I don’t know why I am so surprised when I see things come full circle, because it happens so often you would think I would be kind of unimpressed. Thankfully, I am not. Instead, when I realize it has happened, I feel the same intensity of delight each time.
This week’s ‘ah-ha’ had to do with music – one of my favorite things. During three separate coaching conversations, I ended up exploring with my clients opportunities to engage with music in order to move in a direction they desired. One person wants to try it out as a centering practice, another as an intentional mood shifter when he is stuck in a funk. The ‘closing the circle’ event happened while walking the dog this morning. I listened to an interview with Bernard Chazelle, a Professor of Computer Science at Princeton. He was talking about Johann Sebastian Bach, whom he saw as having an amazing, otherworldly ability to “get to your soul through your body” with his music. Sounds a little peculiar as a topic of interest for a mathematician, but the perspective he shared on the connection between the two was fascinating. Here’s the link to the podcast if you want to give yourself the gift of listening http://onbeing.org/program/bernard-chazelle-discovering-the-cosmology-of-bach/7026
Technically when we hear music, we are being bombarded with sound waves. This physical manifestation requires processing by our brain and then, the magic happens! Emotion arises and we are changed, even if just for a few moments. And while that in and of itself might not be that surprising, what Chazelle points out is that music can be the doorway to the unique beauty that is stored inside each of us.
“What I find very strange is this. I mean, all Bach is doing is sending a bunch of sound waves. So in your brain, there must be this reservoir of beauty which most often is untapped. But if you can find it with the right spotlight, then you discover these amazing consonances, or dissonances, or this amazing narrative, story, inside you…There is this enormous gold mine that can be revealed.”
Have you ever thought about having a ‘reservoir of beauty’ inside you? One that you can access at a moment’s notice if you are aware of what brings it out in you? I am convinced we all have this, and our ability to connect to it is central to living a fulfilling, meaningful life. What is the ‘spotlight’ that reveals your inner beauty? I hope you use it regularly – we can’t wait to see it!
