Listening to the Holidays
My late husband’s birthday was November 27th so every few years his birthday landed on Thanksgiving. As the holiday season approaches, I tune into the joy of holiday traditions along with the trauma that may surround them. I was the original chef for the NY AIDS charity God’s Love We Deliver. In those days, AIDS was a death sentence. When we opened the kitchen on August 11th of 1987, I couldn’t even get anyone to deliver food. So when the holidays approached, we offered our clients to invite friends and family for a traditional feast because after all, holiday joy is amplified when you share it.
That first Thanksgiving, I cooked and carved over 2,000 pounds of turkey with all the fixings. When my “fairy godfather” as I referred to him, Lester Gribetz, “Bloomies” or Federated Department Store’s VP, found out that I had carved turkey until my hands had blisters, he offered up their gourmet catering chef to provide next year’s turkeys carved with all the trimmings in addition to the cordials, desserts, and amazing goodies they donated and delivered that first Thanksgiving. Lester and I never met except on the phone yet his kindness and generosity still ripples even now. Just last month, I heard from a friend and fellow sound healer, Alan Pratt, that a friend he was staying with receives delicious meals from GLWD. Wow!
What in the world does this have to do with sound healing? Holidays elicit a lot of emotions taking our souls on a winding journey through the laughter, tears, planning and the chaos of it all. What do you do when it spirals into overwhelm?
I invite you to consider sound healing. There’s a lot of noise around the holidays - some of it delicious and evocative of the best of times while others trigger deep seeded emotions not always so comfortable…and the beat goes on… Chaos will accompany the holidays as will sweet sounds.
Consider sailing off on a wave of sound. I invite you to sample the sweet sound of a rain stick on a sound journey in my song Take Me Away.
Enjoy more of my original music to soothe you through the holidays.