1998-05-17-Finding Your Soul Tone
Halfmoon Bay #21
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Finding Your Soul Tone
o 1.2 Group: Half Moon Bay TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Olfana
o 2.2 TR: Susan Kimsey
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
3.2.1 Resonance
o 3.3 Dialogue
3.3.1 Listening
3.3.2 Touch
Topic: Finding Your Soul Tone
Group: Half Moon Bay TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Olfana
TR: Susan Kimsey
Session
Opening
OLFANA: Greetings, my friends. (Smiling) This is Olfana, and I am filled with joy to be in your presence now! It has been a long wait for me to find a moment when S is not busy with many other projects, but I succeed now in capturing her attention.
Lesson
Resonance
OLFANA: I wish us to suspend ourselves briefly, just in this moment. Suspend yourselves. Feel your soul floating along within you. Here you are. Here you exist in this time, in this place, and yet, there is this peace of eternity which you can find within the quietness of yourself. Be with this soul energy in as many comfortable moments as you can hold to it, my dear ones. Take these moments and remove them from the pace of events which so seem to fill your lives. Take these moments and float within your soul.
As you find yourself suspended gently, and, indeed, held up by what you might call a supportive cushion of God’s love filling your heart, you may, if you listen carefully, hear a tone within yourself–a vibration of your being, I would call it. This is the “essential you” which resonates always in harmony with God, your Creator. God has taken this tone and surrounded it with a material being, a body which contains this essential “soul tone” which you can sing in your life. You can be this expression of yourself in the world. There is the expression, the saying, “I know how to carry this tune.” “I know that this note is true.” “This strikes me as the right chord.” These are times when you know you are in resonance with a vibration. This is, indeed, a metaphor by which you can cultivate this soul vibration of yourself. Find the way in which your tone can blend easily with the other tones that surround you. How can you orchestrate yourself, as it were, so that you hit the note which then is mellifluous to the ears of others?
We can be so exposed to the discordant energy of the world. It can, indeed, require much of us to “hold to our own note,” as it were. Have you the understanding of the experience when you sing with others in a choir or grouping, and perhaps the division line between the altos and the sopranos lies between you and the singer next to you, and you must hold to one tone, one note, one resonance, while this other is, indeed, most closely imposing itself upon you? There are times when professional singers will, indeed, hold their ears in order to more closely focus upon their own resonance without the distraction of the other tones and notes imposing themselves upon them.
This is, indeed, a challenge that we face in this life, to hold clearly to our own resonance pattern in a way which reflects the truth of ourselves to others, and at the same time is not discordant to the tones of others with whom we interact. If I offer this as a metaphor of interaction, is there any commentary, any remarks anyone might make at this point, any observations to share regarding this lesson, this concept, I present?
Dialogue
Fr: It is very similar to the lesson I listened to which another Teacher gave. He was talking about the tones, and so forth. And that is when I sang my daycare song, to sort of describe how that was my tone, my melody.
OLFANA: And, indeed, I would say that as we proceed in life, we do become more comfortable in knowing our own tone, knowing the way in which we resonate to the world. Are there further comments, now?
B: Yes. I was wondering if the metaphor of “tone,” does it mean a single note, or a chord, or possibly a melody, or how far can you stretch the metaphor?
OLFANA: A tone always does carry with it, harmonics. (Smiling) And therefore there is no one “Johnny one-note,” if you will, created by the Father. (Group laughter) There is, indeed, multiplicity to this image, yes, B. But I would say that there is, indeed, something to be said for the sense of, when we come to our essential self, there is this stability of the pattern of vibration. There is this sense of the basic tone from which many other possibilities may flow. It is as if one says, “Yes, I ‘settle’ within the key of C at the note of F, when I am most comfortable.” Is this an appropriate explanation of this metaphor for you now?
B: Yes. It seems then that it’s our unique . . . , but very deep, a unique tone that’s God-given.
OLFANA: Yes.
B: In the sense that it’s not something that changes or grows, not like the soul growing and changing, but it stays the same.
OLFANA: I would say, it amplifies itself. And yet, yes, this essential tone is as if the Father has struck an instrument, and in this moment has, indeed, created B. And this marks you for what I would call, your life.
