Harmony: how to resonate with the lyrics of the heart

by Karen

When we feel, a kind of lyric is sung in our heart. When we think, a kind of music is played in our mind. In harmony, both create a beautiful symphony of life.

Toba Beta

Crossing the rainbow bridge

Heimdall is the shining one, god and protector of the rainbow bridge, Bifröst. His name means radiant home. In standing guard of Bifröst, he is both the protector of Asgard, the spiritual realm and home of the gods, and its gatekeeper. Heimdall knows the future, can see for hundreds of miles by day and night and can even hear the grass grow. Only those he recognizes can enter the realm of the gods.

In old Norse the literal meaning of Bifröst is shaking and shimmering ice crystals in air. Rainbows are indeed shaking. They are vibrating. The colors of the rainbow are in a continuous spectrum with each spectral color a distinct wavelength. The human eye cannot distinguish between wavelengths close in range, but the entire color spectrum, which exists in a very narrow range of visible light, was arbitrarily divided by Sir Isaac Newton into 7 distinct colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

Also in music, each note and pitch is a vibration expressed as a wavelength. Humans have identified twelve notes on a musical scale, but each note has harmonic overtones that like color blend into the adjacent note. Harmony is the vertical aspect of music describing the simultaneous superimposed expression of various pitches, tones and chords in a pleasing arrangement to hearing. So harmony has the property of movement, of ascending or descending from a fixed reference note like the spectrum of a rainbow. For people with synesthesia, about 4% of the world’s population, color and sound are linked, in that when they hear a note, they can visualize its color. They can hear color. Because of this we know that color and sound are really the same thing, but typically processed differently by the human brain (visually vs. auditorily).

Likewise, each chakra energy center in the human body resonates at its own frequency, the smaller vibrational wavelengths (nm) becoming higher frequencies (THz) when ascending from root to crown, from red to violet. Their colors match color spectrum wavelengths in the physical world (for more complete discussion on this including the sounds associated with each chakra, see Chakra frequencies and correlations from chakrakey.com).

This bridge of the chakras sounding together harmonizes in beautiful rich, pleasing, ecstatic tones and overtones. With this sound, Heimdall, who is our imagination rooted in the spiritual world and connecting to all knowledge, opens the gates of heaven.

So what is the sound of the rainbow?

OM! – This Imperishable Word is the whole of this visible universe. Its explanation is as follows: What has become, what is becoming, what will become, – verily, all of this is OM. And what is beyond these three states of the world of time, – that too, verily, is OM.

Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, verse 1

The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, the 12-verse, principal and shortest of the 108 Upaniṣads from ancient India, is entirely devoted to Om. Rama and Hanuman discuss its importance in the Ramayana as the sole text needed to reach enlightenment. According to the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, the entire universe is resonant with the vibration of Om. NASA has recorded it in deep space. Listen to the Om of the Big Bang in my article First there was the Word.

Humans are born tuned into the field of Om by way of proteins called cryptochromes. Cryptochromes detect the earth’s magnetic frequencies. Further, human brainwaves, or alpha waves, are synced with the fundamental mode of the earth’s magnetic field spectrum. This wavelength, 7.83 Hz, is called the Schumann resonance generated by the electronic tension between the earth’s surface and its ionosphere and also describes our harmonic resonance with the earth. This explains why it feels so good to be in nature because it actually is healing to the body to tune into and harmonize with the earth’s magnetic field.

The human magnetic field not only tunes into the earth’s magnetic field, but also with other magnetic fields. Magnetic fields are generated by all things, including but not limited to other humans, animals, plants, rocks, the moon, the sun, the planets, water and so on. This vibrational syncing is called harmonic resonance as when a guitar string is plucked and it vibrates the same note on another guitar, or when a tuning fork picks up the sound of its neighbor. Human harmonic resonance has been recorded in the syncing of heartbeats and breathing in a mother and child, between married couples and in larger groupings like choral singers and audiences watching a performance.

