Love Coming at You, Hiding in Plain Sight

The Benevolent Hum is everywhere, hiding in plain sight. I’ve been blind to it.

One half of my body warming in the late summer sunrise, and the other cooling in the shade under the horse barn, I’m sitting in a pleasure trance here at the Evolving Horse Pathways farm in Grand Junction, Colorado. A meadowlark sings, perched on a fencepost on the far end of the 5-acre pasture. A cool breeze perfumed with last night’s rain wafts through elms. In the corral, Equine Gestalt Coach Terry Talbot and her speckled “charka mare,” Mae, work with a client sorting through issues of the heart. I wish my physical eyes could pick up the energy exchange among the three, but of course, I have to rely on external signs. Terry is trained in those signs, and explains them as her client makes progress during the exercise.

“Look how Mae has her third eye directed right at you,” she tells her client. Mae directs her nose toward the client’s belly, bringing the space between her eyes right at the level of his heart. “She’s focused on your heart chakra, where your energy is opening.” Then Mae moves astride the client, lining up her left front leg with his. “Now she’s placing her heart chakra next to yours,” Terry explains. “Her heart is connecting with the energy of your heart.”

As if on cue, a bird with a bright yellow breast alights on the corral fencing–much closer than any wild bird normally would–and for seemingly no other reason than the attraction from the energy Mae and the client are sharing. I glance over at Patriot, Terry’s gelding, in the next pen over. His eyes are fixed on Mae and the client. The inaudible, invisible benevolent hum between horse and man has everyone’s attention.

About a month ago, as I was in meditation for the next series in our Club, I heard, “Tap into the benevolent hum. It’s everywhere. Can you feel it? Sink into it?” Admittedly, the hum I’ve been tuned into has been a malevolent one: the us-vs-the-enemy hum dominating the news; political parties villainizing each other; armed, angry shooters mowing down children in schools or people in worship or shoppers in grocery stores; conspiracy theorists calling for violent resistance and kidnapping and lynchings. Radical pro-life lawmakers driving women to the brink of fatal illness before they can receive the controversial care that will save their lives. If I’ve been sinking into anything, it’s the malevolent hum of our culture.

The bright spot in all that? I can sink into a hum. Is there more than one?

I’ve been asking for Spirit to tell me more about the benevolent hum. I knew there was one, in theory. Hindu and Buddhist practitioners for thousands of years have passed down a teaching about a hum, the “om,” by which the Universe was created. My grandfather’s favorite hymn, written by Maltbie D. Babcock, spoke of the hum, “All nature sings and ‘round me rings the music of the spheres.” Whether or not the hum is experienced in spiritual ecstasy, the hum was predicted mathematically and then discovered scientifically. It’s called the Schumann resonance.

“The Earth behaves like a gigantic electric circuit. Its electromagnetic field surrounds and protects all living things with a natural frequency pulsation of 7.83 hertz on average — the so-called “Schumann resonance,” named after physicist Dr. Winfried Otto Schumann, who predicted it mathematically in 1952.”

-Brainworld.com

Is this the benevolent hum Spirit was telling me about? 

Last week I had the honor of attending a yoga therapy session with Christine Moore, Certified Yoga Therapist  of Palisade, Colorado. Yoga therapy involves holding therapeutic poses in a meditative state to stimulate a mind/body/spirit balance. It’s a trip. As I lay in a gut-supportive pose on my bolster, I felt my energy arch out like tree roots sinking into the earth. The more I relaxed and let my energy burrow, the more I could perceive a life force–a hum–coming from the earth.

Intrigued, I didn’t go straight home after my session, but meadered my way along the Palisade Rim trail, hoping the earth could tell me more about this hum. I lay down on a rock in one of the poses Christine showed me and hoped my energy would root into the ground, like it had thirty minutes earlier. I was not disappointed. Like lightning in slow motion, my energy forked into the earth, connecting, slurping. The life force seemed louder–or maybe my spiritual ears were more attuned–and I felt a steady, ancient, even timeless pulse. 

“Will you tell me about Yourself?” I asked.

What I perceived next was a clear message that I am putting into English words for you. It came as a feeling, a download, if you will, not in words, so as you read the words, I invite you, too, to receive them as a feeling. 

“I am the Earth, born of the benevolent hum of the Universe.”

Did She just download at me, benevolent hum?

“The same benevolent hum that created Me courses through Me, and I in turn give abundant life to My creations. It is my pleasure to provide nutrients and water and life force so plants and animals can team and thrive.” My point of view while hearing this was the Grand Valley, rife with world-famous peach trees and vineyards, all sustained by the flowing Colorado River and the warm air trickling off the protective Bookcliff mountains. Ants and newts crawled by the dozens nearby. Mother Earth was walking Her talk.

“Further, it’s My joy to make love to the sky and his gifts of clouds and sun and rain and starlight, and have the sky make love to Me. Together we birth the daily and seasonal rhythms to abundantly serve the staggering variety of life on earth.”  I noticed at that moment a few impossible little nooks just big enough for a seed to sprout had some sort of green thing reaching out to the sky. A half dead juniper seemed to completely disregard its lifeless limbs as it reached for the sun in the pure joy of being alive. I was reminded of one dawn where I could feel the sentient sun lovingly caressing leaves with its gilded fingers, and the sky’s utter delight in being a canvas, painted with dynamic shades of purple and peach and rose. The benevolent hum in the act of making love!

