Marjorie De Muynck - In The Key of Earth

It's been said that music can calm the savage beast. I keep a quote on my wall that reads, "the musician is worthy of the highest praise, for he can move all men to grieve." It reminds me of the ice storm that left my family without power or heat for eight painful days. We played games and wondered what was worse, the cold or not hearing our music. It was Elton John's voice we heard on the ninth day and everybody cheered. Life was back to normal.

When Marjorie De Muynck's cd came in the mail I must have played it over and over for two weeks straight. Ooh, the sounds are comforting and have a way of making a person feel as though they're inside earth's womb. The strangest thing started to happen, my living room felt charged somehow and the air felt alive. Three weeks later, I hosted a family party of twenty. Usually we're very loud, talk over each other and scatter. To my amazement, there they all were, sitting together in the same room, taking turns listening. The conversation was deep and connected. Could music have this kind of power? According to Marjorie, the answer is Yes!
www.soundhealingtools.com

Last week on Conscious Living, (www.talkshoe.com) she spoke about healing our bodies through music and the use of tuning forks. When laughter is slowed, all the musical tones can be heard, which is probably why laughter can be good medicine. I liked her experiments with sound. Crickets took on the sound of people singing, bees sound like birds and even cactus makes music when recorded. This is proof to me that we all resonate from one source. We're all in the band and when our hearts can vibrate in love we become a symphony.

Fool Proof Pizza Dough

A little flour and water with a pinch of yeast is probably the strongest family glue you can own. The ingredients are simple and the recipe is fool proof. Aaron called from the grocery store wanting the pizza recipe which I text messaged to his brother, Charlie. Confused, Charlie then texted me with his peanut butter and jelly sandwich recipe from first grade. (two pieces of bread, one cup jelly, one cup peanut butter)

Pizza Dough Recipe
3 1/2 cups flour 1 pkg. dry yeast 1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon olive oil

Dissolve yeast in warm water, set aside for five minutes. Mix flour, salt and sugar in bowl. Add the yeast mixture to center of flour, top with olive oil, knead together to form a ball. Add a tad more flour until not so sticky. Place in a buttered bowl and leave in a draft free oven to rise one hour. Punch down, let rise 30 more minutes. Divide in half and roll out to fit pizza rounds or cookie sheets. Top with pizza sauce, cheese, green peppers and onion. Bake on 350 15 minutes. Watch carefully, this is according to my oven.

Change

Today's a hot coffee and soup kind of day. The leaves are rustling around and the wind's making a racket, warning us of winter's arrival soon. Where do the years go and why did they leave so fast? The neighborhood has a new generation of die hards on bikes and skates. Yesterday's kids did the same thing but too much worry was attached to their stunts. Oh, wouldn't it be nice to steal back time?

Fly Me To The Moon

On July 20, 1969, my dad made us kids stop everything to watch Neil Armstrong jump on the moon. It bored us a little I remember. "This is something you can tell your grandkids someday!" he shouted. Neil looked funny jumping high as if in slow motion with the United States flag waving proudly in the background. "One small step for man, one large step for mankind," were Neil's famous words.
Well Dad, I got to listen to Story Musgrave talk about his adventures as an astronaut scientist who helped design EVA equipment, including space suits and life support systems for the Space Shuttle program. He's never seen an alien, but he did help design the Hubble Space telescope. He has seen the planets, the stars and was the only astronaut who went on all of the flight missions.
www.speakersbureau.com/story-musgrave.htm
Putting all of that aside, I can't get over Story's tremendous inner strength. His young life was something from hell, having lost his parents, brother, uncles and own son to suicide. He said he had to go to space to realize that nature was the true order of things. People who fish, plant flowers, or take hikes know this. We're not all rocket men but we can find a universe of balance with meditation. Five to twenty minutes a day in quiet contemplation outside will get the body in alignment for healing. It acts as a battery charger.

I called Dad to tell him and he was more interested in the 2008 presidential election. That's ok, paybacks. So I took my son Paul out for lunch with the windows rolled down. We turned on the music loud and John Lennon sang, "we all shine on! Like the stars and the moon and the sun."
Yep, that's what I'm going to tell my grandkids.