We sleep, we wake up, fall back to unconsciousness, and reawaken again. This is literally true, and has a figurative sense as well. In the literal sense, we seem to need the periods where sensation and voluntary movement are mostly shut down to go anabolic and build up our systems: immunity, bones and muscles, brain and nerves.
Might something like this also be true of realizations of sacred* dimensions of reality**, or of bodhi, or, call it what you will, “waking up” to some important aspect of what’s going on around you? Do we need periods where our animal bodies just go through the motions, on autopilot like a zombie, to build up emotional reserves for our next epiphany?
Meh. Who knows. 
Your Prompt: Sing for waking up. Simply that, open-ended, take that in any way that works for you… and/or take additional guidance from the Options below.
Options
You always have options! Here are suggested ways to approach this week’s Prompt:
Option A: Literally Waking Up – You have a couple of options with this Option.
One is to record yourself singing as soon as possible after you rise from sleep. Be extraordinarily gentle with your voice if you go this route; your morning voice cannot do the things your warmed-up voice can do, and the last thing we want is for you to hurt yourself. But, what will come out if you sing while your sleeptime dreams are still sloughing off to make way for your daytime routines? Hmmm…
Another option is to sing a song for waking up… an alarm, a clarion call. Or, a gentle song meant to coax a sleeper to wakefulness, kind of an inverse lullaby. That’s an option.
Option B: Awake! Revive! – Get figurative. There are things going on all around us that we’re not paying enough attention to. Our relationships. Social injustices. Deeper ways of connecting with members of our communities. More meaningful ways of living. Sing a song of your personal waking up to one or more of these things, that moment you realized [insert your realization here]. Or, perhaps you’re living a reality that others are woefully unaware of; take this time to sing their wake-up call.
To Contribute
The steps are as follows:
- Step 0: Sign up for a free SoundCloud account here. Join the SSS group.
- Step 1: Record yourself singing your song of waking up.
- Step 2: Upload to SoundCloud and post the track to the SSS group.
- Step 3: Listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow singers. (Play nice!)
Deadline: Your tracks should be uploaded by midnight wherever you are on Monday, September 14, 2015.
Length: The length of your finished work should be about 2 to 5 minutes, or however long you need to sing your waking-up song.
Description: It would be awesome to include a short description of where and when you sang your piece—and how it felt.
Title/Tag: When uploading to SoundCloud, put “[sss-waking]” in the title of your track. Also include the term “sss-waking” as a tag. This will help us find it.
Group: Once the track is uploaded, click on the “Add to group” button below the waveform and make sure to select the Society for Spontaneous Singing group. (This option will only appear if you have already joined the group! So do that now.)
Linking: You are welcome to include this info in your description:
This track is a reply to “Prompt 33: Waking Up.” More on the Society for Spontaneous Singing at http://singthis.org. You can join the SSS at https://soundcloud.com/groups/society-for-spontaneous-singing
Thank you, sweet singers!
* …whatever your idea of “sacred” is…
** …whatever your idea of “reality” is…