Season Conversation
Songs as a Doorway to Deeper Engagement
The beauty we create in song together can be its own reward. And, I find that reward is infinitely enhanced when I really engage – honestly and practically – with the messages we are singing. Our songs all tend to contain invitations to live with a more open heart. Yet I find that actually doing it is exceptionally difficult. (Or is it just me?)
When I let the invitations from the songs actually seep in and touch my real life, they offer a curriculum. Endeavoring to live into the values they lift up tends to show me all the ways in which I'm not doing that, so it can be challenging to take an honest look. Yet over and over again, I find this very process of engagement is what “charges up” the songs with the power to heal and transform my life. When done compassionately and patiently, it can assist me in becoming a more resourceful, resilient, and loving person.
Each song we sing is a doorway into a deeper contemplation inside our lives, if we choose to open it. And at the risk of sounding mystical, I believe that as we sing a song into our own bodies and community at the same time, the power of our conscious engagement can transform it into a real magic, living spell that assists everything it touches.
None of this inquiry is required to have a great time in the choir. As I said, the beauty is its own deep and lasting reward. But for those who share my joy in curiously exploring these conversations, I host a podcast, as well as other optional events this season like a book club. Please participate as much or as little as you like. It’s all offered in the spirit of connection, and it requires no shared belief, interpretation, or even question beyond “how can I/we contribute to a more loving world?”
Season Reading
Our optional, accompanying book for this season is The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World by Desmond Tutu (Author), Mpho Tutu. If you wish, you might pick up a copy (or start listening) now.
Anthony Rhodd (Tony) is the co-writer of our song Over/ Under. He’s a skillful and moving writer about all aspects of his life and experience as an incarcerated man: redemption, trauma,, healing, and resilience. His Substack, Holding the Whole can be found here. While Tony’s style is uplifting, he sometimes writes about his past and current experiences of trauma and violence in and before prison.
Working With the Themes
Our conversation this season centers the inquiry: What is mine to do?
In today’s complex and challenging world, it's ever so tempting to give in to overwhelm, confusion, reactivity, or numbness. How do we practice Being the Change?
I curated our songs this season to take us through a process together, with the hope it may assist us in answering that question with greater wisdom, clarity and love.
If we choose to engage with the specific content inside the songs, we’ll also see a couple specific themes emerge, including: how to work with fear of the future, and forgiveness.
Stay tuned for journal prompts, study guides and more ways to guide your inquiry beyond the singing, if you choose.
Song for All of Us Podcast
The new podcast season has begun!
It kicks off with a lighthearted meeting between Lisa and our season collaborator, Lyndsey Scott.
Community Offerings
We are very blessed in this community to have many very skillful, thoughtful, and service-minded people in our midst. Some of them are stepping forward to offer compassionate spaces to be with our tender parts when they are touched, and others may offer to host other circles of song, devotion, art, or spiritual development if you’d like to check them out. Some may be free, and some may have an associated cost. Anyone is welcome to send us offerings to post for the community here, and you can feel free to post directly our WhatsApp Community Connections thread as well.
Everything listed here is offered independently and generously by a community member. It is not affiliated with, verified, or endorsed by Wholehearted Chorus, and is not a substitute for professional mental health care.
ThetaHealing with Alexis Davis
What if magic spells are actually real and practical? What if we can learn how to work with our energy body in a way that assists and heals, rather than depleting, distracting, and stressing? Alexis Davis is a Wholehearted member, skillful energy worker and guide, and trusted ally of Lisa, who is assisting her this season in holding the deeper prayers and complexities of our songs this season. She offers a weekly Zoom call on Wednesdays from 10-10:30am to support the clearing and tending of the energy body.
Heart Share Healing Circle with Sonia
For those in San Diego who feel called to gather around what may have been stirred by Lyndsay’s shares.
I’m a spiritual mentor and energy healer, and I’m offering this as a free love offering to this beautiful community.
Saturday, July 11, 6:30–8:15 PM
North County
Space for 12
If there’s greater interest, I’m also open to offering a Zoom circle on another date. Stay tuned for details and instructions to RSVP.
Gene Keys
As a totally optional, spiritually-oriented resource for fellow, spiritual nerds, Lisa will reference the Gene Keys, by Richard Rudd. Lisa will map all the season songs to different gene keys, which are a deep and elaborate system of spiritual support.
Here’s a simple introduction.
The primary book is a large, dense reference - similar to the I-Ching or A Course in Miracles, but made for Westerners in this age. It is a go-to book for Lisa in sourcing wise, conscious elucidation on the song alchemy we are practicing.
Here’s a link in case you want to pick up a copy.
Soon, Lisa will start a list here of the songs with associated, relevant Gene Keys you might find useful to read about to deepen in spiritual study with that song.