As Above So Below

I grew up in a home that was very open to spirit and psychic experiences. Books on the shelves included, Autobiography of a Yogi, Many Mansions by Gina Cerminara, along with other books on Edgar Cayce, books by Ruth Montgomery, and multiple books by Manly P. Hall including a very tall book entitled The Phoenix which explored a wide variety of occult or “hidden” subjects. As a teenager, I read them all, but The Phoenix, in particular, fascinated me.

There was a chapter on Pythagoras that discussed him not only as a genius mathematician, but also his concepts of “The Music of the Spheres" (planets create celestial, harmonious sounds through the movements of their orbits), and more. In other chapters, the life (lives) of the Comte de St. Germain (violet flame) and stories of the Great Pyramid are explored. Most interesting to me was the chapter entitled, “H.P. B. The Russian Sphinx.” HPB or Helena P. Blavatsky was the co-founder of the Theosophical Society.

In reading of her beliefs, I came across the concept of “As Above So Below.” This quote is a version of an alchemical/hermetic line from The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. The meaning being “The macrocosm (the universe) is reflected in the microcosm (the individual or earthly realm).” It is the recognition of one thing to everything and everything to one thing. At the time I thought it similar to the line in the The Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as is it is in heaven.”

More recently, it struck me that the phrase was in line with what both Gregg Braden and Bruce Lipton have put forth about us living in a holographic universe; that the entire universe is contained within every single part. So an individual — even a single cell — contains the whole universe! This also helps to explain how we can affect our reality through our thoughts, beliefs and emotions, as all is connected.

For many years these concepts percolated on the back burner of my mind. And then, one day in 2016, the melody and words came pouring out. I could barely write quickly enough to keep up with the phrases as they were landing on the page. (There were many more verses, so I did need to pare it down!)

I “heard” a Native American flute playing the plaintive opening melody in my head. Because of the key the piece was written in for vocal reasons, we were not able to find a flute that had the lowest notes we needed. So, a classical flute was used with some studio overlays to give it a warmer, more expansive sound, played by my wonderful Sylph Chamber Music colleague Nadine Scharman. Also, there are two separate melodies that fit together: First verse is melody #1, second verse is melody #2 and third verse is both melodies combined. I am grateful to Kirsten Maxwell, my very talented daughter, for singing the duet parts and most of the harmonies.

This song is an invitation to experience reality in a different way. How things appear is not necessarily how things actually are. So we move from the line of thinking that “seeing is believing” to actually knowing, “believing is seeing,” which takes us into the more powerful realization that not only are we creating what comes to us in our lives, but we also take responsibility for our creations. When we do so, we let go of blame of others and of circumstances.

We are not abandoned in our efforts. “Loving guides are waiting there to show, and to remind our hearts that love is where we start.” However, our culture has not been supportive of our efforts. Conformity is the word, but ultimately it is we who create and maintain the bars of our prisons.

As within so without and as without so within. What we see and experience in the outside world is but a reflection of our inner thoughts and emotions. Do you live in a messy home? On some level, that is a reflection of your inner state. What messages have you received from friends, family, the outside world? Are those messages repeated? What might need to be changed or shifted?

There is magic, mystery, and miracles in existence. The mind seeks to categorize and take things apart, while the heart seeks to knit things back together into recognizing that state of Oneness. When we let go of limitations and surrender and trust in Prime Creator/Source/God, then “brightness will shine on all things we need to know.”

In my ongoing striving to achieve self-acceptance over self-loathing, I began to think of how those feelings came to be. Why was it that I felt such great disdain towards myself? One of the parenting tools of the 50’s and early 60’s was shaming. So a natural, but unacceptable response or action would be met with, “you should be ashamed of yourself!” A child might think that they had done something terribly wrong, perhaps not understand what that wrong thing was, and walk away from the situation feeling that “I should be ashamed of me — the very essence of who I am.”

It came to me, that as a newborn we arrive, for the most part, perfect at the start. We are hopefully, welcomed into the world by loving hearts, who see to our needs, providing love and care. But we also become immersed in the family soup, and cultural stew of unhealed wounds, fears and beliefs, and usually adopt those thoughts and emotions as our own. Granted, we may also come into the world with our own issues, seeking our own personal resolution and healing as well.

