The Music of Life

Sometimes, while I'm waiting for something, I will go as still and quiet as I can and just listen.

​If I'm waiting in line at Target, I will stop thinking, stop checking my phone and listen to the hum of activity. If I get calm and present enough, I feel as if I start to harmonize with the hustle and bustle of the world around me, almost as if it's music.

We generally only think of nature as having these kinds of zen like sounds. But I swear, when I give it a chance, our human world has its own hum, its own unique rhythm and riff.

Right now, I'm in a hospital waiting room with my parents. We have 20 minutes to go before my dad will be checked in for a minor procedure. I was reading just to pass the time, but then I thought, I want to be here. I don't want this to be another moment where I'm waiting for what's next, because if I do that too much, I start to align with feeling I want to be somewhere else.

Practicing the art of always being present, of always feeling now is zen and mysterious and wonderful in its own way, is something I am still working at.

Because honestly, sometimes I do want to tune out a waiting room and read my book. But I wonder, what if I really could see all moments as precious gifts to be opened and received with gratitude? What would happen if instead of aligning with, I'll feel good when I'm back where I like to be, I instead aligned with, at all times, Now is good.

Imagine what that would send out to the Universe. A constant signal of, This is great, would amplify, magnetically attracting more and more wonderful, joyful, peaceful and blissful things to me. 

And so I put down my book, relaxed and just allowed myself to be where I am in this world. No escaping. No daydreaming. Just being.

I closed my eyes, quieted my mind and I listened. A man coughed. The air conditioner came to life and hummed quietly. The phone rang. The muffled sound of a car engine came through the walls. The air conditioner went off. People talked quietly. The man coughed. Another car rumbled down the street. The air conditioner hummed back on. The phone rang.

The more I listened to these seemingly disconnected sounds the more it all started to harmonize.

I relaxed even more, almost feeling as if I was melting. The sounds rotated, sometimes right on cue, sometimes chiming in at a spontaneous interval. I began to feel good and light, my energy opening and expanding and letting go.

I felt connected and like I was both a participant and an observer in a grand symphony. Just as I was really starting to let go and feel connected to that divine, golden feeling I get in meditation, it was time to go. We were called in, and ten minutes earlier than expected. And perhaps that is the true magic of letting go and being present - all resistance melts away and everything flows.