Beginnings: What the Muzoracle is.
What the Muzoracle is. The word “oracle” is derived from the Latin orare, which means to speak, plead, or pray. In antiquity, an oracle was a shrine, or a priestess or priest at a shrine, through which the voice of a goddess or god could be heard, such as the Oracle at Delphi. As an “agency or medium of the gods,” “oracle” came to refer as well to systems of divination, such as the Urim and Thummim of the Hebrews, the I Ching, Runes, the Tarot—and the Muzoracle.
The word “music,” literally “the art of the Muse,” refers to the artful organization of vibrations that fall within the range of our hearing. The Muzoracle, then, is a system of divination that uses music as its medium.
That being said, the word “divination” doesn’t apply to the Muzoracle in the usual sense. “Divination” is rooted in the Latin divinare, to be “inspired by a god,” and divinationem, “the power of foreseeing or prediction”; Merriam-Webster defines it as “the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events by the interpretation of omens.” The Muzoracle, however, is not a fortune teller. Rather than predicting the future, the Muzoracle’s purpose lies in creatively responding to the present. It is the present, after all, that creates the future, and what we can change today will change tomorrow as well. Seeing what’s in front of us, though, apprehending the present in a thorough and unbiased way, is not always an easy task. The Muzoracle presents elements of story and music that we in turn weave into narrative; doing so forces new perspectives and illuminates new possibilities, which in turn broaden our view.
Ultimately, the Muzoracle is a tool for engaging the imagination and intuition through music and story, and forming creative responses that align with our intent. It is a means of self-counseling: even when we cast the oracle for others, it is they who create the story—we just help with the language, nudging them, perhaps, toward richer questions.