July 18, 2025 • 56 mins
Air Date - 14 July 2025
This week, we’re thrilled to welcome Barbara J Hunt, the talented singer/songwriter, author, and forgiveness specialist, for a heartfelt conversation about her new single Spider, her upcoming release Wake Up As One, and the transformative power of music and forgiveness.
Barbara shares how music can be medicine, whether through the creative process of writing songs or the healing resonance found in listening to music that resonates deeply with the soul. From the deeply emotional storytelling in Spider, inspired by a client’s journey, to the global invitation for unity in Wake Up As One, Barbara will explore how music can be a tool for personal healing and collective awakening.
We’ll also dive into the power of forgiveness and discuss Barbara’s 7-step Forgiveness Made Easy process, a practice she teaches in her monthly masterclass, which helps individuals unburden their hearts and transform their mental and emotional well-being.
Barbara’s work extends beyond music—she’s pioneering in the realm of multimedia potential, having created powerful stop-motion animation videos to accompany her music, showcasing her creative joy in discovering new artistic expressions.
Tune in for an uplifting conversation about the power of music, forgiveness, and conscious transformation.
#BarbaraJHunt #VoiceRising #KaraJohnstad #Music #Interviews #Voice
#WakeUpAndHeal #BarbaraJhunt #MusicMedicine #ForgivenessMadeEasy #HealingThroughSound #SpiritualAwakening #SoundMedicine #PersonalTransformation
To get in touch with Kara Johnstad, go to http://www.karajohnstad.com/
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This week, we’re thrilled to welcome Barbara J Hunt, the talented singer/songwriter, author, and forgiveness specialist, for a heartfelt conversation about her new single Spider, her upcoming release Wake Up As One, and the transformative power of music and forgiveness.
Barbara shares how music can be medicine, whether through the creative process of writing songs or the healing resonance found in listening to music that resonates deeply with the soul. From the deeply emotional storytelling in Spider, inspired by a client’s journey, to the global invitation for unity in Wake Up As One, Barbara will explore how music can be a tool for personal healing and collective awakening.
We’ll also dive into the power of forgiveness and discuss Barbara’s 7-step Forgiveness Made Easy process, a practice she teaches in her monthly masterclass, which helps individuals unburden their hearts and transform their mental and emotional well-being.
Barbara’s work extends beyond music—she’s pioneering in the realm of multimedia potential, having created powerful stop-motion animation videos to accompany her music, showcasing her creative joy in discovering new artistic expressions.
Tune in for an uplifting conversation about the power of music, forgiveness, and conscious transformation.
#BarbaraJHunt #VoiceRising #KaraJohnstad #Music #Interviews #Voice
#WakeUpAndHeal #BarbaraJhunt #MusicMedicine #ForgivenessMadeEasy #HealingThroughSound #SpiritualAwakening #SoundMedicine #PersonalTransformation
To get in touch with Kara Johnstad, go to http://www.karajohnstad.com/
Visit the Voice Rising show page https://omtimes.com/iom/shows/voice-rising/
Subscribe to our Newsletter https://omtimes.com/subscribe-omtimes-magazine/
Connect with OMTimes on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Omtimes.Magazine/ and OMTimes Radio https://www.facebook.com/ConsciousRadiowebtv.OMTimes/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OmTimes/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omtimes/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2798417/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/omtimes/VoiceRising
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Voice Rising with Kara John's Dad. Enjoy weekly
conversations with leading luminaries, pioneering visionaries, singers, poets, musicians, and
sound healers as we explore the profound role our voice
plays on the path to self realization and global enlightenment.
The internationally acclaimed singer, composer, author, healer, recording artist, voice expert,
(00:25):
creator of Voice Your Essence, and founder of the School
of Voice, Kara John's Dad uses her extraordinary spiritual gifts
to empower others. Everything in this world vibrates, Everything has
a frequency. A pioneer in the field of voice work
and transformational songwriting, her breakthrough methods are helping thousands of
(00:46):
people worldwide fine tune their body, mind, spirit system and
unlock the energetic frequencies of limitless creativity, health and abundance.