Our early time is spent figuring out how we fit into the world. We may let go of our inner knowing and focus on what our culture deems as acceptable knowledge and “truth.” We are “programmed” through our media and culture into who we should be. Power and fulfillment is sought through various human means of expression, all of which may fall short in terms of our internal satisfaction and peace.

Ultimately, as we peel away the layers of shame, guilt, mistrust, grief and fear, we uncover the light of truth that resides in the heart of each and everyone of us. We come to the inner knowing, that our power resides in our ability to Love. All else pales by comparison, because all else is temporary; an illusion that dissolves into nothingness when Love is recognized as our true and only reality. This is our right, to be the light with all our might!

Musically, Mark Newman created a sweet little counter-melody on the guitar in all the choruses. Shawn Murray offered simple and tasteful restraint on the drums and Josh Epstein brought a fun “Eleanor Rigby” type cello riff to the last three choruses.

The lessons of relationships may seem endless. Sometimes it becomes impossible to continue to be in a relationship due to extreme physical and/or emotional pain, and we find, to survive, we need to move on. To some degree we serve as mirrors for each other’s process. You mirror back to me the areas, emotions, and thoughts of where I am not honoring and loving myself — and that can be a very, very painful experience. We may call this a “trigger;” when something you say or do instigates a strong emotional response from me. And usually that response is much bigger than the casual observer would think was warranted. When this happens, we know for sure that a “hot-spot” had been touched and the pain and discomfort is rising up to be recognized/experienced, healed and released.

In Less of Me, we see what appears to be a lopsided relationship. There is the belief that there is a “cost to be adored.” And that cost is meted out by being emotionally, “chipped away in pieces” by one’s partner. The behavior becomes extreme to the point where one feels, “the person I was faded into memory, until a hollow shell stood smiling by your side.” How many times have each of us been in a relationship where we felt like we could not be our true selves? Where certain aspects of us were deemed not acceptable, overtly or covertly, by our partner? Were we so “in love” and so needy that we “agreed” to those terms? Perhaps there were experiences we needed to have in that union that contributed to our growth and understanding. Perhaps we discovered the places where we didn’t love ourselves; where we denied our truth.

My boyfriend in high school, would walk out of the room whenever I picked up my guitar to play. I felt hurt and confused, and never received a response to the question of why this behavior? At that time I made the choice to stop playing — at least in his company. Having a boyfriend, having that acknowledgment that I was lovable, was more important than certain aspects of my self-expression. Finally, after 1 1/2 years, the relationship broke up. And I joined a band :)

The recognition eventually arrives that the tearing down of oneself takes two — one doing the tearing down and one allowing that behavior to happen. This is the big turning point in any relationship: the acknowledgment that each person is playing a role in creating what is happening along with the decision of, “do we continue to interact unconsciously or consciously?”

Musically, I had thought we were done with the recording when Fred Guarino, my recording engineer, suggested that this song would really be rounded out by adding in organ. The thought had never entered my mind, and I couldn’t quite imagine how it would sound, but we gave it a try. Well, Bill Heller created what is akin to a foundation or cushion upon which the song rides, which I love. You’ll hear him come in on the intro. Also, for the back-up vocals, I wanted a kind of “soul sisters” sound. Somehow, Kirsten Maxwell managed to clone her vocal self into multiple singers and I was very pleased with how it turned out.

The main topics of songs, particularly in the 50’s and 60’s, were about love relationships and often were expressed in unhappy or longing scenarios. “I am nothing without you,” “without you I’ll die,” “I won’t stay in a world without love,” are just some phrases that were repeated in most of the hits on the airwaves. Talk about your programming! We were told, with a beat, that we were not complete without the perfect “other”out there somewhere who would make us feel whole. And if that perfect other did not love us in return, what else could we do but die?

Fortunately, most of us continued to live our lives, and slowly learned that we are whole within ourselves. That we are an expression of the Divine and from that place of completeness, we are able to form much healthier love relationships.

The Epic Story, opens with a giving up on “dreams of love,” and an acceptance that perhaps that kind of love relationship would never happen. But, as often occurs, once one lets go of the tightness around wanting things to be a certain way, the release allows the doors of possibility to open and in this case that partner shows up setting in motion total surrender of “body, mind and soul.”

This epic love flows, but passion has many faces, not all of them delightful and nourishing, and so the ride is a rough one. The relationship becomes all consuming and all other things that once were important take a back seat to passionate expression of this new love. However, a downside reveals itself. The new partner is like a bottomless pit, craving every aspect of attention. Realization arrives, and passion’s “flames are dimmed by cold and ice.” Now all that is left are the ashes.

