SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to Soul Portals, exploring psychospiritual horizons with your hosts Cedric Speyer and Deanna Nagel. Cedric is an author and therapist who developed the interview guidance model and is a pathfinder in the psycho-spiritual realm. Deanna created the Essential Soul Care Model, a model suitable for therapists, coaches, and healers. The monthly episodes of Soul Portals feature guests sharing insights from their personal paths and professional practices. Thank you for tuning in for the Soul Talk with all kinds of trailblazing teachers and guides as Cedric, Deanna, and guests explore new evolutionary landscapes.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Okay, welcome again to the May episode of Soul Portals. And this month we're looking through the portal to Ruth Sapir and music therapy and the healing power of music. I always start with an opening invocation, which is may the spirit flow freely through this conversation, allowing it to be both edifying and energizing. So the opening quote actually comes from an album from the 90s called Fire and Roses, and full disclosure, I was Ruth's lyricist and wrote the lyrics for this album. Ruth is a singer, songwriter, as well as music therapist. And on the back of this album is a little poem I wrote at the time to honor her and uh her gifts and the source of them. So here's how it goes. Like a hidden spring, an oasis, she waits, shrouded by shadow at dusk, soothed by the sound of the desert at dawn, she stretches her smile between sleeping and waking when ancestors whisper their thirst for a song. So there's a lead-in to the theme of the month.

SPEAKER_05 2:42

I had forgotten that quote completely, and wow, it's so rude to hear that. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

And more relevant than ever now that you have a new album being released in May called Accolades of Time.

SPEAKER_05 3:00

Yeah. Uh I I just want to say thank you for inviting me and and uh having this time together. It's really lovely to be here. I'm very happy to do this. And what a beginning. Wow, you dropped me right in there, said wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

So the a brief professional intro and a few lines before we get into the depth of your journey, the depth and breadth.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Yeah, like what what do you want us to know about your your vocation? The soulful piece in a few sentences.

SPEAKER_05 3:44

Um Well, I I suppose I could start by saying that music has always been uh a super important part of my life from from a very young child, and um, and I insisted on piano lessons when my parents couldn't really afford it, and luckily they gave them to me. And um it's it's taken so many different pathways throughout my life. It's taken me on many different journeys, but it's always been very central. And um, you know, when I when I became an adult, I became a music therapist uh because I really think I had a natural um skill. And uh and so I used music in the therapeutic context and then worked on sound healing. And so that, you know, I did that for many years, I did that for decades. And um now uh since I've sort of left a lot of that behind, certainly I don't do it full-time anymore, I've gone back to creating music and writing music and and playing way more than I had time for, raising a family and working full-time, uh, which is an absolute pleasure. And so uh so now I'm more um focused on my own internal process rather than working with people. So yeah, so that's a bit like an overview. It's a big, big overview.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

And just a bit about music therapy and for people who are completely new to it, you know, how what is it and what's the impact on clients and the settings where you practiced?

SPEAKER_05 5:27

Yeah. Um so using music in a therapeutic context can take many different forms, and it can be with many different kinds of clients. Um, so as an example, let's say uh when I began my career, I worked in a geriatric hospital for a couple of years, and I worked with a group of Alzheimer's patients, and uh they were nonverbal, they were at the point in their dementia where they weren't speaking anymore. And in the music group, like we'd sing the song and they'd remember the entire lyric and sing the entire song, and it was a way for them to use that um that verbal skill that they've sort of lost, so it kept them in touch with that. So that's one context in a geriatric setting, a possible context. Um, I've worked with kids on the spectrum, and um there were uh for instance kids who were on the spectrum that weren't speaking, and uh we used music as a lot of a lot of people love music, not everyone across the board, but most people like music, and so it's a way in, it's like an avenue in. And when other things don't work, sometimes music really truly works. So the kids would come to our sessions and they'd sing happily, and it was a way to get them to use their words and use their vocal cords and get them speaking. Um, another example was I worked at a psychiatric hospital uh with in the children's unit, and there was a mother-infant unit in the hospital, and uh they were having trouble with this mom and her two-year-old who wasn't uttering a word, and so uh they came and worked with us in the with me in the music room, and uh this is I guess this is like the miracle case, you know, for me. There aren't many of these in a career, but every once in a while it's like wow, this is incredible. So the mom was really not paying attention to her child. She was really having difficulty connecting with this two-year-old, and he was a little wild and non-verbal, entirely non-verbal. And so they came into the music room and he loved, I had different stations, different musical stations, and he just went wild, and he went to every station and uh played, and and so and the mother sat down and I I went after him and mirrored him. Like everything he did, I I sort of imitated and he loved it. He loved it. And so the second session, the mom came in with the son and I asked her to mirror him. Like I, you know, I said, I did it last time, and now you try it. And so she had a lot of difficulty. It took her the whole session, I would say, before she really started following him and imitating it. But often she would take over, like he'd play something, and then she'd go, blah, blah, blah, you know, she'd take it somewhere else entirely. Um, and it took her a long time just to imitate him exactly, like to mirror him exactly. So eventually she did get it. And when she did get it, and this took like maybe three or four sessions, uh, this two-year-old started speaking whole sentences. It was really one of those miracle cases. You know, it was like, wow, if I could do this, what else can I do? But that doesn't happen too often.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

