Creekside Muse

I never want to leave you
once I've sunk back into your embrace
Your tender stillness empties me

Time becomes like a lost happy child
wandering aimlessly
exploring the forests of possibilities
with curious eyes and an innocent heart
Known to no one

Here by creekside's constant cooing
my heart cracks open
I am soft
spilled into tranquil pools
where rocks like my heart
are softened to sand
washed away into the vastness that is your love
My body melts
My body vacant but for you

The willow's swishing soft hair-like tendrils
brush gently against my skin like a lover
The one you are for me
Stirring me to stay longer
I succomb willingly
opening to your breath again and again..

Nothing is as this
No place else is home
My beloved lives here
Naked, unadorned, freely dancing in the wind
Turning white fluffy clouds into magical imaginations of the mind
hovering above me as this earth spins
Turning leaves and water and air into symphonies of perfect grace

I never want to leave you

Moment of Stillness

Your breathe makes me quiver
like aspen leaves do
with the most subtle whisper of your essence
dripping thru the air

You delite me in ways indescribable
Sensually stirring me beyond the physical
Stilling me
I am captivated
Speechlessly in awe of your embrace

I can not move
yet all of me is flowing
I can not think
yet all of me lives in knowing
I can not breathe
yet your breath sustains me

I am yours and you are all that I am

Waves of fleecy swaying grasses hypnotize me
holding me captive
Enraptured by the way you kiss me
body, mind and soul

And in these moments with you
the rest is silenced

I am whole
Full beyond fullness
One beyond Oneness

With you Beloved
I am free
I am home
I AM

Cheri Shanti
Aug 26, 2010

Sacred Space Jam: Sister Muse Sweetness

Magical Mystical Muse works are by far the most powerful medicine I have found for the dis-ease of Modern living. Co-creative, playful, deeply moving, prayerful, transformative and invoking the spirit of oneness, Muse experiences allow us to be witnessed, to hold space, to share and to meet in a profound way. Most of our lives are spent in the mundane, talking about our daily challenges or joys, our lives, our jobs, our frustrations, and often there is a certain level of superficiality to the exchanges, "Hey, how are you?" "Good.." because there isn't time, or because there aren't words to express the depths of what may be really going on for us in this wildly spinning world where the changes that are happening are fast, furious and sometimes totally unruly and insensitive to our more childlike, deeper, curious essences. This world can be so sweet, and so cruel all in one day.

Muse Experiences where we can let go, unwind, sing, dance, cry, lay on the floor and belt out our pain or our joy, writh in ecstasy or in sorrow, drum, pray and just simply be our true essence in the presence of others are a reprieve from the mundane, and a medicine that is deeply needed in these times. Last night I visited the Sacred Space Jam at the Starhouse and was right at home in the sweet and delightful facilitation by founder Karen and Michael Travers. I felt last night that I was in the presence of the Master Musers. Profoundly moving, the bodies, voices and music wove their way in and out of high states of trance and intense booty shaking. Many offered at the end of the night that the highlight was when the moon came shining thru the windows of the perfecly placed Alchemical temple we know as the Starhouse in Boulder, CO. The crystal bowl, the hang, and a circle of voices praying their hearts out carried us into the silence that closes the practice. Certainly, I too felt that magic as the crystaline point of our hearts, souls and bodies merging in service to the Muses that service us!

These practices are opening us into our hearts. I am honored to meet another sister carrying the torch of creative free expression and look forward to sharing every month at the Sacred Space Jam in Boulder! Don't miss the next one, and look for the Muse Practice which will be returning to fill in the spaces in between the Sacred Space Jams.

Upcoming Event: June 26

4:30 pm - 6:30 PM - Evolution of the Drum Circle - $30
Applications and Teachings for Better Drum Circles & Community Music Making

8 PM- 11 PM **OPEN COMMUNITY ALCHEMUSE FIRE DRUM & DANCE CELEBRATION
OPEN TO ALL MUSICIANS.. bring sound equipment if you need it!***
7 PM POTLUCK, 8 PM Open Circle $10

This experiential workshop offers an in depth look at drum circle dynamics: past, present and future. Be sure to bring your instruments, a notepad and your wisdom to share with us!

In this workshop we will:
*Explore Ancient Methods of Drum and Dance Cultures around the world
*Examine Current Paradigms for Drum Circles
*Learn Tools to help Evolve and Transform your Community Drum Circles
*Learn the 10 Conscious Considerations for Better Recreatioinal Music Making
*Learn the 4 Building Blocks for Building better Drum Circles
*Have fun, meet new people who share your desire for better and more creative drumming experiences!

Unity Women Empowering Women

Last night's Unity of the Gardens Women Empowering Women's group proved to be a very special evening. Of course, it always is a special evening when we get to come together to play, dance, sing and share ourselves with each other, but the women who came last night to the event held some touching stories and I felt that the medicine that the Muse brought forth last night will be forthcoming for some time to come in their lives.

