#001: Welcome to Sound Medicine Mantras and Music

#001 - Musicians, healers, mystics, and sound enthusiasts unite! Geo and the Sound Medicine Podcast team is on a mission to inspire and uplift through the power of songs, chants, storytelling, music and incredible interviews. Experience a transformation through Sound as Medicine for the Soul.

We hope you enjoy our first episode as we explore the importance of finding harmony of body, mind and soul through various forms of sound. Geo shares a brief overview and vision of the podcast, future shows, and other exciting things to come in the form of story, poetry, quotes, chants, and music. 

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Transcript

Welcome to Sound Medicine music Podcast, where you will hear from various healers and musicians, visionaries and educators. Get ready to experience transformational and inspiring storytelling, songs chants and interviews that will uplift your spirits mood and health. Hello everyone. Welcome Welcome to the first episode of sound medicine, mantras and music. I am so grateful and excited you are joining us and listening to this first episode. The first of how (I) predict thousands of episodes. And this is a topic that I think you will find fascinating and interesting and hitting home. For those of you that connect with this topic. This podcast really is here to help connect healers and musicians, seekers, educators and community builders around the topic of music and sound. Our mission is building and uplifting community by inspiring, educating, connecting and healing through the power of mantras, music, songs, and chants. If this sounds of interest to you, you are in the right place. We're here to share incredible stories, success stories, interviews. Music will change the way we approach sound and medicine. Also uplifting our souls and our health. In my mind, if you are uplifting your soul You are uplifting your health. So the show is for you if you love music, especially music, or chanting that has a spiritual or a sacred essence or an undercurrent. If you want to hear from artists and musicians and visionaries, and their stories of what brought them to share their inspirations, and creative artistry, this is the place. You're also going to learn new music, new chants, new songs that are going to inspire and uplift you. My whole life is about inspiration, and healing. And that's why I've created this podcast. If you believe in the power of sound and music as medicine, then this is the podcast for you. You can expect to be transformed. And this is not an overstatement. A transformation will occur. And my background and training and undergraduate studies was in Leadership Stuides. And there's different types of leadership there was kind of a hierarchical leadership approach. And there's collaborative leadership, which is some of my favorite type of leadership. There's servant leadership, and transformational leadership. There's transactional leadership transactions when you I'll give you what I have for what you have that kind of thing. My favorite style of leadership was always transformational, and then that's the butterfly effect, the cocoon to butterfly - where you are left feeling different than you were prior to that relationship, in this case relationship is to this episode to the podcast. And so I want you to leave inspired in some way so that you are literally a different person at the end of the podcast. That's how good I want the podcast to be. And I want your experience. You can expect that if you're listening closely, because this podcast will like all podcasts, if the information is authentic, true and valuable, then if you're listening closely, you will be inspired to change in some way that could be how you think about something or some perspective, the way you speak to others the way you act, maybe change the way or alter, modify or enhance what you're already doing with your personal practice and your relationships and the way you relate to the world. And this is going to be inspired through songs to mantras to chanting that uplifts the body, mind and spirit. We cannot have one without the other. In my 20 years practicing in the healing field, both as a physical therapist and as an integrative therapist of energy healer, as a yoga instructor, meditator, I have come to recognize that we are integrated beings we are Yes, we have a physical body that is always changing, even though it may look like it's the same generally day to day. We have a mental body and everything that composes of how we think our belief systems, our concepts, our idea. And we have a spiritual nature that is all right and what lies beyond the body, the mind the eternal aspect of ourselves that when we tap into a higher perspective, higher awareness, someone may be, say, an eternal being. And this podcast, the goal is to really uplift and enhance all aspects of your being. We're going to learn these tips and these tricks, and how to do this and enhancing our health from expert musicians from sound healers from spiritual teachers, thought leaders. And we're gonna learn life changing chants, powerful songs, that we can start to incorporate easily into our personal life, our daily practice, and we're going to be inspired to live and create an even more beautiful life and world by incorporating Finding a relationship to self into others through