Close to it All or Any Song will Do

Birdsong brings relief
To my longing.
I am just as ecstatic as they are
But with nothing to say!
Please, universal soul, practice
Some song or something, through me.

Rumi – Birdsong
Translated by Coleman Barks

The singer songwriter Melanie (who is probably best known for the Bicycle song – I rode my bicycle to your window last night, I skated to your door at daylight) sings a song called Close to it All. It includes the words,

If I had my dream I would fill a hall
And tell all the people tear down the wall
That keeps them from being apart of it all
Cause you gotta get close to it all.

If I had my dream I would build halls and have people sing heart songs each morning in circles ranging from twenty and more. I would then prescribe this as an antidote to depression, loneliness, hopelessness and many other experiences of emotional distance that keep us from being apart of it all.

Many of us feel powerless. We feel what we have to say is of little value. We have no energy to say what we value. We have little or no time to find out what it is we value. Thus the universal soul of Love cannot practice some song, or something through us. The result is that we are left to do our life and lose our ability to be Life living as Love.

Even if you cannot go to a hall to sing you can choose to begin each morning with some practice, some something that invites the heart to sing. This does not mean that you choose to sing a song although you might choose to do this. Begin your day with the intention that you will value your unique heart song. Make this a silent invocation. You might not know what that is. Simply begin to invite and trust that you will receive intimations of what is to be sung through you.

Do not immediately rush into the day. Do not turn on the news that invites you into fear, powerlessness and armours you sensitivity to life and to the pain and sorrow in the world. Heartsong will open up your heart. Without your ability to feel heart centred life is lived without the experience of joy. Joy is your birthright. It is felt when anything of the universal soul is sung through you.

Find out what inspires you and aspire to express that feeling. Risk what it takes so that this feeling of inspiration expands and invites others to expand. Expansion is the nature of the Universal song. Do not be afraid to become so expansive that time disappears and all that is left is the singing. This is the direct experience of Love.

You might spend ten minutes in silence; you might put on a CD of music that moves you to dance or to tears. You might read poetry that changes you life. You might pray a prayer for yourself and others. You might practice mystic seeing. You might play a musical instrument. You might sit in your garden and say, “Thank You.”

There are, as Rumi says, hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. What Rumi is saying and asking, “When was the last time you felt like throwing yourself to the ground because you couldn’t believe the wonder of who you are.” This is the invitation to the song of your heart. Make it real for you.

Her Place by the River

One of my favorite heartsongs is Suzanne by the wonderful Leonard Cohen. The opening verse has the beautiful invitation

Suzanne takes you down to her place by the river.
You can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night beside her
and you know that she`s half crazy but then that`s why you want to be there
and she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China
and just when you want to tell her that you have no love to give her
She gets you on her wavelength and she lets the river answer
that you`ve always been her lover.

I don`t know the personal Suzanne who invites and takes you down by the river. I do know the woman who takes me down by the river and who feeds me on the exotic. People say that it is I who am crazy to go anywhere near her place.

Have you ever gone down to the place by the river? This is the place called Life. It flows. It flows inside me and you. Or do you claim that in your life there is no water - no well spring of joy that makes you seem half crazy. Do you claim, like so many of us, that you have no Love to give her. Or do you know. Do you know within that deep inner solitude that begins to open you up and you get tuned into a different wavelength.

This river is your Source. It isn`t separate from you. It cannot ever be separate from you. It is the river of Being and to the ego it looks absolutely crazy. Most of us are more like a pond that has little flow through it. We are tuned out of the wavelength of the flow of the ever new. That is until we meet with the half crazy woman.

This Suzanne, for this writer is a kind of Priestess. She seems half crazy because she doesn`t need or depend on you and the love you think you don`t have to give her. She can attune you to the wavelength of Love. It makes you afraid because you are not used to being down by the river of Life flowing as Love in form. This is the fruit she will feed you from the far of land.

You want to get away from this crazy woman. She is too much. She feeds you what is exotic from a far away land. No, you and I want to make our excuses because being with her might mean we have to recognise that it is not she who is crazy but it is us. We are crazy for a "crazy little thing called Love. "

You might spend the night beside her, you might only spend only a moment beside her, and your attunement would be certain. This down by the river is a dangerous place to go. Her place down by the river has the sound of silence and in it you can hear and see and feel in ways that allow you to hear your unique heartsong. Are you willing to go further?

This blog to be continued


Picture - Nymph by the River - Fredrick Lord Leighton