The Seeker's Guide by Elizabeth Lesser

Author:Elizabeth Lesser [Lesser, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345516589
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-11-17T23:00:00+00:00

USING ART, MUSIC, AND POETRY TO SHAKE YOU UP

In an interview, musician Bruce Springsteen said that “one of the most socially conscious artists in the second half of the twentieth century was Elvis Presley, even if he probably didn’t start out with any set of political ideas that he wanted to accomplish. He said ‘I’m all shook up and I want to shake you up.’”

The young Elvis shook up an entire country just by the way he turned a phrase and moved his hips. He made millions of people wonder what exactly was going on. Myths and stories, and poems, songs, dances, and art, have the power to shake us up and make us wonder what our lives are all about. The translucence of a poet’s words, the soulful rhythm of a great song, the deep colors of a painting create a longing inside of us for beauty and magic. “This longing,” wrote the poet Rumi, “tastes like honey to adults and milk to children / It is the last thirty pound bale / When you load it on, the boat tips over.” Poets like Rumi always want the boat to tip over. They want us to live from the heart, from the “truth of the imagination,” as Keats said.

Poems and music are a sure way to bring us quickly into the Landscape of the Heart, since they speak its native language. The heart speaks in images and metaphors. It makes connections between the visible world and the mysteries beyond the grasp of our mind and senses. Ancient cultures relied on music and dance and the sacred word to stir the soul and create spiritual community. Shamanic traditions deliberately use powerful rhythms and chant to do “soul retrieval” work. The hymns, rituals, and spoken prayers of the modern religious traditions are no different; they add the fertile water of the soul to worship. Rituals like the Christian Eucharist—the sharing of wafer and wine as symbols of the body and blood of Christ—are rooted in the same urge to move from the dry landscape of doctrine into the rich atmosphere of the soul. All over the world, from Jews praying out loud at the Wailing Wall, to Muslims kneeling in the direction of Mecca, to Hindus bathing in the holy Ganges, people turn to symbol and sound and movement to connect them to the truth beyond the rational mind.

Soul retrieval work is something we all can do without getting too fancy about it. Any piece of music or writing—any art form that puts you in touch with your authentic yearning for a deeper spiritual outlook—can work. Music, chant, or drumming can be used to assist solitary meditation, or to facilitate group worship and prayer. At the end of the book I list my favorite collections of mystical poetry, as well as musical selections that move me in the direction of soul retrieval. You can also do what I have done, which is to collect poems and quotes that shake you up, and keep them in a beautiful box.

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