How Rhythm Shapes Our Lives

Simply put, rhythm is a strong repeated pattern of movement or sound, generally considered to be an ordered alternation of contrasting elements. As regular and natural patterns of change, rhythms are everywhere--in the cycle of seasons, the tides, the phases of the moon, waking and sleeping, day and night, ebb and flow, yin and yang. In fact, rhythm is the very pulse of the universe. According to quantum physics, everything in the universe, from the smallest subatomic particle to the largest star, has an inherent vibrational pattern. Everything has a unique vibrational frequency--a pulsating rhythm that belongs only to it. Within the heart of each of us, there exists a silent pulse of perfect rhythm that connects us to the totality of a dynamic, interrelated universe.
 

Rhythm interconnects everything in the natural world. All living things share in the common experience of being plugged into the electromagnetic grid of the planet. All life pulsates in time to the planet’s extremely low frequencies, which are concentrated at about 7.83 Hz (cycles per second). This so-called Schumann resonance is produced and maintained by more than eight million global lightning strikes a day. Every lightning bolt discharges a large amount of energy and so contributes to the Earth’s background base frequency or "heartbeat." This alpha rhythm is the primary frequency in the web of life. All life forms are innately connected to this primary frequency.
 

Beyond natural manifestations, rhythm characterizes human expression and is inseparable from speech, music, dance, and all forms of art. Rhythm plays an important role in how we perceive and connect with the world. Rhythm plays a role in listening, in walking, and in language. More importantly, rhythm is the underlying foundation of human sociability and interaction. Consider the broad range of biological rhythms in the human body, fast and slow, transmuted and integrated by the complex interdependence of the somatic, autonomic and endocrine nervous systems. The results of this synthesis of movement and sound act directly on us, spatially and temporally differentiating our interactional patterns.
 

Indeed, the very universality of rhythm is a compelling argument for the existence of biological processes governing the perception and production of rhythm. Rhythms in the brain have been identified as a basis for consciousness itself. According to neuroscience research, rhythm is rooted in innate functions of the brain, mind, and consciousness. As human beings, we are innately rhythmic. Our relationship with rhythm begins in the womb. At twenty two days, a single (human embryo) cell jolts to life. This first beat awakens nearby cells and incredibly they all begin to beat in perfect unison. These beating cells divide and become our heart. This desire to beat in unison seemingly fuels our entire lives. Studies show that, regardless of musical training, we are innately able to perceive and recall elements of beat and rhythm.
 

It makes sense, then, that beat and rhythm are an important aspect in music therapy. Our brains are hard-wired to be able to entrain to a beat. Entrainment occurs when two or more rhythms come into sync and begin to beat as one. If you are walking down a street and you hear a song, you instinctively begin to step in sync to the beat of the song. This is actually an important area of current music therapy research. Our brain enables our motor system to naturally entrain to a rhythmic beat, allowing music therapists to target rehabilitating movements. The better we understand the biological basis of rhythm, the better we will be able to employ rhythm--in all its guises--to improve communication and to better understand ourselves.

Photographing Xhosa Shamans in South Africa

Shaman healers who practice traditional medicine and worship the ancestors are influential figures in South African communities. Traditional healers fulfill different social and political roles in the community, including divination, healing physical, emotional and spiritual illnesses, directing birth or death rituals, finding lost cattle, protecting warriors, counteracting witchcraft, and narrating the history, cosmology, and concepts of their tradition. But what fascinated Italian photographer Tommaso Fiscaletti wasn't their power, but the contrast between that and their everyday lives.

Fiscaletti has been based in Cape Town for the past two and a half years, and first set foot in the small township of Dunoon, in the west of the city, when he was introduced to the urban weavers who live there.
 

The women invited him to come to learn about their designs, but Fiscaletti was struck by the duality of the spiritual and the domestic that shape their lives.
 

He had soon embarked upon a six-month project photographing them, taking shots he's titled Between Home and Wisdom.
 

"On the one hand, they are leading figures for the community and the family and on the other, they're devoted to the cult of the ancestors and spend a lot of time alone," Fiscaletti says.
 

"What attracted me the most was the energy of these women in everyday life, in the context of the township where nature seems to have changed its shape, and life and death seem to have a different feeling to normal reality."
 

Through a combination of staged, cinematic portraits where dramatic lighting illuminates the women in their dark surroundings, and photographs taken against neutral backgrounds, Fiscaletti frames the strong characters of his subjects, focusing on them rather than their social conditions.
 

"My vision, and my approach to the image, has been conditioned by the love for the cinema," he says. See more of Tomasso's work here.

Meet Modern Shaman Sabrina Villard

As a tot, Sabrina Villard took her first steps in the Sahara desert, just south of Algeria. She did so while holding the hand of her great-grandmother, a Bedouin shaman--who are known in the region as Fugara--who she says lived to be 123 years old.
 

"She is still with me every day, guiding me," says Villard, who inherited and honed her skills as a shaman from her late great-grandmother. She keeps a photo of her on an altar surrounded by candles and flowers in the corner of her ceremony room, which occupies the second bedroom of her apartment on Robinson Road in Hong Kong's Mid-Levels district.
 

To this day, when faced with adversity or difficult decisions, a distinct tingle on her arm is a reassuring sign that her great-grandmother is watching over her. And one year ago, feeling she had that support, Villard made one of the biggest decisions of her life so far.
 

At the time, she was the Apac project manager for one of the world's most revered luxury fashion houses by day, and by night, she would guide clients on shamanic journeys, straddling the living and spiritual realms to assist in a variety of areas: from healing traumas to removing subconscious patterns that block people from reaching their full potential.
 