That's a great story.

SPEAKER_05 8:58

Wow, it was a great, great result, you know, it was a wonderful thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah. And people, if people have questions about music therapy, then feel free in the chat. And in your in your personal journey, uh like our theme, Spike was spiritual, like how has music you know healed you or or promoted your own soul growth and you know, personally? Because you know, I know how it's been so important on your path.

SPEAKER_05 9:34

Yeah, at this point, I think, you know, I think about it this way: like like Cedric, you're a meditator, I know that, and that's your um daily practice. And I think a lot of people have daily practices that keep them going and whole and in the right frame of mind to go through their lives, and so music really fulfills that function for me. I play every day, I sing every day. And when I'm not in this, this is I'm in my music room, and this is where I work and play. And when I'm um not here and I haven't been here for the last few weeks, I start to go wonky. It's it's really something I need in my life. It's really fulfilled that that role for me of keeping me on the ground, my boots on the ground and solidly here.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah. Because a lot of people talk about creativity, but it's great to hear it reframed as a practice. You know, it's a psycho-spiritual practice like anything else.

SPEAKER_05 10:42

And I and I do think that creativity is a practice as well. I don't think it's just a here and there thing. Many people use it that way, but I think uh if it becomes central to your life, it becomes the thing that keeps you grounded and and keeps you moving along at a good clip.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

And it's it's very music is very um sensory. So it's spiritual, it's creative, but it's also a sensory process that and when you were talking about working with children on the spectrum, that that's a sensory process that is maybe different than what they were accustomed to, and it opens it opens the pathways.

SPEAKER_05 11:29

Yeah, and I think it opens the pathway for many people because we think of therapeutics as either medicine or speaking therapy, and music really takes people outside of the um the semantic piece, and it brings it to a whole other level, um, much more heart and feeling, and uh and it's direct, it's not you don't have to work at getting there, it can be very direct.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

And it really plays into left brain, right brain, that model.

SPEAKER_06 12:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Because it puts you in the right brain consciousness out of the linear mode.

SPEAKER_06 12:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah, definitely. When did you first start writing songs yourself?

SPEAKER_05 12:20

Um, I think as a teenager. Yeah. I would play Gordon Lightfoot songs, and I thought, yeah, I could do this.

unknown 12:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:28

They were never as good as his, though.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Which brings us to your album coming up, the launches on May 17th. And it's called Accolades of Time.

SPEAKER_05 12:43

I have it right here. That's there's the album, and yes, it will be out May 17th. That's my first jazz album. Very exciting. I've been working really hard on this, and it's sounding lovely. And I have fantastic musicians working on this, it's it's really quite beautiful. Yeah, it's very the artwork is gorgeous, also. All of it is it's hard to see, I'm sure, online. But you if you want to listen to it, it will be available um May 17th. We're having a listening party on Bandcamp. And if you go to my website, it's I believe the website is in the chat room on top. And um, on the opening page of the website, there's you know, all the information for when when the listening party is, and all of that is there.

unknown 13:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

So that mysterious title, accolades of time. Uh-huh. How did you arrive at that? And it's very poetic. What's the what's the meaning for you of that title?

