New Dimensions Radio Interview – Part 4: Magic Of Mantras

Hi,

I'm Shannon and happy you're joining me for the fourth and final segment of my interview for New Dimensions Radio with host Justine Willis-Toms.

In today's segment,

We explore the topic of bringing and creating healing in our lives by using our own voice to sing,

And more specifically,

Sing or chant mantras from many different faith traditions and practices.

I hope you enjoy the last part of this interview.

I'm here with Shannon Sullivan.

She's an interfaith spiritual teacher and we're talking about healing wounds from our ancestors and our own awakening.

And we were talking about the moon and singing to the moon.

And I'm thinking about the moon.

My husband and I,

When we lived up in on the hills of Hopland,

California on the side of a mountain with other,

Kind of back to the land.

That first summer,

We spent the whole summer sleeping outside.

Our friends moved our bed outside as a joke.

And we ended up sleeping all summer long because it doesn't rain in the summer,

Usually in California.

And so we were out there all the time.

And it was funny,

Our cat,

Penelope,

Penny,

We called her,

She wouldn't come with us outside.

She usually slept with us,

But she wouldn't come out with us,

Except when the moon was full.

How interesting.

Then she would come out.

She felt safe enough to come out in the full moon.

And she knew it was a full moon.

And that's when she'd follow us out and jump in bed with us,

Which was very interesting,

How she was connected to the cycle of the moon.

That's awesome.

Yeah,

It really is awesome.

And it just reminds me that in using chants and songs,

You bring in that from many traditions in your work.

Is that true?

Yes,

For 10 years,

I've sung with a group here in Tucson,

And it's run by Victor Shamas.

And he's a professor,

Or was,

He's retired,

But he's still a teacher,

Called Global Chant.

And the idea is the idea is meeting once a week,

And gathering as a group with people and bringing instruments in and these short chants from all over the world,

Native American traditions,

Celtic,

Jewish,

Christian,

Hindu,

Hawaiian,

Sufi,

Buddhist,

The idea is to honor spirit through song.

And by bringing this resonation into the world to heal our hearts,

And knowing that all traditions practice some sort of healing through song,

And it also,

When we sing,

That vibration in our throat carries into our heart that song and really connects us with the feeling of what we're experiencing.

And so that has provided a lot of healing on my path as well to sing.

And when you are doing these chants,

Because they are held in all these traditions and held for hundreds of years,

I mean,

What you're tapping into is hundreds of thousands of people who have chanted these chants many,

Many times.

So do you feel that that gives them more power for healing and for awakening?

Is that your experience?

I do,

Because when I would sing and allowed myself to move into the piece,

My voice would come from my chest,

And the sound was more than what I would normally sing.

So this spirit of collective energy moving through me when I allowed it,

And it was very expansive.

And so realizing that these traditions are carried by so many people for thousands of years,

The idea of mantras or songs that are looped are to get us out of our mind and to really shift things for us into our heart space,

To listen to our bodies in a different way.

And yeah,

So really when you could let go of the mind and what was happening that day,

You know,

No matter what you were going through,

You could put it away for a little while and move into this heart space.

And it's very powerful.

You know,

I recall when my husband died in 2012,

A circle of us,

A circle of my sisters of the heart,

Came with me to the crematorium where he was going to be cremated.

And they allowed us to go back into the crematorium and we were with him and his body and just standing around him.

And I did some prayers.

I had written a prayer for him to Our Lady of Guadalupe,

Who was a very powerful icon for him and helper and guide for him.

We had,

The two of us had been practicing Buddhism for many,

Many years.

And spontaneously,

I did this Om Mani Padme Om chant.

It was called the Guru Rinpoche chant.

And it,

Just like you said,

It came from a different part of me.

I was shocked by my own voice.

It was so powerful.

And I just,

I'm recalling it as I'm speaking this right now,

The power of that chant,

It seemed like all the people in all the world that had ever existed,

That it chanted that chant were there with me chanting his transition into the next phase.

And I,

It was a very,

Very powerful moment for me.

And I think for him as he moved into this new place.

Yeah,

Because that's,

Those songs create a bridge between the past,

Those who sung it,

Into the present,

You who are singing it,

Into the bridge into transition,

You know,

Back to the soul.

And whatever way we feel connected to the spirit or mystery.

So it's like this bridge of past present and moving into the next.

And yeah,

It's beautiful.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And then I'm also reminded of that African saying,

When a soul is born,

People,

The tribal,

If they're living in that kind of indigenous way,

That they understand the soul of this,

This little being and,

And as a soul grows up,

They understand the song of this soul.

And,

And there is a saying that these people who surround us,

Such as our elders and,

And friends of the heart who support us in our fullness,

They can sing that song to us when we forgotten who we are,

Yeah,

And connect it back.

And this is the power of,

Of the friendships of people who know us and know our song.

Would you,

Would you agree with that?

I do.

As I've been on my path,

So I've been part of a spiritual community,

St.

Francis in the Foothills,

And it's a United Methodist church based.

But before I went there,

I had just had a sort of falling out with my other spiritual community,

Which was quite devastating for me.

And I was meeting with my spiritual director.

And he,

He said to me,

Because at that time,

I was very,

Like,

Anti-church.

Just,

Just try St.

Francis,

Because he had founded it.

And he goes,

It's different.

It's and I said,

But it's a church,

Frank.

And but what I did was I had to surrender and went and it's the best thing I did,

Because I met my spiritual family there through choir.

And it's helped me grow into the person I am now,

Because they actually allowed me,

Because that particular church,

We are interfaith,

Even though it's United Methodist.

We practice interfaith,

So we bring in from all traditions.

And they allowed me to be my full self.

I already had my spiritual path coming in.

And they allowed me to express in a way that I needed to,

To,

To be who I was more and call me into being when I myself couldn't necessarily do that.

And so I think that that song of the soul from our friends and our tribe members,

Our spiritual family lifts us up when,

When we can always lift ourselves up.

Exactly.

I know that you have written about that Japanese spiritual practice known as Kintsugi.

I'm not sure how to pronounce it.

Kintsugi,

Maybe.

And it's where broken pottery is repaired with gold,

And it becomes more valuable.

And I think of your falling,

Falling away.

Yeah,

Then the broken pot was put back together with gold.

I just love that.

And that's,

That's also part of your writing in your blogs.

Shannon,

I want to thank you so much for being with us today.

Yeah,

Thank you,

Justine.

I'm so grateful to have been here and to have shared with you and all the stories that we got to share today.

I'm Justine Willis-Thoms.

You've been listening to New Dimensions.

Thank you so much for joining me for this four-part series from New Dimensions Radio.

I appreciate your presence here and appreciate the interview with Justine Willis-Thoms,

Because I myself love singing,

Especially mantras from different traditions.

I have many recorded tracks here on Insight Timer of different mantras where I create guided practices for us to sit and sing with together.

Many of us who find ourselves on the healing path through the spiritual tradition often also associate ourselves with being empathic.

I also have a course here on Insight Timer for empaths where I teach different tools to create healing,

To create boundaries,

To create connection of light,

To create grounding,

In which all of these tools help us to grow and expand our gifts as sensitive souls.

You can check this course out on my teacher page as well.

In the tradition of Rumi,

I'd like to close our time together with this statement,

May the door of your heart be ever open and wide to expanding your conscious journey.

I wish you a beautiful and amazing day.

Namaste.