There's a feeling you get when you're operating a machine, or an instrument, or anything else that's predictable, when you're really comfortable with it. I bet you know it. It's how you feel when you're driving a car or riding a bike (except without the hyper-vigilance you might associate with that), I think. It's the feeling you get when that thing becomes an extension of your body.
I was helping out with the bell tower yesterday on Christmas Eve. I rang the heaviest four bells; serving as counterpart to the person who runs the Tower Guild, ringing the other nine. We played a bunch of hymns and carols before and after both services the church held. A little over an hour total with my hands on the ropes, I think.
A bit after the first service ended, I noticed something — my brain wasn't in charge of the bells anymore. I actually got a little anxious about it at first, and mentally made some mistakes reading the music that I felt like should've made it to my hands — move to a different rope a little late, pull a little early. But my hands just kept playing correctly, and didn't make the mistakes. When I messed up something else, it felt more like… tripping over a shoelace and quickly picking myself up, so I could keep walking on pace.
My first thought was that ringing was becoming a "system one" thing, like riding a bike — I was making the bells an extension of myself.
A notable thing about the bells is, they're way bigger than I am. The heaviest is maybe three feet tall, two feet across, and obviously made out of metal, so much denser than me. They take up a whole level of the tower without much room for manuevering around, and they're mounted on wheels just so we can actually move them. My heart feels so much reverence towards the bells. (I think it's hereditary — my great-grandfather was an organ builder, and I've always been somewhat in awe of instruments you can walk into.)
There's another funny thing about things and places that have been around longer and seen more than you have. There's kind of a certain wisdom stemming from that age, and an aliveness that you can pick up on, if you look for it. I get it the most at the monestary — something about the walls having absorbed daily prayer for a hundred years. But I sometimes feel it in old textile mills, or particularly tall trees, too. I certainly felt it in the bells last night.
And with that, it felt more like I was an extension of the bells, not the other way around. The bells want to ring whatever is on the music stand in front of the ropes? I would like that too, and what better way to help than just… giving my body and mind to the bells for a bit?
Being the bells was wonderful.