The Unity of the Gardens Women Empowering Women group meets once a month, and I had been selected to be the presentor for the May event.

The word got out about the drumming and in addition to the Unity Churh women who were regular attendees to this event, a group that wasn't at all connected to the church showed up from a home where women go to recover and rehabilitate from addictions and abuse. I was immediately touched by their openness and humble soft spirits. We talked about how the quest for God and divinity is the real driving force behind many addictions and they had a lot to ask me about meditation and other practices to work with the mind and body healing they were in the midst of.

These women are facing and moving through their darkness with a kind of courage and willingness that comes from the place of surrendering into new strength. Most of them had never experienced a drum circle, or anything like a Muse experience in their lives. They ranged in age from 19-50ish and I could feel that some of them had some pretty intense stories they were working to re-arrange in their own heads, hearts and selves and I felt so grateful that spirit had brought this group to be a part of this nite.

As always, the circle opened with intention, followed by some moments of quiet reflection to ground and relax, and just seeing them soften, their shoulders relax and their breathing unite was a gift to experience in and of itself. I know for a few of them the whole experience was like stepping into some bizarre field of whackiness, and I could feel the trepidation within them at the onset. In spite of it, they were brave enough to be open and I watched them soften, laugh, smile, and free themselves little by little, more with each excercise we did!

And seeing them after the circle closed, looking softer and more radiant, feeling how much more connected they were to each other, and the opening that I could feel and see in their hearts was the sweetest gift I could have and reminded me once again of why I love this work. I am so grateful and humbled to be sharing this in this world!

Thanks to the women of Unity and all who came last night for sharing yourselves and being brave and fearless in the great unknown.. and finding your joy there waiting for you!

Gratitude for the Goodness of Life

Softest orange twilight tonite brings my open heart to grace once again.

I feel, so often, the blessings of this divine play of life and I find myself crying with gratitude and joy at the magic that this life has offered me. In truth, it offers itself to all of us, but many of us (me too sometimes I admit) stay so busy and occupied by the mundane that we can often forget, for days, months and sometimes, for some, for years or even a lifetime. A few moments sitting quietly with nature though and I am quickly brought back to my senses!

Reflecting in this quiet time on the many amazing moments of a lifetime. The good dear friends who make me smile, those who reflect such beauty and wisdom to me are so cherished; yet it seems impossible to express the depths of my love for them in any way. I Love you is just such a tiny piece of the equation.. I am you.. I see myself in you, I honor you.. still not even close to what I feel in my heart for those special lights who have walked some piece of my path with me. There truly are no words to express the profundity of love.

Tonite, sitting watching the last sensual embers of light fade into the dark of night I sent my love to them all, in all the corners of the earth that I have been blessed to touch my feet upon where I met their smiling (and sometimes not smiling) faces. Waves of peace and gratitude for the parents who, though they do not understand me, gave me my foundation to become the woman I am becoming. The woman I am learning more and more to love with great passion and tenderness. Not the egoic love of "I'm great," but the true acceptance of myself, with all my "faults," all my weird parts, my neurocies even. Love is acceptance and I am finding every day that I am learning more and more to accept all of myself with grace. A lifelong practice it seems to offer me. May we all bless our parents, even those who really didn't do as good of a job as we think they should have, for they gave us the greatest gift of life, and maturity is facing that acceptance that no one can ever be perfect for us but ourselves.

I watch nature and it gets easier and more simplistic to comprehend acceptance:

Does the earth try to change the plants that grow forth from it?
Do the plants complain to the weather that it's too hot or too wet?
Does the butterfly try to change the smell of the flower it suckles?
Does the hummingbird, whom I have been seeing every few minutes here, dislike the whirring of it's own wings?
Does the coyote question the strength of the herd it's stalking or simply await it's dinner if fate chooses to weaken one calf or not?
Does the river say to the sea, "I wish you'd get out of my way already, you're blocking my flow."

Love is total acceptance and total being of itself, and truly, nature embodies love in all it's forms.. wild, raging, hungry, passionate, animalistic, reflective, on and on.. there is for me no greater sanctuary, no more complete temple than the planet we live on. When we learn this, all that we must endure become gifts for our greatest unfolding. When we learn this, we are always in prayerful embodiment recognizing the divinity in all we see from the pauper to the prince, the parasite to the pretty flashy feathered peacock. We realize "church" isn't a building, the temple is within us, around us, underneath our feet; prayer is alive always in our senses and our touch. As above, so below. We are that which we seek outside of ourselves and when we get still, we know this to be true. No one else can make us complete, not a lover, not a job, not a house, not a man or woman alive can complete us, they can only compliment us and teach us and share with us our own self.

Nature is the greatest teacher I have ever known or will ever know I'm sure.

