The Whole Music Experience

H ere is the closing chapter of my book, Whole Music (Soul Food for the Mind Body Spirit). I look at the difference between mindful and mindless music. Some music is purely made for entertainment purposes while other music has healing or awakening intentions embedded in it.  This is not to say that all pop music is mindless as I found in my research that some pop songs are deeply therapeutic even if the musicians had little knowledge of this healing potential when they recorded or performed the songs. And then there is music which just adds more noise to an already chaotic background. We also need to look at psychological manipulation embedded in some music, especially background music in public places and used as commercial jingles to get us to buy products or change our behaviors in ways that don't benefit us. Closing: Super Music Versus Junk Music Like many other Americans, I spent my childhood eating junk food and listening to pop music.  Both the junk fo...

Imagine yourself eating a ripe orange. Imagine the tangy taste on your lips and tongue, your teeth biting into the orange’s texture and the feeling of your grateful heart. And if you ate that orange with conscious thought you might feel your body radiate with the essence of the citrus fruit throughout the day. While we don’t think of food as containing vibration, everything we touch, taste, feel, hear, or see possesses a vibration and when we connect with those vibrations, an alchemical process takes place within our bodies. Now, imagine listening to a Bach composition played on a cello. Imagine the low and throaty sound of the instrument vibrating in your chakras.   Allow your mind might wander to a memory associated with that piece of music. Your feet might tap in time and if you have developed consciousness in regard to your body, you might feel subtle vibrations moving through you and you might feel a slight crackle of energy in the room. And what if you were listenin...

Soul Music, Comfort Music and Junk Music When I was hanging out at my local food co-op recently I made the comment that Putumayo compilations are music’s equivalent of “comfort food.” I listen to those compilations when I need comfort, warmth or need to lift myself out of a funk. So I started thinking about soul music and junk music too. I’m not talking Stevie Wonder or Earth Wind and Fire when I say “soul music,” but of course, you could include those artists if you choose. Soul music massages the spirit. You could include actual music from various sacred traditions, but even The Beatles fit into soul music, depending on the song. George Harrison wrote a lot of “soul music” and so did Paul McCartney after all, sometimes a popular love song opens the heart chakra allowing a sacred feeling to entrench itself. Comfort music almost defies description. It can hail from a variety of traditions, countries and it’s not set to any specific rhythm or tempo. Depending on the circums...