music, chanting storytelling and sound medicine. If that sounds of interest to you, you are in the right place. And I'm happy you're here. My name is Geo. And I aminspired by many, many things. This podcast is the culmination of that inspiration. One of my teachers at least through the written form, because I never knew him, Edgar Casey, and he had a beautiful quote, that "sound is the medicine of the future". And I have found this to be true, and the future is now because I am seeing all the time in my own life and in those that I work with in the past how mantra and the power of music, the power of sound is more than just entertainment. More than just something to listen to it's actually has the power to transform our consciousness and our awareness. And I've always loved inspiration, and all of its myriad forms. inspirational quotes. Wayne Dyer was on my favorite people to listen to growing up and any inspirational songs or poems like Rumi, stories that were uplifting the Ramayana. There are so many alchemists, anything that's kind of gives our soul and our mind a way to connect deeper to meaning and purpose in our life path. That is what drives me and it tries me on the sense of more than just myself. If I find something of value and inspiring I want to share it with others. And that is partly the reason I have this podcast because I want to interview these incredible people in this field. And I want to share it with you, I want you to hear what I'm hearing. I want you to be inspired. Like I'm being inspired. And some of my greatest memories, as I'm sure yours are as relating to concerts or music as a way of connecting and experience joy in life in a in a way that's very different than just partaking in math problems or science or solving things with a left brain. There's the dancing and the beauty of music is such a natural part of what what gives us a sense of harmony in our lives. And I think we've lost some of that. And this modern day, and there are many of you out there that are are part of this movement of medicine, music medicine and seeing the value in sharing that and I mean, I remember being at a concert and feeling so light, so happy, so free. I close my eyes. And literally I felt myself as vibration as a musical note. And this is an experience I will never forget. The way that I connected to the to the music was another time that I was connected to music and I saw the power of music when I was when I was a child. When I was a teenager, I would I used to get panic attacks. I actually overcame panic attacks through mantra and through chanting. Meditation is what naturally pulled me through that dreaded time in my life. When I would feel anxious every day going to school, I couldn't control myself. Just shake, my heart would pound and I'd feel out of my body and a bit not a good way, feel that have tunnel vision and I could hardly catch my breath. And it was very scary, and it it happened for for almost a year until I learned meditation and in particular, I remember during one panic episode, I felt myself kind of spinning out and like going into that prison in my mind when I was about 19. And then I started to listen to this..spontaneously started listening to music, and there's classical music and some chanting instantly brought me back to this grounded peaceful state. There was something about that music that just shifted my awareness instantly. And I've been working with that concept ever since and how to shift our awareness we're going into states of anxiety or fear or lack or just disharmony. And anytime we don't feel ourselves don't feel whole, how we can shift that. And the fastest way I found to shift is through through chanting .....through music. And I've that the moment as kind of been a driving force through my life as there have been a number of those types of moments. And gradually over time I got into mantras, and particularly, those mantras that would bring us into a deep meditative state. And right now chanting mantras have become part of my daily life and my sadhana, my personal practice of connecting to Spirit, as I know, for many of you is the same way and I mean, I teach the practice of mantra and mantra therapy and working with mantras quite a bit in workshops and retreats and online and I hear stories all the time. All the time, like dramatic, almost miraculous stories of chanting, and how it's affected individuals lives. And I want to share that on a greater scale, as well. And so you can hear testimonials of people and how mantras and chanting as should not only shifted their spiritual life, which is, of course incredible, but also on a practical level as well - from from finances, improving finances, to improving relationships, to improving our voice and being able to, to speak more clearly, to get deeper insights and having more joy in our lives and our work and I mean, the stories go on and on really traumatic. So I'm also going to be interviewing and sharing some of those testimonials on here. And I mean, I just love singing and chanting in groups. It is so powerful, and the power of community and group energy and music is a powerful force. My first experience with mantra in a group setting was in Kirtan with in Richmond, Virginia, decades ago, when Krishna das came to town and I heard about him and I wanted to go listen for myself and it was nothing short of, of just musical blessings, one