I
n the early 2000's when my career and life were stressing me out I became interested in meditation. I do not know if I was ever successful at achieving any type of higher level of consciousness or insights, but I was able to relax.
I would meditate with music playing and sometimes with incense burning to help set the mood. One of the albums I regularly listened was 1984's The Pearl by Harold Budd and Brian Eno that was produced by Daniel Lanois.
The Pearl is an ambient album that reminds me of floating in the ocean and staring upwards at the sky. Listening to it with closed eyes is like letting the music become the warm ocean water washing underneath your body as you drift aimlessly in the waves.
I stopped meditating for the last ten years or so because I could not make time for it or I just felt as though I did not need it any longer. Sometimes life takes us away from the things we need so that we can experience other aspects of life and that is what happened to me. Eventually or rather hopefully we return to the things that are good for us so now I am returning to meditation.
That return to meditation is what reminded me of The Pearl. I had long since forgotten this music until one day it reentered the forefront of my mind like an errand I had forgotten or a friend that had disappeared and then returned. Listening to it today, it still has the same peaceful calming effect that it did all those years ago.
Time slows down and then evaporates listening to this music, everything takes on a shade of blue and whatever was bothering me is lost in the deep end of the ocean of my mind.
My favorite track on the album is Late October followed by the title track The Pearl.
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