Why did I choose to set this in a Spanish-style song? One of my favorite roles from my opera singing days was that of the role of Bizet’s Carmen. I actually performed it when I was six months pregnant with my daughter, Kirsten, at New Rochelle Opera. Luckily I was tall and she was my first child, and no one knew until they were dressing me for the show. A strategically placed diagonal shawl tied around my waist was good cover.

In preparation for my first Carmen several years earlier, I took classes in castanets and Spanish dancing at Ballet Hispanico on the Upper West Side in NYC. I loved it so much that I continued to study for about 3 years. I am sure this exposure and love of Spanish dance influenced my writing of The Epic Story, and I was blessed to have Mauro Refosco play the castanets along with other percussion on this recording, along with the Spanish guitar of Eran Polat.

This is the last of three songs on the album that center around adult love relationships. In this scenario, we arrive at the end of a long-term coupling. Things have devolved into a state of simply, “going through the motions” that “brings no joy to me … just the simple comfort of familiarity.”

At the beginning of a relationship we are caught up in the newness. Discovery of similarities, passions, and dreams, come with an air of excitement. Sometimes, the early passion can be intense, leading one to make choices that would not otherwise have been made.

I wrote this song on the third day of being sick on the couch with some kind of flu/bronchitis. Everyone else in the house was off doing their thing. I began to feel sorry for myself, thinking that no one really cared about me. No one had brought me a cup of tea or came to see if I needed anything. I mean, I could just die here and no one would notice!!!

Then I expanded my nightmare to include my husband. Sure, things were great in the beginning. Now he obviously doesn’t care anymore. He’ll only miss me when he’s hungry and there’s no meal on the table. I had the guitar nearby and so I picked it up and began to write “Love is Gone” which reflected my state of mind at the time.

The song bounces back and forth between the current situation of, “we’re sailing towards tomorrow on a sea of apathy,” to what was, “we loved with fierce abandon.” Ultimately deciding, “I guess we must let go of you and me.”

Although I may have experienced the emotions of this song throughout my earlier years, happily the reality of those words, in my present life, never left the couch.

Moving through the years of 2018 to present, the amount of twisted truths and outright lies promulgated by just about every source I can think of, have run rampant. I found myself in a place of literally “lusting for the truth.”

The warped quest for power over others along with increasing controls placed on the actions we take in our everyday lives, not to mention the ever shrinking space for difference of opinion and debate created a deep hunger for verity. Those thoughts and feelings are expressed in Lust for Truth.

While our world is also experiencing extremes of polarity — an intensifying of opposites, it is important for us to be open to other possibilities; that things are not necessarily meant to be one way or another. There is a higher road that embraces all, and we are called to see things through our heart’s intelligence. The human heart is magnetically 5,000 times more powerful than the human brain and also 60 times greater in electrical amplitude than the brain. There is a way of being that puts caring, kindness, and connection above the ego’s petty desires to be right.

In deepening our heart connection, we develop trust that there is Divine intelligence in all of existence and we learn to ask the question, “why is this happening FOR me,” rather than “why is this happening TO me?” We let go of fear as “old structures now dissolve,” and let “broken systems, and fallen icons pave the way.” As we say goodbye to the old, that which no longer serves, we create space for the new and we practice trust that all is for our benefit.

The story behind this song is featured in full on the blog.

The origin of this song came from a songwriting workshop at a John Coltrane Festival I attended in Hecksher Park, Huntington, NY. All attending the workshop were tasked with writing a song using the prompt “a love supreme.” Now I was not a jazz aficionado, my main tastes in music being geared toward rock, country, opera, musicals, and some standards, and therefore I was not familiar with Coltrane’s, epic and defining work of music, “A Love Supreme.”

I did take some jazz guitar lessons in college, so I had a little bit of background re jazz guitar chords. I started playing around with chord substitutions and progressions and came up with melody lines for the song. I am so grateful for the musicians that joined me on the recording. Bill Heller plays some truly fantastic piano lines. Tony Montalbo on the stand-up bass played with great style, and Shawn Murray came up with some really cool drumming.

