Abstract
This paper scrutinizes how human beings relate to the wider cosmos in the thinking of the European Middle Ages. The re-invention of the ‘spiritual’ might liberate Western culture from Cartesian elements within Western Christianity and the consequent limited and exclusive views of musicking. Practical examples of how singing together forms community at a variety of levels will be discussed. Others aspects that will be addressed are: being human; culture, health and illness; the place of the spiritual and the implications of this for music education.
Highlights
This paper2 will explore the view of what it is to be human and how well-being is constructed (Helman, 1994)
Summary I have set out a process model of spirituality drawing from a variety of texts and both contemporary and much older
I have seen how the marginalisation and fluidity within concepts of spirituality and its relationship to well-being, in favour of fixed narratives passed on by means of literary texts have resulted in a fixed, less experiential set of creeds and dogmas; this has resulted in various groups being excluded from religious citadels
Summary
This paper (originally given as a keynote presentation) will explore the view of what it is to be human and how well-being is constructed (Helman, 1994). I have endeavoured to summarise the gist of them in written form in this article It is in line with the crystallization methodology. Music and well-being combines symmetry and substance with an infinite variety of shapes, substances, transmutations, multidimensionalities, and angles of approach (Richardson 2000:934, original emphasis). This allows for a variety of writing styles (and in the actual keynote presentation performative elements) to explore music and well-being by means of an interdisciplinary weaving together of philosophy, theology, music (as approached by musicology, ethnomusicology, music therapy), hymns, poetry and musical practice. Crystallization sees truth as a crystal with different facets revealing different aspects of truth: Crystallization combines multiple forms of analysis and multiple genres of representation into a coherent text or series of related texts, (Ellingson, 2009:4)
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