousness--to the eighth): Spiritual disillusionment.
Lower 8: Bodhisattva-like compassion
Middle 8: Grace
Upper 8: Union with the divine
Crisis point: Translation (out of the physical into the nonphysical, beyond the reach of sound)
Each of these levels represents a higher or fuller expression of cosmic consciousness.
Here's the breakdown of the five tracks on Liquid Mind III: Balance:
1) "Lullaby for Grownups" (5:20). This track lies at the point where lower eight compassion shades into middle 8 grace. It begins with grace, sending the message: "Rest, all is forgiven." After a couple of minutes, the music slides over the boundary to lower 8 (compassion). You can tell the difference because the music begins to ache a little, as if adding a sense of longing for grace or forgiveness into the mix.
2) "Laguna Indigo" (18:27). When I wrote Music and the Soul, I suspected that the eighth center, like the seventh, came in two varieties, sacred and secular. For example, the Hosanna movement of Mozart's Requiem is an instance of sacred upper 7, ecstatic praise of God; the "Ode to Joy" at the end of Beethoven's Ninth is an instance of secular upper 7, also ecstatic, but a celebration of the human (brotherhood) and the divine (without reference to religion). "Laguna Indigo" is an example of secular eighth center music. It too lies at the boundary between lower and middle 8, but more on the compassion side. In terms of the centers, this is also the most complex piece on the CD.
The sense is that of being beyond the world and looking back, full of love for the world, but also world-weariness, and developing a feeling of compassion for those caught up in the world's suffering. The progress of the music is a slow cycling between levels of the eighth center. It begins in middle 8, descends through lower 8, hits the crisis point (spiritual disillusionment can express itself as world-weariness, as for example in much of Wagner's Parsifal), then comes back up to lower 8 compassion.
3. "Timeless and Tender" (11:50). I love the title of this cut. It perfectly expresses two characteristics of the eighth center, the sense of timeless, and that of being held in the embrace of the divine. Here we are once again at the boundary between lower and middle eight, but more on the grace side this time. The music is very much like that of the Prelude of Wagner's Lohengrin, which was the first example of eighth center music that I encountered while writing Music and the Soul. The message of "Timeless and Tender" is, simply, "Peace." This is one of my personal favorites.
4. "Dream Messenger (13:45). Another personal favorite, this track plays at the boundary between middle and upper 8. It's a call to union with the divine. The music keeps lifting me higher and higher, especially toward the end. By then we've arrived at upper 8 union, and the music simply fades out and leaves us there.
5. "Balance" (6:41). This track was the only one I had a problem with. At first it seemed less fully worked out than the others, a mere sketch, just a progression of pretty chords. I found myself wanting to turn away from it, avoid it, turn off the CD, or leave it off the playlist when I was meditating.
But last night I had a completely different experience with this music. I realized that the inadequacy was in me. This music begins in upper 8 and keeps on climbing toward the crisis point of translation. It has a powerful pull, and I simply didn't want to go with it. In retrospect, it reminds me of a favorite piece by the Finnish classical composer Einojuhani Rautaavara, Apotheosis, which I wrote about in my book. Both pieces seem to express "the painfulness of a spiritual opening" that "goes beyond one's capacity to embrace or endure it." Apparently, last night, I was more ready to go along with such an opening.
If the chocolate sauce I was making at the time carries some of that energy, the friends I'll serve it to today are certain to have a transcendent dessert experience.
My favorite way to meditate with this CD is to listen to either tracks 1 and 2, for a nearly 25 minute session, or tracks 3 and 4, for a session of similar length. I'll save "Balance" for special occasions, when I want to open myself up more and more to the sense of union with the divine. In that case, I would probably precede it with track 4, which opens the way to upper 8, as a warm up to cosmic consciousness. This would result in a 20 minute session.
I have a suggestion for finding balance in the New Year: Listening to Chuck Wild's Liquid Mind CD series, starting with Liquid Mind III: Balance. (See the posting entitled Liquid Mind for an introduction to this series of reviews.)
I've so much enjoyed meditating to this CD that it hasn't been easy to pin down the dominant centers (chakras) targeted by his music. Time and again, after lying down on the couch in my living room with headphones on to listen to Balance, the first of his CDs that I encountered, I would drift so far beyond the thinking mind that any sort of analysis seemed impossible.
Yesterday, I finally found the perfect way to keep the thinking mind awake enough to accomplish this analysis. I can well understand why Wild's website contains a caution against using his music while operating vehicles or heavy equipment. It's so relaxing. My solution was to put on Balance while I was working in the kitchen: put a few dishes away, make a note; wash a few dishes, make another note; slice some vegetables, stir the sauce--you get the picture.
