It hits you slowly at first. That feeling that creeps up the nerves at the base of your spine. You can feel silky fingers glide their pleasure along your neck. Your breathing deepens, a slight change in your pulse as it quickens. You close your eyes and enjoy the ride. Your toes twitch, thigh muscles start to move, you couldn’t stop your hips even if you tried. Every tendon cries out for attention. A torrent of hormones grabs hold of cell after cell and you teter on the brink …why fight it? Just let go and let it take you.

There, now I have your *full* attention. I am talking about the one pleasure that so many of us take for granted. You can download it or purchase it in selected stores. You can exhaust it in the car, while you shower and (when portable) you can even use it outside. Videos have become mainstream and even have their own channel: some are conservative, but others are wonderfully eye-catching and scintillating. You can make the most of it with a group but sometimes it is most satisfying all by yourself. But, be careful, if it gets too loud your neighbors might register a complaint (I found that one out the hard way). With just this one thing you can be sweet and innocent or wild and feral.

Beltane gets us thinking of all sorts of risque things…what was going through your mind?

I wasn’t being dirty. I agree it is most enticing when it’s sexual, but here I am talking about music. It is the tempo of our very soul. We grow and develop to the rhythmic beating of our mother’s heart. All the sounds and noises inside her are what we seek out in music later. A good bass beat can get you pumping your head and we have all felt it when a drummer hits a great solo.

Me, I am a rock babe. Alternative sounds mostly with Godsmack at the top of a long list. The most exhilarating place to be is the middle of a crowd that is screaming the words along with the musical demigod on stage. But I also listen to a lot of things you wouldn’t expect. Judging by my general choice of radio stations, you would never guess I am a Frank Sinatra fan. I have a couple of his cds and will put them in my player mixed with big-band swing music. On another day you might find a mass of country music emanating from my speakers. And even more so I love classical, with Beethoven’s “Moonlight” being my favorite. I can’t get enough of music. Every car trip gets it’s own personalized tape and I have a radio in every room of my house. I buy music nearly every week; whether I buy it at the store or download it off Napster. I am always searching for new videos to go with my favorite song and do my best work while listening to tunes. Each song has a different meaning and I find myself in many of them – they are the soundtracks of my history. Music is a complex being that cannot be explained.

Music can take you places you didn’t think possible. A song holds memories, lost moments, conversations and experiences long forgotten. I also attend our Chanting SIG. Those chants have gotten me through many painful occasions and are frequently in the back of my mind keeping my feet in step while I walk. Dancing with a great tune, moving your body in ways you only thought were naughty and not caring who is watching…such is the power of music.

No matter what you listen to, you love music. No one can say they don’t have a favorite song. We have wedding songs, funeral songs and songs about birth. Millions of tunes about love, heartache and happiness flood the airwaves. There are melodies for expectant mothers, toddlers and adolecents. Ever genre is covered: opera, country, rock, pop, alternative, rap, fusion, oldies, easy-listening, dance, reggae, classical, folk, bebop, jazz…the list could go on forever. From children to adults and the elderly, we all listen to music. Every city, country, society and culture has music. Tribes in remote lands who don’t have commercial discs or recorded music have beats and vocals we don’t even know about.

You don’t need a CD player or radio. You can find music at the ocean with every breaking wave. The sounds of crickets in the summer chirping a song with those big bass frogs. A baby sleeping can be the best sound ever heard. The creaking back and forth of trees in a forest or the breathing of your partner next to you. Whether it is natural, vocal, instrumental or a combination, each living soul cries out to be reconnected to that beat. That primal pulse.