Harmonic resonance is a felt sense in the heart. It is the lyric of the heart, a vibrational tone or note, amplified when in relation.

The heart is the most powerful source of electromagnetic energy in the human body, producing the largest rhythmic electromagnetic field of any of the body’s organs. The heart’s electrical field is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain. This field, measured in the form of an electrocardiogram (ECG), can be detected anywhere on the surface of the body. Furthermore, the magnetic field produced by the heart is more than 100 times greater in strength than the field generated by the brain and can be detected up to 3 feet away from the body, in all directions.

HeartMath Institute

Heimdall sounds his resonant horn Gjallarhorn (“hollering horn”) when intruders approach Asgard. Its sound can be heard in all the worlds. It is also from Gjallarhorn that Heimdall drinks from Mimir’s well, the well of all knowledge and thus obtains his powers. So Gjallarhorn is both an instrument and a drinking vessel. Our imagination can choose which way to use this magical horn, to drink deeply from it universal knowledge or to break the connection with Divinity, live in disharmony and duality, fearfully blowing the hollering horn. Embracing all as personal, a unity of Oneness, is harmonious to our heart and brain. It vibrates the rainbow bridge Bifröst into Om and ultimately allows for ascension and entry into Asgard.

When you look at the sun, you behold your own eye. When you look above into the heavens, you are seeing your own head. When you see all people moving about, you behold the various parts of your own personality. The vast wind is your breath. All your actions are cosmic movements. Anything that moves, does so on account of your movement. Your breath is the Cosmic Vital Force. Your intelligence is the Cosmic Intelligence. Your existence is Cosmic Existence. Your happiness is Cosmic Bliss.

Swami Krishnananda, Mandukya Upanishad

Any activity that allows and supports that wonderful felt sense of the heart, harmony with all things, unity in symphony, is good teaching for children of all ages. This post contains 10 activities to cultivate harmony using storytelling, craft, games, music, meditation, mantra, and prayer.

Affirmation: I am in harmony with God. I am in unity with the vibration of all creation.

Chakra engaged: heart

What is God-given is called nature; to follow nature is called Tao (the Way); to cultivate the way is called culture. Before joy, anger, sadness and happiness are expressed, they are called the inner self; when they are expressed to the proper degree, they are called harmony. The inner self is the correct foundation of the world, and the harmony is the illustrious Way. When a man has achieved the inner self and harmony, the heaven and earth are orderly and the myriad of things are nourished and grow thereby.

Confucius

Science of Mind Foundation

WE BELIEVE in the unity of all life, and that the highest God and the innermost God is one God. We believe that God is personal to all who feel this indwelling presence.

Activity 1: Tell a story of a harmonious friendship

We cherish a good friend when we find one. While we may recognize everyone as aspects of our personality, there are some who simply move us into connection more deeply than others, by mutual harmonic resonance. This story highlights that kind of friendship. The Dog and the Elephant is an eastern parable, part of the collection of Jataka tales told by Lord Buddha. The Jataka tales originally come from the Panchatantra, which is one of the oldest texts from ancient India.

For men of good understanding will readily enough catch the meaning of what is taught under the shape of a parable.

The Lotus Sutra

In this parable, a street dog becomes fast friends with the king’s elephant.  Very soon, they are always together, eating, sleeping and playing together.  Since the dog is no more than a mongrel from the street, he is not thought of highly or cared for as is the elephant by the animal caretakers.  When a man offers to buy the dog, the elephant handler is only too eager to be rid of the poor creature whom he views as a nuisance. But without his friend, the elephant is bereft.  He no longer eats and becomes listless.  He no longer wants to take his exercise in the yard.  The handler tells the king who immediately gets doctors to come and check on the elephant.  No one can find anything physically wrong with the elephant.  What do you think will happen to the elephant and the street dog?

Find the rest of the story here on storynory.com.

