Special Offer for April 2017
EXPERIENCING THE COLORS OF THE SOUL THROUGH EURYTHMY
50 % DISCOUNT with COUPON CODE “Vowels”
Here in California, spring has sprung!
Spring has sprung in all of its glory. The bulbs have bloomed— and faded; the flowering trees are heavy with blossoms; the trees are thick with fresh new spring-green foliage.
Yet, standing before the mystery of the sacred year, we have not yet reached the point of Easter, the point at which the yearning human soul finds the certainty that Spirit is stronger than Matter, Life is stronger than Death.
In the week ahead, known as “Holy Week,” the spiritual seeker can go through a deeply cathartic journey by studying and contemplating the seven archetypal aspects of the human soul.
Although contemporary world-views may urge us to believe that our souls are merely the creation of our body chemistry or our animal nature, in fact our souls are born of pure, radiant spirit. Our souls have been created through the activity of the world-spirits, the singing of the seven planetary spheres.
Each planet has its own “Color,” such as RED for Mars, or GREEN for Venus. By deepening our experience of these, we grow to understand the colors of our soul, and also how to use the powers of each color when and as we need them.
Yet in EURYTHMY, we have a powerful and unique opportunity to understand the soul even more deeply through the gifts of language, for each Planet stands as an archetype behind one of the seven primary vowel sounds. Red Mars is the power behind Ā, the sound of boundaries: Green Venus is the power behind Ah, the source of wonder.
To accompany you in your journey, this monthI am offering a 50% discount (coupon code Vowels” on the VOWEL MODULE in my website, https://woocommerce-343166-1388959.cloudwaysapps.com/product/the-heart-of-eurythmy-part-1-the-vowels/.
Please enjoy these lessons as you read the daily Holy Week essays from my blog Archive, which will be sent to you daily in the coming week.
More about Vowels: The Sounds of the Soul
Life is a constant interplay between the external and the internal, the world that surrounds us and our inner world.
These two dynamics are reflected in language in the contrast between consonants and vowels.
Whereas the former speak of the world around us, its landscapes and shapes and forces, the vowels sing our from our heart to express how we are experiencing the world, in joy or pain or love or sorrow. They express our thoughts and feelings, as well as our impulses to do things in the world. Vowels are truly the language of the soul, and each of the vowels expresses one of the pure, archetypal human feelings. An exploration of the vowels can open up a whole treasure box of experiences for us. For many people, the feeling life is turbulent: for others it is flattened and dull. When we learn to feel deeply the power of each of the different vowels, it is as if we meet the blessing fairy godmothers whom we heard about in children’s stories, each of which gave one gift to the small child.
Indeed, as we enter the world of the vowels in eurythmy and speech, we realize how the vowels are the signature of the truly human. The depth of experience that we experience in the vowels is a world that will never be available to machines. The journey through the vowels is one more way in which eurythmy helps us know what we really are as human beings: human spirits living consciously in the physical-material world.
Each of the vowels has a special correspondence to one of the planets. The fairy godmothers I mentioned are like the gods or goddesses of the planets who have given to the human being mythological soul archetypes. These archetypes live in our feeling life and in the organs of our body. They support us as we learn to stand in our selves and develop our biographies on earth. They guide the different life cycles we pass through as we grow, leading us through archetypal life patterns in harmony with the planets. Nothing, however, is predetermined, and as we grow and develop, we also separate ourselves from the general human-consciousness, and become individuated ego beings. This entire story is revealed in the vowels.
In these essays I will concentrate on only seven major sounds, corresponding to seven major planets. I will, however, have to omit most of the diphthongs, or combination vowels, such as au, i, oi, and the like. Nor will I go into the differences between long vowels and short vowels.
Remember that any sound that can be made by the mouth can also be expressed in movement: the sounding and the movement are identical in nature. It requires a bit of practice, however, to be able to perceive how to vary a sound to express its unique coloring. In English we have what is called a “vowel cloud,” in that in addition to the archetypal vowel sounds, we have almost infinite variations on all of them. Linguists acknowledge, for instance, that the sound A (ah) is a basic archetypal sound, but in English we vary that to include uh and æ and many more sounds that exist as combinations between A (ah) and E (ā) or O (ō).
The most beautiful way to introduce the vowels is to bring them in the order that they appear in the classical romance languages, namely, AEIO and U (in English, ah, ā, ē, ō and oo). In this sequence, they tell a beautiful story of the unfolding and the maturing of our soul life. They can tell us the story of the evolution of a human being from birth to death, or the evolution of a loving relationship from wonder through separation to higher union. Essentially, they tell the great story of humanity, who has evolved from innocence through pain to self-conscious individuation, rising to love, from which the fruits of our biography can be offered back to our Creator, on a dearer and higher level.
These vowels bring love and clarity and grounded-ness to us. Enjoy your journey!
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