Unstruck Sound: Book of Imaginary Letters

Sound was late to the game. First was SILENCE. Anahata is the Ancient Indian word for the unstruck sound. This is the intention, the vibration that created the universe. Just like the Hebrew, Aleph, it is the will to begin creation. The moment just before movement. This silence is the Mother of Harmony.

Sound was late to the game. After silence, there was HARMONY. Everything was already in Harmony before sound arrived. Music was already playing before sound was born. Sound fell from music. Sound was late to the game. Sound is finicky. It needs air to travel through, ears to receive it, it needs consciousness in order to be “heard”. It needs an organism to unscramble vibration and decode movement as sound.

So here, I make a book to learn about the unstruck sound. My grandmother always said that the best way to learn something is to teach it. But it turns out that my best way to learn something is to paint it, shape it with my hands and turn it into art. This book is my learning the harmony that existed before sound. This is my sensing the qualitative aspects of sound. This is my sensing before understanding. This is a book filled with will. My experience of a powerful void in which one day, a knowing can be poured. This is my Anahata based on my imagination of Rudolf Steiner’s principles of Eurythmy, his system of movements interpreting the sound of the alphabet.

The alphabet. We think it so basic, we traipse around in it, barely splashing on its surface. We think we know it but ah there is so much to learn. We spell letters, not knowing letters are a kind of spell. This book is the way I start to go a little deeper into that void so that maybe one day, my words will be potent again.

As I go deeper, I find myself in the cosmos. Out there, into the whirling movement of celestial bodies that create the vibrations and make up the Harmony. Our hearts beat to this harmony. We participate. This Harmony strums our nerves and makes us conscious. It’s the music that wakes us up.

And then also, we SPEAK! We have the fantastic instrument that is the human body with which to contribute to this celestial song. And also yes, to communicate with each other and make our thoughts known. But OH to sing. How can singing, any singing, not be a prayer?

Now, I cannot take words lightly. When I say a word, the word begins from inside of me, from a place far deeper than my body. Now, when I say a word, I know that I create waves of movement that radiate out into space. Out beyond the range of my tiny ears and my tiny brain. Now, when I look up and say AH, I cannot help but imagine that I am a small light with a tiny body with which to whisper back to the planets my AWE.