When I reflected on what “a love supreme” meant to me, I thought of my personal, spiritual journey. At a young age, there were so many disappointments. Many things I was told about the world did not make sense or ring true. I was sure there must be something more. I imagined that the kind of love I sought would feel like flying: thrilling, amazing, soaring through the heavens, while at the same time feeling wrapped in a warm, loving embrace. My semi-conscious journey began.

I know my parent’s loved me, but somehow they also loved the image of who they expected me to be. And there was a feeling in me that I was consistently letting them down, especially when I was a bit older and my mother would say out loud, “I don’t know why my children aren’t successful … they are so talented.” Well, one might take that as a commentary on the world not recognizing the value of an individual, but with my low self-esteem and shyness, I took it to mean that I was a failure, or I would hear the “family heirloom phrase” in my head of “I can’t do anything right.”

“Acting out” and a covert secret life was how I handled things. If I did something dangerous as a teenager, like scale my way up the steep slate roof of the 25 story building of Tudor City Place, on my way to climbing into the small bell tower, I would tell myself in my head, “oh, you’re just crazy.” I craved having that daredevil reputation amongst my friends. Or cutting class and getting high with my dear friend Chris, and hitchhiking around Manhattan while we laughed our heads off. All I can think is we were definitely “Divinely guided and protected.”

I did experience an inner peace and deep connection to God, when in nature. During the summers, I visited with my grandparents in rural PA, where I spent at least 2 months each year in the woods. Roaming the countryside, I studied habits of insects, climbed trees, bathed in the brook and felt a freedom and nurturing that I did not experience elsewhere. The only catch was that when I wasn’t in nature, I lost those feelings.

“Some revel in pleasure, some in pain.” This was a revelation to me. Who in their right mind would want to revel in pain? Over time I came to discover people that were deeply attached to their pain and even admitted to somehow enjoying it. Wow. But, I then realized that during my high school years and beyond, I was attached to being depressed. I listened to Neil Young a lot. He seemed to be depressed and made it appear rather stylish. And so what I was doing, how I was thinking, was reflected back to me by those around me and by the events I was attracting through my depression vibe.

What I needed to do was simply sit quietly. Workshops on meditation with Stephen and Ondrea Levine, weekly classes with “Celebration of Spirit” and psychic development with Lelon Thompson, plus delving deeply in to yoga helped me to begin to let go of the chatter in my mind. And slowly, over a long period of time, truth began to reveal itself. I was not a failure. I didn’t need to look for recognition or praise outside of myself. Tuning into the Divine spark within the heart I found that supreme love on the inside of me! Was it always there? Yes. Do I forget? Yes. Can I reconnect? Yes. Does it dwell inside everyone? Yes, yes, and yes!

When we are connected to our Divine Heart we are “living the dream” and yes, we can, “soar above, embraced by love.” How wonderful!

Only recently did I look up and listen to Coltrane’s work — truly a masterpiece. It is described as “a musical expression of his deeply personal spiritual journey” filled with “gratitude for Divine intervention in overcoming his struggles.” “A powerful prayer to God.” Amen.

Well, this is a tough one. One day, I heard the voices of the animals, and I was compelled to write this song from their perspective. I kept the accompaniment sparse — just acoustic guitar along with some unique percussive sounds provided by Mauro Refosco. It is a hard song to sing and, I think, a hard one to listen to.

My husband, Neil, has been vegan for over 40 years. I have been mostly vegan for almost as long. What began as a shift in diet for health reasons, grew into a moral decision to stop supporting a system that inflicts pain and suffering on a daily basis for the sake of convenience, expediency, and the bottom line.

“Whatsoever ye do to the least of my people, that ye do unto me” Matthew 25:40. Sometimes translated as “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me” The question for me is how do we define “people” or “brethren” in this quote? When a decision is to be made regarding the meaning of a word, those translations and interpretations are often left up to the translator. Words can often have a variety of meanings. Was there a question in one of the interpreter’s minds, “He couldn’t have meant “animals” as well. Could he?”

Jesus was born in a manger amongst multiple creatures as the story goes. Doesn’t this give a hint that animals are on some sort of equal footing as human beings in the sense of they were included as players in the story of this miracle birth? Please note that I am not saying MORE important, but that animals lives are valuable and at the very least, they deserve to be appreciated as beings created by God, with their own wants, needs, desires, fears, joys and feelings.

