Finding Order in the Cosmic Cacophony
Finding Order in the Cosmic Cacophony
Vernal reflections on music, language, and humanity's unending quest for meaning
Every experience has its element of magic.
—Hermann Hesse
ACROSS THE EMPTY FIELDS OF INFINITE SPACE it rings, in the terrible seraphic timbre of the supreme realm, the so-called Musica Universalis; the unspoken language with which the gods scored existence into being. So believed Pythagoras, that great specter of ancient mysteries (both apocryphal and real).1
In his mind’s eye, Pythagoras envisaged the motion of planets and moons ringing out like lyre strings across aeons of curved void, sounding in preternatural tones which no mortal could embrace. This revelation came soon after he [supposedly] discovered the mathematical foundations of music: viz., that the pitch of a note (the sound emitted by vibrating a string) varied based on the length of the string; that those variations could be measured using ratios to produce unique intervals.2
For the uninitiated, we’re talking here about the Music of the Spheres—a legendary and somewhat contentious philosophical concept that's been around since the glory days of Babylon.3 The basic gist is this: the universe is like a giant cosmic orchestra, with the planets and celestial bodies acting as the instruments. As these heavenly spheres move along their orbits, they emit subtle vibrations and tones that coalesce into a sublime, inaudible symphony.
For the Pre-Socratic philosophers of the ancient world, the notion of celestial harmony was a poetic way of reconciling a hidden order amongst the chaos; that beneath the noise of existence plays a more profound refrain—ceaseless, boundless, and just beyond the reach of our frail sensorium (but perceptible, surely, to the soul). While modern science might have disproven Pythagoras, the score was surely not settled. The concept of the Universal Music endured in the cultural zeitgeist, capturing the imaginations of thinkers, artists, and mystics from antiquity to the Renaissance and on down to the present-day.
And in case you didn’t know, today (March 19th, 2024) is the perfect day to reflect on the motion of celestial bodies because today is the Vernal Equinox. Of all the cosmological bookends in the story of the year, none hold a deeper significance than the equinoxes. The word "equinox" comes to us from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night), marking those rarest of sidereal occasions when day and night stand in equipoise. Could there be a more perfect time to christen my newsletter with an inaugural post? I think not.
To celebrate the arrival of Ostara, I invite you now to join me in pondering about the nature of music as a universal language through the lenses of ancient philosophy, romantic poetry, Russian ballet, esoteric cults, and the uniquely human quest for meaning-making in the face of a tumultuous existence.
Back in the 6th century BCE on the island of Samos, Pythagoras was convinced that the universe was a grand symphony, with the planets themselves as the instruments.4 The same numerical ratios that governed musical intervals were, to his mind, the very language of the cosmos.
“Language” is an apt analogy here. In fact, it’s almost impossible to talk about music without borrowing metaphors we use to talk about language. For example, we often speak of a melody's "phrases," or the "grammar" of a composition. And then there’s the "call and response" between voices or instruments characteristic of antiphony and familiar to any fan of blues, gospel, R&B, soul, jazz, or hip-hop.
Now, what comes to mind if I ask you to think of an instrumental song that tells a story? Perhaps you’re a fan of the ballet, and even now you’re humming the melody to Tchaikovsky’s ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’, imagining the delicate movements of the dancers in the saccharine Land of Sweets. But while both music and language [and dance] undeniably communicate something profound about the human experience, there's a fundamental difference in how they do so. In his Critique of Judgment (1790), Immanuel Kant says:
The art of tone speaks through mere sensations without concepts, and hence does not, like poetry, leave behind something for reflection, yet it moves the mind in more manifold and, though only temporarily, in deeper ways.
Kant recognizes the unique power of music: it's a language of the senses, bypassing the conceptual realm of words. Music doesn't necessarily tell a concrete story the way a poem or work of prose can, yet it possesses an emotional immediacy unlike any other artistic medium. In other words,5 music doesn't need to explain itself in order to move us on a primal level. Its patterns and harmonies resonate directly with the core of our being, evoking joy, sorrow, outrage, longing, or some nameless, alien feeling.
This brings us back to the Music of the Spheres. Think of the celestial bodies orbiting in their mathematical dance—they don't compose sonnets or offer philosophical treatises. Their "song" is one of fundamental ratios, a raw and wordless articulation of the very laws underpinning our reality. Music strives to achieve something similar sui generis. It is a language of sensation, capable of expressing what intellectual language struggles to define.