after another just being part of that community. And it really felt like a group experience. It wasn't like a normal experience where people are simply listening to the musician on the stage. I was used to go to concerts and listen to like Dave Matthews Band, for instance, when I was growing up, or, or Phish or bands like that, where you would listen. The Kirtan was a totally different experience for me. It rocked me from the inside out in terms of just feeling The joy and the bliss of chanting with other people it's hard to describe unless you actually do it. This kind of led into a whole experience of learning mantras with Thomas Ashley Farrand, and Vasant Lad and California College of Ayurveda and the Chopra center over time, and Thomas Ashley Farrand became also known as Namadeva , became a teacher of mine. And I went through his training with him and that he designed and become a certified mantra teacher and I started teaching my clients as a physical therapist and a licensed physical therapist, in Southern California. And I practice an integrative way. So I teach most of my clients mindful movement, along with meditative awareness with their exercises, and I'd say about 70 to 80% of my patients. I will give a mantra practice to do (perform) a 40 day mantra practice. So I will teach them a chance for healing or for finding balance in whatever area they're working on. And at first I did this just kind of like, as an area of interest. From what I learned in my training, there are certain mantras that could help give more energy or relieve pain, or really create some incredible results from a physical and emotional space. And the more people that work with this, I was blown away with how much mantras helped, and also how much people loved chanting mantras, because they're empowering. They don't cost anything. And they work and very oftentimes working way more effectively with a little much less side effects than other alternatives. So this really, this practice of using monsters with my clients over the last 10 years has really shifted their experience in my experience and It's why I'm doing what I'm doing now. And offering and teaching on mantras as medicine as therapy is a way of shifting your spiritual physiology as well as your, your physical physiology. And like I said, it works on the mind level as well. So I just follow you know, ever since I was a teenager, I came across Joseph Campbell and "following your bliss", that had become my mantra for many, many years. And whenever I was faced with a life challenge in terms of, let's say, what career to pursue, or where to live, or those types of questions, a fork in the road, I wouldn't I would listen to Joseph Campbell and I would follow that and for my life, life is too short to spend on the little things and playing small or living small or as Eleonora Roosevelt said, "You don't want to die with your music still in you." AndI amso in love with music and mantras as a practice for myself as a teaching tool for my clients as an educational tool for the other therapists and health care workers I teach and work with, and as a kind of a teaching guide for myself and my personal path and as a way to connect with other musicians and visionaries and others that are working with sound and mantra medicine, and their day to day life and their livelihood, in their practice and the way they express and connect with people.That is why we have this podcast. And I'll maybe just share one more story isyou know, there's many mantras that played a huge role in my life, and..... I woke up one morning... this is about five, six years ago. And I woke up in a particularly challenging time in my life for personal growth. And I was chanting as a regular practice. And I was going through some some growth periods on a humanlevel in terms of finances and relationship challenges. So I was sleeping and I woke up one morning and I had this mantra in my head that was -I never heard it before. Since then, I've heard it many many times in different places and talking to people in my studies, but at that time, I had never heard it before. And it was melodic, and almost brought me to tears. It was something about my dream and waking up with that mantra in my head was like, there's almost like there's truth bells inside went off as I go. There's something about this one is like meeting somebody for the first time and you just know that you're there's something about that relationship that's going to be pivotal in your life. And nothing is going to be the same from there on out. That's how I felt, even though I'd never heard it before. That I could remember there was something very familiar and reassuring about it. And the mantra went like this Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya Om NAmo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. And it moved me, and at that point, I woke up and I was kind of vibrating and tingling, like what is this? I had work To attend to and kind of go through my morning routine and get in there to see clients at a certain time, so I couldn't really think about it too much too much. But I was like taken aback by this mantra. And where it Where did it come from? What did it mean? It actually sounded like a female voice in my head. And I just started repeated all the time I just chanted in the car, I changed in the shower, I chant while I was eating silently