I was feeling tonite into my own life. My life has been, as truly I believe all lives are, an amazing experience. I have been blessed beyond what I often feel I am worthy of with good solid people, wise and loving reflections, and funky whacky trippy opportunities and people who remind me to live life as fully as I can; and though I may not ever have many of the "normal" comforts of "security" that many people value above all else, a "job," "house," "marriage," etc. I realize that what I have been gifted is pure grace to experience life in ways that many people may never know. I find myself regularly in complete humble astonishment at the beauty around me and within me when I allow it to unfold.

Music, poetry, sensual passion that is unbridled and wild, magic, mystical awakening to greater truths than money or the "American dream" have been part of my life since I was a small child. I have always known the Divine and been in awe and that to me is one of the biggest gifts I could have been given or chosen. I often try to deny those gifts, thinking that's not "enough" and I have to be "successful" in the ways society expects. Then, on nites like tonite, I get real and realize the illusion vs the reality of life: stillness, unparalleled natural beauty, mountain tops, a life where friends are making me smile and laugh on Facebook from all the different parts of my life, from highshool, my drum circle years, my professional musician colleagues who sings songs that make me fall in love with them to their bones hearing their passion that resonates with mine, Costa Rica connections, and I feel deeper than ever how much love I have been allowed to experience and how loved I am by so many whom I love and adore with all my heart.

What could I find more enrapturing right now than a night like tonite, alone in thousands of acres of desert and mountains, with no sound but crickets, no breath buy my own, no distraction whatsoever from my own depths, a shot of good tequilla and a sacrement of stillness?

I live in gratitude
I walk in gratitude
I breathe in gratitude
and in that gratitude there is such deep celebration in my heart for this life.

Thank you to all of you whom have graced my life with so much sweetness, humor and reflection of greatness. Though the words can never touch the true depths of my love for you, I LOVE YOU!

If I left the planet tonite, I would leave content and grateful for this walk on Planet Earth, for getting to know nature in the way that I do, for the coyote's song, for the crickets and cicadas, the howler monkey's, the sweetest yummiest jams and grooves by firelight, on stage, in living rooms, at my campfire last week in Crested Butte, with big lights or no lights, for the poetry that has floated effortlessly thru me from the Divine spirit of the Muse, for my family, for my sweet nephew who is now a man, for my dear sweet mother who I pray finds peace, and my father who I believe is maturing into his own grace, for my beloved partner Jessee of 7 years, for Matt who gifts me this sanctuary in Crestone every year, for Wolf and my drum brothers and sisters, for so much amazing life...

When I do go, have a big all night fire ceremony for me and play, dance, sing, and celebrate the joy that I know to be truth in this life that you have shared with me.
Cry but not for me.. I have lived a full life already and if this were my last night, I would go
In peace

Message from Peace

To know me is to love me
To feel me is to cherish your truest self
I am always here
Awaiting your remembrance
of the gifts I offer you

Tranquility
Magic
Mystical awakening
To the depths of your inner being

You and I are the same
Only you sometimes forget me

I welcome you to my abode anytime
Day
or night
My heart longs to feel your breath
slowed
Empassioned
Awakened fully to the love I hold for you

I am eternal
I am the dawn
I am the mid-day heat radiating my warmth
I am the soft surreal colors streaming from sunset's kiss

I am yours
Come to me
Again and again
And I will always hold you

I am your eternal lover
I will never forsake you
Though you will forsake me
Time and time again
Until...

You learn that I am here for you
Absorb me
Learn my ways
Rise into the heights of the glory of grace

Choose me
And I will return to you
Every day
In every moment that you let me
I will be the lover that you can never find in another

I alone can gift you eternal joy
I alone can be your ally in the darkest night

I alone

Breathe
And you will feel me breathing
Move
And you will feel me moving
For I am the blossom
I am the birdsong
I am the lone coyote
wandering the desert
with the rabbit and the fox
the elk and the deer

I am the magic
I am the mystery
I am the muse
I am
that I am

Yours Eternally

The Power of the WItness in Music Making

Moving in perfect stillness as my feet are hitting the floor in perfect rhythm, I look out into the audience and my heart is spilled open once again by the presence of these dancing, free spirits moving to the groove of the band I'm playing with, Onda from Boulder. It's always intoxicating to me, always completely consumes me to stand witness to the experiences of others in their movement knowing that they too are seeing me and what we are exchanging is of such a unique and profound quality in today's world of computer screens and techno blah blah.

It is my inspiration. It is the food that feeds my ever growing heart of compassion and connection to others. It is the fabric of my existence somehow, this experience of the witness being witnessed, simutaneously holding others as I too am being seen in my truest essence. There is so much grace and power in what happens when we are grooving together, when eyes meet, and there is acknowledgement of one for the other. Be it in our pain, our glory, our passion, our sensuality, our frustration... somehow music makes us transparent, it brings us back fully into the shared experience of our humanness.

