Song Singing

Songs are a very important part of many peoples life and creativity. Huge and enthusiastic crowds gather to hear women and men sing the song of their lives.

These songs are the crying out of people’s pain, their love or struggles with what they call love, the cry of wonder, excitement of invention, and of course humour. When a person sings, in life or in a dream, they are sending out their feelings, which can be received by those who listen. It might be emotions, pleasure, pain, realisation or even laughter.

In dreams we cry out and sing these songs, and in doing so we are baring our souls and sharing our agony, our divinity, our wonder at life. To sing your song often means that you are giving voice to your very essence, so should be taken seriously. To be unable to sing your song means you are being held back and cannot release and so complete yourself – so you cannot live fully.

I have sung my life. I have had children, loved and been loved, struggled and gone down under the struggle, and found my way to stand again. And I’m still singing. The great songs are not those that are simply flowered with fragrant perfume and bright colours. The great songs are those that have valleys and mountain tops, darkness and light, tragedy and the wonder of sacred moments. Such songs carry the passions of a real life.

Now the song rises up in me that my life sings – I love you. I cry out now with much laughter and joy. I love you Life. I love you with all your shadows and sunshine. I love you with the pain and the beauty. My darling I love you with all my being. I sing the song of love to Life.

Example: And I listened, and the hundred songs of birds came to me in that empty silent brick house of a church. A tractor added its chorus to the song. Cars hummed a background. Somewhere a man hammered, a cock crowed and a dog barked. There was the rhythm of footsteps as people walked by, and the whole grand medley was the hymn of life. Leaving the building I added the quiet sound of my own walking and breathing to the grand song. Now I would sing on.

The Song

Did you hear it?

What, the song thrush here,
And in the tree the blue tit?

Yes, but did you hear the dog bark?

I heard a dog howling
Last night in the dark.

Was it joined with sounds of cricket on the green?

Only now you mention it,
The crack of ball on bat,
I hear but haven’t seen.

Was there a piano accompanying all those too?

I didn’t catch the music’s voice,
Not as well as you.

You didn’t hear the harmony,
The voices all as one,
The orchestra of all those sounds
With single voice of none?
I heard it here this afternoon,
One voice sang through them all,
Collecting all the sounds of life,
Into one vibrant call.