THE HUM OF THE PARTS

Claire BenyonTintinnabulation is an area I sometimes wander into when I am searching for answers – in my life, my music, my work. In my dark hours, I have the certain feeling that everything outside this one thing has no meaning. The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises – and everything that is unimportant falls away. Tintinnabulation is like this. The three notes of a triad are like bells. And that is why I call it tintinnabulation.” Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt

Part is referring here to the musical ‘device’ he uses as a structural framework for many of his compositions. He writes first of his personal concerns and promptings and then – or so it seems to me – moves through those into the realms of the deeply impersonal and universal. When he speaks of his search for unity I hear the word ‘unity’ as synonymous with harmony (ref. the 4th Ray way of ‘harmony through conflict’) and relevant to each of us as we navigate the complexities of our current world situation.

“The three notes of a triad are”, he says “like bells”.

In his book ‘Radical Wholeness’, author Philip Shepherd writes of our human body as a bell – an instrument whose clarity and resonance depends on how tenderly and diligently we care for it. A bell stuffed with cotton wool balls, detritus or clutter will be rendered mute. It will not be able to sound a clear note. The same can be said of a brain ragged with too much mental activity or a life overly-stuffed with ‘must do’ lists, too much time spent on the internet or cycles of endless busyness.

It seems one of our (t)asks when it comes to building – and maintaining – group consciousness is that we take full responsibility for our individual instruments. Group coherence, resonance or cohesion depends on us doing our personal work. Ideally the two will run alongside and in support of each other. The wellbeing of the one is vital to the other – and vice versa. We need each other if we are to create safe containers that support radical self-enquiry and healing processes that are effective and enduring.

In our increasingly noisy and chaotic world, there’s a disconcerting emphasis on consumerism and quick-fix satisfactions, on the materially extraneous rather than the spiritually nourishing and essential – and a corresponding need for ‘places of pause and poise’. As in music, the spaces are as important as the notes themselves. Without spaces, music ceases to be music. It becomes noise.

How then might we create ‘meeting places for connection’ in our everyday lives and communities – ‘secular altars’ where we accommodate each other and ourselves with tenderness, where differences can be set aside and people of all nations, ages, genders and spiritual traditions can come together in a spirit of co-creativity, transparency and goodwill? There is a growing need for groups like these – Martin Luther King referred to them as ‘beloved communities’ –, groups grounded in our every day realities as well as elevated and deepened by our virtual, online communities.

It is generally acknowledged these days that the larger part of communication takes place beyond speech, through body language, via energetic exchange, telepathic attunement and the realms of the non-verbal. Listening is considered a more direct route to understanding than speech.

I appreciate what evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis said on the subject of collaboration and communication across kingdoms,

“Our destiny is joined to that of other species. When our lives touch other those of different kingdoms – flowering and fruiting plants, recycling and sometimes hallucinogenic fungi, livestock and pet animals, healthful and weather-changing microbes – we most feel what it means to be alive. Survival seems always to require more networking, more interaction with members of other species, which integrates us further into global physiology…”

If, as Margulis posits, it is teamwork that enabled life to spread on Earth, it follows that teamwork will be required to support and sustain it.

I’m very much looking forward to linking with others in a harmonizing group process during the coming Community of Living Ethics gathering. I love the visual image of North, South, East and West coming together to form a constellation of light, grounded in Umbria and emanating outwards across hemispheres, time and space.

This process of constellating has already begun and will continue to brighten and intensify as we approach our ‘actual’ meeting time. I visualize us participating together in a multi-faceted, multi-layered co-creative building process using ‘ingredients’ readily at hand – canvas, cotton thread, beeswax, silence, the body and voice. It will be a synthesizing process that weaves together our common experiences and uncommon stories.

Processes of ‘making’ offer us all a much-needed counterbalance in a time and world all too often hell-bent on ‘breaking’ and ‘taking’ and can engender a sense of hope and inclusivity, of empathy and connection. Simple creative activities are a means of bringing more light, wonder and beauty into the world.

Claire Beynon  |  August 2018

Claire Beynon
Claire is a South African-born artist, writer and interdisciplinary researcher living and working in Dunedin, New Zealand. Her special passion is the Arts as instruments of teaching, healing, environmental advocacy and peace-building.  Over the years she has developed valued collaborative partnerships with fellow artists and writers around the globe and has participated in a diverse range of interdisciplinary adventures with scientists, musicians, esotericists, composers and filmmakers. Two summer research seasons in Antarctica [2005 & 2008] significantly altered her way of seeing and being in the world. The thought-provoking work of this collectible artist has been exhibited widely throughout New Zealand and abroad. 

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