The Dog and the Elephant

Happiness is mental harmony; unhappiness is mental inharmony.

James Allen

Activity 2: Integrate the story with yoga

Often I integrate stories with movement so that we can re-live or re-play the stories in our bodies together. This helps to memorize and embody the story. Sometimes I offer yoga movements, but usually first ask the children what movement would go with this story. In this way, the children take turns re-telling the story with their body. To put oneself into the physical condition and position of the characters engenders harmonic resonance, a felt experience that deepens our emotional understanding and empathy for the characters in the story.

For the story of the Dog and the Elephant I offer two yoga poses. The Elephant pose is not a traditional yogic position but one created for kids by Child-inspired Yoga. The author pairs it with a wonderful rhyme about the pose which is worth checking out on the link above.

• Elephant pose for kids – Extend one arm straight out from the face. This is the trunk. Place the other arm on the hip or bent behind the back. With legs hip distance apart, lean forward, putting your trunk between the legs.
  • For a variation, connect to one another and make an elephant train by using the your trunk and touching the head of the person behind.
• Downward dog pose – With feet hip distance apart and hands on the floor should distance apart. Extend through the legs and back, keeping straight if possible, hips to sky, heels on the floor.

In addition to Child-inspired yoga, I also recommend Kids Yoga Stories as a great resource for kids yoga.

Activity 3: Paint a rainbow

Kids universally love to draw and paint rainbows. Have you ever stopped to wondered why? It is one of the earliest color forms children master, starting at about kindergarten, but sometimes even earlier. The rainbow is a powerful symbol, a path to divinity. It is the internal map of our chakra system as well as Bifröst, the bridge to spirit. In this exercise, paint or draw rainbows with your child. Have the color touch and blend where they meet to create a spectrum. Imagine where it leads. Sing the colors as you paint them.

Activity 4: Rhyme play

Nursery rhymes to metered verse

Rhyme, rhythm, and repetition are important in language learning and also growth. Studies have shown that bone is built with repetition of rhyming songs.  Read Mother Goose and other nursery rhymes such as Baa, Baa Black Sheep and Row, Row, Row your Boat often with your children. Rhythmic phrases and little story chants stimulate, strengthen and open heart and soul, like sacred mantra just as they do in the ancient tradition of chanting.

As your children age into the school years, progress to metered poetry and verse. The trochaic tetrameter (as in the epics Kalevala and Hiawatha and Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Nights Dream) is especially pleasing to read and listen to as is the iambic pentameter for which Shakespeare and Chaucer are well known.

The rhyme game

We play the rhyme game a lot in my house or on car trips. My younger daughter made it up. The leader starts with a word and we each take turns finding a rhyming word until we run out of words. When we are stumped we start with a new word.

Rapping

Rapping is a fun, rewarding, mentally stimulating and harmonizing play for kids especially when coupled with beatboxing by a sibling or parent. Perform it as an act in front of the whole family.

Rhythm sticks

Another play prompt for finding the body’s internal rhythm is drumming. Use the book Max found Two Sticks by Brian Pinkney to inspire this play. Max drums on everything with his sticks, making music wherever he goes. It’s great to launch play with an inspiring story like this one as a prompt. After reading, kids dive into playing with sticks like Max.

Activity 5: Synchronous play

Game 1 (for 2): Human Mirror

Play at being a mirror to a partner’s movements.  This activity takes two players.  Stand facing each other. One person leads and the other mirrors the movement.  Continue for a set time period, about 5 minutes and switch.

Game 2 (for 5 or more): Who’s the leader?

This game can also be played with a larger group of 5 or more as the game Who’s the leader? 

• Stand in a circle. 
• Pick a player to be “it.” 
• The player who is “it” closes their eyes or leaves the room while another player is chosen be the leader to initiate a movement. 
• “It” opens their eyes (or returns to the room) and the game begins. 
• The leader will begin the play by initiating a subtle movement that everyone else copies such as blinking, shaking the head, laughing, etc. 
• The leader continues to change the movement with everyone else synchronizing their movements.
• The objective is for the one who is “it” to discover who is initiating movements.