Factory farming is the extreme antithesis of compassion for animals. We stock the shelves with canned goods. Cows, pigs and chickens are referred to as livestock as if they were living, moving, breathing cans of beans and boxes of crackers. And the animals are treated as such with no regard to their wants, needs, feelings, or discomfort. Imagine how one who works directly in this industry has to harden their heart. In fact, the violent acts they must perform lead to serious mental health issues and PITS (Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress) as a result.

Live animal experimentation continues, even though we have much more sophisticated computer models, removing the “necessity” in a number of cases of inflicting pain and suffering on live creatures. And once the experimentation is over, these animals are “destroyed.”

Everything that lives, needs to eat. And for beings to eat, something has to die. Unless we are breatharians, that is a fact in our 3rd dimensional existence. At the very least, can we find compassionate ways to reduce and/or eliminate the suffering of our brethren

My father passed away at age 85 from bone cancer; a long, debilitating, and painful passage. His main caregiver was my mother. My parents were rather private people, so there was no outside assistance until it was close to the end when hospice came for just a couple of hours, once a week. The stress of his care, took a lot out of my then 84 year old mother, and aside from the heartache of losing her life’s partner, a part of her life-force had dwindled. Remaining on their tree farm was not an option, and although she was still physically vital, she could no longer live alone.

We first tried to solve the issue with my brother quitting his job and living with her for over a year. This was not a scenario he could maintain. Eventually, she came to live with us. Our daughter was away at college so that gave us an extra bedroom. After almost 5 months, a one-bedroom in Queens became available, in a building my brother lived in. She moved in, just two floors below him.

Things went fairly well for awhile, but eventually, it became a strain. My brother was cooking her meals almost daily and taking her to all of her doctor appointments, etc. Things worsened when she forgot to turn off the faucet causing a flood in the apartment and then forgot to turn off the kettle, which somewhat melted onto the stove. We tried finding a caregiver to stay with her during the day, but were unable to find an appropriate person.

This lead to seeking an assisted living facility. I began to tour various options near me. We narrowed the choices down and then my brother and I brought her to the first location. Here, she would have her own apartment. We learned of the shuttle that would take her out to stores and events, and visited the main gathering room used for meetings, concerts and more. It seemed an ideal scenario, incorporating both care and a certain amount of freedom into a nice, neat, and “safe” package.

As we toured the facility, we saw people in various states of being. Some were active, and animated, while others seemed as though they had given up. After the tour, we had our lunch in the main dining room, and while there, some of the residents came to visit our table. They seemed curious and friendly and we spoke for a little while. We finished up the day by returning to the office, where both my brother and I thought she would decline taking an apartment. Much to our surprise, our mother enthusiastically said yes, that she wanted to live there.

Later, as the three of us discussed our tour, with a faraway look in her eye, my mother said, “I know I can help those people. They may have given up on life, but I know what to do to awaken them and bring joy back into their lives.” In hindsight, it almost seemed that this was the driving force in her choice to live there.

Set Your Heart Free is the tale of those faces and people in that assisted living facility. Influenced by my mother’s desire to help, the song is a reminder that as long as there is life in the body, there is opportunity to grow and change. Just a simple smile or a kind word can indeed, shift another person’s mood toward a higher vibration. There are no limits to live by in terms of your state of joy, your imagination and your heart’s ability to soar.

We may not be aware of the purpose of the places life takes us on our human journey. After a few years my mother experienced mental decline due to vascular dementia. She always knew us, and dressed and accessorized well, so she cared about her appearance. One of my joys at that time were the long, deep philosophical and spiritual discussions we shared.

At this point she had been moved to the “memory care” section of the facility. Here she met a man who would sit with her at concerts and events and simply hold her hand. She did share that she had feelings for him.

An unfortunate incident occurred one morning where she passed out, landing on her face. I walked into the hospital room to quite a sight! She had suffered a broken nose, two black eyes and multiple bruises covering her face. After she returned to the facility, she felt embarrassed and ashamed by her appearance. How one looked was always very important to her. The next time she saw her man-friend, he sat next to her. She later relayed their conversation to me.

He took her hand, which she found surprising, and so she asked him how he could even look at her with all the bruises on her face? He turned and looked at her closely and said, “You look beautiful. You always look beautiful to me.” He didn’t see anything different — just her beauty. What a wonderful lesson in seeing another being beyond their exterior; really seeing into another person. I know this changed my mother in a powerful way.