Drumming together, singing together, dancing together are all forms of music making. We are in the groove, our bodies and hearts and minds become synchronized on a whole different level when we are in that state. We can get past the mundane and for those moments we can see each other without judgement, without any dilution of the personality, without words. For me, this is total freedom, and I feel that those who know me best, know me thru the Muses. They've heard me play the passion of my soul, they've seen me cry in the middle of a song or fall on my knees on the ground and pray thru the grace of tears as the hardness of the world melts me, they've seen the truth of me which shines far brighter in the Muse. And, likewise, when I see someone in their groove, suddenly I get a true glimpse of the depth of their hearts, I feel and see their pain, their struggles, and their victories. It is as if the lens of music allows for a total removal of the filters our overactive minds try to work in too much of the time! We are free, we are whole, we are completely ourselves.

I am, as always, blessed to participate! What a joyous and amazing life journey it is to be a musical being who has chosen to participate.

Costa Rica Update

Such sweet times here in the warmth of the tropics. It's been an amazing time to dream the dream, live the dream and work with sweat dripping down my body constantly.

Costa Rica feels funny too, like a place that has pants it hasn't really been able to totally squeeze into!

Music is the place my heart always thinks it needs more of, even here with all the amazing sounds of nature and the wild things, my heart is craving the sweet soft places, the lover in the Muse! I've had a few good doses, luckily enough to keep me soft and yummy but always wanting more it seems of those really precious sacred moments in the Muse.

Forest Dance was here, old friends from many years past in the fire tribe community. Twas a treat indeed to hold space and play all night beneath a big phat tropical moon with monkeys howling and funky Whattar players busting early morning grooves by the fire that was a bit too large for the size of the circle! The beautiful Ceiba tree hovering ominously over our heads was a blessing to behold and the biggest relief on the land was the swimming hole just on top of Nauyaca Falls (the picture is Nauyaca).

I've been here, in Costa Rica, Dominical, for 6 weeks working with a very dear friend of mine on creating a Community Retreat project in Uvita, CR just outside Dominical. It's been an amazing time of writing the dream into being and feeling this super surreal knowingness that I am living in the dream I've been carrying for so many years. I feel so grateful for the opportunity to get to collaborate with a friend on something that we both have been dreaming for years! It's tremendously exciting, and I feel like kissing the ground almost every minute... wow..

The synchronicities have been wild and whacky of course too! Lots of re-connecting with old friends from all over my life, Florida, North Carolina, Fire Tribe all over this country and others have been showing up left and right. It seems there is some merging here of all the differeng amazing pieces of my life! That's telling me something, as a big part of my dream/vision has been that all my favorite people from my whole life would come to be together in one magical, natural place like heaven!

The book, "Muse Power: How community Music Heals us from the Symptoms of Modern Culture" is in it's final final stages, no really, I mean it! I'm having Sirian Philips redo the cover and once that's done, it's off to print, so it will be available from my website as well as Amazon.com and other sources before spring I think!

Always good for me to leave the country and reflect on how amazing a place we live in in the US. Even with it's crap and it's problems which are many.. we are so blessed to have the reality we do.. bless the mess and let's dance the dream alive every day!

Honoring the Stillness

Last night's muse was so symbolically sweet! As one of the last nights of winter, as the sweetness of spring is approaching, the energy was still, quiet, deep, contemplative and reflective. The sharings of stillness were profound! Just hearing each other breathe, sigh and relaxing deeply without any need to do anything was a soothing reminder of our connection, and an honoring of winter's teachings!

Grace in these shared moments permeates the room, and every person present. It was as if the exhaustion of winter was running thru us, and we were willing to be spent together in that space, willing to succomb to death in the moments just before rebirth!

Thank you to those present for honoring the stillness in yourself, and together as a community.

Sweetness!

Excerpt from Chapter 4: The Glamorization of Music & Decline of Music Making in Western Culture

“What is happening to raw music? Some people would rather listen to techno than create raw music. The very magic of synchronizing group music and dance is going away. A lot of tribal dance was dancing the same steps to create togetherness with the raw backbeat and magic that only drums, flutes, bells, stings, and singing can create. Dancing to a computer can never be the same to me. “
Johnny, Denver, CO

Making music together has shifted from a community sharing to a profession that has alienated the larger community from a very real and basic human experience. It has become a lost art form, something “scary” for non-musicians or “ordinary” people, and unfamiliar even to trained musicians in any out of context way. Many trained musicians can’t improvise, don’t know how to play from the moment or their heart. In this shift, we have lost something very valuable and indescribable. We’ve lost an inclusiveness, an openness and a willingness to “play” with each other, and in that, there has been a loss of intimacy and connection. The musical experience is more and more now dictated by the performer or DJ, more or less, and the opportunity to experience true group expression thru chanting, music making and story telling is more or less non-existant in the vast majority of bars, nightclubs or music venues. Music has become far more of a spectator sport and a commercial venture than a simple sharing of the human spirit. In my perspective, the commercialization of music is a major contributor to an overall feeling of dis-empowerment in ordinary, everyday people in relation to their own connection with music. For many adults, music was maybe in their lives as children, but for one reason or another they gave it up before they left highschool and never touched an instrument after that. Perhaps they quit because they didn’t think they were “good enough,” or “serious enough” or maybe because there is this illusion that everything we do has to be for profit, and playing music “just for fun” isn’t enough of a good reason to do it when there are bills to pay and mouths to feed.

