2013-04-14-Harmonic Expressions
No Idaho #776
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Harmonic Expressions
o 1.2 Group: N. Idaho TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Charles, Teacher Gorman
o 2.2 TR: Mark Rogers, Henry Z.
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
3.2.1 Music, Expression
3.2.2 Faith
3.2.3 Music, Song
o 3.3 Dialogue
Topic: Harmonic Expressions
Group: N. Idaho TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Charles, Teacher Gorman
TR: Mark Rogers, Henry Z.
Session
Opening
CHARLES: [Mark] Good morning my friends, I am Charles here to share this environment with you and having been granted the privilege of the permission to sit in on your group and observe your conversation. I would express my gratitude to you for your focus of attention to my words from last week. Any instructor is pleased to witness the students eagerly take up the material that’s been offered and you honor me in this way, I thank you.
Lesson
Music, Expression
CHARLES: As for the question tendered regarding the spiritual perspective on making music I would be happy to share some thoughts of mine for your consideration. You have been told in your text that there are universal tones, that the tones represent different aspects of frequency as you observe in your musical compositions and the combination of these tones is much like the artist deciding what color they will dip the brush in. The construction of the order of these tones is just like the brush stroke of the artist with purpose and intention in just such a direction.
It is simply a form of art as are many regular and routine activities that mortals undertake. Truly, so many things that you are engaged in provide the opportunity for the expression of the attitude of your soul, whether you are speaking, whether you are writing, whether you are performing music, whether you are simply walking alone. All of these acts are interpretable, that is, it is up to you to bring to these acts what their significances are and what flavor and tone you will infuse into the routine nature of what it means to do an act repeatedly, whether that act is to sit in front of an easel and make paint strokes, sit with an instrument and make music, sit with an instrument and type words, teach a class of students, ride the bus, these are all opportunities which on such a world as you live, beg to be infused with spiritual content, with meaning and with value.
This is the expression of art, the expression into the material world of the attitude of the soul and music is no different. It does rank as among the more significant modes of communication in that it can utilize multiple sources of input as was noted. One has word symbols to use in this art form and one also has the emotional responses to the tones and their arrangement and association. The overlay of these two is a significant source of harmony in yet another expression, the mixing the realms. This is why you notice that your forms of movies, video, has an even greater impact on the delivery of art form in that it includes the visual component as well. And so whenever you are engaged in anything, you are bringing together all these different components in various degrees and there is an art form to this delivery, to this interpretation of presentation. It is up to you, you are the screen it will pass through, it is the lens it will be focused through and therefore your prism is up to you to maintain and polish. You are the one who will decide in the end, the degree of influence that you will bring to the equation.
Faith
I would like to also honor a request made in an earlier discussion, that we touch again on the subject of faith. I will have a few words about that and point out to you that it is faith which is required to bring us together in this process. It is literally a basic ingredient, a foundational element in all that transpires from your mortal perspective. In the spiritual realm it is required of you to exercise faith as a key, as an entrance into the realm of spirit and so it is so highly significant and so required that it is another one of those treasured allocated resources referred to. The supply of faith is indeed limited on a world where so much darkness exists. Special strength is required to muster faith and even greater strength is required to act in faith and to live in a state of complete conviction as a result of your faith. This is of course one of your greatest challenges as mortals of the realm, to first find faith in your process of growth and then to learn to lean on it and develop it to the greater and greater extent, realizing it is your key to accessing the spiritual dimension. It is the foundation on which you stand in order to reach that platform.
To those of you who are familiar with this process, those old timers you refer to, this has become so basic and so natural to you that it may be easy for you to discount its significance in that it is so much a fabric of what you do as a normal process through repetition that you take it for granted perhaps but it is among the greatest mortal challenges to be faced, to not only find it, but to exercise it and to have it and own it as part of your own being. So I just called to mind that this is another one of your cherished gardens that you have cultivated. You have allocated your resources thusly and as a result you are benefiting from the fruits of your labor. It was simply my pleasure to bring this up in recognition as one of the things that individuals may choose to channel their energies towards, to allocate their vital resources towards. I think that has been enough for now so I will withdraw to allow this cherished platform for others. Thank you for making me welcome and accepting me into your circle. I am deeply grateful for this, farewell.