out loud, my meditation practice. And man, my life started shifting. And I just repeated in my head all the time. I wasn't even consciously repeating it just repeated itself. And know that anxiety and disharmony I was feeling. Two weeks earlier, it's just started to melt away. I didn't feel it anymore. I had no fear at that point. I knew that everything was okay. And that the energy and the source of creation, the source of that mantra, It was always there. It was always accessible. I was never alone. And that's the energy I felt from, from that mantra practice and that ever since that morning, and at that time, I just felt so supported and held. And I just had no doubt that everything was working out perfectly, especially when it didn't seem like it was working. That's when I need to remember that the most and then Luckily, I have reminded myself when I forgotten sometimes when the duality sets in, and we have these situations like we're having right now with COVID-19 going on is like seemingly chaotic times on a personal and collective level yet, there's also when I listen in and connect through chanting and music. I know there's grace there, and more people I talk to, they feel the same thing. And about six years ago now I woke up to that I'm, I was studying Thomas Ashley Farrands work at the time and learning to become a teacher of mantra. And and then I wasn't until about six or eight weeks later synchronistically I was reading through his work and I didn't I didn't know he taught that mantra, but he did. And he told me what it was about and it was basically about what exactly was going on in my life because all these spiritual things kept happening, all these synchronicities started occurring. And it was almost like I was having a a new me coming forward and that is the essence of the mantra is, own Namo bhagavate Vasudevaya It's, it's a birthing it's the it's connecting to your soul and the essence of your soul, and a birthing of a new you like, literally women that want a divine child to be born. And birth in their life, they will chant this mantra to for the blessings of the mantra to bring forth a child that is in perfect harmony and alignment with creation and and from straight from Source from divinity however you want to call it like a child of God. And and so that's what I was feeling what was happening to me at this time in my life, that this spiritual sort of spiritual rebirthing. And that mantra was a tribute to it. And where did it come from? I don't I mean, I still to this day, I have my guesses. But there was something that was just sacred about that experience, and showed me that yes, there is something true and real about the power of vibration and sound, and how it affects our consciousness. And I'll tell the story a different time. But I was after that point in my life that all these things started to shift. And there was a lot on the in the outer world that seemed like it wasn't going well. So, if someone was to look at my life, from, you know, from above, and they saw that was happening and the shakeups in my relationships and at work and finances and all these things that seemed like we're out of control, and not in any way in harmony, there, from an outward perspective that it seemed like, but then, as after I went through that period of my life, I look back and I was I can easily see, and I can even feel it when I feel back into it. That was divinely orchestrated. And it was a beautiful rebirth and it took place and and I'm so thankful for it now. And so that mantra still carries me forward when I feel challenged. And, and that's another reason we're offering this this podcast so that others can share stories like this, that have been life changing, and give a give us tools to support each other as we all have, have more tools in our toolbox to help you through challenging times and give us these inspirational stories. And these mantras, these chants the songs that can can anchor us in times in a storm, and can help carry the group energy forward. Because I really believe in the power of groups, it was taught to me that when you chant together, when you sing together, the energy of that song is exponential to how many people are singing. So if you have two people singing together, two times two is four times more powerful if you're sitting by yourself or chanting by yourself, you have 10 people chant together. 10 times 10 is 100 times more powerful. If you have 500 people chanting together, that's 25 with four zeros after it 250,000 times more powerful. So it's just this group energy and I feel like this podcast can help raise that collective energy. And there's a creative force here, that that underlies all of our lives and music is That, that incredible undercurrent of a universal language and no matter what our age, our culture, our background, we can connect in the realms of the musical and the mystical. And the junction for me of where consciousness, sound, and medicine, meet. That is the space where magic happens. That is a space where we can really connect and the space that's being held here with this podcast. And that supports the energy of what we're all interested in, in terms of finding inspiration, healing, and connection through through these stories and through these this music and chanting. So, I personally could not be more excited to offer and share this podcast with you. With the