B: So the personality circuit, the gift of the personality from the Father, one might think about in terms of the metaphor. I think of it often as a beam of light that created my personality. Also, then, It looks like a beam of tone, a sound that is me.
OLFANA: There are certainly commonalties of concept when we speak of a tone, a color, a resonance, a vibrational integrity which exists within any one unique person. I speak so often within the metaphor of vibration and light imagery that I am stretching myself, and S today, to speak within the metaphor of sound, but I felt it was an appropriate entry point for our discussion today.
B: Thank you.
J: Olfana, this is your old buddy, J. It’s great to talk to you. I always like to talk to you, and you know that.
OLFANA: I sense it very strongly, now, J. (Smiling) You are humming to me!
J: It’s funny you should mention that. I was going to ask you, as you are present in this room of us mortals, struggling mortals. Our soul tones are evident to you, I assume?
OLFANA: I am deeply capable of experiencing each of you. (Smiling) I would, perhaps, leave it at that, unless I have opened too much of Pandora’s Box.
J: Oh, it sounds pretty good to me, so far. I’m just wondering, are you capable, or is there a wisdom in, or is there a risk involved, in trying to put some kind of tentative words on our soul tone? Are you capable, or is S capable, of transmitting your sort of description of say, T’s soul tone, or F’s soul tone, or M’s soul tone, or would this be not advisable? I’m just absolutely curious, that’s all.
OLFANA: I would say that I am more hampered by S’s limitations than my own. I could, perhaps, through working with a person who was most adept with a violin, or a piano, be able to, indeed, play something of your soul as I experience it. (Smiling) Unfortunately, I am limited here by S’s abilities, but she has quite a vocabulary to work with, and I appreciate this in her.
I would say that this experience of understanding yourself as this vibrational masterpiece–each of you–is an ongoing eternal task and joy. Even now, I sense myself so much more fully than when I was a time and space mortal; and yet, there is more to me, J, that I have not yet discovered. And I know that each of you fully understand that there are depths, there are heights, there are expressions of yourself which you have only just begun to experience. And sometimes, in those most private moments, I would take the risk in savoring all that you sense you are, or can be. I would certainly encourage you in this activity.
Listening
OLFANA: Most certainly, the stillness time is a time for such moments of pleasure. I would even suggest, in a very practical way, that some meditation times would be amplified if you would close your ears with earplugs of some kind, and fully savor the internal sounds of your breathing, and the resonance within you. Come to know yourself in this way because it is an experience that many never actually connect with. Do you remember as a child, those first times you, in a swimming pool, submerged yourself fully, and suddenly there was this new way of hearing your breathing, your movement, and it was startling, to a degree, to experience yourself this way?
I would say that there is much worthy of study and experience in this concept of “hearing ourselves.” We, in this culture, speak so often of understanding ourselves, but do we “hear” what we are? And, when we speak of hearing others, we are so often focused on their words. This is not the only way in which they also can be heard by you. Perhaps this is enough of my commentary, now. Is there any further point that anyone wishes to make?
B: There is a lesson in Will’s teachings about this. And I think in the UB, about how Jesus would listen to people, and he would listen between the words to this other thing that was being said, or actually this little soul song that they were crying out for love. Is that maybe related to this–what’s between the words or between the thoughts?
OLFANA: (Smiling) It is –directly– connected with everything I have thus far discussed,
Touch
OLFANA: We fill our relationships, our times together, often, with commentary, discussion, which in and of itself is certainly an appropriate, healthy choice. But there are so many other ways in which we can experience each other, and we will only risk these other ways of knowing each other, sometimes, in the more limited concept of a love relationship with another human being. And certainly, in these attempts to communicate by touch, by quiet hearing, listening, being with each other, we are gratified in our efforts, but we fail to apply this means of knowing each other often enough in the normal cultural interactions in which we.I speak, I include myself, now.in which we commonly find ourselves.
I am most pleased to see how willingly you will hold each other’s hands, and even agree to sit quietly. This is still so far from the norm, in terms of general human interaction on this planet. So much more could be developed in the way of understanding if humans would, indeed, be willing to sit quietly, sense each other, connect with the presence of touch. There are so many arenas in which this is not allowed as a possibility, and in this way much is lost of the potential of true, full communication.
B: So true.
