People say “Stop and smell the roses”; I say “Stop and listen to the music” but don’t really stop because if there is music then there is movement, there is dance.

Music is everywhere, all the time. You just have to listen. Okay, there is the obvious music – leaves rustling, birds, squirrels chattering; and the sound of the wind. Some of you may hear the music of traffic – different cars make different sounds, even the rhythm of a line of cars going over a speed bump. The cacophony of honking horns, some with high notes, some with low added to the revving of motors – the varoom, varoom and the bleat, bleat – can you feel the beat?

And the magic? I’m always playing music in my head – it’s not imaginary music, it’s real – I hear it, and dance to it. Did you ever watch people walking on a busy street – they are all walking in different rhythms, and don’t you add the melody to the beat – in your head? If you are part of that crowd, don’t you pick up the rhythm and walk along to it: sharing the music, sharing the rhythm. There’s magic in that. In that moment in time you, and all those other people, are communicating, sending, back and forth, calling out to each other, call and response. It’s magic.

I love the music of the city. There’s a church nearby whose bells toll each hour; the Mr. Frosty truck that comes by each afternoon, the sound right this minute of a car going by outside the house – first a low swoosh that crescendos and fades; loud trucks, soft cars; some take longer to fade, and I sway to the swoosh.

People remind me of songs – That song and that person will forever be connected in my mind. Some times it’s their song I hear. The song that is THEM; that is their heart beat, their life force dancing through their body and brain.

We are music. The first sounds we hear are music – the beating of our mother’s heart; of our own. The low notes – we hear them first. Warm, dark, comforting. Rhythm – babies love the rhythm – rock them and they are soothed; swing them gently back and forth; our earliest memories, our first memories, are musical – rhythm and melody. The beat of the heart, the melody of the movement of the fluid we float in…our first memories. We share these memories, tho different rhythms and different melodies, and sing out to each other – hear me, hear my music.

Listen – the world is never silent, nor are we. Clear your mind and then listen – can you hear your song? Can you hear mine?