As a society, we are taught that we “Go and see” music, that there is an “appropriate” place to “go and see” music (bars, nightclubs, etc.), and that we have to “Pay” to see people “Perform” or “Pay” to have lessons for the priveledge of learning. The free sharing of information that happens in more traditional cultures with music, the passing on, generation to generation of rhythms, songs, dances and musical etiquette, just isn’t always prevalent in the western culture. It has been a progression over time of commercial interests, again need and greed on the part of artists, and corporations, and the seemingly always present concept of the western mindset that everything has a price and can be bought and/or sold. Music and the arts have suffered tremendously from this way of being as it has shifted the consciousness of creativity from one of a playful exploratory child to a business man making deals that please the audience.

It is difficult to really imagine, now for many of us, that there was a time when music wasn’t a commodity, a specialized “skill” or a game of money. There was a time, and it still exists in some tribal communities, that music was simply for the sake of music, a way of life and a part of life. It wasn’t relative if you had a “look” or not, or how much you could turn on the opposite sex, it didn’t matter what kind of clothes you wore or who you “knew,” and you didn’t need to know every mode, scale or methodology to be an active participant, whatever piece you felt to contribute, dance, story, song, drumming, was equally valued and appreciated as a part of the whole.

“Serious music, which sticks to the strict, life inhibiting rules of harmonics and the twelvetone system is not capable of creating a new culture." (Grandpierre) Both classical and contemporary music "expect the audience's pregiven consent and forebearance. There are no participants here, just performers and listeners. Fake 'folk music', beyond its commercial uses is only good for damaging the word 'folk' and for frightening as many people as possible away from true 'folk music' Let's add to this the sleep inducing hits of light/pop music and we can say that the overwhelming part of today's music is quite simply only good for exposing man to his own misery and for manipulating him so that he can be even more manipulated. The music that used to be so vigorous and alive that neither man nor animal could free himself from its magical power is now a disemboweled mammoth on tip-toes." (14, p. 24)
Grandpierre, Hungary


In general, in the 20th century, the mainstream culture in the west has gone deeply into the capitalism of music and away from the concept of music for the people, by the people thru this process of “glamorization” of music, the artists and the whole lifestyle around it. “The history of the American Music Industry is a disheartening one, which largely details the exploitation of artists and musicians by opportunists and those without the musician's best interests at heart.” (16) Rock, pop and hip hop in particular have created an idolization of a lifestyle that is for the most part (there are exceptions of course) a relatively unhealthy one that is overly glamorized and filled with drugs, alcohol, sex, guns, and vanity. Just watch a few minutes of MTV or VH1, or look in a pop magazine and see what is being portrayed to our youth and the entire population as “Cool,” and you can easily get a concept of what is being “sold” en masse to mainstream society and in particular to our youth.

I do recognize that there are artists who break this stereotype, I know several personally and greatly admire their inner resolve to set a good example in an industry that sets a lot of poor examples of integrity, community and self respect. The reality is those artists, overall, get a lot less media attention, and a lot less exposure to the people who really need to hear their messages and see their examples. Many of them are preaching to the choir really, performing for people who are already somewhat aware of their messages and in support of them. In the past few years, it seems there are more and more up and coming artists who are realizing the power they hold to influence their listeners and are making wonderful contributions to the world thru their arts. I look forward to the emergence of more of those beings. I also appreciate those elder artists, such as Bono, of U2 who are setting positive examples by using their influence, money and success to launch humanitarian projects and serve the world.

Pulse of Gaia

Beneath me
I feel her pulse
Calling to me
Always, eternally..

She is the medicine I take voluntarily
To soothe
To teach
To acknowledge grace
To remember truth

She is always waiting..
Echoing
Loud
Resonant
Seductive rhythms of nite

Calling me inward
to the sanctuary of my self

The outer worlds of distraction
Gone
The chatter of the mind
Gone
The business of the day
Gone

Only the Pulse of Gaia
Resounding in my ears
Thru my body
Nature is my confidant
My eternal ally


Day by day
Side by side
Hand in hand
Step by step
I learn this wisdom way

Rhythms of Yemaya
Entrancing
Evocative
Always present
Big pulsing power of ocean blue
Like the blood in my veins
Like the breath thru my spirit

Effortless
Always returning
to the shores of renewal

The Pulse of Gaia

Techno world forgotten
Cars, traffic, rush rush rush
Forgotten..

