Talking Circles have roots in Indigenous traditions, particularly among First Nations people in North America. They are a valuable tool that encourages respectful communication for fostering dialogue, building community, and promoting healing. The circle shape itself symbolizes wholeness, connection, and the interconnectedness of all things.
Last April, I had the good fortune to participate in a Talking Circle to listen, to share, and to learn about Music of the Heart. Gathered inside a very special sanctuary, fourteen of us talked briefly about music that has special meaning for each of us, its connection to culture and spiritual practice, and its ability to free our minds and our spirits.
A lady, originally from India got us started by announcing her name, adding that it originates from a popular late evening Hindustani classical raga which evokes a romantic and melancholic atmosphere often associated with feelings of love and longing. Her parents were lovers of Indian classical music and when she was five her mother arranged for music lessons imparted by a tutor in their neighbourhood, after school. Her mother would ask when she returned home if she had enjoyed the lesson. The narrator paused, then wrapping her arms around herself sombrely added telling her mother, “I don’t like it. His fingers are cold!” The lessons ended. Thankfully, her love for music did not.
A young lady of Chinese origin shared that her grandfather was a very famous violinist in China but had to flee after being imprisoned and tortured during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. After a spell in Hong Kong their family eventually moved to Canada and she recalled their home as being always filled with music. Their grandfather taught her sister and another friend to play the violin and continued to push them until both blossomed as violinists of considerable repute. A few years ago, the narrator’s girlfriend was inexplicably struck by amnesia and could not perform even basic functions, let alone play the violin. Tearfully, she described that two years ago they had taken her friend in a wheelchair to attend the special Christmas concert at their favourite church in Toronto. The inert, almost lifeless friend started to sporadically twitch as she heard and possibly, recognized some of her favourite music, with a slow smile lighting up her face. That was her last Christmas.
The onset of dementia has now incapacitated her grandfather. Her sister patiently sits alongside the patriarch to practise her violin recital. When she fumbles occasionally, they notice a frown appear on the old man’s face and his fingers tremble, in an attempt to straighten out the off-key notes!
A very dear octogenarian friend talked about growing up in rural Canada in a Mennonite community and the special CBC Wednesday Night program in the 1950s that introduced them to the magical world of opera. She proceeded to close her eyes, softly humming under her breath initially and then sonorously belting out a short piece as tears started to stream down her face. She was joined by a much younger fellow Opera afficionado from Israel and we all applauded their very short performance. [My friend later explained that she had sung from Puccini’s classic La Tosca.]
My own musical memories include attending mushairas (gathering of poets reciting their verse) and ghazal (poetry, usually in Urdu and Persian) concerts with my father as a child. I also have vivid images from when I must have been 8 or 9 years old, of my mother, her freshly washed hair wrapped in a towel, starting her morning chores. While we are not Sikhs, she would go around reciting by rote, the Japji Sahib or the Sukhmani Sahib from the holy book of Sikh faith, the Guru Granth Sahib. When I asked what she was “singing”, she would close her eyes and shaking her head with a finger on her lips, admonish me from asking questions as she was engaged in prayer! I still do not know how the Guru Granth Sahib was compiled using some 60 ragas, especially as none of the 10 Gurus had any music training!
My mother was a good singer and her lasting regret was that neither of her two sons had inherited her talent! I was able to proudly share with my audience that with our son’s career in the world of music and his own son, at nine, showing promising musical talent, my life is completing a full cycle!
I was also able to share an incident when a close relation who was in a coma on life-support, responded as I played a couple of qawwalis by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan that he had loved. [In an earlier blog https://wealthisnotmoney.com/2020/01/11/if-music-be-the-food-of-love-play-on/, I had reproduced a compelling narrative of the power of music and urge you to revisit it.]
Music legends like Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Amanat Ali Fateh Ali Khan and others have repeatedly reminded us that:
| Pyaar nahin hai sur se jisko | A person who does not appreciate music |
| Woh muurakh insaan nahin hai | that foolish person cannot be a human … |
Here is a very old (possibly from the 1960s) moving bandish (musical composition) in the soulful raga Malkauns; I have deliberately used this clip as the transcript provides a generic translation:
wealthisnotmoney 
You have written about Talking Circles earlier, too, as safe, nurturing spaces where people share their deepest thoughts and feelings. The lady who shared her experience about her music instructor – trauma she has carried for long – just goes to underscore their healing aspect.
Food, fragrance, and music are memory cues that transport to other realms.
I am reminded of the message my aunt sent for our son’s wedding in Greece last year. Unable to attend, she wore a beautiful sari and recorded a video, conveying her love and blessings. And then she sang a song for them. Do sitaron ka zameen par hai milan aaj ki raat. It brought me to tears, but even the non-desi guests were visibly moved by a song in a language they did not know.
In recent weeks I have read 52 Ways to Reconcile and The Serviceberry, and both are about the emphasis Indigenous Peoples place on reciprocity and sharing.
Your post got me thinking that birdsong, the gurgling of streams, the wind in the trees and the delighted laugh of a child on spotting a butterfly…these are all music to our ears. They all connect us to nature, bring us within the circle.
Without music, it’s true, koi kisi ka meet na hota.
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Thanks a lot for your comments, Shagorika as they provide much more food for thought. I look forward to reading 52 Ways to Reconcile when it is published later this month and incorporating the acts of reconciliation in my life.
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