Medicine melodies can be found in all traditions: from lullabies to Gregorian chants, Hebrew davennen, the kirtans, mantras and ragas from India, Tibetan ritual prayers, the zhikrs of the Sufis, Buddhist sutras and tantric chants, indigenous songs such as the icaros, and healing songs from Africa and the Americas. These melodies are divinely inspired, constructed with simplicity and minimalism and rendered with a great deal of repetition to most effectively convey emotion, memory, revelation, or spiritual transmission.

Evoking the original function of music—which is to quiet the mind and make it sensitive to divine intervention—these archetypal melodies clear and open energetic channels. The simple contour of the melodies creates a contagious sensation of ancestral communion and well-being. Anyone who cultivates familiarity with chanting can find herself creating or remembering medicine melodies. It requires simply the ability to be completely present in the moment, allowing yourself to be subtly immersed in a transpersonal field of sound and fearlessness—the mind of the shaman.

As sacred sound, a medicine melody travels through consciousness; it can transform everyday occurrences into a visionary dimension. A fundamental part of shamanic healing, medicine melodies possess profound consciousness-altering effects. Examples from the Peruvian Amazon are icaros, songs that plants “transmit” to the healers as soon as they become physically, mentally and spiritually prepared to receive the songs. After shamanic initiation, individuals in completely different locations have been known to receive the very same icaros—evidence of their direct transmission from sacred realms.

A shaman will sing medicine melodies for divination—obtaining information from the spirit world—and protection in support of the inner journey. The sacro-magical and transformative qualities of these chants make them central to medicine ritual. The practice involves using evocative voices that imitate nature and spirit sounds, simple chants and deep drumbeats to facilitate the transference of energy and connect with the healing power of the elements of nature and the spirit world.

Some of the psycho-spiritual qualities that may be conveyed when people sing medicine melodies include inner wisdom, serenity, open-mindedness, selflessness, compassion, devotion, calm acceptance, wonder, affliction, detachment, inner joy, radiance and relaxation. In music and sound therapy, both the clinician and patient can benefit from medicine melodies that generate an atmosphere of calm receptiveness.

Singing medicine melodies becomes a spiritual practice that involves both the body and mind, opening us to divine remembrance, nature, and transformation. The realm of sounding becomes a state of consciousness—a kind of trance—where the attention is not on the Self, but in the experience of listening. Free from selfish demands, the voice soars, listens, receives and releases healing frequencies and songs. We wonder again, Who is singing?

Through the emotive magic of medicine melodies, we become cosmic singers, connecting through sound to spirit, eternity, and light. Herein lies the beneficial power of this distinctive music that has no composer and no ownership, except for the intervention of nature. Our hearts open to the deep longing of the enchanters, to those who journey through the magic of sound to attract spirit power. Our voice is making cosmic music.