Sleep Token released their fourth album, In Arcadia Midnight, at the end of last Thursday. Granted, I didn’t stay up to listen to its drop like a kid waiting up for Santa, but I have, at the time of writing this, already listened to it in its entirety close to a dozen times. There’s just something about their music which transports me into wonderment, and it never gets dull. Even listening to the music they first released, when they first came on my radar in 2017, still sounds new to me. Granted, in 2017 they were a small indie band, not the juggernaut phenomenon they now appear as, with nine, yes, NINE MILLION monthly listeners on Spotify. But their music still personally speaks to me, a very essential part of me, and it allows the music to eclipse the part of me which takes things for granted, stops listening, and makes things feel old.
I know that the meaning of this song probably doesn’t relate at all to the meaning of this essay, but don’t we as humans have a tendency to project meaning onto things which aren’t necessarily embedded in their nature? I know it’s a long shot, but sometimes it’s the oddest analogies which reach into the parts we haven’t been able to access, and maybe this will help someone hear what’s in the spinal 8 more than simply telling you. Besides, just telling leaves little fun in your discovery, and since discovery is the space where you hear things for the ‘first’ time, it seems pertinent to emphasise the link between hearing something with fresh ears rather than mindlessly singing along. But saying that, the familiarity of being lost, singing along at a live concert, is a whole new kind of present experience.
But what does this have to do with the spinal 8?
Well, here you’re seeing it from the front, so it’s the same routine with a different view, so hopefully you’ll see something new to pull you into the world of moving your spine. Because when you do manage to get pulled into the movement, the experience can halt the eclipse of your thinking mind over the light of the experience being lived. It’ll halt the eclipse in you. The result is that the sequence feels very new, even when it becomes truly familiar, like Sleep Tokens’ first album Sundowning must be to me after five years of who knows how many multiple tens of listenings I’ve enjoyed. Embedding your awareness inside your spine, which you’ve pulled deep inside your bowl, has the effect of making life feel new. That is, if like Sleep Tokens’ music is to me, this practice resonates, you’ll be able to repeat the routines week in, week out without ever feeling bored.
Yet I fully acknowledge we are all very different, and our minds, bodies, and hearts all require different things. After all, I know a few folk who hear Sleep Tokens as ‘shouty music’, yet others have carried that opinion when listening to ‘In Arcadia’ only to discover nuances, magical melodies, lyrics which speak to the soul, and much more. So even though this routine may look like a routine ‘flow yoga’ thing, there are many wonders in it to be discovered, and even if it’s not your ‘thing’, you may find yourself liking it… and even if you don’t, I hope you enjoy the video.
CHEERS! 🍵
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