Music Take Me

At the age of 38 I am rediscovering music, I used to play the piano as a child as well as the drum kit! and eventually came to have an aversion to learning music there's no need to go into all the reasons why that may have happened.

Now my body and my being is burning to learn and to play, for so many years I told myself it would take too long to learn to play with an instrument and sing with one, and somehow convinced myself that I had lost touch with a creative passion. My expressions in art, dance and design fed me to a great degree and, came very easily to me. I learned dance form after form, from ballet, jazz, Balinese, Bellydance, contact improv and so on and so on, finding my body seemed to have the memory of their forms already in my cells, art too from a young age I loved to draw, and that too seemed to come with ease...perhaps too easily, it was almost like those forms I had lived in other lives, and provided no great edge for me. With the expression through my voice was different though. I had been told I could not sing by several people when I was younger, strangely I have no memory of who those people were!! Yet in the years to come, I felt so much fear in expressing through song.

When I was 17 I had a profound experience that happened by chance or by divine chance. I was standing outside of a hall where a thousand or more people were in a surrendered practice in spiritual gathering that belonged to a lineage that my father had been engaged in for many years. The doors of the hall opened I instantly came into a surrendered state, and my body and feeling began to move. I became initiated into this lineage& in this path, officially shortly after and I discovered when I allowed my soul to be moved through stillness and the great intelligence which resides in us all, my body, my feeling, and my voice were moved. Here I was shown the scope of my voice, and sometimes what the divine moved through my voice left me in complete awe. Same when I would take my self to the wilds of nature and connect alo with the land and wildlife, songs so beautiful would pour forth. Yet outside of that practice and away from nature, I still experienced fearful thoughts that would keep me frozen in my expression of voice.

Several years later my aunt passed away, I was asked to speak something at the funeral, yet the thing that came through to be shared was a song. It took surmountable amounts of courage to get up there and sing, and yet my heart and soul wanted to offer this to the family & to her spirit. The song came through shaky and imperfect unlike the times I had sung it in the shower LOL! Yet something opened here.

Soon after I met Peru Frances and went deeper into my voice with her guidance that was in my twenties. I too was surrounded by musicians in Melbourne, most of my friends were actually musically inclined and highly skilled yet I felt such continuous incredible amounts of fear and shadowy thoughts in jams my voice would lock down or so much emotion would want to pour out that all I could do was cry, or experience some kind of silent panic as thoughts froze my body.

Another profound experience took place with my voice, when my father passed away. I was the only one present in the room. I knew he was holding on and told him that its ok he can go, he did instantly. I felt a burning fire run through my body, and I began to sing. The song felt like a ladder of comfort to keep him being pulled to the emotions of the living ( as there were several now in the room beggining to mourn).

The journey continued, and I began to trust my voice as a channel of healing for my ownself and began to share that with people and that was greatly encouraged when I met Amma Sophia Rose where I delved into her world of Sonic Alchemy, and deepened in the allowing the channeling of voice for the purpose of healing, for greater communion, and to welcome the language of the soul as a means to communicate, relate and to bless myself, nature and other people. Soon after I took confidence in assisting others to connect to their soul voice and voice as form of emotional release.

I kept feeling like there was something more, to work as a vocal channel and as a vocal intuitive for the purpose of body work was one thing. I wanted to sing with instruments, I wanted to learn to harmonize and to join in the great communication, communion, and co-creation that takes place with other people in the making of music, and especially with instruments. I kept journeying with my voice, yet I felt the longing for instruments to uplift me to the next stage and support my vocal growth. I kept telling myself it would take too long to learn and questioned whether I have it in me to be committed to such a thing, to a point where I just ignored it and put my attention to other things that were juicy, like women's empowerment and a sharing of feminine spirituality, some trying and some wonderful relationships and focusing on several business ventures, or future dreams of growing in holding workshops on personal development. It kept me going for some time, while my secret longing was being muffled. Then out the blue, Shantam Nityama came into my life. I cannot describe all the ways this man impacted me through his presence sometimes fierce sometimes tender and all the while with a great truth, and reminded me of what was important, and assisted me in turning back again to a deeper listening to some essential truth that can be at times so subtle when our attention has been so filled.