As I merge
Again and again
In silent seductive surrender

Take me, Yemaya
Far out to the depths of your eternal blue
Into the heart of the swells
to ride in joyful playfulness
with the dolphins and the whales

The Eternal wisdom keepers...

Pulse of Gaia
Frog songs at night
Bird songs when dawn returns

Always the Pulse of Gaia lives in me

Remembering the wisdom way

Remembering
The Pulse of Gaia

Day by day
Side by side
hand in hand
Groove by groove

Eternally dancing in delite upon her womb

Gaia
Yemaya
Seductive passions of love's truths
I will always succomb... willingly
Joyfully..

Feedback on Rough Draft of Book

Angel Cheri, I have read a lot of your book. Thanks for sending for feeback, via email. Again I see what a Super weaver you are of the tapestry and a profound messenger.
You deliver & compose powerfully for the community. Thank you for your assistance and for sharing your wisdom & insight.

You cover so many bases. And some amazing & inspirational stories in there. I realize why you couldn't sleep alot of nights, you have had so much to get into words and to realease out of your head. It's great that you have included Tayler & I in your book in the way that you have, and others in our 'tribe' and other 'tribes' That's cool. I see how so much greatness can come from this getting composed and out there. Nicely done.

Very glad you have had this time to upload/download and proceed with what you are up to and what you are here to offer the world and yourself. Thanks for following your intuitions and callings. It is my hope that we can all be supported to follow through with this process that can hugely effect the consciousness & direction of our souls and the planet.

It can be quite subtle but profound in the scope of it all. ay.
Talk w/you later. Hugs ~*
Jen

Excerpt from Chapter 9: Moving thru Chaos: Professional In Service to Community

Moving thru Chaos &
Professionals In service to the Community Spirit

It seems that there is a missing Link in the Community Music arena that I feel called to mention, and that is the integration of all levels, meaning in particular, those who have dedicated their lives to studying the intriciacies and subtleties of music, those who we call “Professional Musicians.” I personally know of many people who have had all or some part of their original inspiration come from drum circles and/or open community music jams. Some part of the experience opened them up to a part of themselves, or to their own potential, or maybe it exposed them to the magic of rhythm in community and how it feels to create an ecstatic experience with and for others. It was from that place that they got to where they are now being paid to perform, traveling all over the world performing with famous or semi-famous bands or as solo artists, with their own bands, etc. I can speak for myself in that drumming opened me up to discovering I could sing, and improv and make songs, etc. I now have recorded 4 CD’s, have my own band, and have performed all over the country as a solo artist: all of it was inspired by what I experienced in these raw, spontaneous sessions in different communities drumming, dancing and creating together.


A lot of my friends and colleagues who have left the Community Music scene to go into professional music talk about Chaos as a part of what pushed them out and away from wanting to participate in community music making. I can understand, as I am often challenged by it in my work and every time it comes up I have to find a creative way to accept it, honor it and move thru it. Chaos is a real part of the human experience, and how we deal with it or run from it is also worthy of examination. If we all just run from the chaos instead of working to bring order and harmony back from the edge of insanity, then the finer teachings that music has to offer will never be fully transmitted. If all those who master elements of Music (in any form) continue to abandon the chaos out of frustration, fear or not knowing how to move thru it, then how can this movement continue to evolve? And, how does that foster strength in community, or teach anyone anything? It may be a bit of a stretch here to say this, but it bears some metaphorical resemblance to ditching out on a child because they are too difficult to discipline. The wild, free abandonment that happens sometimes in Music Making is like the mentality of an undisciplined child who is just so lost in themselves and the experience of life that they can’t see past themselves!

I feel that those who have attained higher levels of proficiency and skill could greatly serve their communities by participating and helping to create solutions, modeling different aspects of musicality, and sharing what they’ve learned instead of just ditching their roots completely.

or running away because it’s too hard. This is not in any way to say that they shouldn’t step out into their professional callings and become the best they can be in their chosen expression! I just feel called to offer the possibility that by occasionally showing up and holding space in their communities on a more roots level, they can provide a source of deep inspiration, and set an example for what’s possible!

