Guest Blogs in Elephant Journal & The Mindful Word

I am honored to have my writing in 2 incredible publications this month!

Here’s an excerpt from a blog on finding inspiration and turning inward with the season:

Elephant Journal: Song from Within: A Musician’s Perspective on Listening Deeply

The pace of autumn for a musician living in New York City can be overwhelming, and deafening to the senses. Recording schedules, rehearsals, performances and party production can take up much of the time we normally use to recharge and connect.

Today I welcome the rebirth of the year, hoping to wind my energies down to a different speed in order to hear new music welling within me. I hope to follow the flow, to use winter as a time to listen deeply for new songs waiting to be born, and to welcome personal growth.

This winter I will allow myself to turn inward with the season, listening for the currents of energy that germinate seeds of creation and inner growth. This is a gift we can give ourselves every year instead of continuing to move with faster frequencies we were riding in summer and fall… Read the full article here

My favorite of the two is this blog in The Mindful Word about sacred creativity:

Rediscovering Sacred Creativity: How artists help create a more healthy, inspired, and connected world

In the past, shamans, healers, bards and oracles sang songs and told tales that helped to unite the worlds. Through special talents and dedication to practicing their arts, these members of society helped maintain balance within the community. A connection to unseen energies of nature allowed them to find game and healing plants, divine important information for safety and speak to the spirit realm. They were also asked to entertain. In order to communicate their unique experience and inspire cultural growth, the first true entertainers were born. Caves became the first night clubs and travelling druid singers the first rock stars. The shaman’s ability to shape shift, and the oracle’s many voices helped prime our modern taste for theatre and drama while bringing to life things usually only experienced in dreams.

Across time and continents the story changed very little for a long, long time. Human beings learned to make art in a sacred way and share it in reverence with each other. The thing that sets these ancient performer-priests apart from many modern-day pop stars is a connection to the Earth, the ancestors and an intention to envision humanity’s collective evolution. The rise of the modern world has left important parts behind through our belief in only that which can be seen with our eyes and most powerful microscopes. All of the arts create an opportunity to touch another realm if we choose to use them in that capacity. We can see things never seen before on the inner screens of our minds, and communicate this experience in story, song, form and movement. It’s our job to recover these parts, and help bring more meaning to the creations of our world. The need to reconnect with archaic memory of harmony with the planet has never been more important, and the role of the artist to inspire inner exploration never more needed than now…Read the full article here