SPEAKER_05 13:49

So uh it's been wonderful for me to have time to work through my own process at this point. It's been uh like I'm so grateful uh for having time and energy and um the ability and all the right people around me to uh go through this process. So um this project has been for me uh going back to my ancestry. And I, you know, I'm a child of Holocaust survivors, so there really is no ancestry. Like I don't know, I never knew my grandparents, and that whole lineage was basically cut off. They were mainly all killed during the war. So um, so this has been a way for me to reach back and find ancestry. Uh, it's sort of in my imagined mind, really. And like, and and in going back, it's been very surprising to me that I have found a lot of joy. It's uh it's been remarkable because you know, I live I grew up in a family of um trauma. So this was like, wow, like this doesn't have to be traumatic, right? This could be this could be a joyful thing. So for me, it's been reclaiming joy, really, through going backwards in time.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

So it's funny, there are no clinked inks um synchronously. I've had a lot of conversation lately with um practitioners who are doing ancestral work, like mostly shaman from a shamanic standpoint. Is there any comparison to your process using music to going on a shamanic journey? Um visualization to to capture some of that healing?

SPEAKER_05 15:48

So I I guess I can compare it in one way. I think that I know when I when I write and I go to that uh creative spot of coming up with something new, it really is um silence. Like that's where I go. Like I sit and I wait and wait for something to arise. That is how I write, really. I mean, I come up with an interesting idea, but then I then I sort of put it aside and I wait. And um it's not a vision. I mean, I don't, I don't, it's not visual for me, but it's uh it I am I know when it's coming through. Like it's very clear to me when something comes through, and and I grab it because I think, oh yeah, this is it, yeah. And then it becomes a piece, and I mold it into a piece. So I'm not sure if it's that compatible, like it's it's quite different from shamanism, but there are similarities.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

I think I mean I sense it, that's why I asked, you know. Yeah, two different processes, but some of the same psycho-spiritual pieces get tapped.

SPEAKER_05 17:06

Yeah, it's really interesting. I never considered comparing them. That's kind of interesting. I'll have to think about that.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

But Ruth reminded me of what you call a download, Vienna.

SPEAKER_03 17:16

Yes, it sounds like channeling, or when you have that moment, you're you're downloading that information from the ethers, you know. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_05 17:26

And we and we can all do that, right? We all have that capacity.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

And download is a great word because instead of making something up and all the effort making something up, it's like being receptive to what's coming up.

SPEAKER_05 17:40

That's brilliant, yeah. You know, I used to think of um writing music and uh uh yeah, coming up with new ideas as like a stream, like there's a stream going by and you just pull pull it down, and that was really my experience.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Like it would it would yeah, the the unseen stream.

SPEAKER_05 17:59

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

That's what I call it. Yeah, and it's like you know, tapping into it.

SPEAKER_05 18:06

But it's really interesting how in different phases of life that also changed for me. Like it it no longer is a stream where I pull it down. I really and I you know this may sound totally immodest, but I feel like I am the stream, like it's no longer pulling down, it's like I am the stream, it's in me, and I can tap into it inside, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

So like immersed in it.

SPEAKER_05 18:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Immersed in it.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

Or or you're you're you're tapping into your higher self.

SPEAKER_05 18:42

It is you, but it's no longer above me, it's no longer outside of me. I feel like it's in me. But but that took a long time, that took a lifetime, uh I I found for me, you know, to feel like oh yes, here it is, here it is, it's here, it's not up there, not out there, it's it's really here.

SPEAKER_03 19:03

When I think of higher self, I think of higher self as in in our aura, like within our aura. Right. So what you're describing is embodiment. Right, yes. Yeah, yeah. Not like that.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah. Rumi has a poem about it, which I can't completely recall about the fish in the ocean, and you know, one fish is saying, Where's the where's the water?

SPEAKER_06 19:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

You're in it.

SPEAKER_06 19:35

Yeah, you're in it.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

So can you talk a little bit about um how the concept of attunement works when you're writing music?

SPEAKER_05 19:54

The first that thought that comes to me is um I spent years um learning uh and immersing myself in improvisation. And I know when we hear improvisation, we think of music, but honestly, I think that even when we converse, when we speak, we're improvising, right? We don't know, I don't know what your next sentence will be. Like I have no idea what you're gonna say, but then we move along and we find some context and we shape a conversation. And so I think improvisation is fundamental to communication. And um, but I've done I've gone and uh studied it musically, and um it has been uh actually, what was your question? I just got lost. About a tuning like tuning fork of your spirit.

