Rides, ramblings and rants on a motorcycle.
- We are scientists, too!
8.02.2008,4:53 PM
Steal away
Have you ever felt as though the images or scene before you fill you with such a sense of fulfillment, a strong connection like the umbilical cord between a mother and her baby, a lightening of the soul, a freedom as though you can lift up your arms and fly, a sinking through your feet as though you were growing roots into the earth?
Or felt a motion that gently rocks you, as if you were riding a magic carpet flying through the air, swept by the loving hand of a breeze, or running the savanna on all four limbs, a streak in the dawning of the day? Have you ever had a chord, a tune, a song, a piece of music make you close your eyes and you become the notes as they caress you? Or move in time to a beat, a rhythm, a cadence that seems to infiltrate your body, your mind?
A review of a book that I recently read by Jessica Phillips-Silver described these sensations so eloquently. In her review of the book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sachs, she writes:
Does it transcend the limits of reason? Perhaps. But who am I to ask? Why do I want to know? I don't need to know. I only accept the sensations. Because I can feel.
I feel alive.
Or felt a motion that gently rocks you, as if you were riding a magic carpet flying through the air, swept by the loving hand of a breeze, or running the savanna on all four limbs, a streak in the dawning of the day? Have you ever had a chord, a tune, a song, a piece of music make you close your eyes and you become the notes as they caress you? Or move in time to a beat, a rhythm, a cadence that seems to infiltrate your body, your mind?
A review of a book that I recently read by Jessica Phillips-Silver described these sensations so eloquently. In her review of the book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sachs, she writes:
I know this sensation. Music, the desert, stately mountains, commanding canyons, a ride on a sweeping country highway, easy single track in the forest, a magnificent sunset. It takes me to places I've been, want to be; it suspends time, goes back in time; takes wing and flight; or sets me down like I'm a part of the very earth I stand on. It makes me feel like I'm on wing in the air. I am me and I am many things. Sometimes I am Nothing and Everything.
"Music 'steals' us. Far from a passive fancy that lies ready to be called on for the pleasure of our ears and minds, music acts on us. Like the song of the sirens, it seduces us, capturing the mind and body and holding them in its reins. Music has a will of its own when it steals up on us with familiar -even unwanted- tunes, 'brainworms" that we cannot shake. It taps into memories and emotions so deep-seated that they lie well below awareness in Alzheimer's disease until music brings them to the surface."
Does it transcend the limits of reason? Perhaps. But who am I to ask? Why do I want to know? I don't need to know. I only accept the sensations. Because I can feel.
I feel alive.
Labels: musings
