The Celestial Chord
Reflection #98: In the beginning, God, The Celestial Chord, the three-in-one sublime vibrational energy issued forth, weaving its magic into the energy of the one song, the universe, light.
In C.S. Lewis’ book, The Magician’s Nephew, the children visit Narnia at the moment of its formation. They find themselves captivated by a beautifully transcendent song. Aslan, a lion figure representing God, sings Narnia into existence. The powerful sound of Aslan's voice creates the Narnian world and its inhabitants.
Aslan initially sings alone, but later, additional voices join the creative symphony. These additional voices are described as "cold, tingling, silvery," and sing in harmony to Aslan’s melody.
When three (or more) notes that harmonize together are played, they combine to become a single unit of music that we call a chord.
The word chord derives from the French word, accord, which means “multiple parties in agreement.” When individuals (or musical notes) agree there is concord. And when one or more individuals disagree, there is discord. And when discord appears, the overall music is no longer pleasing, but becomes grating; out of tune; out of attunement with the main key. In a sense, discordant music, discordant emotions, or discordant communication causes suffering because it is out of attunement with The Divine.
The process of returning from discord into concord and becoming re-attuned with the Divine is atonement. Notice that atone and attune are closely related.
God is the ultimate musician, and the beautiful-yet-mysterious realm that we see and feel in this life is the ultimate symphony; the one song; the uni-verse – a word that quite literally means “one song.”
A symphony requires many diverse and wonderful instruments, and thus, to create the ultimate celestial symphony, God gives of himself, his essence, through his “one song,” the vibrating universe, to create the illusion of separation: He births the many – the “additional voices” – from The One. The Tao becomes “ten thousand things.”
A chord is, in some strange way, both one unit of music, yet three distinct notes, and the chords of our earthly music mimic the one true Celestial Chord – the Holy Trinity. The father, the son, and the holy spirit are one chord, yet they each play a different singular note. They vibrate at different frequencies and serve different functions in the divine symphony.
We are told that in the beginning there was The Word, the Logos, a creative force. Perhaps this would resonate more if we thought of “the Word” as “The Music”, as C.S. Lewis did: In the beginning there was The Celestial Chord.
God said. The first act, even before the appearance of light, was a transcendent sound; a primordial vibration issued forth from the “mouth” of God.
There is a voice that doesn't use words. Listen. — Rumi
Surely these were not human words or language, but celestial sound – celestial music.
In the beginning, God, The Celestial Chord, the three-in-one sublime vibrational energy issued forth, weaving its magic into the energy of the one song, the universe, light.
Interestingly, we see a reflection of this celestial chord in heart of atoms. Inside each proton exists three quarks with differing colors: one red, one green and one blue. Three different color vibrations creating three different melodies in the celestial symphony. The three quarks continually change colors as each quark plays its individual melody. At the smallest level, the proton itself is a small movement of celestial symphonic music.1
As this winsome symphony grows through the eons; through the evolution of matter and life; through different movements, both violent and peaceful, on the sixth “day,” the sixth movement, a new song appeared: that of man.
Man has been granted the privilege of joining the music not only as an instrument, but as a player, with intention. We are not merely part of being, but are born with a desire in our hearts to contribute to and accelerate the ongoing celestial symphony. We are invited to add our own movements to the overall composition. J.R.R. Tolkien referred to this act of adding to the music as sub-creation.2 Most of us refer to it as Art.
“I am a hole in a flute that the Christ’s breath moves through.” — Hafiz
If one listens very closely, when it is extremely quiet, such as during a deep meditation, or when out in nature where there is nothing but the breeze and the quiet rippling of life around you, one can faintly hear this primordial chord.
It is heard with spiritual ears as a comforting ring, buzz, tinkling or other reassuring sounds. It is always there, holding you up, reminding you that you are part of the music. It beckons. It calls to you even as it shares with you its wisdom about your part to play. You can’t improvise or harmonize with a symphony until you can hear the whole. Emptying our mind of our egoistic noise allows us to begin to perceive the whole and receive its creative guidance. That’s why Art is so inexorably tied with spirituality.
Once you can hear the symphonic vibration, like jamming with a group, the celestial music, the musica universalis, suggests to you how your part fits in. You feel the call and suddenly ideas commensurate with your level of mastery intuitively appear. So listen, internally, “he who has ears let him hear,” for the Cosmic sound; “Krishna’s flute;” “the trump of God.”
The uni-versal symphony invites you to join the music. It yearns for you to add your harmony and, deep down you yearn for it as well. Do you hear it? Will you turn toward it and join? Or will you turn away from it, in hubris, and attempt, like Melkor of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, like Satan in the Bible, or like Maya in Hinduism to willfully create your own discordant song?
In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once…
…the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars. They didn’t come out gently one by one, as they do on a summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out—single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world…it was the first voice, the deep one, which had made them appear and made them sing.
— C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew
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“Those things which merely exist and yet do not live or know are in His likeness, not completely, but in a slight degree, because even they are good in their own order. The quarks [of the Atom] maintain their unity by continually exchanging colour charges. Thus, the quarks are always changing colour, while maintaining the rule that there must always be three different colours. It is reminiscent of the mutual indwelling that creates the unity of the Trinity.”—Mats Winther, Researcher of Jungian psychology and quantum entanglement
Tolkien called creative activities sub-creation to reflect that our creative abilities stem from the true source of creation: God. Our art is merely a continuation of his Art.
I once heard this chord. I dreamed. I was floating in space, captivated by myriad stars. Then a sound developed, gradually growing in volume and complexity. A polyphonic song, multi-toned, encompassing all possible sounds yet totally harmonic. It was underlain by the deepest hum, well below the threshold of normal human hearing. I realized I was hearing the voice of Creation, and I cried in my sleep, awakening with tears on my face.
What a marvelous essay! This is my first time finding your blog and I appreciate such beautiful thoughts!
"We are told that in the beginning there was The Word, the Logos, a creative force."
The most common translation of that Greek "logos" as WORD leaves out so much. It is not only the spoken language, but it is Reason itself, including math, logic, and all forms of created and ordered structures, whether physical or abstract. That means architecture, music, dance, geometry, poetry, sculpture, and painting, as well. In most ancient religions we have the symbolic, ritualistic forms, but also have interpretations based on the abstract properties of math, or number, and of geometry.
The human exercise of our power to bring into existence those "created and ordered structures" is the purest expression of our being "in the image of God". Music, in particular, is the attempt within each octave to reconcile the quantized, whole number ratios, of physical harmonies, with the theoretical (and Divine) basis of the octave as a series based on 2^(N/12). We find this number, 12 recurring over and over whenever we see the intersection of the Earthly with the Holy. The 12 Disciples of Christ, the 12 Tribes of Israel, the 12 Gates into the Kingdom of God, the 12 Signs of the Zodiac, the 12 stones on the Priestly Breastplate, the 12 months of the year, the 12 Days of Christmas, and on and on.