SPEAKER_06 20:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:53

Okay, so um so for myself through improvisation, I feel that uh when when I when I get to a certain place and and some creative spark is happening, I can play with it. Like I I can go in many directions with it. So I mean, I know it's not uh it's I don't call it attunement, but I think this is what you're asking. I'm not actually sure, but you'll tell me. Um yeah, I I think that by learning to not be rigid about something and to be free to move in many directions when it's called for, uh, that's real really being attuned to the moment and to the present and to whatever is coming. So I for so I see that as fundamental.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Right. So for you, it's you know, regardless of the words we use, but it's an intentional process for you.

SPEAKER_05 22:01

Yeah, yes, and it always has been. And but no like no longer because I feel like okay, we can improvise here. Like I I'm not preparing any. I mean, I do prepare. There are times I really prepare, but in this moment, I can I can go wherever we go and and be okay with that.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Right. So it's in there's a lot of therapists in the audience. And uh it you know, attunement in that realm, like with uh another person with a client, is when you're not you're not making an effort to change them or fix them in any way, right? But you're so grounded and centered and holding the space and in the zone that the other person is we use the word attuned by that. And that can happen with environments. You know, one of my favorite expressions is uh VI thermostat, not a thermometer. So you can change the temperature, the the emotional temperature of a room. Right? And it's and it's not working, it's not working on anybody. It's it's a you know very subtle um not you know effect where yeah, with that beautiful word attunement.

SPEAKER_03 23:25

And also it just came to me when I asked the question, I asked it, but now I'm thinking about what I asked. Um so attunement is also when we are creative, um, when when you're writing your music, when I'm writing whatever I'm writing, there is an attunement that happens within us. So so that we are attuned to the whole self. And and somebody, Elena says in the chat, it is embodied experience.

SPEAKER_05 24:06

Yeah, embodied is a great word. Yeah, because we're we're here, we're we're experiencing it right here. It's not outside of us, it's not out there anywhere, it's it's really here. I one thing I wanted to add, Cedric, is also in the therapeutic setting, when when you're you know the therapist is attuned and is able to be flexible, they can go wherever their client goes. Yeah, there's you know nothing to hold back or to or to hold on to. You just move with whatever the other person needs or wants, or it's it's closely aligned with presence.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

So the way we can be healed by somebody's presence without them even saying anything, and or playing anything, right? But you're a step, you know, you're a step closer than anything didactic or using a lot of language, a lot of words, right? To for that sense of presence that you're sharing, and in the sharing, if somebody needs healing, they're welcome to be healed.

SPEAKER_05 25:16

So and then it's up to them what they do.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah, it's like the experience with a genuine guru, which I've had that experience a few times. When you're in the presence of a genuine, you know, master, the whole there could be a crowded room, the whole room dissolves. You just feel like it's you and the person, you know, in that space together, and it's so expansive, right? It has all those qualities of of real presence.

SPEAKER_05 25:45

Yeah, and wouldn't it be a great world if we were all our own little gurus and emanated light? Yeah, what what a different world we would have.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

We're getting there.

SPEAKER_05 25:57

I certainly hope so.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Like C.S. Lewis says the important thing is to be pointed in the right direction. Like, yes, you don't have to be in heaven, you have to be pointed that way.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Good advice, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

So somebody says in the chat, is it a little bit like playing in the orchestra?

SPEAKER_05 26:20

That's uh a really interesting uh comment. Yeah, I would say, yeah, like playing in an orchestra. How fabulous is that? Like everyone's playing a different note and a different instrument, but it's all in harmony. It's it's quite a beautiful thing. Um, yeah, at the best of moments, I feel like everything is so well coordinated and harmonious. Yeah, I would say yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Now might be a good moment to actually listen to what we were talking about because we have one of your songs queued up.

SPEAKER_05 26:58

So just before we play it, I I have a couple of things to say about the song. So uh as I was saying, like I I this is like an ancestral journey for me, and in this particular song, it's called Hand Me Down Clothes. Uh, I I I try to put a few different things together, and it's quite a complex song lyrically, actually. It's it's about silence and and um um ancestral wisdom that gets passed down. And also I try to juxtapose that with the image of a hand-me-down clothes. You know, how you know the wisdom is sewn silently into the scenes of the hand-me-down clothes. Like I really loved that image. Um, so I guess I shouldn't say much more, and let's listen to it and see what just another note because it corresponds with the last lines of the poem when ancestors whisper their thirst for a song, and you mentioned being a Holocaust survivor, they were not only hungry and thirsty, literally, but you know, their spirit was thirsty for humanity or some sense of humanity in that in that you know terrible setting. I totally forgot that that quote, Cedric.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

That was like, wow, yeah, this was it's the poem on the back of your album. I know roses.

