Sound of Human Happening (Published in Homeopathic Times)
The sound of the world on Saturdays
Starting from when I was six or seven years old I heard the sound of the earth mainly on Saturday mornings. Saturday mornings carried no school stress, no Mass fuss, no hurry, just a dawn of possibilities to be relished spending the day exploring haunts around our small farm holding in Leitrim.
Far away from any mechanical noise, I would lie for a while awake in bed loosing myself in the soft buzz that I understood to be some mysterious sound of the world.
Looking back at that time now, I see that the child was not just listening but also imagining and feeling as all children do and so coming to know and love creation in the wonderful way of the child.
Ear buzz or earth buzz the sound coming to me on those early Saturday mornings was enchanting.
The most beautiful sound on earth
Later in life I read stories of the Fianna discussing which their favourite sound was. Some said it was the sound of certain birds in flight; others loved the sound of foliage rustling. They finally asked Fionn who said his favourite sound was the sound of happening.
The written word came to Ireland 1,000 years after it came to the Greek world. It was through stories, dreams, imagining and reflection that the Celts and those before them knew the world. The word that describes this way is “mythos” from which we get mythology. It was a profound way, a circular, timeless way, a way that always left a window open to mystery. It lies in contrast to the later arrival of understanding purely through linear, rational logic. The stories of Irish mythology are powerful evidence of how our ancestors on this island understood the deepest essences of life’s happenings through story telling.
The sound of a people talking
My homeopathic room is place of story telling and mystery. People tell me stories from the present and as sound gives way to silence they tell me stories from the past.
I hear of present day trials not unlike the journeys taken by mythical heroes of the past. They tell of their journeys through life, riddled with challenges, with pain, with danger and a struggle to keep hope alive: sleeplessness, unrest, palpitations, blinding headaches, dizziness, back ache, eczema, alcoholism …. They struggle to find the will to keep going: fears of the unknown, panic attacks, unhappy relationships, feelings of complete worthlessness, desires to end it all.
A candle burns; lights streams through the window and silence sits around drawing in these incredible tales of heroic endurance. The only sound in the room now is the sound of human happening.
It is as if this sacred sound continues as my storytellers now tell me stories from somewhere else: a childhood where affection came only after they pleased their parents, where innocence was stolen, where they learned not to respect themselves, where they got a terrible fright, where they lacked an ability that placed them behind others racing ahead in life.
Mislaid fragments of life and sounds crying out in the wilderness come into a kind of unspoken harmony. The pounding headache and low hopeless mood at 51 find a place in a story with a fateful journey home from school at 15. The room is now filled with one light, one whole harmonic sound, the sound of the storyteller’s life. We have come into the mystery.
The sound of remedies
As we take our journey along the earth we encounter spirits from the kingdoms of animals, plants, minerals and all of life itself, each chiming its own special timbre to the symphonic hymn of the Universe. From deep below to high above, the earth reverberates with the sound of harmony and healing. We encounter deep within the earth the golden Aurum Metalicum which resonates with our feelings of utter dejection and yet points to sheer perfection. We encounter, growing up from the earth the plant Staphysagria which echoes of pain of being beaten down and humiliated and then speaks of our personal dignity. We encounter the bush master snake Lachesis, rustling along in the foliage, accepting our darker feelings of jealousy and competition and pointing to a harmonious balance in life. We see on our journey high above the eagle Haliaeetus. It speaks to our sense of indecision and confusion and infuses in us the spirit of clarity, vision and directness.
Aurum Metalicum, Staphysagria, Lachesis, Haliaeetus … sound out a homeopathic alleluia , a benedictus beneath, above and beyond our stories Where there is despair let there be hope, where there is humiliation let there be dignity, where there is jealousy love and where we are lost and confused let there be a way.
Finding soul through homeopathy
Carl Jung said that when we work with images we find soul. The stories, dreams and happenings we encounter in our homeopathic story rooms reveal images of the essence of life. The homeopathic dialogue imagines and reflects on all the fragments of someone’s story and from these fragments there comes an essence that resonates somehow with the eternal hum of the world. The homeopathic conversation can touch the soul and ensoul life.
Our deepest and most beautiful listening is to the sound of the Universe. Fionn MacCumhaill’s mythological answer still rings true. From that listening we can hear the sound of perfection happening. The Universe invites us to listen deeply to hear its own most subtle sound. Years after childhood Saturday mornings I sit hearing the sound of some person talking.
Liam Scollan
LicISH, ISHom