In my research, I found an example of this kind of thing in Hungary in the táncház movement. “This model involved strong cooperation between musicology experts and enthusiastic amateurs, resulting in a strong vocational foundation and a very high professional level. The involvement of experts meant an effort to understand and revive folk traditions in their full complexity. The movement revived broader folk traditions. Started in the 1970s, tanchaz soon became a massive movement creating an alternative leisure activity for youths apart from discos and music clubs—or one could say that it created a new kind of music club. The tanchaz movement spread to ethnic Hungarian communities around the world.” (Rolk hungary)

Inspiring a movement is a pretty exciting concept to me personally! I’m in! Imagine what could be inspired if the Professionals of Music actually returned to their roots on occasion and offered themselves in service to the community in a way that wasn’t about “Watch me perform” but was instead about, “Come on, let’s do this together!” The entire group would benefit, and that musician would receive so much love and gratitude for their sharing, and so much respect from their community of Music Making Lovers. I have a strong network of “Professional Musicians” whom I invite regularly to my community sessions in Boulder. Very few of them have ever come, not yet. I will continue to hold this vision in my heart that one day they’ll show up and together we can inspire and show possibilities that have yet to be fully experienced for many people, and maybe even start off a Revolution of music that I’ve been dreaming about for years, that is truly “For the people, By the people,” where everyone is empowered to express and to participate equally, where there are strong models of cooperation, listening, communication, dialogue, dynamics, play and mutual respect interwoven into the fabric of the Groove!

Excerpt from the Upcoming Book: #1

Vibrations within
Cells dance beneath this skin
Myriads of orgasmic pulses create me
I am Life, moving in Harmony
I am Unity.
Spirals of perfect light
Cascading within my inner sight
I am Rhythm
I am the Cosmic Pulse in form.

I feel the Dum Dum of my heart beating, sending fluid, red, vibrant and nutrient rich thru the tunnels of veins and arteries that give color and life to the cells as they dance and tumble thru my blood.

I hear the sounds of my own body just being and I am amazed at the quiet symphony that I am on the inside.
I am even more amazed that not only can all of this be going on inside, all the time, thru each breath, but I can also experience and even create a whole other rhythmical reality on the other side of my skin. I can experience layers upon layers upon layers of vibratory awareness from the inside, out.

Going deeper still, I can go into the spaces between those beats of my heart and connect there with a silence so deep and far reaching it returns again to the One source of Creation, the Void, the Nothingness from which all is birthed thru a tremor in the cosmos. There, at the Source, I can receive inspiration for creativity. There, in the stillness before the spark of creativity, the inside world and the outside world merge, and breathe together, sharing the awareness of each other’s gifts and possibilities in divine rapturous union. There, in the stillness, in the quiet sanctuary of my own being lies all the potential of the universe waiting to be birthed thru my own unique expression.

Vibrations within
Cells dance beneath this skin
Myriads of orgasmic pulses create me
I am Life, moving in Harmony.

Hawaii Rhythms of Truth

Rhythms of truth
Sing thru the sea
Sing thru the wind
Sing thru me


Life itself
Is simple

It asks
For nothing

It gives
All of itself

Here in Heaven
I Am Remembering life

As a way of being
Like the whales
Like the palms
Like the birds

Effortless
Simply being

These are the Rhythms of Truth

Slow
Soft
Sweet
Always present

Essence is Truth
All else is Illusion

The Blessing of Music

Everywhere there is music for me.

The wind now blowing outside, like a sweet melancholy song to my heart.

The stillness inbetween gusts like space between beats.

The sound of my heart beating, my own inner space music moving thru this body.

And in these moments, as in so many others, I am blasted by the blessing that music is in our lives, especially for those of us who play music every day.

A few days ago, I was performing at the Mile High Church in Denver for the Xmas Candlelight Services. At some point during one of the 6 services I performed in, my heart just completely melted, and I had to really work to not shed tears up there in front of 1000 people. Realizing the gift that I so often take for granted as just who I am humbled me so deeply, and touched me so profoundly that no words can express the feeling inside.

Music is such a natural expression, yet for many it is a spectacle to behold. For those of us who know the merging that happens when we are present with our hearts and the Muse, it is almost unfathomable to not seek to recreate that experience as often as possible, but many have never experienced the bliss of being part of that creation that makes music happen.

I suppose that's what makes me so passionate about my work, sharing music with non-musicians, normal every day folk who just never knew they had it in them, as well as musicians. To see someone light up with the joy, the beauty, and the experience of creating music with others is one of the biggest joys I've known in this life...then to see that being get hooked and make it part of their life is a whole other level.

At the Mile High show, one of my students, Serenity Chambers, was there performing with me. Serenity started playing only 2 months ago as a beginner in one of my women's classes. Seeing her standing so strong, in such power, and holding the energy on stage with me and the choir behind her was a testament to what is possible when someone is given the space to explore, learn and be held in their potentiality. She rocked, didn't miss a beat, and anchored the energy so sweetly and gracefully, and I felt so honored, so blessed, so inspired...and so humbled by grace once again.

THe Blessings of music are so many.. being part of the creation, part of the music is one of the deepest and truest joys I can imagine in this life. As always, I give deep thanks, deep gratitude for this gift and that I can share it in the ways that I do and those yet to come.

Sweet Windy Night Blessings..