Game 3 (for 4 or more): Rain

• Sit in a circle.
• The leader starts by rubbing their hands together.
• The person to the right does the same, the next person to the right copies, and so on until everyone around the circle is doing the action.
• When all are rubbing their hands, the leader starts a new sound, finger snapping, then hand clapping, next slapping thighs, try foot stomping.
• To end the storm, reverse the actions.
• At the end, the group, one by one stops rubbing hands and sits and waits for action to be completed by the group.

Activity 6: Staring contest

The light which shines in the eye is really the light of the heart.

Rumi

This activity is just like it sounds, and partners stare at one another for a fixed time period. This activity differs from the classic in that there are no losing for blinking. Partners simply stare deeply into each other’s eyes for a fixed period of time, about 5 minutes.

This activity can bring up discomfort in the form of giggles but almost always allows the players to see beyond the physical and into the heart of their partner. For adults, “being seen” in this way can be very emotional.

Logically, harmony must come from the heart… Harmony very much based on trust. As soon as use force, creates fear. Fear and trust cannot go together.

Dalai Lama

Activity 7: Bask in harmonic resonance

I was born poor and without religion, under a happy sky, feeling harmony, not hostility, in nature. I began not by feeling torn, but in plenitude.

Albert Camus

To be in harmony with nature and the natural rhythms of the Earth one simply goes outside. That’s it. Studies show that today’s children spend more time indoors than prison inmates. Compounding this, children now face increased disruptions in their natural human electromagnetic biofield. These frequency disturbances are caused by other electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) from electronic devices, radio waves, microwaves resulting in depression, stress, headaches, heart palpitations, fatigue, trouble sleeping, tinnitus, body rashes and temperature fluctuations, memory and concentration problems and exposure to EMFs have even been linked to cancers.

He who is harmony with Nature hits the mark without effort and apprehends the truth without thinking.

Confucius

Feel-good activities for harmonic resonance

• spend several hours every day outside preferably away from cellular devices or EMF waves. Reconsider every indoor activity and choose to do it outside if possible.
• Observe and honor earth’s natural rhythms, the moon, planets, tides, and seasons.
• Forest bathing, shinrin-yoku
• Learn to slow down and really pay attention like Thoreau with Melinda Nakagawa of Spark In Nature (mentoring for kids and adults).
• spend time with a friends.
• turn off the breakers at night or go without power.
• make home a cellular and EMF-free zone, get a landline for home and keep your cell phone on airplane mode.
• sleep in a tent in the backyard.
• join a chorus and play music in a group.
• spend time with a pet.
• hold hands.

Activity 8: Chant AUM

Om is the mother bija, or seed mantra. Each chakra has its own seed sound (see Chakra frequencies and correlations from chakrakey.com). These short sounds resonate, amplify and align. They create the the foundation to longer chants. Om, also written and pronounced AUM prounounce with with 3 distinctive syllables to denote the 3 states of consciousness -waking, dreaming and deep sleep (also pure consciousness) connects, resonates and harmonizes all of the chakras, exciting and illuminating the rainbow bridge to higher realms. Each seed syllable vowel sound from root to crown when chanted as a thread is contained within the expanded mother bija, Om, like this: Ay, Ee, Uuh, Eu, Oh, Ah, I.

To Om with your children is a very powerful, life affirming and body building practice, more powerful than reciting nursery rhymes. It also builds focus, calm, and inner strength. In addition to chanting Om out loud, I also teach children to use Om as a toy.

