How Music Saved My Life. Really.
Station to Station, Meditation
Singing is essentially breathing. It’s deep breaths with the diaphragm. Then, intricately controlled exhalation. Smell the Inside of Your nose. Do it Right Now. It’s oxygenating, and it’s a big part of meditation as well, and there are so many ways all these activities cross over.
Settling down and relaxing into your thoughts, and the attempt to achieve nothingness and oneness is a common and worthwhile goal in meditating. An awareness of the moment, even if it’s only every so often, is an emotional and deliciously peaceful accomplishment. As for myself, I’m certain my life goes better with consistent, daily meditating. I’m perplexed as to why I tend to fall off the habit. I’m more productive, less stressed, and more successful in my goal sets when I do it.
I discovered that area of the mind while practicing my vocal skills. For that reason I like to incorporate vocalizing, what some people call “vowelizing” or “voweling” into my meditation. The om sound, the long aum, “aaaoooouuuummm”. Even incorporating the other vowels in there too. There’s physical reason for this. The brain is a physical organ, that sits just above and behind the sinus cavity, which is a part of the skull, and it resonates. When you find your own frequency, you find your own resonance that vibrates your sinus cavity and stimulates your brain, as an organ, and in turn your pineal gland. You shake off the salt. Bahlink! That’s the really good stuff. Put this together with the oxygenation that comes with the breathing and you’re really doing something.
There were times when I was singing, even on a stage in front of an audience, where I felt I was losing my body and I would almost fall over. My eyes were closed and I’d be holding a note and just float off and almost stumble. Then I’d giggle like and idiot. That’s Theta state. I can consciously achieve both Theta and Delta states now, almost at will. It saved my life once when I was spinning down an icy hill and slammed into a tree in my truck.
I knew I was not in control of the situation, the best thing I could do was to slump down and completely relax my body. That’s what I did, I essentially put myself to sleep (Delta), and slumped over in my seat belt. According to the forensics guy, my truck had to be going at least 75 mph when my truck wrapped around a tree. When I sat up, there was a branch the size of my head where my head would have been if I was sitting upright. My body was so relaxed when I hit that it flexed on impact and while I had significant spine and hip damage that needed to be straightened out, I suffered no broken bones.
I had some internal soft tissue damage to my endocrine system, and chronic pain for 15 years. I would gain and lose 5-7 pounds on almost a weekly basis. Staying in control of my metabolism was practically impossible. At the very beginning I used some muscle relaxers but I used zero opioids or other painkillers for the entire 15 years, only yoga, meditation, and cannabis when I could get it.
Don’t even get me started on the bullshit medical system in my country. We don’t need a health care system in our country out of some kind of love, we need it to protect ourselves from the monsters who would leave us on the side of the road when we suffer a terrible accident at no fault of our own, or at the fault of a derelict municipality that falsely claims the roads are sanded when they’re not.
I’m glad at least I could provide some entertainment value for the people who went by the auto yard to see my U-shaped truck, and couldn’t give a flying fuck about me. And for the people who had a nice laugh about my penguin walking for 6 months afterwards. These are people who would have been crushed like the bugs that they are if that had happened to them. Weak, stupid, clumsy trash. Americans are truly sadistic people, and it requires a lot of deep breaths to live here. Smell the Inside of Your Nose, Do it Right NowTM. If you are living in a humane country and you are horrified at reading this, be horrified, because it’s horrifying. Sadism is rewarded here. Honesty is punished. If you’re a decent person thinking about coming here, make a different choice.
This is how music, in a circuitous way, saved my life. Singing > Theta> Understanding > Meditation > Conscious Awareness > Delta > BAM! > Live to tell. Something like that. Somehow, the moment that the truck came out from under me and started spinning on the ice, I knew what to do. If I hadn’t practiced a lot of meditation and various relaxed states, and hadn’t developed the ability to go into Delta state, I’d probably be decapitated by that branch.
I hate the thing of “some good can come out of that horrifying thing”. I hate that so much, but I did learn an awful lot about health. I was 30 years old when that happened, and at almost 60 years old now, I’m pretty damn spry and healthy. I learned much about the endocrine system, and healing and how to deal with pain without drugs. It was however, very hard living for me, not being able to work my trade, barely getting by, having to give up my business goals, and looking like a morphing creature with constant weight fluctuation for 10-15 years.
I have a lot of meditation stories. Some of them are unbelievable, so I won’t even get into that, but I will say the intense focus that comes from a strong, private meditation session can work wonders for your station in life. It really can. You’ll have to find out for yourself. Read and learn about these concentration sessions, do some exercises. You live in a vibratory universe. Just be where you are, know where you are, and focus on where you want to be. Make it intense. Hold on, you might not even realize what’s happening before it’s too late! For real, like really. Shake the salt off that third eye. Bahlink!
There are mild sessions too. These help to get into the subconscious, creative part of your mind. It’s great for writer’s block. Writing flash fiction and going for a theta meditation are my favorite things to loosen up my mind. Theta, not to assume you don’t know, but in case you don’t, is that daydreamy place, where you forget where you are. You feel that sometimes when you’re in front of a boring schoolteacher but you’re having a good time anyway.
There are people who talk about meditation as a part of “manifesting”. Here’s my experience about that. With meditation it’s about moving yourself closer to your desired destination. As in, it’s a part of the work of getting there, and it’s not a small part of your movement to where you want to be. As far is the idea of meditation drawing your desires toward you, that could potentially be disingenuous. Adding it to your schedule of work and making it a part of your day is a thing of you moving forward toward your goals, maybe not as much a thing of drawing your goals toward you. I will only go as far as to say that adding it to your schedule can potentially have an exponential effect, used alongside doing the physical work. It increases your focus and intention, especially with an intense, vocalizing method.
I know the resonance, like a frequency that I need to get the brain massage going. I can hit that tone. Maybe you want to try it. Go ahead. It’s your brain. It’s your journey. Take a deep breath and find your frequency, find your resonance.
For Understanding,
Herschel (Commercial Herschel) Sterling