Music, Song
GORMAN: [Henry] Greetings to you my friends. Harmony is the sound of Paradise, music is the response to this harmony. Music opens up the creative inspiration within the mind. It is interesting that all cultures on earth have created instruments to duplicate musical notes, musical sounds, so that the playing of these instruments creates sound and musical harmonies, a feeling, emotional faith as it were. So in a broad sense, music is a recreation of a distant heard echo, a felt sense of sound. The purely creative expression of song gives a framework to musical sound, it specifies thought.
Music is the wings of the song, words are its impassioned cry and the music made by the human voice always seems to be the most profound, the most powerful and the strongest of all instruments. The human voice has qualities that instruments do not possess. No matter the finesse used in playing a musical instrument, [it] can never compare to the depth and magnitude of the soulful expression of the human voice because the human voice uses not only sound but it utilizes the mind in a direct way. Of course, the combination of the lyrics, the song and the music, the instrument and the voice give recognition to such.
And what is it that song does? Not all songs lift in some glorious harmonic manner. Some songs are specific, they alert us to certain things that are happening, whether it is movement of emotion within the human race, whether it is a way to honor an event, the memory of those that have offered their lives for some human endeavor, the variety of songs express the overall dimension of the human response to this inner feeling whether it is a feeling of joy, a feeling of grief, a feeling of sorrow, the feeling of loss. All music can be purely commercial, something to be used as a background noise, a sound much like newsprint is a shadow of a book.
There must be some connection between the human soul and the Indwelt Spirit which gives rise to the notion of sound and color which the animal does not possess. Of all the things that man does, man does them well with music. Man uses music for his highest honor and worship of God. He uses music to express the sublime beauty of all nature, the harmony of all spirit and the true faith of all men. Maybe you will live in a time in which society’s true heroes are its musicians, its songwriters, rather than their war heroes, those men that are lucky enough to spill other men’s blood. Maybe you will begin to hear the song within your own soul and one day you will give voice to that song in your heart, the song which is yet to be sung, the song which can garner the desire and faith of a nation, the song that can bend a mans knee to a humble emotion and the song that can burst forth the joy in mans heart for life, for the beautiful gift of life, the gift to express this life through song and music.
Urantia definitely has its own musical style, yet there have been a few in your recent history who have heard the celestial symphonic currents of harmonies, of Paradise attitude, of eternal notion and absolute fact. There must be a chance element of goodness which attracts one to the notion of Paradise, to the thought that there is somewhere in the universe which contains greatness, something which calls all men homeward bound. So with the grace of angels and the love of God in your heart, may you continue to utter forth the harmonic sound, the harmonic vibration which echoes your spiritual birthright, thank you.
Dialogue
GORMAN: After a brief discussion, a group member then shared the following excerpt from The I Ching:
Hexagram 16, 豫 (yù), “Providing-For” or “Enthusiasm”.
Thunder comes resounding out of the earth:
The image of ENTHUSIASM.
Thus the ancient kings made music
In order to honor merit,
And offered it with splendor
To the Supreme Deity,
Inviting their ancestors to be present.
GORMAN: When, at the beginning of summer, thunder—electrical energy—comes rushing forth from the earth again, and the first thunderstorm refreshes nature, a prolonged state of tension is resolved. Joy and relief make themselves felt. So too, music has power to ease tension within the heart and to loosen the grip of obscure emotions. The enthusiasm of the heart expresses itself involuntarily in a burst of song, in dance and rhythmic movement of the body. From immemorial times the inspiring effect of the invisible sound that moves all hearts, and draws them together, has mystified mankind.
Rulers have made use of this natural taste for music; they elevated and regulated it. Music was looked upon as something serious and holy, designed to purify the feelings of men. It fell to music to glorify the virtues of heroes and thus to construct a bridge to the world of the unseen. In the temple men drew near to God with music and pantomimes (out of this later the theater developed). Religious feeling for the Creator of the world was united with the most sacred of human feelings, that of reverence for the ancestors. The ancestors were invited to these divine services as guests of the Ruler of Heaven and as representatives of humanity in the higher regions.
This uniting of the human past with the Divinity in solemn moments of religious inspiration established the bond between God and man. The ruler who revered the Divinity in revering his ancestors became thereby the Son of Heaven, in whom the heavenly and the earthly world met in mystical contact. These ideas are the final summation of Chinese culture. Confucius has said of the great sacrifice at which these rites were performed: “He who could wholly comprehend this sacrifice could rule the world as though it were spinning on his hand.”