This song was inspired by both my daughter and my son, although my son is the leading “character” in this story. My views on life in terms of what was acceptable to me and what wasn’t, changed drastically both during my pregnancies and especially after the children were born. For example, when my baby daughter first came home, I became much more aware of the street noise of midtown Manhattan, and how that sonic bombardment would effect tiny ears and bodies.

Responding as best I could to all of their needs, I felt like the “mother bear” who made space for playfulness and joy, while at the same time stood at the ready to defend and protect her offspring. I made sure to use the purest most organic products and foods I could find. Things that, in the past, I would have put up with for me, would no longer be tolerated when it came to my children. And so, through them, I learned to better stand up for and take care of myself.

But then, there is the outside world … and the legacy that we have created as a collective, which, for the most part, was not very pretty. Toxic water, toxic air, toxic food and toxic ideas arrived to “tear down my protective fortress.”

At first I attempted to create barriers to bar the incessant, incoming programming from their developing brains, but the best I could do was to allow that to seep in slowly, in small doses. However, soon it seemed as if the flood gates had opened and later wild and crazy ideas filled teenaged brains. Technology created difficulties in monitoring the incoming scourge and was backed-up by homework required to be done on computers. Sigh …

We have all contributed to this legacy in our own way, whether as willing or unwilling participants. If we have strong feelings for OR against a concept, law, mandate, etc., we are stuck in a state of polarization and feeding our energy into what we love or hate by the strength of our emotions.

The higher road of using our creative energy is focusing on what we want; acting and believing as if what we want has already happened, for in truth, on an energetic level, it already has. We have created our experiences to learn and better know ourselves. We can easily point the finger at our families, communities, institutions, and governments, as being the culprits, but truly we are responsible.

In actuality, the children would eventually need to experience life in all its array. Their unique souls have taken human form for the purpose of exposure to what physical life has to offer, and part of that is the legacy into which they were born.

In 2016, my husband and I were blessed to attend “A Course in Miracles” workshop with Alan Cohen, on the island of Hawaii. Seven days in paradise, where we were well fed both nutritionally and spiritually.

Notes from our sessions included:

Fear is never justified in any form. Anger is never justified in any form. Anger is fear under pressure. What is fueling the fear?

Love is unlimited. All belief in lack is false. Forgiveness heals lack.

Only the creations of light are real, everything else is your own nightmare.

I participate in that which disturbs me. Change your mind about what happened so you no longer are in the victim position.

Much of what we discussed centered around the concept of “being” — how to be a human being instead of a human doing. There were many discussions about simple, but profound concepts, and many exercises to help us practice these ideas.

Every thought we have about the world is untrue.

The world is just a mirror of what is going on inside you.

If truth is at the center of a thought, only truth will extend from it. The same is true of a lie.

Reality is liquid. What seems solid and real can shift in a second.

Your soul is not bipolar.

One of the practices I do before getting out of bed in the morning and also throughout the day, especially if I am feeling anxious about not getting enough done, is to ask this question of God / Prime Creator:

“What would you have me do? Where would you have me go? What would you have me say and to whom?” I also will remind myself that, “I need do nothing.” Whenever you feel the pressure to do something, that is the time to not do anything.

This practice redirects me. I surrender my ego and trust that God will guide me and work through me in my day. My experience has been that things get done in a smooth and oftentimes miraculous flow. As soon as ego steps in, I can feel everything tighten and my mind becomes a cruel taskmaster, telling me that I am not enough, that I can’t do enough, and that it’s probably going to turn out wrong.

So, the choice of a human being instead of a human doing has been challenging to maintain, but oh, it feels so much better. Really, it’s a big relief! Thank you “A Course in Miracles” and Alan!

After my time in Hawaii, I wrote I Choose To Be. It turned out to be the most challenging song to arrange. We first recorded it with cello, but it didn’t really work. We then tried flute, which also didn’t seem to be the right flavor. My recording engineer, Fred Guarino’s idea was to add organ, and once more Bill Heller came to the rescue creating a nice foundation. Shawn Murray played the drums with great restraint, and Mark Newman added acoustic guitar. Kirsten Maxwell sang subtle backup lines and so the song was rounded out.

