knowing in/through music

Music (both singing and listening) became a means of opening up to other languages, an invitation into non- or trans-rational (Astin, 2004), ways of knowing and being. Music can quiet the thinking mind to enable a different sort of knowing, one that begins to heal the human loss of capacity to connect and communicate with the more-than-human world (C. McDade, personal communication, 2006).

Much of the collage and poetry was completed while listening to the music of Carolyn McDade, music that I also sang on a regular basis. The music, both in the singing and listening, provided access to counternarratives – both in language and form – which accompanied me on my journey.

Speaking of the most recent (2007) CD, sung by the Singers of the Sacred Web, McDade writes:

This music, drawn from the heart and words of the Earth Charter, pulls us to where waters run...seep...pool... We need these songs if we are ever to rudder ourselves through the narrows to a deeper understanding of who we are as planetary and cosmic beings, intent on the well being of the community of life of which we are inextricably a part. (CD launch poster, November, 2007)