SPEAKER_05 28:23

I know.

unknown 28:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

It sounds a little full circle ish.

SPEAKER_05 28:27

Yeah, it's really. It's almost like like I have goosebumps, you know.

SPEAKER_04 28:59

Rests on me. Like a second skin, it surrounds me, it moves with me, it reminds me to learn from the past. And like though a second hand clothes, gently worn, soft on the skin, silently stone its eight. Wisdom spots down through the ages. I don't know what's very tight. I never believed I waited for the way I wanted to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_05 32:15

Like everyone's listening. It's not like background music, or it's not like sort of, oh yes, it's on, and it's very nice. But this is like, wow, everyone's really listening. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

John, this must be uh first for online events to have a song. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

I was just thinking that. How exciting to be part of the album Emerging into the world.

SPEAKER_05 32:39

So yes, very exciting for me, that's for sure. Well, hopefully more to come of this type, right? We'll see.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

Let's hope so, yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

It was it was quite lovely. It was what? Quite lovely. Yes, very lovely. So from your yeah, it that song sparked a question that from your legacy, which you know had a lot of pain in it being passed down, the ancestral trauma and all that. Like what what do you keep from that and what do you release and let go? And it's not you know, you're not moving forward with it. Like what's yeah, what's worth keeping and what do you need to leave behind to for your own soul goals?

SPEAKER_05 33:36

Um I'm very grateful for that experience uh of living in a lot of trauma because it's sensitized me to suffering in the world and it allowed me to, I think, be a good therapist and and be really glad to be helping in that way. So that that I'm very grateful for. Um yeah, I think that's that's the key for me, is like that it taught me something extraordinary. But apart from that, I I've I've really let go of it. Yeah, like it's not something I want to hang on to, it's a dark place, you know.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Yeah, the burden, the burden of it, right? That doesn't belong to you, but you what you inherited it.

SPEAKER_05 34:28

Yes, and it did feel like a burden for a very long time, but it at this point I feel like I shed it and uh really I've been reaching for the joy because that's the place to be.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

So that's what I think you captured in in the song, is I would imagine that part of the healing was experiencing the joy.

SPEAKER_05 34:51

Yeah, all of it actually, that was the key. It was like, wow, it was a surprise, actually. I I didn't expect to find the joy, and it was like, it's I'm so happy that I found that joy, and and I will embody it really and and live it fully, and what a wonderful thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Yeah, you're really doing the the the soul work of the next generation, right?

SPEAKER_05 35:16

Well I I don't think everyone does it, right? And I think that um I could have easily have not gone down this path. I don't know what I think it's grace, and I I I'm not even sure what moves people to do this work and or not do it. It's not all that clear to me.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Yeah. The creativity was the key for you. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

Can you um talk about what musicians, if any, particularly sparked you um along your path.

SPEAKER_05 36:06

There have been so many. Um throughout my life I've listened to so many different people and certainly been inspired by so many different genres and instrumentalists. Um Sarah Vaughn, um, Hubert Lawz is my all-time favorite flute, flute jazz improviser. Um I uh today I listened to Nicole Zalatis, who is a young jazz singer, and I just adore her. So many different influences. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

And I know well, and therapeutically, I know when you worked with children, uh Winnicott Inclusive, right?

SPEAKER_05 36:50

Huge, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

Yeah. Can you say a bit about that for those who may not know the contribution of Winnicott?

SPEAKER_05 37:01

Right. He was, I think he was active in the 50s and 60s, I believe. And uh he worked a lot with mothers, and um he was one of the early early doctors who looked at the mother-infant relationship and uh what it meant, and uh mirroring he he came up with that whole idea of mirroring the baby, and through mirroring the baby, the baby actually sees itself.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Um yeah, yeah, I I felt sorry, what that's what you were mentioning in the miracle.

SPEAKER_05 37:37

Right, exactly. It was total winner cut, uh absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

It's very, you know, it's very significant, and you know why? Because it's like we're in this epidemic of narcissism, and narcissism is the lack of the original mirroring, so not getting that mirroring. I mean, this is one theory, and then going the rest of your life, you know, seeking them mirroring wherever you can get it, right? And making that like your raison that yeah, yes, indeed. Yep. Instead of the the self like that you've discovered, your own, you know, your own, you know, true self.

