Did You Hear?

It happens, sometimes, that a space opens in which I can indulge myself in some kind of sensual delight. Yesterday, it was a deep music-listening session, which is every bit as refreshing and insightful as sitting in a soundproof room. I am paying attention more and more, these days, because I feel that venturing far (even only once in a while) is relevant to a full life, and telling the story sparks an awareness and memory in other minds.

Really listening to music (or a voice, or the world) is like opening a gate to a previously unknown land. I can stand near this opening and admire the skill of the musician, the placing of tones and silence like elements of a land(sound)scape, the mood and rhythm and poetry. This is a relatively "safe" position, in which my active inner voice can critique the art, imagining itself objective. 

I can venture in a bit more, and begin to encounter the energy of the piece--the local weather, the strength of current. There is some rawness and uncertainty there, where preconceptions begin to fall apart and my own edges biodegrade. There is a pull to "go native" and walk deeper into my own not-knowing. Answering that call is agreeing to encounter the strange and powerful Eden of emotion...energy in motion, directly experienced...the ride, in all its highs, lows, curves and pits, pulling memories along like cars I can step into and examine in a different light. This is the danger and excitement that keeps most people away, back behind a fence. It's also the place of true opening and resolution, of break-it/make-it. 

Stepping into such sonic complexity reveals something very simple--the actual space and nature of myself.

I notice that notes, sounds and voids are rising, bursting, washing through me...that they come from me, for me, each a personality full and complete and unafraid to be itself in the silence and chorus of other perfect voices. I no longer have edges. I no longer protect myself, though the heights are still dizzying and the depths just as inky. Somehow I survive all this bursting and dying. I realize that the colors and forms of these melodies are endless, and that in this deep space, they weave themselves into amazing constructs for my enjoyment. I watch as swelling sounds explode skyward as the petals of a flower, born from a spiral of joy...pure, pure joy. They are color, they are light, texture and taste divine! This is the land of predistinction, the place of crossed languages, where no analogy is necessary and genuine generosity is bathed in. "Oh my god" can't touch this free-flowing awe.

And...this is what I am.

How simple, how simple is that?

I am nothing but the capacity, the overflowing potential for song, and would still be if "I" chose to step out in front of an oncoming train. This is THE experience. Fear doesn't get any scarier, excitement any more exciting than this. So "I" rest. I understand that I can do nothing but let go down here, and that any attempt to fight it is a source of confusion, if the very struggle itself is not seen as the beautiful and temporary condition that it actually is. To really let go is to see. To see is to really let go. Things deepen.

All of this from intent listening...and the same (but flavored differently) through any other sensual gateway...which all have one thing in common: the nameless, tasteless, utterly transparent this.