Music that Heals
Music, art, and togetherness are not privileges, they're essential. Here's a quote from a conversation I recently had with a top voice in the global scientific community:
"The world needs more music and art together to meet the crises of our times. There may be no more direct pathway to better health and community, and no more enjoyable one as well." — Dr. Dacher Keltner, on Music in Residence Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley, founding director of the Greater Good Science Center, and scientific advisor for Pixar's Inside Out
As a lifelong musician and someone who has experienced life and loss deeply, I have one thing to add — I'll address music specifically, but it applies to all art.
Our world is in need of healing, yes. Music can bring that healing, definitely. But, not just any music...
There is an important distinction, that, if not realized, could lead us to believe that all we have to do to increase the healing power of music in our world is to increase the amount of music in our world.
But that's not true.
In fact, simply increasing the amount of music in the world is likely to leave us worse off than when we started.
If it's simply a matter of increasing the quantity of music, then all we have to do is press a button and our problems are solved.
But if a certain quality is needed, then our approach should change.
Music that heals flows from an artist who is experiencing healing through their creative act. That's the distinction.
It means that artificially-created music — whether from a software program or a programmed human — may point to healing, but it cannot carry it.
Our approach, then, is to find ways to support the conditions in which our artists can experience healing through the act of creating.
For someone to act and think creatively, they must be open. In order to be open, they must feel safe and supported, so that their system can naturally move from fight-or-flight — which closes and restricts — to creativity, generosity, and openness.
Picture the way a child plays when it feels safe. Open. That is how it looks for an artist to create. It's how it looks to be human. Children are great teachers in this respect, and so are great artists.
A non-negotiable element for an artist to do their best work is a deep sense of foundational support. This can come from within — but it can also come from the community.
What's needed today is not the pressing of buttons. It is the turning of attention, and the shifting of a mindset.
The science is clear, and we knew it before the studies: music brings well-being.
The world is realizing that music, art, and togetherness are essential.
Our current system does not support this realization. In fact, it profits from our not being well.
Suicide, addictive behaviors, substance abuse, chronic pain, war — all continue to grow.
The current system offers ways to escape our pain, but we don't need more ways to escape. We need ways to heal.
We have a way.
It starts with us. With our attention and with our resources.
As long as we're willing to buy escape there will always be someone there to sell it to us.
But healing will come the moment we shift — our attention, our resources — in the direction we actually want to go.
Music from an artist who is healing, heals.
The vibrations of sound carry the quality of the artist's experience to the world, and into the hearts of others.
That is how music heals.
If the science is correct — if music, art, and togetherness bring healing — and if I am correct — if healing-artists create music that heals — then our next step is clear:
Not to press a button, but to make a choice: to shift our attention and our resources to provide foundational support to the artists in our world.
We've created an organization to help facilitate this shift. We believe the best way to approach this is to start locally, with the artists who live here with us. We believe that if we start here, tending to the roots of our culture, this shift will make its way throughout the whole system.
And we can take this one step deeper: the most "local" we can get as human beings is our own heart...
Focus on your heart. In this moment, what does your heart say it needs most in order to feel supported and safe? Can you shift your focus away from "out there" — in the world, on the Internet, in the headlines — and move your attention and your resources to the voice within you that is asking for something right now?
Can you give that something to your own heart today? Trusting that the rest of the universe will find a way to be OK while you give your attention to where you are? And that, maybe, this shift will make its way throughout the whole system?
The night is always darkest just before the dawn. It's time to open our eyes. We are the conduit for healing in our world.
It starts with us.