Unbroken Spirit of Mine: Inspiration from Musicians

Laura Dent
July 10, 2011

Dawn of Light

When I was 16 – like many young people in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s – I was questioning the religion I grew up with.  I was yearning for something  more profound, more expansive, more universal.

Just at that moment, when I was the most impressionable, my brother played for me this album:   Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes.

When I saw from the liner notes that the music was inspired by ancient Hindu scriptures, I glimpsed the vast possibilities of many spiritual paths.  That awakening launched me on a journey of spiritual exploration that I have continued to this day.

The opening chant I’ll play for you introduces the four movements of the piece – the four sides (remember “sides”?) corresponding to the four Hindu scriptures you heard in the readings.

[opening album and holding it up:] I’ve spent many hours gazing at this, and it’s amazing to see it again now.

Oh, and to let you know, I get so into this music that I can’t help singing along.  Feel free to observe, to close your eyes and have your own meditative experience, or to follow along with the lyrics in the program.  I encourage you to enjoy the music in your own way.

[PLAY “Dawn of Light …” “The Revealing Science of God: Dance of the Dawn” – 1st movement (“side”) of Tales from Topographic Oceans, 1974: Part One and Part Two]

To give you a sense of how important this music is to me:  when Noel and I got married a little over three years ago, that opening chant to Tales from Topographic Oceans is what I chose to play as my brother walked me down the aisle – the green felt runway in the woods – in the rain.

As I was listening to this album the first time when I was 16, I was reading this introduction, from Jon Anderson, the singer and spirit of Yes:

1st movement: Shrutis. The Revealing Science of God can be seen as an ever-opening flower in which simple truths emerge examining the complexities and magic of the past and how we should not forget the song that has been left to us to hear.  The knowledge of God is a search, constant and clear.

Now, many years later, I find that these words express my personal creed:

“The knowledge of God is a search, constant and clear.”

For me, this means:

Direct experience of the divine – God, or Spirit, or the universal – is an ongoing exploration.  And when Spirit speaks to me, that voice is clear:  the still, small voice.

Sometimes I have to be very quiet to hear the voice of Spirit.  And through this music – I learned to listen for that voice.

The Ancient

When I listened to Tales from Topographic Oceans again to prepare for this talk, the line that jumped out at me was:

“Attuned to the majesty of music, they marched as one with the earth.”

That’s from the third movement, “The Ancient:  Giants Under the Sun.”

In Music and the Mind, Anthony Storr writes:

“No culture so far discovered lacks music.  Making music appears to be one of the fundamental activities of [hu]mankind.”  There is even speculation that singing preceded speech.

Any time we sing we are bringing joy to ourselves.  Any kind of melodic expression is almost by definition spiritual, and spiritually uplifting in some form.

The Sacred Sound

My husband Noel asked me recently, “If you hadn’t found Yes, then what?”

I responded, “If it hadn’t been Yes, it would have been something else.  I was already questioning. And, Eastern spirituality was already prevalent in the counterculture, and in the music of the time.”

For instance, I heard this, from the Moody Blues.  Here I invite you to go into a meditative space, even to sing along to feel the vibration.

[play “OM” The Moody Blues – “The Word” (spoken poem) + “OM” from In Search of the Lost Chord, 1968: ]

The ancient sacred sound of OM [pronounced “AUM”] resonates deeply in the body.  In the yogic tradition, the vibrations of the sounds travel up the spine and stimulate each of the chakras, the energy centers of the body.

The deep sound “AAAH” starts in the first chakra that roots you to the earth, setting a strong foundation.  The sound travels up (AAH, OH, OOOO)  through the navel, the solar plexus, the heart chakra, the throat, the third eye, then to “mmmm” as a high vibration in the crown chakra that connects you to the cosmos.

“To be in tune with OM is to be in tune with All.”

The Chord

The “OM” song is from the Moody Blues album In Search of the Lost Chord.

The piano piece I played at the offertory is an improvisation on a chord I’ve been playing since my sophomore year in college, a very difficult time in my life.

One day after playing the piano in the studio, I came running back to my dorm room and announced to my roommate:

“I just found the chord that says everything there is to know about me.”

She replied, in all seriousness, “You’re lucky to have found it so young.”

That’s how I feel about Yes music:  I’m lucky to have found it so young.

Spending My Life

Another powerful musical inspiration for me was when Noel and I got together, seven years ago now.  One evening I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and he was in the living room playing the piano.  As I listened to him playing, I felt deep within me the certainty:  “I could easily spend my life with this man.”

A couple of weeks later, same scene:  I’m in the kitchen, he’s in the living room playing the piano.  It dawned on me:  “I am spending my life with this man.”

I’m sure you can understand, since you’ve heard Noel playing many times, including this morning – how beautifully he plays,  expressing the beauty within him.

The Finger Pointing at the Moon

The musicians I admire have the humility to acknowledge that their inspiration comes from a source beyond themselves, or perhaps deep within themselves.  After all, they are human – and they work with the very deeply-rooted human endeavor of making music, and expressing themselves through the poetry of the lyrics.

Joni Mitchell said, “It’s very hard, peeling the layers off your own onion.”

The Moody Blues said later, “I’m just a singer in a rock & roll band.”  Perhaps they were tired of people looking to them to be “gods.”  But what did they expect, with that “OM” song?!

