Harmonicmethodforwellbeing.com

We each have a very personal experience joining our soft voices in beautiful tones. As we co-create a unified, resonant field of sound we bring our attention to being together in sound, our awareness shifts to belonging and our unique voice becomes an important part of a new identity: that of synergy in motion. In the same moment we mobilize our collective will with individual intention we become a dynamic entity melded in sweet giving and receiving this woven fabric of individual expression into an up lifting, sonic tapestry.

In Harmony

As we let the outside in, we reach out with our senses. This inner/outer union is the place where our personal experience blends with outer stimulation. Interfacing with the eternal, we bring ourselves into alignment with our presence, our history and the external influences of the moment to lift us out of our mental chatter into a timeless awareness of flow. Our listening is the threshold and the beginning of deeper journeys within.

 

The listening is the foundation of vocal harmony.

 

We have ideas, rationale, standards, values, rules and we articulate them with language. But how are we with our feelings? Experiencing without judgement? Stepping into the unknown? Trusting and loving ourselves and others without evidence? Can we bring our insides, our intuition, our creativity, our faith, our love out to meet with external stimulation and stay connected to our internal guidance systems of our spirit and psyche? Is it willpower to lead a balanced and loving life, or do we have an internal guidance system that we depend upon for reinforcement when we are challenged so we naturally and more easily make the right decision?

 

I support the notion that I use a similar awareness of practicing harmony when I make value judgments and life decisions. I ask myself; ” Does this ring true for me? Do I resonate with this? Will this decision be a good fit for me? These questions are pointing to the fact that I am doing some sort of listening and feeling simultaneously to my own inner guidance system. Logic and rationale are of course my default means for weighing decisions. So, I say: "I think this is a good decision” is rationale based. “I feel that this is a good decision.” is just that. I am feeling the “rightness” of my decision.

 

When I listen to the “ring” of my truth, I experience visceral alignment with my thought. When I practice harmony, I am listening for the “ring” of my tones blending with the external. When it “rings” I know the harmony is true. I can feel and hear the truth in it.

 

I support my decision with the knowledge (logic) that I also checked in with how I feel (intuition). When both logic and intuition are aligned I have harmony in my heart and balance in my mind.

 

Try this out for yourself and check if it is useful for you. Listen to yourself in context of your imminent decision. Sit with the feeling of the decision and listen to you inner guidance. Reach for the conclusion that resonates in both realms of logic and spirit. Both are vibrational. Open up to the sensations of feeling harmonious.

 

Reach for the higher vibration.

 

In harmony

 

jim

Harmony Club is the invention of myself and the late Jan Emerson. We conceived of this gathering as a way to promote the benefits of not only singing together but deep listening and layered precision of voices to create resonant and harmonic chords. With experience we have noticed the additional benefits to this practice.

What happens in Harmony Club?

 

It is not about singing, although there is some very soft vocalizing

 

It is not about meditation, although the practice draws on our inner attention.

 

Harmony Club invites us to go within and learn about ourselves in an experiential way. In our daily lives we learn about “resonating” with an idea, getting “good vibes” from someone or some situation, we use the expression “that sounds good” when we hear san idea we like and we speak of living together in harmony and having harmonious relations.

 

The practice of Harmony Club borrows from many sources including: physics, ancient Sikh awareness, Western music theory, common singing skills, yoga, meditiation, circle singing and practices of inner awareness.

 

Our culture is geared to recognize the elements of creating harmony conceptually, as ideas, as theories but most of us have little or no experience with the elements of harmony, how we can create harmony intentionally or how it feels when we get it right. And how we can include this awakened intelligence into our everyday mind.

 

Literally, harmony is the relationship between two or more notes. Their relationship may not be pleasing. We are interested in creating harmony in pleasing, blended ways.

 

With this as our first goal, we use a variety of personal tools to enable a pleasing and blended sound. When we do this:

Our whole body benefits.

a. It has been established in many social and medical studies that singing together is good for our health. In fact, when we sing, our whole body is engaged and every cell in our body is vibrationally stimulated and aligned to our vibrational tone.

 

b. Our heart rate and breathing become stimulated and aligned in collective vibrational agreement.

 

c. Our circulation is enhanced and our mood is elevated. It is no/low impact and succeeds in enhancing our reactions and attention span.

