Saturday Memory for September 6, 2025
I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ documentary on country music (8 2-hour episodes on PBS). I am a bit surprised at how emotionally this series has impacted me. Yes, there is the ache of *nostalgia*. From the roots of the word, there is the image of *homecoming again*. As I approach 87, things remembered become stronger and impact me more. So, reconnecting with long ago memories has a purpose which I believe has something to do with *death.* It has to do with what Orogine said would be my completeness that I must focus on now. I was raised on country music long before I started to turn my attention to classical music when I began piano lessons at 8 years old. After giving some lectures in New York, I was flying home and began to watch the movie Honeysuckle Rose with Willie Nelson and Dyan Cannon. As I watched, scotch in hand, I began to tear up and finally tarted to fully breakdown crying. What was happening was that I was hearing early country singers: Jimmy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hank Williams and others. I couldn’t help myself. The attendant was concerned as were the passengers. Finally, my crying stopped and I sunk into the movie. Later, I told my parents about this experience. My dad said he knew why it happened. He told me that when I was a baby, he would rock me in his arms as he sang along to country songs on the radio. To cure his stuttering. I never knew he stuttered. The coupling of those early voices and the emotional response of crying was strikingly stronger than any conscious memory of those singers would bring about. I think I was hearing what I heired when I was a baby. Research now indicated that implicit memories occur as early as birth to three months and that explicit memory begins to form by six months. So what I was experiencing on the plane was very likely those early voices on the radio and my dad’s singing. This is likely as well, what has brought up so much feeling and emotion and memory in watching Ken Burns’ wonderful documentary.
Your Saturday memory moves me a great deal. The image of you as an adult falling into a deep crying episode while watching Honeysuckle Rose on the airplane. And then the image of your father rocking you as a baby in his arms and singing along to country songs on the radio in order to cure his stuttering. Yes, I can understand that on the airplane you were experiencing your father’s loving presence around you, invoked by the music of the country singers.
Reconnecting with these memories and writing about them does feel like a preparation for death and completeness. Thank you for showing the way; the way of honoring Orogine, the dreams, and turning toward death with curiosity in order to prepare the bodysoul.
Russ: Of COURSE this hit me hard as well. Music, as you know, saved my life. Later, when I was researching in preparation to writing my monograph for my Jungian certification, the work took me to the effect of sung music and spoken poetry on the brain and body. Following the bread crumbs of lament (a word which finds its etymology in “murmuring” and lullaby) my own experiences of the impact of song and poetry (lyrics in song) has always been a defining feature of my early life. My father also sang to me as an infant. His songs were the songs sung to him as a baby also. Mostly old Yiddish tunes and physical tenderness that I remember feeling, to this day. “ Lakhn zol er mit yashtsherkes.” — laughing with tears in your eyes. My research took me to Joseph Chilton Pearce’s work and the unique and imperative impact of music on the brain, but also on the body and psyche. Yes, he used the word “psyche” in describing the overall impact of song on very young children. He well understood the connection between brain and heart. He stated, “Firstly, about 65% of all the cells in the heart are neural cells which are precisely the same as in the brain, functioning in precisely the same way; monitoring and maintaining control of the entire mind/brain/body physical process as well as direct unmediated connections between the heart and the emotional, cognitive structures of the brain.” He discusses the findings of Tomatis in which it was identified that the human body, most especially in newborns — the entire human body — are covered in sound receptors. Later, in the 90s, Levitan’s research, “The Brain on Music,” further captures early childhood experiences with sound and well-being. But it was Pearce, whose first teachers were not scientists, but rather spiritual influences (Swami Muktananda) who brought Pearce to seeking deeper scientific knowledge. That study led him to a practical education in mind-body unity, one particularly informed by creativity, music and so many other creative and artistic expressions.
All this to say that we humans are made to respond to the sounds of love and to carry that love with us for our entire lives, psyche, mind, body and soul. I can hear my father’s voice now. And the delight on his face when I was rivittd to his music, which came through him, his father and all those voices which impacted him to want to sing his songs to me. This whole idea is way bigger than we can understand intellectually. In fact, it defies intellect and brings us back to love. Thanks for this. Sorry it took me into the woods, but it has!