So, you might ask, isn’t recording the song a “doing” situation? My feeling is that when we are in a state of “beingness” we are open to receive and be in the creative flow from Prime Creator/God. Yes, we still need to take action, but we allow for things to happen in God’s time. We don’t let the ego-mind sit in the driver’s seat and fill us with fear that if we don’t get something done, bad things are going to happen. It is really a matter of Trust — that the Universe has your best interested in mind, and though it might sometimes seem otherwise, all is happening for your highest good.

What do you say to a friend that you see offers a false persona to the world? Maybe you see that friend suffering under the load of trying to live up to everyone’s expectations? Even experiencing anxiety and depression from the effort it takes to fit in. True, we all have created and put forth a somewhat false persona, belying the truth of who we really are. But, that false personality is part of the programming we received when we first arrived on this planet. And here’s the thing: it takes a heck of a lot of energy and effort to present something to the world that you are not.

We may find that over the years, we can only keep up appearances for so long, and then pieces of the mask begin to crack. Our persona is created from outside expectations of us, that we feel we need to fulfill; expectations from our family, friends, our schooling, society in general, and our media.

Each one of us is so grand, so expansive, and we each carry our own unique gifts to share with the world. In Break Out and Be, a friendly voice encourages us to let go not only of what no longer serves us, but to let go of all of the “shoulds” we have carried through this lifetime. (As the saying goes, “no one likes to be should on.”)

How much “everyday grief” do we carry for all of the times we denied who we truly are. Those times when we said yes, when we really meant no. Those times we said, I’m ok, when we truly were not. Going along with the crowd, when our heart’s voice pulled us in a different direction, but we shut that voice down. It really is a breaking out of this created shell to allow your true self to come out and shine. And it is a scary thing. Because it goes against most of what we have been taught and how our culture functions. But this is where we are at now. Great change is afoot.

Some notes about the music. The song is written in the key of F which is the note associated with the Fourth Chakra or energy center. This is center of the heart; the physical heart and the Divine heart. “Hey” or “a” is the vowel associated vibrationally with the Sixth Chakra (3rd Eye / Pineal Gland). Often referred to as the seat of clairvoyance or “clear seeing”. So within the key of F, we are activating heart energy and connecting that heart energy to the 3rd eye, creating a bridge to heart activated clear seeing, or looking at the world through the eyes of the heart. Seeing the world with compassion. Forgiving self and others.

I used to love spending time with my grandmother. She would tell fascinating stories of “the olden days” and sing old songs like After the Ball is Over and The Baggage Coach Ahead whose lyrics were stories as well. She would often sing, “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (An Irish Lullaby), and so I learned all of the melodies and words from her. Now my grandmother was notorious for making up her own melodies if she didn’t quite remember the original. I didn’t know the original songs, and it certainly didn’t matter to me at the time. I just memorized what I learned from her.

Fast forward to St. Patricks Day some 25 years later. I have been focusing on my opera career, and had just been offered a job to sing with 3 other singers at an operatic restaurant on Long Island. The program included various opera numbers. We had one rehearsal and all went well. At the restaurant the accompanist/director decided to add Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral to the repertoire. I shared with him my fond memories of my grandmother (Grammy, as we called her) singing it to me (I had never heard the original Bing Crosby version.) So, he asked me if I would sing it as a solo before the other’s joined in and I agreed.

All went well until one line where I “zigged and the piano zagged.” That is, the accompaniment line was very different from what I sang and made quite a clash. There it was, one of my Grammy’s creative music lines exposed to the public. The show went on. But when these things happen, one often feels mortified. One could have sung every note beautifully the whole two-hour evening and then hit one clunker and it swells up in your mind to be the only thing that will be remembered about you. It’s like getting a pimple on your chin before an event — somehow it feels like your whole face disappears and only the pimple is left, flashing a bright red neon sign.

What does all of this have to do with My Life With Angels? To me, the melody has the feeling of an Irish lullaby. My grandmother came to mind when I wrote it. And the words? It’s all about one’s perspective. Angels, in various forms, are in and around us always. Can we recognize the simple kindnesses, the smiles, the gentle assistance and the miracles that guide us through our everyday lives, or are we oblivious? Are we so lost or stuck in the mind, that we are unaware of the reality of grace unfolding in our lives?

We will manifest that which we focus on. But even beyond that, our vibration will call to us experiences that match our vibration. So, if we know that we are loved, guided, cared for, that all is happening for our highest good, we are living in that vibration and then all of that goodness will be recognized in our lives.