Things that sing…

I’m not a follower of the crowd. Never have been. I do what I like without fear of fashion or trend.

I gravitate toward what sings to me. Whether or not it’s popular in the mainstream matters little to me. It’s all about what sets up a harmony with my heart and soul.

Sounds heavy you think?

Not really. It’s a kind a silent singing, or something that pulls you toward it.

For example, the sea. Always. I stand on the shore, smelling the sea air, hearing the waves and the wind, watching the colours and ripples change and undulate.

Or when I see my favourite dogs – a kind of melting need to touch and talk with only those who set the tune in motion.

Or ballet when all around me are thumping to zumba, being pulled apart by pilates or stretching into figures of eight with yoga.

No crowd-following, not me.

Instead, I’m at the barre, endeavouring to stand tall and stretch long and hopefully with balance and grace because the art form pleases me and sets up a song that only I can hear.

Or when I see silk and my fingers tingle. Or I handle a certain type of thread and pull it through fabric. Certain kinds of designs that I just know will set up a harmony. The perverse is true as well. I see goldwork, glaring in its aureate glory with its rigid threads and I cringe. No singing there. Not even a whisper.

In the garden – a respect of colour, a mild hum, but when I see white, I sigh and the tingling begins.

With exercise – a walk, quite fast sometimes, othertimes an amble – but usually solitary except for Dog and maybe OH. Because I need my surrounds to connect and one can’t do that if there’s chatter going on in one’s ear.

Same with swimming – sometimes I just leave everyone and swim away on my own because I want to feel, think, allow the softest singing to fill me.

And when writing – certain words. Be still my beating heart! And when they are strung together in a paragraph that is just right, one knows…

Ye Gods, you say!

The woman’s mad!

But if you really take the time to wonder why you like one thing more than another or even one person more than another, it comes down to something elemental. Something that makes one feel good!

With friendships, it’s like minds. It’s kindred thoughts.

When  kindred spirits happen in one’s life, there’s a feeling of completeness in their company. One knows without doubt that one has found someone to trust, to share and have shared things back, that there will be vast empathy and an interest in one’s life returned for the interest in theirs.

To me empathy is everything.

I’m blessed to have kindred spirits in my life – mostly family, but also a couple of very dear ones whom I would trust with my life. Some overseas (you know who you are!) as well.

They’re the true exemplars of harmonies and they round off this little expose brilliantly with bells ringing, setting up a carillon.

There are many songs happening in our lives. Indigenous cultures often speak of harmonies with the earth, sea and sky. They speak of such things in song and legend and the beauty of their cultures is the desire to preserve such elemental things in perpetuity.

Somewhere, in the growth of modern life and the speed of modern first world living, with the perpetuation of ego and the enhancement of selfishness, many have lost the art of ‘listening’ to life.

Hopefully, me and mine will preserve it always.