The Power of Singing

     This morning I took a sunrise walk out in the Coconino wilderness, as usual.  I was excited to discover a way to get close to a beautiful red rock formation about a 45 minutes walk from our house.   I call it "The Singers" because I can see the profile of a face on each side of the rock, and they look like they are singing.   I like to think of them as singing the sun up at dawn, which is when I took these pictures.  Maybe, like me, they sing the Zuni sunrise song.  I know many Native American tribes believed that it was vital to be out in nature at sunrise to pray and praise, and that such spiritual action contributed to the flourishing of creation.   I tend to agree with them.

     The Yavapai people  (the name means "people of the sun") have a creation legend which tells of how the First Woman, Grandmother White Stone, and First Man, her grandson, sang songs to the beautiful sky to bring down the rainbows and rain, and help create a new world.  They instructed their descendents to sing songs as they walked the land, and they would truly live.  

      This reminds me of C.S. Lewis's Narnia books.  In "The Magician's Nephew", Aslan, the Christ figure, is pictured as singing all creation into existence.  I loved this idea and how it is described.  Scientists tell us that the universe is "a symphony of vibrating strings."  A writer whose name I don't remember called the Universe "One Song."   And I love to think of each of us as a song of God, which goes on and on forever, inseparable from the Singer.  

     Singing is an absolutely essential spiritual practice in all the world religions and traditions I know of.  People who study such things say that when we hum and sing, the vibration greatly increases our well being in subtle but real ways.  And it matters not at all if we have a nice voice or can carry a tune.  The thing is to sing.  (think of it as sort of like a cat purring!)

     In the past, I have tended to stick pretty much to singing and humming familiar songs, made up by others.   But lately, out here, I have been inspired by the example of Native Americans to just make up my own as I go along, and its great fun.  I like to think you will be inspired by these pictures and words to make up your own songs/chants too, or at least whistle or hum something that makes your heart sing.  

Let's all just hum along with the One Song and Singer!