Music as a Spiritual Path with Carol Emanuel
The Holistic Musicianship Podcast Episode 2
There is so much potential for personal growth and deeper connection with ourselves through music. My guest - harpist, singer, and songwriter Carol Emanuel has been exploring this for herself for the past 55 years.
She shares with us her experience of working through challenges with ego, insecurity, depression, and chronic pain and about how we can cultivate an ever deepening spiritual relationship to music, ourselves, and the whole world through our playing.
“Music is a world that we’re invited to and that we belong to.”
- Carol Emanuel
Selected Takeaways:
If you feel called to playing an instrument there is a reason you’re being called. Do it for pleasure, joy, healing, community - whatever is resonant for you.
Gnostic saying - “If you bring forth what is within you it will save you, if you don’t bring forth what is within you it will kill you.”
Carol’s Performance Anxiety Mantras: ‘Relax and be the vehicle,’ ‘Trust God and chill,’ ‘Shut up and go out and play,’ ‘There’s nothing to worry about’
Playing in front of an audience can be like jumping off a cliff - once you jump, you open your vulnerability which is what your audience can really connect with
A big part of the spiritual journey with our instruments is working to not be ruled by our egos and allowing the free expression of creativity to come through
We are continuously learning and we never can “get it.” Keeping this in mind as musicians can be very helpful
When we are feeling sad, sometimes playing sad music and getting even sadder can be a powerful way for helping a difficult emotion move through
Allowing the music to come through us, rather than making the sound with our arms and fingers can really decrease excess tension and pain with our instrument
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Carol’s Website: www.carolemanuelharp.com
Carol’s solo albums are called “Allow it to Happen” and “Tops of Trees.”
Carol is also a member of the Gnostic Trio. Their albums include: “The Gnostic Preludes,” “In Lambeth,” “The Testament of Solomon,” and “Mockingbird.”
More information about the Threshold Choir hospice singers can be found here.
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