SPEAKER_05 38:22

Yeah, and and for those of us that didn't get enough mirroring, that's a mega challenge. It's really not an easy journey, and my heart goes out to everyone who who hasn't experienced enough of that original mirroring from from their caregivers.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Not only that, but the negative, the negative mirroring instead of the not the positive. Like there's something wrong with you that you're a bad person, like the and you're you're too young to know that's your parents' issue, not yours. Yeah, and so it goes. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 39:00

And we're such we're such sensitive souls that it's it's so hard to overcome that stuff. Yeah, it's really tough.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Which is which is where the attunement comes in. And as you know, I had a mentor who was a master of attunement, and you know, as soon as you go into his office, sit down, his presence, you just you know, you start feeling everything's alright, you know. Nice. And I'm a good person. There's nothing wrong with with me, there's everything right. Yeah, it's just that feeling that you're doing through your your your craft and past. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:45

But it can also be a song.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 39:50

Well, that's it. I I and I think this is really important because uh we all have our journeys, and being therapists doesn't mean that you you stop your journey. I mean, we all have to continue and and create and move along. And if we ever stop on the road for too long, you know, it's like what is it that Joe Job did he Job's wife turned around, turned into salt?

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Lot's wife.

SPEAKER_05 40:20

Lot's wife, right? You know, if you stop for too long, you you become sort of frozen. And yeah, I think it's yeah, it's all it's important to keep growing for all of us.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:37

I'm just very, very aware of my father was a huge fan of all types of music, loved Sarah Vaughn, but he was one that could go into the his room with his records and find complete solace. Just complete solace just from the music.

SPEAKER_05 41:01

Yeah. I I can totally relate. I I mean I don't do it with recordings, but I do it actively. It's my it's my soulist, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I'm really glad I got to share that in a therapeutic context too with people. I think that was special.

SPEAKER_06 41:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

This quote fell out of my quote folder randomly, really. It says you can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. And it's actually Plato said that. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 41:45

Um I'm just wondering if there are any questions anybody has any specific songs or questions?

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Yep. We have one more you know. Was there a um like a threshold or a turning point moment for you? Or is it a gra was it a gradual unfolding of your vocation?

SPEAKER_05 42:30

Was there any threshold moment or uh I I think there have been some big moments, but nothing really comes to mind. I think it's been more of a gradual ongoing thing. This moment is an important moment for me because uh I feel like this music that I'm creating is um is gonna reach more of the world than my music has in the past. So, I mean, not that I'm gonna be famous or big, but but it's already um being played on radio stations in Mexico City. I mean, you know, it's it's sort of like things things are sort of popping up, uh, which is wonderful. And um uh I love that whole idea. So this is um it's moved to another echelon for me, which is great. It's a really a lovely thing for me.

SPEAKER_06 43:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Well, yeah, you played a lot of the small clubs on the way on your way on, you're on your way up.

SPEAKER_05 43:39

Yeah, and I still will. I like those small clubs.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Right. But it's like the music therapy gets gets to expand now into into the wider realm.

SPEAKER_06 43:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 43:52

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Okay, we can we can do the title song, right? Uh Recolates a time.

SPEAKER_06 44:03

Yeah, sounds good.

SPEAKER_04 44:17

Move foaming waters on the horizon. Managing footprints embedded in my mind. Won't you embrace the time? Would you unlight the tie? In the echo seeds of time. Into the stage. Where do you live? Could we step onto a stage? Into the spotlight. Into the limelight. Through the egg. We'll accompany you. Through your days, through your eyes, through the time that we know. Won't you upload my foot here? Won't you stand? For the alcoholates of time. For the alcoholes of time. For the alcohols of time.

SPEAKER_05 46:34

So that's a bit of a tip of the hat to uh Antonio Carlos Jobim, who popularized the Bossa Nova in the 60s and 70s, and uh I love him. He's just uh one of my favorites. And yeah, so for me it's like, yes, this is like um, let's applaud the those ancestors who are coming in and saying hello, and yes, let's have a good time together.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

I just got another level of the layer of the title. It's it's like the flip side of time heals all wounds, and accolades of time is um time also celebrates the integration of our journey, right?

SPEAKER_05 47:20

Okay, and I honestly I believe it moves backwards and forwards, also.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Yeah, well, that's important, the backwards and forwards.