“Tell me more,” I asked.

Instinctively, I pulled my knees up into the fetal position I’d just practiced in yoga therapy so I could settle in and listen. “This,” Mother Nature said, referring to my pose. “The benevolent hum of a mother’s body nourishing her growing baby. Listen.” Was it the yoga pose taking me on the trip? I felt transported back to a quieter time, when my consciousness and awareness were silent, a time when the benevolent hum in my mother’s womb was busy knitting my bones and brains and tiny toes. 

“Do you hear it?” Mother Nature asked. I did.

“Listen again,” She said and took me to visions of YouTube videos I’d been watching, of animals being kind to humans and each other. A mother cat who took an orphaned baby hedgehog with her own nursing kittens. An ape reunited with her handler, whom she hadn’t seen in years, hugging her and squealing with delight. (Even as I write this, Violet has jumped into my lap, gifting me with her furry cat hugs, and Heath is lying next to my feet, excluding canine trust.) It was the connection Mae the chakra horse had with her hurting client.

“That’s the benevolent hum between animals and humans,” Mother Nature said. Cherish it.” 

“Now watch,” Mother Nature said. She brought to mind the smaller, more intimate connections I so desperately needed to see, connections I hadn’t noticed from the blindness caused by the malevolent hum. She showed me the benevolence among humans. She reminded me of the hugs my boys gave each other before they left the house. She reminded me of the total stranger who found me crying in the parking lot because I’d lost my cell phone, who stopped what he was doing to help me look for it. (I found it in the Lost and Found at the grocery store.) She reminded me about the Facebook post written by a man who’d reached out to his elderly neighbor he hadn’t seen in a few days and discovered she needed medical care. He drove her to the ER himself. 

“These everyday acts of kindness are real and prevalent. See them? They are part of the benevolent hum coming from Me, born of the Universe, born of Source itself,” said Mother Earth, reciting Her lineage.

“Wow,” I said. “Tell me more.”

But Mother Earth had no more to say, or at least, no more my ears were ready to hear in that moment. I hiked back to my car, my heart feeling full. Perhaps what more I had to discover, I would through direct experience.

I was right. The benevolent hum continues to reveal Itself to me. Here’s a poem, for example, Christine sent me by the Wild Matryoshka called “The Sacred Bee.” The poem goes into detail about the benevolent hum, describing it in detail. Here’s a snippet, and if you like poetry I recommend you subscribe to Matryoshka’s IG feed.

She hums the story of the Universe 

in honeycomb, womb 

and fallopian tubes. She sings the OM 

of wisdom within and without

sending her messengers to extract the sweet truths 

from all the corners of the universe.

…She is love. Pure love.

***

A week later, the benevolent hum continues to teach me about Itself.

I’m processing yet another (this time final?) breakup with my boyfriend. A month ago we were preparing to move in together when the unspoken between us erupted like St. Helen’s. “What attracts you to me anyway?” he lamented. He made a list of all his faults and shortcomings, as if no sane person could ever love him, only someone who was just after him for her own gains. That smarted. Hard. An emotional bee sting shot through my being like a poison, robbing me of my words. I couldn’t answer.

It took almost two weeks for the sting of that argument to wear off, before I could look at his question with clarity. All the so-called shortcomings he listed exist. But there’s an essence about him far superseding all of them. It’s a masculine vibe, a steady, ancient perhaps timeless pulse. It filters through his being in a mysterious, sacred way from his smile to the timbre of his voice to the kindness of his touch, to the smell of his skin. It makes me feel like a goddess. I now know what that vibe is, and I’ll bet you have guessed, too. That benevolent hum as he translates it through his essence is not easily dismissed–no matter how much heartbreak I’ve endured–and keeps me going back with fresh willingness to make our relationship work. 

What is the benevolent hum? What is the energy flowing through the universe, our planet, the play of earth and sky, the trees, through the love of animals, through the womb, through the Divine as it expresses itself as Us? I’m not sure, but I aim to explore it in this exclusive 8-session Tantric meditation series, and I hope you’ll join me for each one.

It strikes me best to begin from the most familiar to the most mysterious. So, I’ve arranged our sessions like this:

Session 1: Human Kindness

Session 2: Animal Kindness

Session 3: The Nourishing Gifts of Plants

Session 4: The Interplay of Earth and Sky

Session 5: The Life Force of the Womb

Session 6: The Hum in the Beloved

Session 7: The Life Force of the Universe (the Great Om)

Session 8: The Benevolent Hum in All Things All at Once

Western thought likes to dissect pieces to understand the whole, so our exploration is a little artificial. That why in session 8, we’ll contemplate the benevolent hum as a whole. 

Have you experienced the benevolent hum? Share your experience with us, and help us all to perceive it more deeply.

Much love to you!

Dakini Leah

Living in Tantra Meditation Dakini Leah