After several months of learning in presence with him. I one day woke up and I was called to return to make space for a surrendered practice ( the same kind as the one I was initiated to at 17). In this surrender a surge of energy shook me and a very clear inner direction was given, that was to leave Bali, close all my efforts at business ventures as well as The Women's Living Temple ( an incredible place I'd cultivated, a semi retreat space in Bali ), to live in a small spiritual community in Borneo, later this further progressed to leaving my partner who I had shared such a profound growth enhancing journey with. My world spun, in many ways, I found it hard to let go of everything I had put my love, time and attention to, and yet the pull into the unknown was so clear I could not ignore it.

I moved in the direction of my intuition and away from the directions of my desire. Dreams I had formed about who I thought I had wanted to be and become were dissolving. Months in Borneo & traveling and then hermiting passed as I retreated, I did not want to see people, and I turned to solitude. There was so much unmet material in me that came to be loved, parts of myself I had been at war with. It sometimes was utterly overwhelming and uncomfortable all I could be was breathe and find my ground while so much moved through me. Only turning to the deep wellsprings of eternal love within was my saving grace. Some inner joy independent of anyone or anything and an immeasurable love was being ignited and felt amongst the storms, chaos and discomfort I was experiencing. Soon I felt the urge to find an instrument and I was lent a guitar !

Another intuitive direction told me to return to live with my mother and stay in Australia ! Having the means to be any anywhere and live anywhere this went strongly against my "I" desires. I have lived away from the home of my parents since the age of 18years old and from Australia since I was 26 . I have lived in so many locations in the world, so many paradises in Europe, India, Asia & America and looking back I truly have experienced such an incredible life.. My " I" desire wanted so much to go to a new place, a new island and find a new home. Yet something in me seems to be gaining strength in the ability to discern with clarity essence truth and another desire founded on a lie..despite having "I" and all its various identities kicking and screaming or throwing a tantrum!! Steadily beside it, the increasing amounts of Joy, Expansion and a deeper communion with Life founded was gifted by a Great Love. These past months joy immeasurable is bubbling up in my daily life, and Iam finding some interesting things move through me, surrendered states come and go, Iam found laughing or crying in the most random of moments with no internal or external impulse as some of my friends have witnessed here ( which is interesting in a world that can seem so damning of our essentially dynamic and mysterious nature) , colors seem brighter, and when my heart and soul are shining with the awe of being, I am left speechless.

Now Iam beginning to see clearly the divine redirect over a year ago in Bali that seemed so againts everything i was working towards !!!

These months the invitation to Music has only got louder, my days of learning are growing, having added to the guitar the keyboard and harmonium to the exploration, creation and study!! I feel so young in all of this, and I realize this is a life long relationship that I am just beginning. May it be long and fruitful one!! Yet the innocent moments in touch with an instrument, and the movement of life through me in learning and expressing with what I already have , provide me with so much! The invitation to meet the unknown in presence lives in every string, strum, and every white and black key as it does in every moment in our lives. May I remain a child of wonder in this journey of discovery and play!!

There's a lots of focus out there on excavating our beliefs and spending time and energy changing our beliefs by digging into the past and emotions this and that and by making a huge amount of effort to change our thinking and fixing what's wrong with ourselves which is an endless rabbit hole. Trust me, been there too many times and I have fell back to that in my most vulnerable moments, when my intuition just said, everything that is taking place is, for me, all the wild storms, all the thoughts, the discomfort is redirecting me. Trusting the redirect, being with the discomfort while being in touch with the Great Love, focusing on loving what shows up as happening for me, and turning towards that mysterious divinity within me and allowing its movement regardless of what it may look like, is what shifts me in the moment. A shift that comes without writing pages of analysis or hours of scavenging. I am finding that tending to the longings that call me in the present, as it shifts and change even though they make no rational sense or go against what I may have already built in my life, is what seems most important, deepening in the discerning between intuition and desire and surrendering to what is true. ...Which is that we were all born to be and are supported in that being with everything that shows up. Engaging with creation in all the ways we are being invited by that oblique intuitive nature, and live in the place of being and creating as one with essence truth, not with what we THINK may bring us joy or more of this and that. May we all be reminders to each other in the moments of forgetfulness..I welcome reminders!

I give thanks to all the artists that have inspired me over the years. (Too many to mention) The artists that make your skin and soul open to light and energy and remember. The artists whos songs, dance, music, and writing have come from the truth of who they are, the Great Intelligence that orchestrates the majesty. Thank you