The last six months have been impossibly challenging for me, and my capacity to hold myself, to see the wider perspective, to root in the meaning of my life, and to welcome all my feelings has more often than not felt like a memory or mirage. In the moments of emergence, of breathing deep again, of remembering that I love being alive, songs are wont to come through, seeds of wholeness that I can water in my despair by mouthing their words even when I don't want to.
Many of us have been told we can't sing. My eighth grade teacher told me I shouldn't even audition for show choir in high school because my voice was such shit. (Oh I got it in!) And anyway, my music education (and how I survived childhood) was about reading the right notes, not creative emergence or improvisation. Everyone knows the horror of coming in too early and being the only voice filling the room. It is even scarier when the tune is your own. Flexing the singing muscle can feel risky and embarrassing, like any authentic coming out into the world, especially unrehearsed. I've gradually recovered from these fears and hurts, mostly by chance.
When I was a farmer, little one word songs would come through me, like the famous "grupenblau", in delight of that purple-blossomed beauty that was my favorite in the flower field. When I was an herbal medicine maker, I'd sing the latin names with bravado as I pulled the bottles off the shelf to mix formulas. Honestly, my songs haven't gotten much more complicated than that. But I love them and I trust them and I cherish them. Maybe they will be a balm to you, as they have been for me.
Perhaps they will invite you to honor the song babies that come through you, and instead of letting them fall away, you'll hold them close, no matter how small or unaccomplished. Like anything we pay attention to, our capacity to catch and hold a tune grows the more we listen and sing.
