Tuning

This morning’s segment in “Transitions,” the other book Rebecca was kind enough to give me, talks about the “plan for good that is working in and through me,” and that as one releases resistance to change, one can become “attuned” to this plan.

That started me thinking about becoming attuned: what would it be like to be attuned to this “plan for good?” How does one go about it?

The first thought was about a passage in Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, in which He reveals, “Sorrow not if, in these days and on this earthly plane, things contrary to your wishes have been ordained and manifested by God, for days of blissful joy…are assuredly in store for you. Worlds, holy and spiritually glorious, will be unveiled to your eyes. You are destined by Him, in this world and hereafter, to partake of their benefits, to share in their joys, and to obtain a portion of their sustaining grace. To each and every one of them you will, no doubt, attain.” His plan for me, then, will play out over some period of time, but ultimately its end will be joyous. I can live with that.

Then I began thinking about what I know of tuning a violin. First you listen to the reference note, which is “A” above middle “C”. Once you have that pitch in your ear, you make a two-note chord with the “E” string and move the “E” around until the chord resonates clearly, a perfect fifth above the “A”. If it’s out of tune in the slightest you hear a “beat,” a vibration that happens when the waves of the two notes interfere with each other. You’re listening for the moment when the waves exactly combine to reinforce each other, which makes all the other strings vibrate in sympathy, indeed resonates with all the power that resides within the instrument—a nice example of the power of unity.

Next you make a chord with the “D” string, listening again for the pure interval of a fifth. Finally, you make a chord between the “D” and the “G” strings. It’s interesting that the “G”, which physically can’t be played together with the “A”, has to be tuned by only indirect reference to the “A”. You don’t ever move the “A,” and once you have it, it becomes the means of shaping every other note, really every note that can be played on the instrument, since they are all just some number of half- or whole-tones up or down from the “A”—what might be called the “primal point” that generates everything else.

But how might this work as a metaphor about being attuned to God’s plan?

I started thinking about the things I already knew about this passage of life; I started by listening to the notes already played. One is that Rebecca is not intended as my partner, not now, maybe not ever; the guidance on this seems clear, and it resonates within me now that I’m trying to pay attention to the soul’s own voice. Books have come into my life, all talking about this process of learning to hear the soul, find out its needs, and be open to new insights; and even more reassuring, that simply asking the question, committing to learning about one’s essential self, releases energies that impel one forward even when one doesn’t know the way. There is a new project at work, one that helps me to look forward and not toward the past—encouragement to keep on. And there have been other confirmations too intimate to share here; suffice it to say that, having made the first step, God has found ways of letting me know that things are progressing in harmony with His plans.

By extension—by using these notes to tune the other ones in life—what else can be known? One, perhaps, is that I needn’t stress about finding a partner. As essential as this is for me, as deeply as I know I must have a companion in life, I also know I need time alone just now. Love will come in its appointed time, neither sooner nor later than it is needed to continue and reinforce the harmonies already in my life; I need only try to be alert to its appearance. The search for inner knowledge about the true self must go on. Energy must be invested in work, in music, in writing—all these have been confirmed in the days just past, they are half- and whole-steps from those perfect notes.

When I pick up the violin now, for instance, it is becoming a new voice, almost a form of prayer, and it begins to bring the same sense of peace as prayer does. I’ve always played as work—especially when actually making a living as a violinist—and critiqued each note, each stroke of the bow. There is a place for that, but more and more I find myself playing notes because they sound good to me, they flow from something inside, they make chords with the music in my spirit.

If one thinks of a musical composition, there is order and purpose, structure and shape. Moments of intensity alternate with moments of calm. Now there is melody, clear and singing through all the textures that support it, then again there is development, where the composer tries any number of chords, of progressions, using some, discarding others, perhaps singing out the heart’s sadness in a minor key, but always building toward a new statement of the main theme, the central idea, that soaring melody that lifts the heart, brings tears, changes life forever. All this, built around a single true note.

Comments

[Amy Eades]

Music is prayer. I often think it might be prayer in its purest form. Because my primary "instrument" is my voice, I feel the changes in my very body that produce the sound, so that the song quite literally moves through me and I'm only the resonating chamber. Like the song "Oh Lord, make of me a hollow reed . . ."