What is the Music of Freedom?
The song Born Free, with its sweeping melody and universal message of freedom, gives wings to the longing we have to follow our heart and to create our own destiny.
This song says that freedom is:
• Following your heart
• Finding beauty and wonder
• Letting no walls divide you
• Being free as the roaring tide
Click here to watch a beautiful video of Andy Willliams singing Born Free. But don’t forget to come back!
Do you Follow your Heart?
Or do you feel confined by societal expectations and frustrated because you are often donning a mask?
I’ve felt that way too. We wear masks for a multitude of reasons: fear of rejection, fear of ridicule, fear of not measuring up, fear of being misunderstood – the list goes on and on.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve rebelled against societal constructs and restrictions. Alway kicking against the boundaries that fenced me in. Hating the facade and resenting the mask I thought I had to wear.
Or worse, avoiding situations altogether when I just couldn’t put on one more mask.
Over the years, my push for freedom has bumped up against expectations.
I didn’t want to disappoint family, teachers, boss.
Don’t get me wrong.
Freedom isn’t about being free to live our lives without regard for our fellow human beings.
Rather, it’s about taking off the mask of pretense. Only when we lose the mask can we truly be free to love others.
I’ve come to realize that the walls that divide are mostly interior walls that I built when the push to conform was stronger than the pull of being true to myself.
What Does it Mean to Live Free?
Living free means to live in the present without pretense.
Not wasting time dwelling on past regrets, or worrying about the future, or how me don’t measure up.
These are the true thieves of freedom.
When our minds are active with worry or regret, we miss out on the beauty and wonder of the moment.
Whether we focus on the outer or inner landscape of our lives, there is always beauty to find.
I get it. Life is hectic and we can almost feel it unraveling as we grab onto the frayed edges of the passing day.
In times like this, step back, take a few deep breaths and ask yourself where is the beauty?
Take the time to gaze in wonder at the stars, or your sleeping child, or the flower that’s just bloomed.
Or turn inward and imagine a landscape that fills you with wonder.
Feel astonishment that you, defying all odds of nature, are standing at this particular time and place.
Sometimes when I’m feeling overwhelmed, I re-image the thoughts that are clamoring in my head as falling stars. 
I don’t attempt to grasp and hold onto them. Rather they flash into my consciousness and fall away.
Be Free as the Roaring Tide
At no other age does the analogy “free as the roaring tide” fit better than the young child.
Uninhibited and filled with energy, they find wonder everywhere.
Through children we rediscover magic in the most mundane of situations.
When my daughters were young, I was (I still am) smitten with them.
Filed away in my brain are thousands of snapshot memories. Some are readily accessible, some are filed helter skelter with no easy retrieval system.
On occasion, something one of my grandchildren does or says shakes a memory loose and like a kaladiscope the picture floats into focus.
Double joy!
Interacting with my grandchildren fills me with astonishment. They are as unstoppable as the roaring tide.
They are their own person and they express themselves without wondering what other people are thinking about them.
Where is your song?
Brynna, one of my granddaughters, and I were playing a couple of months ago.
Her voice could rival an opera singer and we were having fun singing silly songs.
Suddenly she reached up and symbolically zipped her lips.
Putting her hand behind her back she said, “I’m locking my song in my back pocket”.
Her face, animated with smiles a few seconds before, grew solemn.
She’s three and found a very creative way to let me know that she was tired of our singing game. But that sentence hit me with its’ profundity.
That! Is how we lose our freedom.
Do you present one side of yourself to the world and lock the other side behind the wall for safe keeping?
Are you Consumed with Making Yourself Presentable to the World?
Oh to see the world through the eyes of the child.
“Wanna chum Grandma?”, Emerson asks me.
Her two-year-old ernest self is garbed in a princess dress and a big floppy hat.
She shuffles along in her mom’s high heel shoes pushing a shopping cart, dragging an oversized purse along the floor behind her.
“Wanna chum”?
My heart melts at her mispronunciation of “come”.
“Yes, I’d love to come shopping with you”.
And in my head I’m marveling at how much joy it brings to ‘chum’ with my grandchildren.
Em has not conformed to society’s expectations.
It doesn’t matter that she’s in the West Edmonton mall.
She’s wearing a mermaid dress and she must dance to the music in her soul.
To live an authentic life is to claim your freedom to live the beautiful, unique being that is you!
Take your song out of your back pocket and sing it without reservation.
Express yourself freely and dance to the song that is yours to sing.
Live your life wild and free.
Find your song. Sing your song. Dance your song.
P.S. Remember always that true freedom gives the same freedom to others that we claim for ourselves.
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