SPEAKER_05 47:30

One thing that happened while I was writing, uh I don't even remember which song it was, it wasn't, and it wasn't those two that we listened to today, but I was writing this song and it was like really about ancestors called ancestral shadows. And in the middle of the song, this other song came. And sometimes like these songs drop in your lap, but generally not, generally it's worse. But this song was like poof, the whole thing just showed up, and it was like, it was like a lullaby. This is crazy. I'm writing about my ancestors, and this is a lullaby. And so I finished the song, and then in thinking about it, I thought, of course, that makes total sense. It's like I'm reaching back in time, but this is about future generations as well. It's not just the past, it's it's the past, the present, the future. It's all like on a continuum. That was interesting for me.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

That makes a lot of sense. It's at first the title was puzzling the first time I heard it. But it what does that mean?

SPEAKER_05 48:27

Accolades of time, putting those I I remember that, and I remember I said to you, people are just gonna have to go to their dictionaries.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

But it's the yeah, it's it's uh the celebration of the journey. Yeah, it's it's uh yeah, exactly. It encompasses everything we experience over time and even beyond ourselves, before ourselves.

SPEAKER_06 48:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

Yeah. Okay, well, you you stunned everyone into silence.

SPEAKER_05 49:04

Which is my great superpower.

SPEAKER_02 49:09

I do have a question that's come to me directly, which I could read. Would that be okay? Yeah. Sure. Um in the chat, yeah. Um so thank you for this question. Ruth, can you give me any ideas for supporting in brackets macho, those brackets young people, mostly on the spectrum, I guess thinking about autism, in an alternative educational provision. Your comments about attunement are very interesting. And uh a comment there. I'm a learning support assistant and not a therapist. Some thoughts about attunement, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 49:51

So uh it it sounds like these are teenagers, if I'm correct. Um macho, yeah, probably teenagers you're talking about. Um, if you're into music, I would bring some like heavy metal or rock into the room, and uh that might speak to them, and then start a conversation around it. And if you play the guitar, bring in your amp with your distortion pedal, you know. You know, whatever speaks to them is what I would say. Yeah, it and it becomes a doorway in, which is really the key to anything else. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 50:39

That's helpful. Hopefully, I'm not sure if that's helpful at all, but throwing off the keep of the well-behaved kind of practitioner. I love that room. That's really wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 50:50

Well, you wonder by the description she gave if there was a room full of instruments, where would where would they which instruments would they be tempted to pick up?

SPEAKER_05 51:04

Yeah. And it's very interesting. Sometimes it's not a given that, you know, people are attracted to what their heart is attracted to. It's not always what you think it's gonna be, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

I feel like reading the poem again now that people have gotten to know you a bit. Sure. In the full circle. So like a hidden spring, an oasis, she waits, shrouded by shadow of dusk, soothed by the sound of the desert at dawn. She stretches her smile between sleeping and waking when ancestors whisper their thirst for a song. So good, Cedric. Wow. That's I don't know where that came from at the time. Wow, because I didn't know you that well.

SPEAKER_06 52:00

It's a download.

unknown 52:01

It's a download.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Yeah, because I didn't know you that well at the time, you know. Yeah, it's true. Amazing.

SPEAKER_06 52:08

Yeah, it's a great download. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:17

Wow. Well, it's been really a wonderful hour. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 52:26

There's a comment that says, thank you very much. Very interesting workshop. You have you have got a beautiful voice.

unknown 52:34

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Thank you. And you do have workshops with online events that are in the library, right, John?

SPEAKER_06 52:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

Like if people want to go delve deeper into the in the music therapy.

SPEAKER_05 52:47

Yeah, I think we have like uh a breath work workshop and um voice. Oh yeah, voice and co-regulation is the other one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

So they're in your new library, right, John?

SPEAKER_02 53:03

Yes, the website has just been the rebuild is just finished, so it's definitely worth checking out your work in there, Ruth. And also the Bandcamp link as well. So well, we'll make sure everybody's got the link to your website so we can link through and yeah. Both libraries, both very important.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

So stay tuned and aduned to the next episode of Soul Portals. And here's the closing blessing for today. Unless anyone has comments or questions. May you do your best to serve the moment that is unfolding in front of you.

SPEAKER_05 53:55

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

I want to say thank you from online events as well. Um really great to host the conversation. Here it's great to have you back, Ruth, as well, doing more with us at online events in the uh Soul Portals podcast. And I really appreciate an appreciation for Diana and Cedric as well for bringing this work here. And to everybody who's been with us over the last hour live, or if you've been listening to this as the recording, great to have you here too. Thank you.