THE SOLITARY REAPER
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;—
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Like a chemical with a short half-life and a potent aroma, the transient nature of music's effect—as noted by Kant and Wordsworth—adds to its enigmatic power; every song or symphony unfolds in time and then fades into silence. Yet, the emotional echoes it leaves within us can linger long after the last note has played. And like the vernal equinox, a piece of music can mark a moment of profound change within the listener. It can re-align what we thought we knew about ourselves or spark an unquenchable desire for a feeling we cannot even name. In this sense, music has a transformative potential, one that arguably transcends our intellectual comprehension.
All of this to say, explaining the power of music is hard work.
Dr. Férdia Stone-Davis, Director of Research at Cambridge and Chair of The Royal Musical Association’s Music and Philosophy Study Group (MPSG), says this of music and language:
“…their common ability to evoke, express, and represent suggests a connection between the two. Indeed, linguistic metaphors are valuable to our understanding of music. It is for this reason that they have become ingrained within our language about musical meaning … Likewise, we talk about musical ideas, musical sentences, propositions, punctuation and musical questions.”
—Musical Beauty: Negotiating the Boundary between Subject and Object (2011).
This idea of music as both cosmic and personally transformative conjures the myth of Orpheus. As the son of a Muse and gifted with superhuman musical ability, Orpheus epitomizes the interplay between the divine harmonies of the universe and our human capacity to channel them. Orpheus' lyre didn't merely produce beautiful music—it was said to tame wild beasts, make the trees of the forest dance, soothe the stones of the earth, and bring the gods themselves to tears. His descent into the underworld to reclaim his beloved Eurydice is a radical testament to music's power, as he charms his way through the gates of death itself.
While the story of Orpheus is a tragic one (spoiler alert), it underscores the ancient Pythagorean philosophy and near-universal belief that music holds otherworldly sway. Perhaps inevitably, this belief resurfaces in almost every culture around the world. Over two millennia after Pythagoras’ death, it would crop up in the writings of the Romantic poets, who would delve further into the relationship between nature, harmony, silence, and the ability to transcend the limits of the ordinary world. In his poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn, John Keats writes:
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone
To Pythagoras, the universe was inherently musical: Every planet, moon, and star possessed its own unique tone. This idea, while not entirely elegant, is one of the most notable early examples of humanity attempting to find sense and structure in the vast (and otherwise overwhelming) cosmos. The philosophical harmony of the Pythagoreans trickled down through the ages, evolving as it went. The Roman philosopher Boethius wrote his seminal work, De Institutione Musica, which integrated the Music of the Spheres into medieval musical theory. Boethius distinguished between three fundamental types of music:
Musica mundana: The Music of the Spheres, the silent yet eternal cosmic harmony as imagined by Pythagoras.
Musica humana: The harmony within ourselves, mirroring the cosmic order in our internal balance and bodily rhythms.
Musica instrumentalis: The earthly music we hear and create with voices and instruments.
Boethius writes:
Indeed no path to the mind is as open for instruction as the sense of hearing. Thus, when rhythms and modes reach an intellect through the ears, they doubtless affect and reshape that mind according to their particular character.
—De Institutione Musica, 1.1.181
During the Renaissance, intellectual giants like Johannes Kepler looked to the heavens for mathematical clues to the cosmic design. Unlike Pythagoras, who was driven by numerology and mysticism, Kepler was one of the figureheads of the Scientific Revolution. But that couldn’t stop him from feeling inspired by the ideas of the Pythagoreans. The concept of celestial harmony fueled Kepler’s quest to discover the laws governing planetary motion. While his calculations didn't unveil a divine melody, Kepler did make landmark discoveries about the elliptical nature of planetary orbits, forever changing our understanding of the solar system.
Despite the rise of the Scientific Revolution and its focus on empirical observation, the captivating concept of cosmic harmony refused to fully fade away. While it might no longer be expressed in strictly Pythagorean terms, the idea of a fundamental interconnectedness within the universe remained a powerful undercurrent. This fascination wasn't merely intellectual—it echoed the ancient human need to celebrate the Earth's cycles of renewal and abundance.
In ancient agrarian cultures, festivals of light and fertility marked such passages. It was customary to celebrate the Sun's growing strength and the renewal of life on Earth. The Germanic pagan goddess of spring and dawn, Ostara, whose name was coopted by the Christians for their Easter festival, is linked to this time of vibrant awakening.
