Image: RomoloTavani - Getty Images
Tibetan singing bowl
For Janice, there were no words to express the depth and pain of her loss. Friends, family and her minister, hoping to console her after the unexpected, tragic death of her youngest child, repeatedly offered to listen. Yet, despite all their caring and ministrations, during most of these visits she simply sat there, alternating between weeping and vacant stares, but with little to say. Concerned, her best friend suggested seeing a therapist, which brought her to my door. Beyond briefly recounting the details of her daughter’s death and providing minimal answers to my questions, she was mute.
“You can’t help me,” she finally said in a quiet monotone.
“You’re absolutely right,” I replied. “But there may be something that can.”
I recalled her answer to the last question I asked: “Aside from people, what matters most to you in this world?” In response, her gaze sharpened, and a barely perceptible smile curled on her lips.
“Music,” she said. Then the smile ebbed, and the light disappeared once more from her eyes.
Brighter, More Alive
Without explanation, I pulled over a chest tucked in a corner of my office and opened it in front of her. Inside, she beheld a jumble of instruments—a Tibetan singing bowl, simple flute, tambourine, chimes, a drum, harmonica and a dulcimer. She simply stared for a time, but, slowly, her Zombie-like countenance began morphing into something subtly brighter and more alive.
“Tell me what to do,” she asked, her eyes still on the instruments.
“Speak your feelings through the music,” I replied. “Nobody is around, and I’m going to take a stroll outside. It’ll be just you and the music, speaking with one voice.”
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
Just shy of an hour later I returned to hear Janice recount what had taken place. With guitar and piano lessons, recital performances and school orchestra in her background, she was no stranger to making sound. She reported that, while alone, she had “spoken” her grief through each of the instruments, some for just a few moments, only long enough to know she needed a different sound to connect with her emotions. But when she came to the dulcimer, her voice, until then muffled by grief, found a way to be heard. She played extemporaneously, and hummed along at times, and when she had played herself out, something compelled her to reach for the Tibetan singing bowl. Raising it to eye level, she soundly tapped it, emitting a strong, resonant and steady tone that ever so slowly dissipated into silence.
“I hung on the vibration of that final tone until it was completely gone,” she mused wistfully.
“Your daughter,” I said, acknowledging the metaphor.
“Like a beautiful sound that just slips away into nothing. She was such a beautiful sound. She was music in my life,” she labored to explain, but her voice had returned.
Without Words
The wounded heart speaks with its own voice. We don’t always have words to express our deepest feelings, but if we open ourselves to the emotional experience within, we can find another conduit, reclaiming what becomes stifled by the slings and arrows of this sometimes-cruel existence. Music, whether played or listened to, is uniquely suited to speaking the language of the heart far more intensely and poignantly than words. Unlike language, music is primarily nested in the deeper, older regions of the brain, those responsible for emotions and motivation. Music brings out things in us we didn’t know are there. It takes us to places that cannot be described. It heals.
Since our ancestors began making sound with crude instruments, at first mimicking the “music” they heard in nature, we have turned to this medium for solace, joy, inspiration, nostalgia, dance, creative expression and even spiritual transcendence. It’s capacity to create different states of consciousness and powerful emotional experiences renders it among the most potent self-care approaches at our disposal.
Words speak for the mind. Music for the heart and soul.
For more, visit philipchard.com
