Hi,

I have read before that in ancient times Shamans would heal people through singing songs of love. Has anyone heard of this concept before or experienced it?

Thank you,

Dan

Hi, yes in ancient times poems, songs and so, had much more important place than they have today. The ability to speak or sing was seem as very mystical and magical by itself.
And also songs or poems or so on were almost always part of a ritual or group gathering.

So its natural if in old cultures part of the healing process is sung. It could be traditional song to spontaneous song to ritualistic poetic speaking or singing to appease fey, spirits and gods.
Some cultures also have the “speaking in the tongues” ie. spontaneous vocalizations as a part.

Part of it was, that it was deeply meaningful in the tribe environment. And the shaman understood the deepest layers of that meaning. So it was beyond the words of the song, beyond the melody. Usually healers were initiated into the song in some ways. And in that way they understood its depths, and so could share it.
So songs have many functions and can heal in many ways. Sound healing and sound self healing today is very popular area and is still bit undeveloped. As is healing with a dance and so on. The old stuff worked and it still does, only it has to be resonant to the person, tribe and archetypes.
There will be maybe time for a love song of a certain kind and then sometimes not and other song will be due. Sad song perhaps, shaman just would know and act as needed.

love,
Duu

  In a recent secondlife chat I touched on the topic of music and magic for healing. Gave a few examples of powerful songs that have been connected with someone in my life at different times, or a theme for times in my life. Music can be a powerful focus for meditation and insights, a way to shift moods. Music is pure emotion.

   My guide often DJs for me, sometimes a fragment of a song I have heard can hold a powerful message. 
  Having music playing in your head is often indicative of being in a trance state so its easy to see why Guidance loves to use music.  Sometimes events in my life, have a theme song.

   So I will DJ for you, some songs I shared in the chat (and a few others) that I have used as a focus on working with various people and at different times. In this temple, you may hear it, as I do. I have chosen visible lyrics over sound clarity @ youtube... feel free to search for a better sound quality version of the lyric one is lame. Sometimes the lyric is in the description. 

   This song is a mood modifier, it always makes me smile, I cannot explain it, its just a silly flirty pop song - the girl next door has blossomed!  I like the pace changes, the flirting keeps ramping up as he gets bolder and more excited.   Earworm!

  This, similar, it came on the radio in burger king today and it grabbed me like it always does, I had to sing along and dance!  Made druid wait till it was over before we could leave.  Get ready to dance

   Mood altering substance #3. "Way hey hey its just an ordinary day, and its all your state of mind... at the end of the day, you've just got to say, its all right." Its all right!
 
   For K list, the early days in the late 90s, online and connecting... addicted. FST born from that growing time.  Love and deeper understanding

  1988, rough time in my life, alone in a new city and broke, losing faith. Someone gave me a radio, this song came on one night and hit me like a freight train, riveted. Solsbury hill is at Stonehenge

  For myself: one of the most powerful... this song was playing in my head, and everywhere I went for a solid month before my Shaman Graduation.  August 1997.  It still gives shivers and goosebumps and sometimes tears.  In its time it was a sort of goth rock suicide anthem but to me it has nothing to do with physical death. It is the sacred marriage, ego death and enlightenment. Death come courting, the Shaman guide represents Death and I was serenaded.
  Ironically, I hate being called baby but always misheard the lyric as Mary. Mary is an ancient word for Priestess.  It appeared with a wham when I was doing a shower tantra mediation to release some fears... very powerful. Every time the lyric said "Come on, Mary" I did. 
  Although kundalini is different road than Shaman training by spirit, its still resonant when ego grows thin and the veil is like a chain link fence between romeo and juliet. In a way, it is part of the mysticism of FST too.  The sacred marriage. Have you ever been so in love you felt you would willingly die for your beloved? What if it is your Divine Beloved, calling your ego to death, unity with the Divine, and transcendence?
Lyric in the vid description  More cowbell! 

  Musical message, this starts playing in my head if I work too hard and do not do enough art to release it, and get overwhelmed wanting to run away. I have never been to Paris...
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on

For cymbal, an effort to shift depression in the midst of too too many death premonitions. Depression is not what killed him... the welsh choir in the end I see his spirit ascending.
Change is the only constant.

