Sometimes there are too many words tightly packed into sentences, inflating into paragraphs and squeezed back into affirmations or mantras to keep us on track. Too many words tethering us to our cataphatic practices and efforts to get it right, whatever that means. Too many words waltzing us around the pole of self-reflective awareness. Too many words pouring in at great speed, a tsunami sweeping us away and dragging us down to leviathan depths where we drown in our own noisy thoughts.
Sometimes there are not enough words to fill up the distressing void where no reverberations come to caress the fraught mind. No words to break up the sense of estrangement from an inhospitable world. Not enough words to put back together the shattered pieces strewn on the ground. No words to call us back home and welcome us as we re-enter world after our necessary time of exile. No healing words to remind us of the luminous presence in the midst of chaos, to mirror back to us our living presence in a world on fire.
And sometimes there is a perfect match of words bringing together inner and outer worlds as one. A perfect match found in words distilled to their essence, in idioms and art forms able to effortlessly sweep us away to the imaginal realm and into the empty space of luminous presence. A perfect match revealing the stepping stones shimmering on the horizon of contemplative consciousness before we gracefully stumble upon the wisdom path.
The articulation of Words & Music is both an art form and the idiom that can pierce the veil of self-reflective awareness, hoist us to contemplative consciousness and set us firmly on the wisdom path. In many respects, the destination of the odyssey is to instinctively step on the wisdom path because, having followed the peaks and troughs of individuation, there is enough of us in wholeness of selfhood to recognise our integrated, unitive and connected self, our ensouled individuality, and to then turn our face towards oneness.
Paradoxically, the wisdom path is also a path of courage as we come to ground with reality, as it is, and yearn to express our subjective experience with sincerity and honesty. We begin our quest somewhere on the rim of intelligibility, at the intersection of what we already know and how we fumble with words to speak of the invisible. Honesty is core to contemplation and active listening. If we are blessed to meet a wise and patient conversation partner, who commits to conversational leadership, honesty can gently coaxes us to approach the truths we have shun for too long.
The wisdom path meanders through the dark roots of the tree of life guarding the bleak lake of oblivion into which we have thrown all the things we have turned away from and forgotten, sometimes for good reasons. Through practices of silence and stillness we learn to retrieve the forsaken and we wait for the words that puncture the surface veneer, crack our hearts open and reveal who we are.
Four movements sustain our direct encounters with absolute reality: letting go, letting be, letting come and, finally, setting free.
We let go when we commit to contemplative pauses.
We let be when we dwell in stillness.
We let come when we transform the transactionality of giving and receiving into the circularity of reciprocity and solidarity.
We set free when we experience the grace of revelations scooping us up and, on the crest of the wave of liberation, delivering us into the next dispensation of our lives.
To move through the firewall of the wounded aspects of ourselves, with sincerity and honesty, and come out on the other side transformed, we prioritise radical simplification. To let go of the stories we spin and weave until they obscure the roots of our pain and leave us cleaving to empty light, we critically review our storytelling and edit the prose of self-aggrandisement and the litanies of victimisation.
The shape of the language we use to soften our wounds is crucial. The art form of ‘Words & Music’ works well for me not because of the clarity of eloquent words, nor the beauty of harmonies and melodies, although that is part of the magic, but more because of the pregnant silences that hold words and music together. All musicians and composers know that there is no music without the silences. All writers and poets know that there is no prose nor poetry without the emptiness between the words, between each letter of each word.
‘Words & Music’ take us to the doorway of contemplation and, from there, into the empty space where we draw on the power of imagination to craft a creative voyage at the confluence of all we have ever been, are and will be. Surreptitiously, we find ourselves in the place of the soul where we taste great love, warmth, feeling and forgiveness and experience a direct encounter with reality from which we return transformed.
In many respects, sequences of ‘Words & Music’ are the equivalent of EMDR (eye movement desensitising and reprocessing) because we let the words and music wash over us as we recall traumatic or distressing moments. Resting in a benevolent soundscape, we visit the places where we are stuck, drowning in the feelings and thoughts packaged in our ‘Me Stories’, all revolving around themselves and self-generating endless dramas. We pull apart the tangle composed of all the times we overidentify with the wounds and the pain. Through the contemplative awareness induced by a flawless match of words and music, we recall, and revisit, all the denied and suppressed aspects of ourselves and free ourselves of their incapacitating effect by letting go, letting be, letting come and setting free.
Healing sequences of ‘Words & Music’ are the fruits of the heart rather than the achievements of a brilliant mind. I believe that this is what the psalmist refers to when he declares, “My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king; my tongue is the pen of a ready heart.” [Psalm 45:1]
My experience is that the inditing, or singing, heart arises from an empty mind reached through the apophatic practices of self-emptying. To reach, and return, to this place within me, I connect to my breath and use the following words to centre myself: calm body, smiling heart; empty mind, singing heart.
Now for a few words on the creative path I pursue to craft the sequences of ‘Words & Music’.
