Donna is thinking about the healing power of sound (and chant wars), which got me to put Vision - The Music of Hildegard von Bingen on the player this morning. I thought this quote from the accompanying booklet was especially appropriate:

Underneath all the texts, all the sacred psalms and canticles, these watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb, and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God.

When the words come, they are merely empty shells without the music. They live as they are sung, for the words are the body and the music the spirit.

Every element has a sound, an original sound from the order of God; all those sounds unite like the harmony from harps and zithers.

Those voices you hear are like the voice of a multitude, which lifts its sound on high; for jubilant praises, offered in simple harmony and charity, lead the faithful to that consonance in which is no discord, and make those who still live on earth sigh with heart and voice for the heavenly reward.

--- Hildegard von Bingen