A recorded soul-song and some pics included, I share my take on what I once thought freedom was and what I now know that freedom… is.
It is good to define what freedom means to yourself as well as what the expression of it looks like every now and then. In doing so, you can measure your own growth. You can ask, Does my definition allow me to flow with life, or does it cause me to shrivel up and believe I’m in some sort of cage at times?
My recent personal analysis began at an outdoor, public drum circle. I had originally hoped to bring along my djembe and sit closer to the action. But then I decided that it would be a perfect day to bring one of my daughters out for the experience. I do get to go out to drum circles by myself, but I thought she would enjoy the beachside music on a beautiful day. She is an adult, and she has special needs. But she really loves to dance and play along. I couldn’t let her miss the one fair day in a long streak of cold or rainy ones.
We were hoofing it alone that day, and so I decided that bringing my djembe was out of the question as my daughter needs mobility assistance. Instead we brought along a tambourine, finger shots, her mini maracas, and her decent-but-cheap frame drum (which ended up being chucked into the sand more than once). lol
I felt a slight ping of despair when we first arrived at the circle. I’m not much of a spectator. Whether it is music or sports, the idea of sitting on the side bores the heck out of me! I tend to feel a magnetic pull toward being a part of the action. And this was what happened – for only a moment. In that moment, I knew I was getting a personal lesson because this is how it goes.
Had this been a year ago, I probably would have ended up moping around and feeling like I was missing out on something that is clearly a part of who I am. I would have felt oppressed and chained down. But that’s because I didn’t understand the magnetic pull and how it relates to real freedom as opposed to the illusion of it.
I’m in charge of moving my magnet, and love taught me this. The moment I saw my daughter’s face when she understood that we were going to “be in” the drum circle area was the moment I moved my magnet back in her direction. My event was my daughter (as intended). My daughter’s event was a drum circle. Both our events were one. And when I thought of it in this way, I immediately went back in time and contrasted how things were before I became a mom. I remembered the rush to get into the action. I remembered chasing festivals and events and social groups. What I thought might have happened if I missed one…??? Good grief, I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But if love quenches the need to chase every single event and the need to be at every event was my idea of what freedom meant, then there are some obvious clues.
(Don’t misunderstand me… I’m still going to events.)
There’s never only one layer to a lesson once one begins. We’ve established that freedom is a choice to redirect a sort of magnet. It’s like maneuvering a boat on waves. But there needn’t be an event nor another person to redirect it toward.
My village is… a village. I do not live in a secluded home with only animals as neighbors out yonder.
Without my conscious intervention, my attention can easily redirect to the issues that accompany living in a community – even though community is a favorite word of mine. Go figure.
Rather than feeling as if I was missing out on something, I recently felt like I had to get away from something (my village). But they are the same thing! Going to and leaving from are the same thing. If movement or the concept of changing direction was a stick, any place to go to and any place to leave from are on polar opposite ends of the same stick. (This is a mini lesson in transmutation.)
Anyway, my situation was bugging me, and I didn’t know what I needed. When I don’t know what I need, I sometimes sing a soul song. I experience soul songs in different ways and for different reasons. So, there are some songs that I keep sacred and to myself. But this song, I can share. If you’ve never heard of singing a soul-song, it is basically making sounds without thinking about them at all. As with any shamanic practice, what we think we know gets set aside for a time. You don’t think about meaning or melody, and you actually don’t think “song.” The song could be just sounds and unpleasant ones perhaps. Sometimes a cultural feel or words from foreign or ancient languages come up. Many times, my songs sound Polynesian. Sometimes there are recognizable Hebrew words mixed with Polynesian, Pinyin with Greek, etc. I’ve had clues as to why this might be. But for now, know that no meaning can be found in the sounds- as words or phrases! It is people who assign meaning to sounds and then call them words! But, sounds are their own being, in a sense. The meaning in most soul songs is in the place between the sound and the singer (me, since I’m the practitioner involved).
I recreated this song and muffled it a bit to discourage any kind of translation, which would be wrong. Lol. Sorry.
There are similar uses of languages, songs, tongues, etc. in many cultures and belief systems. For me, the soul-song is shamanic, period. There are soul-songs that I do in a medium-depth, altered state of consciousness. And there are ones like the above that I do in a very lightly altered state as any musician might get into while performing and being careful not to trip over wires at the same time. I do these to quickly hear-experience the message from within myself (higher self) rather then to have a full visual and sensory experience.
What you cannot get from my soul song (because it’s mine), is that the sacredness of my home is always there and that my home never changes. I was reminded that all I need to do is to remember to point my “magnet” toward the home that does not move. Be the home – in a sense.
Yes, I really need a new place to live that is more customized to my lifestyle. But in the meantime, I must live my best in the now. This will always be true. It’s so good that I only spent a couple days out-of-whack spiritually rather than months! But this is a benefit of maintaining a spiritually progressive lifestyle… You get better at it!
Spiritual freedom is attainable, and it helps in any situation. Freedom is also a choice – to point our magnets in the right direction.
Sue's Shamanic Lifestyle Blog 