help of these amazing musicians and visionaries and experts. We'll hear from and the the launching of this podcast truly is a miracle and a blessing for me. And I hope it becomes the same for you as you listen to these episodes. And what you can expect in the coming weeks are interviews with incredible musicians, incredible experts. I know this already because I've already interviewed many, many of them. And it's, it literally is such a blessing to to connect with artists and visionaries that just have so much to share. And this is a community that has we've been putting so much value on the left brain logic and science and scientific method, which is, of course, super important. We cannot forget that the poets, the artists, the musicians, are the game changers right now. That's how the message are getting out that's how conscious of being shifted in various ways. And I think ....Yeah, I'm just excited to listen to the interviews and how that's how that's occurring. So, Zan Moore, is coming up on the the episode next week. He's probably the greatest human being or one of the greatest human beings I know..... just incredible, incredible person , eloquent speaker and most gifted musician and guitarist that I've had the privilege to know and meet. I'm Happy call him friend as well. We also have upcoming next month pujari and incredible mantra instructors, one of my teachers as well, Bill Berry, who is incredibly knowledgeable in the Vedic sciences of sound and teachings in the lineage of Thomas Ashley Farrand and some San Keshavadas. And he'll be teaching us how to perform a proper mantra meditation discipline, which is an area that I'm very interested in. I teach him as well. So I always learn from from Bill every time I speak with him. I think you'll find that a fascinating interview. Also, my gosh, Kevin James is is we interviewed him and he's, if you don't know Kevin James, please look him up on YouTube on Spotify. He's an incredible musician, traveling the world, literally, hundreds of countries each year, singing Kirtan, singing songs of love and hope, and his story and just his perspective, I just really value and cherish. So please tune in for him. We have a Buddhist scholar Neil coming in to teach us about his experiences in the monastery and, and his perspective growing up as well being from the south, and how music played a role from the church, as well as Keith was a similar background from that perspective in the church music and he plays the didgeridoo sings in San Diego homeless choir. We're actually becoming very well known right now through being on television and then we have drummers and musicians from Bhakti Fest, and we have a guitarist, Arkaya who's a musical teacher. And he teaches blessing songs and music with spellbinding stories to childrenin schools. I mean, this is just an area that I just have so much grace and gratitude for because I have children, myself and anybody who's teaching children songs and uplifting the kids and That's incredible. So that's just a taste of what's happening. And we have a lot, a lot more on the way too. So, once a month, I will be teaching a mantra of the month. And sometimes in conjunction with a co interviewer, and expert on the Motrin. We'll be teaching proper pronunciation proper application of the mantra will chant it together with you. So you can utilize the benefits of the mantra right away. And I find I think that'll be very valuable as a lot more individuals from yoga teachers to meditation students to quite a few people I know these days are taking on mantra as a practice and a personal life and even teaching it and so this will be a really good resource for you to learn more mantras and connect in deeper for your personal practice, but also for those that you teach. So a lot to look forward to. I'm incredibly excited. And I just wanted to say thank you again, thank you for listening to episode one. And you can check us out on www. mantrasandmusic.com is a web page dedicated to this podcast. We will be linking in songs of the artists that are interviewed will be linking chants and mantras from the interview. I'll be teaching and linking those to that site as well. various tools and that's where you'll find all the interviews. And it's just a wealth of resources and podcasts that I think you'll love. So I've hope you've enjoyed this first episode, and if you did, make sure You hit the subscribe button wherever you are. And thank you for visiting. We are here to support and promote music mantras, visionaries, artists, and sound as medicine. And in the words of Dr. Randolph stone, "Life is a song. It has its own rhythm of harmony. It is a symphony of all things which exist in major and minor keys of polarity. It blends the dischords by opposites into harmony which unites the whole into a grand symphony of life. To learn through experience in this life, to appreciate the symphony and lessons of life, and to blend with the whole is the object of our being here." Thank you for joining us on sound medicine mantras and music. If you are enjoying the podcasts. Click subscribe. To access other episodes more interviews and music, please visit our website at www dot mantras and music.com that's www. M-A-N-T-R-A-S-A-N-D-M-U-S-I-C . C-O-M Join us next Thursday for the release of our newest episode. Thanks again for your support. See you next week. Transcribed by https://otter.ai