One amazing tool we have to support our mindfulness practice is music. For me, there are certain songs that help center me in my heart.
Music helps us bypass our minds and gain direct access to the tender and sometimes cloistered chambers of our own innermost feelings.
And of course, music has been a constant around the camp fire and in the ceremony circle for as long as humans have sought to elevate their consciousness and harness the hidden secrets in their hearts.
In that spirit, I wanted to share with you some of the songs I’ve been listening to lately. These tunes often catapult me into a meditative state. Sometimes they command me to just sit and attend to the resonance in my heart.
Mostly, they soften and melt my sharp edges.
We all have this tuning fork within us…the one that stirs our soul and moves us into the deeper waters of our being.
And I appreciate that music is highly subjective and that the music of the spheres for one can sound like the devil’s dirge for others.
So, this is no way a definitive soundtrack of the heart. Just my soundtrack of the heart. And if even one of these tunes resonates for you, I’ll be happy.
Below, I’ve included a link to a Spotify playlist I’ve created and posted on my website. You can listen to it there or on Spotify. I’ll keep updating it with new songs.
Without further ado, here are the tracks, each with a word or two on why they’re on the list.
Trevor Hall
A Reminder
This song puts me in a trance. When I first heard it, I listened to it 30 times in a row. No exaggeration. Like so many of Hall’s tunes, the incantatory cadence hooked me right away. And then there I was, circling with him, around his reminder. For me, this song reminds me to come back to center and regain my footing in spirit and pure being. >> Listen Here
You Can’t Rush Your Healing
Darkness has its teachings. Love is never leaving. You can’t rush your healing. Confusion clouds the heart but it also points the way. Quiet down the mind, the more the song will play. In these lyrics we celebrate our confusion and our darkness as the vehicles and material for our healing. >> Listen Here
The Old Story
As I speak about often in this weekly newsletter, we all have our own narratives that haunt us and yet we continue to feed them with our attention. This is a meditation on letting go of that old story and the fear that belies it and, ultimately, about trusting yourself. >> Listen Here
Put Down What You’ve Been Carrying
Just like it sounds, this song urges us to let go of all that baggage we’ve been toting around and laboring under. >> Listen Here
Alexa Sunshine Rose
I Release Control
This song cycles through a simple series of lyrics with layers and layers of harmony and rhythm. Beautiful, calming, enchanting, and a little otherworldly, this song transports me. This is a good one to sing along to, committing again and again to releasing control and surrendering to the flow of healing love. >> Listen Here
Drums On Earth
Emotions
Because…drums.
Yaima
Gajumaru
The journey of the breath in all it’s beauty, challenge, potential, and scope. What’s possible when we step confidently in the direction of our soul’s dictate.
Free from all old stories
I’ve been told
I walk through the valley
of my own shadow.
Geoffrey Oryema
Makambo
Haunting. Ethereal. This song reaches out from the beyond the veil and draws you in. It’s twilight. The Golden hour is on the wane, and you feel the magic stirring. >> Listen Here
Leon Bridges
The River
The longing in this song, the bittersweet desire for union with God, Spirit, your own Beloved. The longing for absolution – to be cleansed and our conscience unburdened. It’s all here pulling on your heartstrings and thrummed out across Bridges beauitful, simple, pulsing chords strums.
Been traveling these wide roads for so long
My heart’s been far from you
Ten-thousand miles gone
Oh, I wanna come near and give ya
Every part of me
But there is blood on my hands
And my lips aren’t clean
In my darkness I remember
Momma’s words reoccur to me
“Surrender to the good Lord
And he’ll wipe your slate clean”
Take me to your river
I wanna go
Oh, go on
Take me to your river
I wanna know
Ajay Friese
Three Little Birds
A fresh and vulnerable take on the Bob Marley classic. Don’t know why, but this one touches me in the deep. >> Listen Here
Essie Jain
O, I love you
Who said lullabies are just for little ones? I’ve found that sometimes a well-placed lullaby will smite my heart unexpectedly with an infusion of pure tenderness. >> Listen Here
Cassandra Wilson
Harvest Moon
The singing crickets and sun setting vibe on this track will put you in a liminal state of consciousness. Like floating downstream on your back with an cosmos of milky stars spinning above you and not a single care in the world except tending to the love that’s spreading outwards from your heart. >> Listen Here