Walt Whitman also heard the siren’s call of the Musica; in “A Noiseless Patient Spider” (1871), he muses on the human hunger for spiritual meaning and connection in a vast, disconnected cosmos:
A noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing—seeking the spheres, to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
Caught between the exhale of winter and the inhale of spring, it's worth reflecting on the enduring allure of the Musica Universalis. Even in our modern, hyper-rational age, there's something about this ancient idea that continues to resonate, to strike a chord deep within our souls. Perhaps it's because, despite all our technological advances and scientific discoveries, we still yearn for a sense of meaning and connection in an often chaotic and fragmented world. Like Whitman’s spider, we long for that gossamer thread, that delicate yet unbreakable tether binding us to one other, to the natural world, and to the greater mysteries of the cosmos.
What better time to ponder these deep questions than at the Vernal Equinox, when the Earth itself is poised between darkness and light, death and rebirth? It's a moment that has been celebrated by cultures across the globe and throughout history, from the ancient rites of Ostara to the modern festivities of Easter and Nowruz. Here, teetering on the knife's edge of the Seasons, we have to wonder: where do we go from here?
Maybe, just maybe, if we listen closely enough, we can catch a bar or two of the grand waltz we're all a part of. No matter how lost or disconnected we may feel, we’re all dancing to the subtle and sublime rhythms of the universe.
In that spirit, I offer this small, strange poem as a sort of Equinox blessing, a reminder of the magic and mystery that surrounds us, even in the most unexpected places:
SAMSARA GRAND OPENING
Cosmic eggs (hidden, perhaps, by celestial hares)
hatch into hurricanes, wildfires, falling stars;
Pagan math working the clouds and fireflies,
calculating the beauty in each divine frame.
These memories come pre-installed, disposable,
the kind you have to wind with a little plastic wheel.
Spring-loaded, like the algorithms running
our intergalactic cash registers, cha-ching
cha-ching, ringing the Cosmic Bottom Line.
There's a fire sale on Authentic Shambhala bricks,
Storewide markdowns on Nirvikalpa-on-a-Stick.
Manic pixie dream Buddha winks at you from across
The Samsara, standing room only (Grand Opening night),
nursing their third Enlightentini by the looks of it
while pyramid scheme pharaohs hock Atlantean horrors.
We shoot the Möbius breeze in the corner, you and I,
and play chess in a non-Hausdorff space where π is just a
rational function of how long you can hold Schrödinger's cat
in its hyperposition before the box, like, totally collapses.
Flash in the pan, mayhap—who can say? I quit cigarettes
the other day. Maybe we'll relapse, get kicked out,
"Back of the line," the bouncer will shout. As long as you're here
then really, is there anything left in Death for me to fear?
—Josh (Hestryx)
March 19, 2024
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Today and always, stay curious.
REFERENCES
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Pythagoras.” (Revised Feb 5, 2024).
Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life, John Dillon and Jackson Hershbell (tr.), Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991; referred to as VP.
Riedweg, Christoph. Pythagoras: His Life, Teaching, and Influence. United Kingdom, Cornell University Press, 2008.
Hall, Manly P., and J Augustus Knapp. An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy : Being an Interpretation of the Secret Teachings of All Ages, 1977.
Macaulay, Alastair. “The Sugar Plum Fairy: An Enigma Wrapped in a Beautiful Dance.” The New York Times, 24 Nov. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/arts/dance/the-sugar-plum-fairy-an-enigma-wrapped-in-a-beautiful-dance.html?smid=url-share. Accessed 16 Mar. 2024.
https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/03/02/pythagoras-sappho-music/
Adoyo, C. S. Dante Decrypted: Musica Universalis in the Textual Architecture of the “Commedia.” 2018.
https://www.johanneskepler.info/harmony-of-the-world-music/
Hero, Barbara, and Robert Foulkrod. The Lambdoma Matrix and Harmonic Intervals the Physiological and Psychological Effects on Human Adaptation from Combining Math Und Music. Mar. 1999, lambdoma.com/pdfs/the-lambdoma-matrix-and-harmonic-intervals.pdf. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.
FOOTNOTES
Cf. Proust, D. “The Harmony of the Spheres from Pythagoras to Voyager.” (2009).
From which emerged another epiphany—the diatonic octave, as well as the fourth and fifth harmonic intervals. See Weiss & Taruskin’s “Music in the Western World: A History in Documents.” (2008) for more on the early foundations of music theory.
For more info on the contentions around Pythagoras and his followers, see Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “The Pythagorean Question.” (Revised Feb 5, 2024).
https://www.britannica.com/science/Pythagorean-theorem
See what I did there?