I begin by collecting words, or rather pairs of words, that jump out of contemplative readings or that linger in my ears after hearing them. I write them down in my notebook placing them carefully on the page, using colours and calligraphy to draw out their intrinsic beauty, adding in sweeping strokes of colour to capture their vibrancy.
Then, when the time is ripe, I organise the collection and reshuffle the pairs until I can string the words into sentences, that quickly grow into paragraphs merging into a body of text announcing an essay or a chapter of a book. In the first iteration there are too many words with numerous adjectives and convoluted formulations that reflect the utterances bouncing around the echo chamber lodged in the labyrinth of my mind. The smiling heart notices the lavish idiom and my fear of leaving something out or of forgetting an essential part of the story, the gem hidden beneath the debris. The singing heart then arises changing the sword that wants to abruptly cut to the chase into the ploughshare that prepares the soil for radical simplification.
The singing heart thrives on the art of distillation, spectacularly reducing each iteration, daring to take out not only the ineffective repetitions and the superfluous, but also the parts I cleave to. Truth be said, the singing heart mostly removes the parts I am proudly attached to, fortunately with generosity and great compassion. At times it is a humbling experience that nonetheless tenderly chips away at all the excesses to reveal something of essence, an ongoing practice in self-emptying. Lengthy texts are then refined into short verses or prayers which will eventually become the lyrics of an original musical composition, a creation oratorio, and the cornerstone of a forthcoming volume on the phenomenology of consciousness.
Surprisingly, the distillation returns me to pairs of words. These are not the original pairs that have been grist to the mill of love’s labour. They are new pairs of words both integrated and transformed along the pathways to selfhood and through each iteration of distillation. Looking back at the circuit the words slide down, I catch a glimpse of the inner workings that produce haikus or zen koans. I listen to the metrical patterns of the words, their rhythmic structure echoing the heartbeat or eternal breath. The freshly minted pairs of words act as placeholders or anchors when I sit in contemplative stillness. The singing heart then spins the golden thread that returns me to centredness and the knowledge that I am beloved, in particular when my peripatetic mind wanders back into the labyrinth.
The choice of music for the sequences of Words & Music has also been polished and distilled. In the spirit of radical simplification, I am attracted to the early music environment with plainsong and Gregorian chant, then the counterpoint of Bach and on the contemporary scene of classical music minimalism, more Arvo Pärt and Max Richter than Pierre Boulez.
The purpose of the ‘Words & Music’ series is to accompany others on their own odyssey and offer bespoke guidance for meandering down the pathways to selfhood. Each curated sequence calls us to discover, and practice, the art of letting go and letting be that constellates and morphs as we progress down the eight pathways leading us to the centre of the pattern of our lives. The articulation of carefully selected music and excerpts from the relevant chapters of Pathways to Selfhood provides a guided mediation in support of compassionate listening, augmented perceptiveness and refined discernment. Ultimately, the contemplative approach (apophatic practice) engenders a singing heart able to chant the indivisible reality of love.
To avoid a massive indigestion of the materials by rushing through all eight pathways as if attempting a record-breaking marathon, I suggest a slow pace and taking small steps, one step at a time, paying attention to the first step, the one close-in, the one that is often the most difficult to take. Therefore, each sequence of ‘Words & Music’ focuses on one portion of a pathway and, all together, there are 24 sequences guiding us through the full odyssey.
A Words & Music Guided Meditation is a 60-minute session, either an online or in-person in my home on Bornholm, or elsewhere if I happen to be travelling and in your area. Unless the sequence is a follow-up after an intuitive reading or an archetypal configuration, before the first session, I offer a 30-minute complimentary call during which we decide which portions of the odyssey to visit.
Step 1: Quietness
A 20-minute sequence of Words & Music based on a selected passage from Pathways to Selfhood during which we sit and rest in the space as we allow the words and music to wash over us and awaken us to higher orders of awareness.
Step 2: Stillness
A 20-minute time of contemplative stillness with a soundscape of minimalist classical music during which we practice the art form that presents itself: movement and dancing; drawing and painting; writing and journalling; sounding and chanting.
Step 3: Spaciousness
A 20-minute interval for sharing a few words about the experience. In the spirit of conversational leadership and contemplative stillness, we prioritise spaciousness, silence and active listening. We then appreciate and honour the art of radical simplification that allows words to touch us and crack us open to more love.
A private recording of the first two parts of the session is provided afterwards for further and deeper work with the materials.
A workshop version for small groups (minimum 4 and maximum 8) is available on demand. It comprises eight 4-hour workshops, either online or in-person, one workshop per pathway.
A 60-minute session either online or face-to-face costs 720,00 kr.
It is possible to purchase packages of 5 or 10 sessions at a discount price.
The comprehensive programme of the whole odyssey (24 sessions) costs 12’960,00 kr. (25% reduction).
The workshop version for small groups costs 2’400,00 per person and per workshop.