Like the Zen saying, “The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.”

I realize that my experience of Yes, and of other musicians, is like the finger pointing at the moon.  They’re saying, “Don’t look at me, look where I’m looking.”  I receive from them, through their music, the inspiration for my own spiritual growth, my own experience of the moon.  (Wow.)

Unbroken Spirit

Many decades later, I’m still in touch with my original musical inspiration.

Just two months ago, I saw Jon Anderson, now the former singer of Yes, in a solo concert.  I was thrilled to discover that I still love Jon!  (And I mean that in the most spiritual way, of course.)

It was a joy to sing along with Jon to the opening chant to Tales from Topographic Oceans, as you heard earlier.  Afterwards he said to the audience, “That’s a LOT of words!!”

Jon had a respiratory illness from which he nearly died – twice.  He told a story of being rushed to the hospital – and somebody in the ambulance asking for his autograph!!

Jon was ousted from Yes – his own band – who wanted to keep touring when he was sick.  So he had been through his share of challenges.

At that concert, Jon played this song, Unbroken Spirit.  Again you can find the lyrics in your program.

[PLAY Unbroken Spirit]

That’s Jon, forty years later!  His new album is called Survival and Other Stories.

There’s a new husky quality to his voice, after his illness and recovery, that underscores his message of optimism in the face of adversity.

La Grandezza dell’Anima

Recently I received a similar inspiring message from another beloved musician and dear friend, Aldo Tagliapietra, whom Noel and I visited in Italy last year.

A couple of months ago when our mutual friend in the music community, Rob, was undergoing heart surgery at 42, Aldo wrote to us one of the most beautiful statements of the purpose of spiritual growth I’ve ever heard:

(I’ll give you my English translation first, and then Aldo’s original Italian.)

“Life very often puts us through terrible and unfair trials, but our faith gives us hope that all this serves to increase the greatness of our soul, (and here the Italian is particularly beautiful:  “aumentare la grandezza della nostra anima”) and the greater our soul becomes, the more we are prepared one day to be united with that All that pervades all and contains all.”

And here’s how Aldo wrote it:

“La vita molto spesso ci sottopone a delle prove terribili e ingiuste, ma la nostra fede ci fa sperare che tutto questo serva ad aumentare la grandezza della nostra anima e più grande diventa l’anima, più siamo preparati un giorno ad unirci a quel Tutto che tutto pervade e che tutto comprende.”

Aldo gives us a new possibility of the meaning of faith:  Our faith can give us hope that through the trials of life, we can expand our soul to prepare ourselves to join with the ALL.

Wow.  And the amazing thing to me is, that’s just Aldo being himself.  He just tossed that off in an email!  in support and compassion for his friends in need.

There’s a sense of divine wisdom flowing through him, and that he is a clear channel for that wisdom, after spending several decades developing his spirituality and expressing it in his music.  Again, the finger pointing at the moon.

All Things Must Pass

When George Harrison, another enlightened being from the music world, was on his deathbed, his doctor said he had never seen anyone who was so unafraid of death.  George knew:  “All Things Must Pass.”

Still, as Aldo says, our faith gives us hope that somehow it’s all worthwhile.

Since we don’t know what happens when we die, what happens when we live?!

If all things must pass, what do we make of our lives, NOW?

Could it be that the purpose of our lives, of all the trials we endure, all the growth we achieve by peeling our own onion to find the core of love within, is to expand our souls so that we can glimpse the ALL, NOW, while we are still alive?

Well, these are the Big Questions.  And the music takes me there.

The knowledge of God is a search, constant and clear.

Sempre una Luce

Now I’d like to play for you a song by Aldo Tagliapietra – “Come un vecchio indiano” – “Like an old Indian” – again the connection to Eastern spirituality.

You’ll find the lyrics and translation in your program.  The song begins “Like an old Indian, I sit on the earth to listen to the breathing of the world”.

I meditated on that phrase this morning:

“ascoltare il respiro del mondo” –

“to listen to the breathing of the world” –

and got:

“I am breathing because the world breathes.”

Here are the words to the chorus:

Nell’oscurita esiste sempre una luce – In the darkness there is always a light

In ogni silenzio senti sempre una voce – In every silence you always hear a voice  (again, that still, small voice)

Nelle parole, anche quelle piu’ amare – In words, even the most bitter

C’e` qualcosa che ricorda l’amore – There is something that reminds us of love

“In even the most  bitter words, there is something that reminds us of love.”

In that play on words:  “amare” (bitter) / “amore” (love) there’s a profound message:  If we listen closely, with compassion for ourselves and others, to even the most bitter words, we can hear, behind them, the longing for love.

[PLAY “Come un vecchio indiano”]

Transformation

Here is my personal reflection as I was preparing this service – just some notes I jotted down that I then realized were a poem!

Not just unbroken spirit –

expanded spirit –

growth is its own imperative –

why does a flower grow?

why does a soul grow?

because that’s what souls do.

sometimes there’s a transformation required –

darkness into light –

bitterness into love –

and that transformation itself expands the soul.

… aumentare la grandezza dell’anima.

Blessed be.

Benediction:

“May you always find the light in the darkness – the voice in the silence – and the compassion to transform bitterness into the love that expands your soul – aumentare la grandezza dell’anima.”