Free Flowing: A Sharing of the Heart

Being someone that has been an active participant as well as someone that has sat on the sidelines witnessing what occurs, I've seen beautiful things come together within community musical sharing groups that are almost difficult to put into words and is something that almost needs to be felt as a personal experience.

What I do know and can say at this point is that it seems that in the moment music making brings out a precious and mysterious quality and essence. I wonder if I might be a mess if I didn't have the music, dancing, drumming outlet available on a consistent basis for myself. And for me just being able to 'get out of my head' has been such a relief & necessary part of keeping my balance & peace in times of stress & responsiblities on so many levels.

There is no need for head thinking here. It is all a free flowing in the moment space. Never quite knowing what to expect and what will show up, there have been times that I have been in awe. I am happy to have my expectations blown apart.
And just when I think it's the best, I've come to see that it can get even better.

I enjoy the in the moment playfulness that happens. Everyone is there, in thier own space but in the space together too. And they are not anywhere else in thier minds, just right there together to create, to play, to express, to be creative and without any effort. This sort of energy seems to transcend all the other stuff, and quite quickly. I so honor and respect this place to see this happening and to be a part of it's experience.

It's also cool what I have noticed with the time, it does seem to fly. Just like the saying goes... "time flys when you are having fun." This does seem to be the case.

What I've realized again being in The Magical Mystical Muse, is how amazingly profound the opportunity is when an individual or commmunity is in a space of safety, love, support, creativity, spirituality and nurturance... it allows like a launchpad for sweet things to open up and come forth. It is of innocent, healing & inspirational quality. So very essential, especially in our current times. It is something that I wish I could experience in my everyday life. Once you have felt it, you will know what I mean, and to those that have, I'm sure they would agree.

Being in-sync, in-the moment, in-tune in some unspoken way, is so very powerful.

Cheri Shanti has so graciously helped facilitate this to bring together what is somewhat mystical & magical in nature. I think anyone desiring such an element in their soul would appreciate the time & essence of The Muse. It helps to bring forth some awesome stuff that might otherwise not get tapped into... I think it is connected to our higher & ligher beings.

I would also say that it is as if we are able to break through this thick fog of our daily mundane world and trancend to a higher playing field - so to speak.
I feel so many people don't have an outlet that they can safely co-creatively express themselves, that it, very unfortunately, gets bottled up inside and perhaps for a lifetime... Yikes.

I have a dream that one day this stuff will be happening all over.

Jenny Sustello, Boulder, CO

Gratitude Day.. Letting the Love Flow

On November 24, Cheri Shanti, Rhythm Harvest & The Mandala Community Center hosted an all day mini Retreat day for the Boulder Community. The intention for the day was to offer a space for community sharing on a deeper level than what our often too busy lives allow us time and space for and to share our Gratitude for Life together. The entire event was offered free to encourage participation and was very well attended, with over 40 people coming throughout the course of the day and night. While there were many events throughout the day, inclulding, yoga, meditation, a sound healing meditation with crystal bowls, a potluck and an open mic, the highlights of the day were the Community Sharing Circle, and the Magical Mystical Muse Experience.

The Community Sharing Circle provided an opportunity for participants to share an attitude of Gratitude and to network their skills and professions with each other. Gratitude was expressed for :
-“elevated states of consciousness in the Boulder Community
-“meaningful work”
-“moments of tears, toe remember you’re alive”
-“positive role models for our children”
-“communities that are like links in a chain, each connecting with the other.”
-“music circles, ceremonies and friends.”
-“the opportunity to breathe and to wake up each day to start anew.”
-“gatherings like this one and for the freedom to gather like this.”
And much much more. The tenderness and connection between each being present made for a really sweet and heart warming experience for all. All ages were present, from 10-75, each person really listening and respecting what the others had to offer and share.

People came from Denver, Paonia and the greater Boulder Community to share in this day of community celebration. The Crystal Bowl Meditation, led by Cheri Shanti, was a popular and profound experience, and followed by a wonderful Potluck Feast.

From 7-9 PM there was an open mic and about 15 people shared songs, poems and stories. Singing along was encouraged, and the talent was outstanding. Noella Rosara got everyone grooving with her “Rocked by the waves of the Belly of the Ocean” song, and Ethan, Well and Djero grooved a unique acoustic trio on the spot, and Cheri Shanti offered songs off her CD, Visions of Reality.

At 9 PM, the Magical Mystical Muse Ceremony of Gratitude was opened with close to 40 people in the circle. Drums, rattles, and voices merged in a wild and rapturous expression of celebration for this life and carried the group into a fully participatory experience of music, song, dance, improv and creative play. Costumed beings emerged in capes, face paints and big smiles to juice up the vibe and added an element of playfulness, mystery and intrigue to the experience.

At 1 AM, the Ceremony was closed, and all left with big smiles on their faces, love in their hearts and a sharing of souls that will keep them connected throughout time.