This has to have been one of the most ecstatic episodes of kitchen duty I can remember. I can only hope some of the love this music sent coursing through me got into the veggie dish I made for the potluck New Year's Eve dinner I went to.
Eighth center (cosmic consciousness) music is relatively hard to come by. In my book, Music and the Soul, I did the best I could to determine the characteristics of this music on the basis of listening to a few examples, often under ten minutes in length. The amazing thing about listening to Balance is that it accesses different aspects of the eighth center continuously for a whole hour, giving me an opportunity to discover various shadings of cosmic consciousness, as expressed through music, that I wasn't aware of previously.
Here's the makeup of the cosmic consciousness center:
Crisis point (transition from the seventh center--expanded consciousness--to the eighth): Spiritual disillusionment.
Lower 8: Bodhisattva-like compassion
Middle 8: Grace
Upper 8: Union with the divine
Crisis point: Translation (out of the physical into the nonphysical, beyond the reach of sound)
Each of these levels represents a higher or fuller expression of cosmic consciousness.
Here's the breakdown of the five tracks on Liquid Mind III: Balance:
1) "Lullaby for Grownups" (5:20). This track lies at the point where lower eight compassion shades into middle 8 grace. It begins with grace, sending the message: "Rest, all is forgiven." After a couple of minutes, the music slides over the boundary to lower 8 (compassion). You can tell the difference because the music begins to ache a little, as if adding a sense of longing for grace or forgiveness into the mix.
2) "Laguna Indigo" (18:27). When I wrote Music and the Soul, I suspected that the eighth center, like the seventh, came in two varieties, sacred and secular. For example, the Hosanna movement of Mozart's Requiem is an instance of sacred upper 7, ecstatic praise of God; the "Ode to Joy" at the end of Beethoven's Ninth is an instance of secular upper 7, also ecstatic, but a celebration of the human (brotherhood) and the divine (without reference to religion). "Laguna Indigo" is an example of secular eighth center music. It too lies at the boundary between lower and middle 8, but more on the compassion side. In terms of the centers, this is also the most complex piece on the CD.
The sense is that of being beyond the world and looking back, full of love for the world, but also world-weariness, and developing a feeling of compassion for those caught up in the world's suffering. The progress of the music is a slow cycling between levels of the eighth center. It begins in middle 8, descends through lower 8, hits the crisis point (spiritual disillusionment can express itself as world-weariness, as for example in much of Wagner's Parsifal), then comes back up to lower 8 compassion.
3. "Timeless and Tender" (11:50). I love the title of this cut. It perfectly expresses two characteristics of the eighth center, the sense of timeless, and that of being held in the embrace of the divine. Here we are once again at the boundary between lower and middle eight, but more on the grace side this time. The music is very much like that of the Prelude of Wagner's Lohengrin, which was the first example of eighth center music that I encountered while writing Music and the Soul. The message of "Timeless and Tender" is, simply, "Peace." This is one of my personal favorites.
4. "Dream Messenger (13:45). Another personal favorite, this track plays at the boundary between middle and upper 8. It's a call to union with the divine. The music keeps lifting me higher and higher, especially toward the end. By then we've arrived at upper 8 union, and the music simply fades out and leaves us there.
5. "Balance" (6:41). This track was the only one I had a problem with. At first it seemed less fully worked out than the others, a mere sketch, just a progression of pretty chords. I found myself wanting to turn away from it, avoid it, turn off the CD, or leave it off the playlist when I was meditating.
But last night I had a completely different experience with this music. I realized that the inadequacy was in me. This music begins in upper 8 and keeps on climbing toward the crisis point of translation. It has a powerful pull, and I simply didn't want to go with it. In retrospect, it reminds me of a favorite piece by the Finnish classical composer Einojuhani Rautaavara, Apotheosis, which I wrote about in my book. Both pieces seem to express "the painfulness of a spiritual opening" that "goes beyond one's capacity to embrace or endure it." Apparently, last night, I was more ready to go along with such an opening.
If the chocolate sauce I was making at the time carries some of that energy, the friends I'll serve it to today are certain to have a transcendent dessert experience.
My favorite way to meditate with this CD is to listen to either tracks 1 and 2, for a nearly 25 minute session, or tracks 3 and 4, for a session of similar length. I'll save "Balance" for special occasions, when I want to open myself up more and more to the sense of union with the divine. In that case, I would probably precede it with track 4, which opens the way to upper 8, as a warm up to cosmic consciousness. This would result in a 20 minute session.
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