Remember those analogies from school? “Mouth is to teeth as book is to pages.” What is their relationship? A mouth contains teeth and a book contains pages.

Here is mine: “Poetry is to prayer as

song is to meditation.”

What is their relationship? For me, poetry and prayer are the same, and song and meditation are the same.

To anyone who writes or enjoys both poetry and song, chew on this. 🙂 It may not be true for you, but it will make you aware of your own inner truth.

In a poem I ask. It has form, but it’s not total oneness for me. For someone else it probably is! But for me it’s a step below. Poetry is a stepping stone to the experience of oneness.

Poetry is like prayer. If I’m “already there,” knowing my oneness with God-Mind, I don’t need to pray. Similarly, if I already feel oneness, it will come out in a song, and I don’t need a poem at that time.

A poem is a spiritual thing, but more intellectual than a song. I don’t know why I feel this way. Music as you know, is technically based on complex mathematical equations. Don’t ask me about that–I neither know nor care what’s scientifically behind the music I love and love to experience. 🙂 Still, for me, songwriting, playing music, and singing come from a state of oneness that is already established. But a poem is often my mind’s way of tiring itself out, so it can be quiet and let the oneness in.

When I write I feel either of these:

* I’m not experiencing oneness right now, but I know I want to, and I know I can. So I write a poem to get there. The poem gets rid of the subconscious goo, so I can come back to oneness. This is also why I journal.

* I’m experiencing oneness now; therefore, I write a song.

What does this have to do with prayer and meditation? Two things resonated with me in my metaphysical ministry lessons along this line. The first is that prayer is talking; meditation is listening. Poetry is expressing in words, the desire for oneness, the knowing it can be so, and its realization. So is prayer.

Second, meditation is the highest form of prayer. Music has always been important to me as a form of relaxation, expression, a place of comfort, and a way to experience good regardless of what’s happening around me. So, and again I only speak for myself here, music is like meditation.

In meditation I know my at-one-ment. And I know it in music as well.

In prayer I consciously connect with at-one-ment, but I’m not quite there yet. Likewise, in poetry I’m reaching for the at-one-ment I know I can have, but I haven’t realized it (made it my reality) yet.

For more, see Affirmative Prayer Class Week 1. Notice how the benefits of prayer and the benefits of writing poetry are similar.

Also think about this. Do you remember more songs, or poems? My experience has been that many people can sing songs automatically, but few can recite a poem from memory.

Do both poetry and song connect with the primal force of creation? I believe they do. It resonates with me, if, indeed, “the word was made flesh.” If “in the beginning there was the Word,” then was it a word of poetry? Or was it a song? I wonder…

The idea here is: the rhythm, the creative force, the form of poetry and song remind us of our ability to create. We create our reality within our own minds. Everything already exists, but we don’t experience it all at once! What we do experience, is what we’re consciously connected to.

If we want to experience true Universal oneness, how can we do that? Through asking, or praying, or using poetry if that works for us.

And when we experience that oneness “now,” we are in a state of joy, happiness, love, bliss, peace, meditation… Like a favorite melody or lyric, where we are so focused on Being that we know only this moment. We don’t have to ask, attract, focus–we just BE.

The poem is a reaching tool, reaching into Higher Mind. It usually starts with more “me” and less Higher Mind.

Song, for me, is Higher Mind expressing itself. There is much less, if any “me” and lots of Higher Mind.

Poetry is me telling Higher Mind something–funny, it never seems to work as well as I think it should! Because ideally, I’m in a state of song, where I let Higher Mind tell, guide, and flow through me.

The really cool thing is that we can create the poem or song. And at the same time, it has its own existence. It’s a form, an expression, and it’s a support to us. A poem (song, or anything else we resonate with!) can remind us of Truth. And/or it can be created/written from the experience of Truth itself.

Poetry and song, like prayer and meditation, and like every one of us, are fluid. Always evolving, changing, expanding, improving, and expressing. This is Creativity; this is Truth. This is the God-Power within us, flowing through us.

All we do is allow it to flow and express through us, as we are God-Creations, into our individual expressions of divine Creativity–which are God-Creations too! And they go forth and play a part in creating a feeling, striking a chord, or lighting a spark in someone else, who expresses more God-Creativity…

So, while I tend to use poetry to release negativity and/or ask for a blessing, and song to express “oneness now,” I ask to let them fly. I ask to be open to their purposes as well as my own, and not to put them in a locked box where they cannot express fully.

I give thanks for this realization; for the forms and expressions of poetry and song; and for the state of being where being, is all we are.

And as we let it be so, so it is!