"The traditional definition of a shaman is a seer in the dark," says Villard. "I don't know about anyone's life when they come to me. I am shown what you are ready to see by your spirit guides, ancestors and your own memories. I have a conversation with your soul."
 

Last September, on her birthday, she quit her high-flying fashion job to pursue her role as a shaman full-time. "I resigned on my birthday," says the self-proclaimed witch. "Rebirth day!"
 

Since then, she has made it her mission to spread the ancient healing art of shamanism throughout the modern world. Without compromising its sanctity, she has found ways to make it approachable and applicable to even those who might be put off by the "woo-woo" perception of it.
 

"Some people like the theatrics of it: the crystals, the potions or dressing a certain way ... but it's not for me," says Villard, who prefers not to use any tools in her shamanic practice, and whose style is more wicked than witch. "For me, the modern witch is sure of herself and her intuition."
 

In fact, Villard recently became the first shaman to enter the metaverse, spending the last few months building a world on online virtual community platform VRChat under her moniker, V-Healing. The dreamy domain is a futuristic, space station-esque oasis that looks out to a desert landscape--a nod to her Bedouin roots. 

Villard may be the first, but she hopes she isn't the last, and that over time, spirituality and alternative forms of healing will find their place in virtual reality.
 

"I know a lot of people will go against [this idea], but this is what I like; this is what's necessary," she says. "I like to go against the current, to bring spirituality into our modern world. We need to adapt and bring ancient knowledge and wisdom to the platforms that people are using now."

An Indigenous Perspective on Climate Change

Greenland, also known as Kallaalit Nunaat by the local Inuit peoples, is the "Ground Zero" of climate change. Its geographic location and expansive ice sheets make it extremely vulnerable to climate change, resulting in disproportionate impacts for those who live there. Greenland's population is extremely dispersed, with a majority being Inuit, who live in communities organized around subsistence hunting. Using dog sleds and boats resembling kayaks, the Inuit hunt seals, walrus, narwhal, polar bears and other Arctic animals.
 

In general, the lifestyle of the Inuit communities paired with the environmental conditions of Greenland create a multi-layered vulnerability to climate change. Rising sea levels increase coastal erosion, while melting ice inhibits travel, hunting and other subsistence activities. The mixture of snow and thinner ice makes traditional travel paths extremely unreliable for dog sleds and snowmobiles, increasing isolation and immobility. Increasingly, Inuit are being forced to seek modernized work opportunities, driven out of generational hunting traditions due to climate change and the resulting economic insecurity. This has had devastating impacts on Inuit communities, particularly young men who can no longer partake in traditional hunting.
 

The spiritual significance of climate change

Inuit shaman Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq speaks about the spiritual significance of climate change at international conferences around the world. Angaangaq is a traditional healer, storyteller and carrier of the Qilaut (wind drum), whose  family belongs to the traditional healers of the Far North from Greenland. His name means 'The Man Who Looks Like His Uncle'. Since he was a child he was trained by his family--especially by his Grandmother Aanakasaa--for becoming a shaman. The spiritual task given by his mother is: "Melting the Ice in the Heart of Man."

 

Angaangaq bridges the boundaries of cultures and faiths in people young and old. His work has taken him to over 70 countries around the world. He conducts circles, seminars and Aalaartiviit--traditional sweat lodges. His teachings are deeply rooted in the wisdom of the oral healing traditions of his people, which enabled people over thousands of years to survive in one of the harshest places on Earth.
 

In an interview with LifeGate, Angaangaq shared an Indigenous perspective on climate change. Everyone talks about climate change but nobody talks about its spiritual significance. "According to the old people, a third of the population on Earth will vanish," says Angaangaq, "they say many people will die, some will barely survive, and few will have a life." His message is very powerful as it is not just about Mother Earth, who is ever-changing, it is about human lives--and we have never been so many.
 

"The ice is a living thing, you can see it in my grandmother's village. In the summer it breaks and explodes and when water gushes out you can't hear anything but that. Sometimes when there's a storm the waves are so strong that they can spew chunks of ice several kilometres away. Ice that weighs a ton," he says. The difference now is not only in our numbers but in what we have done to the Earth: "We've raped Mother Earth, taken all her resources and we're still doing it without considering the impact it can have on our personal life."
 

Angaangaq also believes that while we often talk about animals as inferior creatures we don't realize that they have a much greater capacity of adaption than us. For example, we can only live in a temperature range of 100 degrees Celsius, whereas that range is as high as 200 degrees for polar bears. "We can't adapt to hot weather, they can. Isn't that so interesting?" Angaangaq ponders.
 

Becoming the hope
 

"The changes are so bad that we can no longer save the world, we can no longer stop the melting of the big ice," confides Angaangaq. "The only thing I can think of now is to somehow find the strength and capacity within myself to become the hope. Not because I'm better than anyone else but because as a grandfather I hope that my grandchildren will have a life worth enjoying, with beauty everywhere, where you kill animals without forgetting to say thank you, where you grow what you eat, and I want to find other people willing to change their lives to be that hope."
 

"Right now the government doesn't talk about this, nor do the activists. You're just one name out of several billion but, really, you have a beautiful spirit and you're worth knowing and doing something for! The land will sink, this is a fact, what will they do with you when the ocean comes? As my father used to say, we know so much but comprehend so little."
 

The melting of the Arctic ice sheets is a call for us to reflect on the spiritual significance of climate change and our way of living. It's time to look with eyes of faith into our future and believe we can make a difference. If we have hope, there is potential for extraordinary change--things will survive. The Indigenous elders teach us if we return to harmony in our lives, melting the ice in our hearts, reconnecting with one another, we will survive. It is time to use this knowledge to help mankind.