Photo by Richard A. Huston
July 2004 | From the Editor
A Song for Summer
In this month’s feature story about seeking natural therapies for HIV, patient Joel Davis gives significant and touching credit to his singing in the Seattle Men’s Chorus. Joel tells writer Joe Follansbee that the singing lets him step above the constant threat HIV poses.
What Joel says is likely true for many singers: Using your voice feeds your soul. In some ways, it provides more life than any drug.
Others might get the same feeling from cooking for loved ones or tending to the organic vegetables in a garden plot. Each of us has a favorite sense — or one we feel most confident using.
As we kick into full summer mode, it’s time to remember those senses. Perhaps you can use the longer daylight to nurture one — smell? taste? sight? hearing? touch? — that has been overlooked or underappreciated in your life.
For me, it will be finding my way to the hiking and running trails. My legs will benefit, sure, but what truly blooms like trailside wildflowers is my senses. I smell the fresh air, taste a few berries or mint leaves, see (glory to the Pacific Northwest) mountains and water, hear the birds and feel the texture of leaves, tree bark and my children’s hands in mine.
It’s all about feeding the soul and making it a spiritual summer. The majesty that nature provides is the perfect backdrop for me. But so be it if the path for you leads to a piano on a rainy day or sitting at a knitting circle. Just let’s agree that Internet browsing or TV viewing doesn’t quite fit the soul-sensory experience.
Summer is our chance to slow down, take life in drops rather than the usual morning-to-night, Monday-to-Friday rush. In his classic 1970 book, “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”(Weatherhill), which for some reason I have donated to second-hand stores twice and repurchased twice, author Shunryu Suzuki provides some inspiration for finding the right pace for a spiritual summer:
“I went to Yosemite National Park, and I saw some huge waterfalls. The highest one there is 1,340 feet high, and from it the water comes down like a curtain thrown from the top of the mountain.
“It does not seem to come down swiftly, as you might expect; it seems to come down very slowly because of the distance. And the water does not come down as one stream, but is separated into many tiny streams.
“I thought it must be a very difficult experience for each drop of water to come down from the top of such a high mountain. It takes time, you know, a long time, for the water finally to reach the bottom of the waterfall.”
Enjoy the summer and the special song it brings for each of us.
— Bob Condor
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