 

d. When we awaken our senses to vibrational sensations and engage with these vibrations vocally we are using parts of our brains that we do not engage with logic, ideas, verbal or math skills. We create new neural pathways and expand our brainpower. The brain functions most likely stimulated are creativity, intuition, empathy, composure and peace of mind.

 

Our relationships benefit:

The experience of creating harmony together connects us in intention without using words or ideas. The experience is not intellectual. Listening is the key component to blending accurately. We listen with our whole body. It is feeling based. Our sensory engagement in harmony is an experience that only we can identify. That is why we participate in community but focus on our individual awareness while individually we identify our own harmonic experience. Our unique, individual participation is our authenticity in action. It brings us to meet ourselves in relationship where we respect and lift up each one together as we listen and align ourselves to the larger community. We learn how “right relations” can stimulate musical and social harmony.

 

Our community benefits in the ability to co-create safety and joy in a mutually safe and supportive environment. By listening and participating we co-create a sonic community interwoven with unique and individual expression. We co-create a safe context for social connectivity. When we are in the harmonic mode, we stop thinking and start feeling our way into a harmonic relationship. Ideas, politics, religion do not enter into this state. It becomes a condition of joy and grace shared by all. These qualities of joy and grace carry over into our daily awareness and harmony becomes a more likely choice in our behavior.

 

We are hardwired for social connection and acceptance. It is very important for our survival to be connected to our families, groups and institutions. So much so that we are at great risk of poor health consequences due to stressors of anti-social reactions and rejection. These stressors have been proven to lead to damaging health outcomes in a variety of consequences.

 

Considering all this, harmony becomes a practice that has potential for many positive outcomes and benefits.

 

AND it is great fun!

If you would like to discuss this article or anything in my posts feel free to connect with me.

In Harmony

jim

 

Hi Jim,

Harmonizing must be like smiling, If you don't feel much like smiling but give it a go anyway, the smile releases endorphins that make you feel happier. Perhaps teaching people to harmonize will also grow the seeds of harmony that would otherwise lie dormant. Regularly tuning in to each other MUST build concern, yes, and if the culture can establish concern for others as a deeply held value, everything good will flow from that.

 

And the power of its not being affiliated with words. It's la way of stripping religiosity away and leaving the prayer / spirit to do its work. When we stand in a circle and sing, nobody's asking about the things that divide us. Wonderful.

 

And harmony as a positive social "disruptor" is a fascinating metaphor...I can imagine spontaneous harmony clubs on street corners, or while people are waiting in line--it's a radical use of situations that normally engender stress and conflict. In waiting rooms, in hospice. In civil disobedience...

 

I was thinking last night while we were singing of the book the Japanese physicist wrote about water, how unkind words disrupt the molecular structure of water, and as we're mostly water, what it means to our bodies when we're immersed in a negative environment. And how singing seems to reset what is disturbed, out of alignment...I only encountered kirtan last year and found right away that chanting changes me for the better. And how empowering it is to be able to change from the inside out, in the presence of others doing the same. Groups can be terribly destructive or powerfully healing - I have an idea that once people encounter the powerful good of a sangha, they won't settle for less than real community.

 

So--long and short of it--may your harmonic method of wellbeing thrive and spread! Please do let me know if I can help -- beyond simply showing up and having a marvelous time :-)

Lori

"A different kind of math

...a description of the world that is feeling- based rather than number-based. Instead of commutative and exhaustive and exclusive, I wanted cooperative and nested an merged. Rumi says, "Why are you so busy with this or that? pay attention to how things blend". Could there be a description of the world that proceeds from the sensibility of union, a language of integration that derives duality, rather than a language like ours that begins with "terms" and tries to resolved them?"      Harmonic Experience     W.A. Mattheiu

My interprertation of this statement is this: We have been in-culturated into a language/theory based system of rational that pre-supposses the superiority of logic, common definitions of words and language and shared value for institutions. With a feeling based sensibility that values synergy and the economy of communication in a shared experience that accepts the individuals embodied sensations as unique, true and valuable. This adds up to new ways of evaluating both our uniqueness and our commonness in more nuamced ways. This new math empowers the individual to be more fully realized as an important facet of the larger picture.