Cantillation

1. The feeling that one is loved, especially by one’s mother, the basis of all health – spiritual, psychological, and therefore physical. “The state of Cantillation is the deepest conviction, / the surest knowledge, / that one is loved, totally loved, / by one’s mother, / by Nature, by God. / It overcomes all impediments / to the attainment of Joy and Enlightenment.” (Life Energy Analysis, 1). The term in Diamond’s usage also carries the sense of an active expression of that feeling as a metaphorical or literal song, as in the phrase “a song of love for the Love” (Ibid). This reflects the standard definition of cantillation (from Latin cantare, to sing) as “the musical or semi-musical chanting of sacred texts, prayers, etc., by a solo singer in a liturgical context” (New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1^st ed.). From this is derived: the verb cantillate, to be in a state of cantillation; the adjective cantillatory, often applied to a work of creativity or an activity that will actuate this feeling in the person experiencing it (for example a cantillatory poem, a cantillatory procedure); and the noun cantillator, one who cantillates.
2. The creative activity that most easily actuates a state of Cantillation in a person. It might be playing the piano, painting, photography, etc. and while it varies from person to person it is always a higher art form. Finding and practicing one’s Cantillation is an integral part of using creativity to raise one’s Life Energy. See also Two Wheels on Dry Land*.
3. The name Diamond gave to his work as a whole, using the term mainly from c. 1985 to the mid 1990s. It reflects that the core aspiration of his work should be for the student “to practice this cantillation / ever more correctly, / to raise it to ever higher stages. / And furthermore to generalize it / into all our daily activities, / so that our lives themselves / become songs of love.” (Ibid).

Timeline: The concept was first developed in the early 1980s, and was central Diamond’s approach from c. 1984 through to the early 2000s, whereupon it was increasingly replaced by related terms such as Belovedness* and Matrophilia*.

Explore: 

• Writings:
  • Life Energy Analysis: A Way to Cantillation (book)
  • A Book of Cantillatory Poems (book)
• Audio:
  • Obstacles to Cantillation (Seminar)
  • Some Early Steps to Cantillation (Seminar)