Om is a toy for the brain

I explain it like this…

The brain is very busy. It loves to plan, to dream, to create, to remember things. It is often distracted by bright and pretty objects. It likes to grumble too and tell you its bored. It’s important to let our precious busy working brains rest, right? Everyone needs a little rest after a busy day and it would be nice to take a break from all the planning and thinking the brain likes to do and also take a break from the bad and scary thoughts brain sometimes has. If your brain has never taken time off it can be hard to do at first, so just like a small child, or a puppy, you have to give it a toy. The brain likes to have a job. It is very eager. So gift it the important task to repeat Om continuously while taking a little break from all your thoughts. And guess what? It works.

Activity 9: Meditate with your kids

Guided meditation is a great introduction to meditation with children. It can be introduced to young children in the form of storytelling and visualization. Several books provide wonderful visualizations for guiding children in meditation. This breathing meditation is modified from one of the same name in Buddha at Bedtime by Dharmachari Nagaraja.

Wave breathing meditation

Focusing on breathing is a time honored meditative practice because it harmonizes the mind, heart, body and spirit. Find a comfortable spot, indoors or outside. Sit or lay down. Relax.

• Take a deep breath in and out (3 times).
• Feel your body relax.
• Feel your mind relax, letting thoughts float on by.
• See your thoughts on the breeze like seeds of a dandelion, gently floating away.
• Feel your breath move in and out.
• Feel your chest and belly fill with air, getting bigger, then releasing air like a balloon slowly deflating.
• Now imagine you are standing on a beach. The surf is very gentle coming in and out, touching your toes as it comes in and pulling back the rocks and sand as it goes back out.
• Look around and see more seeds floating by on the breeze. The day is warm and sunny. The sky is blue. The breeze and the cooling ocean feel good.
• Now look again at your feet standing on the edge of the ocean. Feel the cooling wave come in and touch your toes. Watch and listen to it go out. You can hear the grains of the sand tumble together as the wave goes out. It sounds like AAAUUUMMMMM….. Come in and go out. Come in and go out.
• As you watch the waves, allow your breath to match them. Breathe in when the wave comes in to touch your toes and breath out hearing the wave retreat over the pebbly sand. In and out, in and out, in and out.
• Feel again your tummy like a wave gently going in and out, in and out, in and out.
• Now let the waves fade away and just notice your breathing and your belly. Let any new thoughts drift and be lifted away. The only sounds in your mind are the breath moving, the heartbeat, and AUM.
• Sit quietly like this for a moment, just listening (about 5 minutes).
• When you are ready wiggle your fingers and toes and open your eyes.

Activity 10: Affirmative Prayer for Harmony

There is only One.
One pulse, one vibration, one resonant and resounding frequency.
This one is God.
I can easily tune into God just like tuning a radio dial.
I feel God in my heart as me.
I am in harmony with God.
I am in unity with the vibration of all creation.
It is a force so powerful it vibrates my body.
It beats my heart.
It is my breath.
I am made of light and sound.
I am the sound of God.
I am Aum.
I am all that was, all that is and all that ever will be.
I let go of all thoughts that are not in harmony with this vibration.
I drink deeply from the well of all knowledge and bliss.
Thank you God.
Swaha!

Sources for deeper study

The Mandukya Upanishad By Swami Krishnananda
Chakra frequencies and correlations from chakrakey.com
Understanding the Significance of ‘OM’ from Fractal Enlightenment.com
Science of the Heart from HeartMath Institute
Resonance: Beings of Frequency by James Russell (documentary)

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Image credits

Thank you to the following image artists

Person at ocean at sunset PublicCo 
Heimdall an der Himmelsbrücke. Heimdallr stands by the bridge, blowing into Gjallarhorn By Emil Doepler – Doepler, Emil. ca. 1905. Walhall, die Götterwelt der Germanen. Martin Oldenbourg, Berlin. Page 54. Public Domain
chakra system Okan Caliskan
Color spectrum wavelengths By Tom Gaimann
Schumann resonances diagram
Girl painting rainbow April Bryant
Rainbow landscape Free-Photos