  Another one for the fallen. 
"On a balcony in New York
It's just started to snow
He meets us at the lift
Like Douglas Fairbanks
Waving his walking stick
But he isn't well at all
The buildings of New York
Look just like mountains through the snow

Just being alive
It can really hurt
And these moments given
Are a gift from time "

    In 1995, I was in NYC for a fetish convention, walking in Greenwich village with some people, headed for a club. A spot on the sidewalk gave me a powerful rush of energy that made me stop cold. I looked up, at the tall apartment building and knew a jumper landed where I stood, but the feeling of familiarity puzzled me. This had been someone I knew well but I knew no-one there. Accepted the energies, blessed the spot.
   Time travel.
  Two years later percyval contacted me, an invalid with degenerative late stage lyme disease, chronic nerve pain, waiting to die, looking for some remote roleplay to lift the tedium of his days. We grew close, I taught him to find happiness within himself despite the illness, persuaded him stay alive... he helped me create FST, transcribing every video, finding links, helping with K list, he loved it.  I could not affect his steady decline, except he said talking to me made the pain go away for a while.  We talked often, phone and email, we never met in person but this evokes what it might have been like. 
  he lived in a Greenwich village high rise, saw twin towers burning on 9/11, live, choking with the smoke of the fires.  Ten years together but apart, until the chronic pain and disability of late stage lyme disease got too much  ... he had his exit plan for years, an inevitability... left letters and gifts for everyone. His brother told me, he even had a note in his pocket to comfort those who removed his shattered body from the sidewalk. 
For percyval

  I don't know what to say about these two flowed together as on the album. Its been with me a long time... from the whale sounds at the start to the smokey saxophone at the end it is a snake charmer, makes me feel sinuous and snakey and stokes the shakti fire. Side A on repeat on the turntable in my art studio, sometimes for months at a time.  Lyrics are less important but mmmmmmmm Think of your DB
"Moving liquid
Yes, you are just as water
You flow around all that comes in your way
Don't think it over
It always takes you over
And sets your spirit dancing
How I'm moved
How you move me
With your beauty's potency
You give me life
Please don't let me go
how I move, how you move me, with your beauty's potency"
The stars that climb from her bowels,
Those stars make towers on vowels.

  Bowie...where to begin with Bowie, my DB used to show up as him in my dreams sometimes.
My prayer flies
like a word on a wing
Does my prayer fit in
with your scheme of things?

Bagpipes from an echoey place, give me shivers and visions.  I know this is supposed to be a Christian hymn but to me it is the truth of humility giving Grace, opening to the inner presence of the Goddess. Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far and Grace will lead me home.

  This I use in the weekend workshops, the Divine Beloved connection, though I usually turn the sound down half way through.  Grab a tissue. And I will never be set free
As long as I'm a ghost you can't see

  For the vampires, Goddess calls them back. Get grounded, it references the grail! 
  It beats for you, it bleeds for you
It know not how it sound
For it is the drum of drums
It is the song of songs

Chanting can be powerful, this is a favourite for surrender. the chant from the Matriarchy lesson

   The Gayatri mantra became the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram when it spread from India to England, to the ritual magicians of the Golden Dawn. Grads will recognize its place in FST.  This,  my favourite version is from "The Line, the Cross and the Curve."  The second from that film/album  in my list.
  In the chat I explained
[13:05] Mystress Weatherwax: ahh and the bull roarer
[13:05] Mystress Weatherwax: takes me someplace else
[13:06] Mystress Weatherwax: Kate reverses the position of two of the Archangels
[13:06] Mystress Weatherwax: not wanting to cast the spell every time the song is played I suppose
[13:07] Mystress Weatherwax: the elements, the four archangels, the watchtowers, the compass points all have the same meaning
[13:07] G: What is that meaning?
[13:07] Mystress Weatherwax: the symbols of the archangels reflect the suits of the tarot
[13:08] Mystress Weatherwax: air water fire earth
[13:08] Mystress Weatherwax: Earth is North, Goddess and the night sky
[13:09] Mystress Weatherwax: South is Fire, solar energy
[13:09] Mystress Weatherwax: East is Air, sunrise, inspiration
[13:09] Mystress Weatherwax: West is Water, the flow of life that we are made of
[13:10] Mystress Weatherwax: The Archangels are one representation of these elemental archetypal beings
[13:11] Mystress Weatherwax: but there are smaller elementals that are connected too.
[13:11] Mystress Weatherwax: Want to meet some?
  Then we went on a field trip around the sim meeting the fire Gods and Elementals that have take up residence in the virtual fires... finally, the Fire Serpent warding the landing pad.
  I played and cast it at a pagan party once, and a friend noticed everybody warmed up and started hugging.   
Oh Thou, who givest sustenance to the Universe...
wikipedia

   This one is a pentacle, Us and She. Haunting, throbbing,  it pulls me right into the planet, into the rhythms of tide and moon and ancestors.
She said, "You are My child"
Lyrics

  I saw Cyndi open for Cher a few weeks ago, the way Cher ended her concert, by itself is the answer to your question.

  We had great seats, 11 rows from the floor, at the back. Saw the little silver platform rise into the air right in front of us and fly to the stage to get her.  Dressed as a goddess she flew around the arena close to the audience singing this farewell song of love and blessings. Radiant. She passed within ten feet of me and I caught her eye, smiled and waved. She smiled and waved back. My companion was in tears, overcome at the beauty. Back on the stage, she bowed blessings, Namaste to the audience on all sides.
   So amazing I can share that moment with you... different show different city but...
For Mari... 
With lyrics