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Music’s Sacred Spaces
Curating a Creative Life — Monday Music
Music is a powerful tool. We can use it when we work out and to keep us company on a solo road trip. We can use it to create the ambience for a get together with friends and to accompany a spontaneous dance party. But even more, we can use it to support our mental health and even shift our focus toward a creative task. When I was teenager and young adult, I used music to support my mental health a lot, basically to soothe my sadness if I’d had my heart broken. Other times I listened to music when I felt lost, adrift, or disconnected from my path and purpose.
It’s something I still do and I am one of those people some might consider annoying, because I will put a single song on repeat because the lyrics speak to my situation, my feelings, or a specific moment in time.
The song, the music, the story in the lyrics, all of them can transport me to a place of catharsis, perhaps even wallowing (at least for a time), until they guide me (eventually) to a place where I can process my feelings. Sometimes I will sit, eyes closed, and let my mind travel through the images a song evokes for me. In moments like this, I am not alone because music is a dear friend who understands me, sometimes more deeply than I understand myself. In fact, I am convinced that when the perfect song finds me just when I…
