THE DEEP MAGIC OF MUSIC (and a playlist spell/blessing for you)
THE DEEP MAGIC OF MUSIC
(and a playlist spell/blessing for you)
Music is a portal. A blessing. A prayer. A time machine. A reflection of every single part of you that has ever existed and will ever exist.
Yes, it is that dramatic.
Music is the ultimate form of magic in the mundane - , a moment maker, a feeling shaker, a magical concoction of connection that makes life SO GOOD.
Music Moves You.
And any Messy Bitch knows the power of the perfect song playing in the perfect moment. In fact, it has been a form of divination more potent than any card I’ve ever pulled.
Like one time, I was living in Portland, Oregon and in major heartache. I just ended something with sweet Ryan, a man who loved a good story and was more committed to putting on a show than he was to being real and vulnerable in the moment. So off I went, heavy heart in tow, feeling sad and lonely.
It was the kinda sad where your whole body moves slower like that old Photo Booth filter on a Mac laptop where you moved and swooshed. I realized later it had very little to do with sweet Ryan and everything to do with a sense of loneliness I’ve always carried with me. I was in the corn maze of my feels with no exit sign. So I prayed for a sign. I needed a freakin big one.
One rainy afternoon, I set off to go write the moonscopes for the company I was working for in a little tea shop on 23rd street, choking back tears and moving like ground was made of molasses. I entered the dark tea shop, ordered my drink, sat by the window with rain drops that were rolling down adding to my emo feel, and settled in to work.
Suddenly — I heard the beginning of a haunting sounding synthesizer, a quick little rhythmic beat, some subtle, echoey guitar riffs.
Mmmmm…Im on fire
Halfway into my tulsi chai with my nose buried in my ephemeris, I swear , it was like it was playing for me, like God put these magical headphones in my ear. Time stopped . I sat in awe, and couldn’t not hear it If I tried. I found out later it was the song I’m on Fire by Bruce Springsteen. I’m not sure if I ever heard this song before.
And it was on this damp, cloudy, October day in Portland, Oregon — I rediscovered God and myself in a tulsi chai and a Bruce Springsteen song. And here’s the thing — I don’t even love Bruce Springsteen’s music, and the lyrics of this song had nothing to do with my particular situation — but for two minutes and forty-one seconds, I didn’t feel alone in the world.
And that is fucking magic.
More recently, right as everyone was starting to get vaccinated a few months back and the world was opening up, I went to Sarasota, Florida. I was with my most audacious, powerful, bold-hearted babes, adorned with wild dresses and face gems, feeling the intense nerves and subtle excitement of being in the world for the first time since the pandemic started.
We enter into the arched doorway of a small queer nightclub and were immediately greeted by flashing lights and I Feel Love by Donna Summer was blaring from the speakers.
Ooh fall and free, fall and free
Fall and free, fall and free
I was in shock, masked up in the corner still, not having been around a crowd of people in a very long time, and honestly — it brought up every single emotion in me that I didn’t even know I was carrying.
Fall and free
Ooh you and me, you and me
Fear. Overwhelm. Grief — big fucking grief. But also… it was hope. Awe of the moment and of humanity’s resiliency and the BEAUTY that is Donna Summer’s song and those who move their bodies to it.
You and me, you and me..You and me
There I was, crying at the club, tears gathering at the base of my mask and me snorting them by accident, burning my nostrils. And I start to move.
Ooh I FEEL LOOOOOVEEEEEEE, I FEEL LOVEE
I move the fear, grief, awe, celebration through me.
I feel love, I feel love
I swirl my hips and start to sing, letting this song be like a prayer.
I feel love
There were no thoughts. There was simply being in a body, being a human, and dancing in the divinity that is being alive. I watched as people in leather ass-less chaps flung themselves around to the song, as my friends were moving with the magic, sweet surrender swirling with us, and hope holding us all the while.
Music is a ritual. It creates a space. It opens up doors and opens your entire being to an experience.
And maybe your Music Magic happens a bit differently, like when you’ve heard a song 10000X before, but suddenly one day it wakes you up and creates a stir in you that you didn’t think you were capable of.
Maybe a song played in your darkest moment and kept you on this Earth.
Maybe you expressed a part of you during a show or concert that you never thought was possible, and felt connected and truly seen for the first time in your life.
Maybe a song played when you were having mind-blowing sex and it was like you were making love to the music.
Maybe you played the same song on repeat without even realizing it and it coaxed you back down to your body.
Maybe music has helped you heal from heartbreak, or feel an etheric “hello” from someone you lost.
Maybe music made you realize you were already whole.
Or maybe it brought you home to yourself in ways you can’t really explain.
Music is magic. Movement is magic. Feeling is magic. Releasing is magic. Being alive and dancing again even though it’s fucking hard to be here sometimes is magic.
YOU ARE MAGIC.
SO…without further ado..I made a 2022 playlist that is meant bring the magic of being alive DOWN and IN your bones. It has a mixture of all kinds of music, from Led Zeppelin to Chumbawumba to King Krule to Diana Ross to Joan Jett to Nao. The theme being what I wish for you ;)
This playlist is a spell — a living, breathing blessing for you this year, from my heart to yours. When you listen to it, feel your body move in any way you can, and feel this blessing:
May 2022 be the year you see the magic in the mundane. May you have fun in ALL that you do. May you end up in the perfect place at the perfect time.
May you DANCE YOUR HEART OUT.
May you take big bites of life and digest it into your fuel to keep moving and groovin through life in the way only you can.
May you make love to the moment, to the mystery, to life itself.
May you have electrifying conversations, belly laughs, besties, and see the way life makes love to you right back .
May you revisit every past version of yourself and hold them in your heart and see just how fucking magical you’ve always been.
May you come back home to yourself and be surrounded by the beings, opportunities, art, places, that remind you that we will always, always dance again (literally and metaphorically).
May you continue to celebrate.
You are being guided to the exact things that make live worth living this year.
And so it is ;)
I love you,
Ani