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[Elizabeth09]

Hi everyone.  I was listening to "Rays of Light" from River of Stars the other day and felt this wonderful, exuberant joy and it got me to thinking...

I've never been one to be able to express, or even identify, my feelings very well.  Recently I realized that that is the role music has played for me all of my life.  (One might say duh, but then sometimes I'm just a slow learner )  Anyway, I find that while I can't always pinpoint what I'm feeling, or put a label on my emotions, I can almost always pick out a song that will say it for me.

So I'm wondering - what 2002 songs touch you, what emotions do they evoke?

"Oceansky" makes me float.  "Even Now" makes me fall in love.  I can still remember where I was the first time I heard "To Touch the Sky", and each time I hear it I see the beautiful scenery in my mind.  "1054 A.D." makes me want to dance around a fire on the winter solstice.  And on and on.  I'd love to hear others' thoughts and emotions!

[Michael]

Hi  Elizabeth...

What a great thought.  Yes, every part of the music is like a journey into yourself, or it is for me.  Moment of love... everything that is beautiful and magic about caring.. Dance with a Princess, an escape into a moonlit meadow, dancing with the wonder of and mystery of what is or could be.  

Deep Still Blue... whatever it is, it is what I feel on the water.  The difference between the beauty solitude and and the sadness of loneliness, and where is the dividing line?  

I think we fear what we feel sometimes. we are so used to hiding behind masks and pretending to be all things to all people, when all we want to be is ourselves.  That is the magic of the music. In some mystical way it causes, no it lets our souls exist in the moment.  In some mystical way we are allowed to embrace our feelings.

In some special way,for some special wondrous reason, the spirits brought us to the music of 2002.  For some wondrous reason, these people were given a gift that they chose to use to touch people.  To touch people in a magical way; to bring to the surface things that we don't know how to, and we are a part of it now. It lives because we choose to  let it live and choose to experience the feelings it brings.

We can spend years studying feelings, and what they are, and what they represent, but we still don't know what they are exactly.  It is because we cannot experience them on their own. Each may be wearing a part of another, or wrapped around another like a translucent cloak. Our minds are not capable of distniguishing one from another, but I think our hearts, our souls are.  I think you described that here:

I find that while I can't always pinpoint what I'm feeling, or put a label on my emotions, I can almost always pick out a song that will say it for me

When you get to the point that you are identifying the feeling with words, and are able to act accordingly, act as that feeling would cause you to by itself, then we are not feeling anything. We are only acting.  After so many years of acting, it is like an epiphany to awaken and feel something. The music gives our emotions a purity without trying to dissect them or separate them from each other.

All this,and I guess all I am saying it is because it lives; it lives because we choose to let it live and hear it not only with our minds, but with our hearts.

I mentioned before that this music is personal to each of us, and thank you for sharing your personal connection.  


Michael

[Susan]

I often get visions in my mind when I listen to music, and especially 2002's. "To Touch the Sky" sounded more like reaching up to touch the angels singing, more than a caterpillar looking longingly in the sky, to me.

The simplicity of the song "Bliss" (I think it's that one.. track 10 on This Moment Now) is startling in its beauty after the preceding 9 songs.  Somehow that simplicity very quickly conveys to me a very tender, emotional, romantic moment. 

Despite the underlying theme for "Remember Now", I remember listening to it and when the initial vocals ease into the instrumentals (spot the layman here in terms of the correct musical terms!) that trumpet part of that song makes me think of flying through low cumulus clouds which part to show the stars on a a beautiful night.

"Cocoon" always made me think of a "Lord of the Rings" type forest with twinkling lights, and angels beyond.

"Trismegistus" - when Randy's Fender Stratocaster really kicks in there the immediate visuals I get is a plane in the air just having taken off, and rugged, red rocky landscape below (think the Rockies for the Americans, and any Aussies lurking on the board, think of the rocky landscape in the Northern Territory).

There are a few, there are always many emotions, from moved to tears to inspired, they cover them all!