Share your voice, ask your questions, join in the conversation,
receive life changing positive transformation, and rise together to create
a sound world. And here's your hust Kara Johnstad.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Hello, everybody.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Join me today for an inspiring and heartfelt conversation with
the talented Barbara J. Hunt, singer, songwriter, author, and forgiveness specialist.
Barbara's here today to invite us into the world of
her new single Spider, a deeply emotional piece from her
upcoming album Wake Up as One, and we will explore
(01:40):
the transformative power of music and forgiveness and how music
serves as medicine, whether through the creative act of writing
songs or the healing resonance found in music that speaks
to the soul. Today we will also have the chance
to delve into the art of forgiveness with Barbara's Forgiveness
(02:00):
Made Easy process and discover the power of unburdening the
heart to transform emotional wellbeing. And I know from my
own experience that songwriting is a great way to unburden
the heart. Her creative journey extends beyond music, and we'll
also explore how she brings her life to her work
(02:20):
to life through stop motion animation, showing us the beauty
of blending artistic expression with healing.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
So come along, Go, get yourself a cup.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Of tea, and be part of this uplifting and enlightening
conversation on music, healing and conscious transformation. Welcome Barbara to
Voice Rising.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Thank you so much, cars such a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
It's wonderful to have you with me today? So so many.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Things are happening for you.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
You do have a new release.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Coming up, and what does that feel like deep inside?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (02:57):
Well, it's been a labor of love and I've been
so blessed to work with some really amazing musicians and
it's just been joy upon joy. I love the creative process,
especially with others. And in fact, when I finish the
editing process, we've done all the recording, and I finished
the editing process, and when I drove home that night,
(03:18):
I cried because I'd so enjoyed working with these amazing beings.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I love that title. Joy upon joy, a pan joy.
That's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
So your new single is entitled Spider or is it
your first single?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's profoundly moving and maybe you share with us a
little bit about the story and how this track came
to life.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yes, thank you. It's my second single.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
So the first single is the title track that wake
Up as Won, and the second one is Spider, and
in fact I have I do have the third one
out already now, which is the one with the stop
motion animation. So but Spider is very meaningful because I've
worked most of my adult like doing coaching and as
a mentor, and ended up specializing in forgiveness. And I
(04:09):
had the happy experience of working on a retreat for
seven years and we would help people do they were
doing a cleanse, fast and taking care of their bodies,
but we'd also do very deep emotional work with them.
And one particular client came and she had such a
devastating story. So when I work with her on what
(04:30):
needed to be given, it was just so moving and
I hadn't really I mean, I hear lots of very
challenging stories, but this was a completely different level, and
I didn't really know how to calibrate what i'd her
her amazing resilience. She was a really she is a
(04:52):
beautiful human being. She's a songwriter, and I was really
seeing how her willingness to do the deep emotional work
to overcome really significant aulta trauma was just so inspiring
and incredible that I was moved to write this song.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
And that's so that's really where where it came from.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Was my response to honoring this, this human being a
healing journey, and then so that the.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Lyrics really are a reflection of that.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Let's listen to that track. Where we brought it with
her to studio today. So it's the track is spider.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
She was a spider.
Speaker 7 (05:50):
In the corner, trying to terrified again the war, bewilled
by cruelty, welcome been bleeding as.
Speaker 8 (06:10):
Still have beauty and dude still so still fucking still
her son. She seems spied, spied.
Speaker 9 (06:45):
Spy, spied.
Speaker 10 (06:53):
Leader ponting, but at this a little of the resurrect belivinglded.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
She trans figures, paying to beauty. Only love can bring
the dog with head to.
Speaker 8 (07:16):
Let see her beauty, see her. So han he fucking
(07:38):
he s.
Speaker 6 (07:40):
To sing s spy, the spies of spies, spy.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Spider, Barbara Jahanes. She's sitting here, right here with me
in the studio. I somehow when I think of a
beloved spider, I do. I'm carried back to Charlotte's Web,
that book that I had loved and always cry with
the beauty of it all. Barbara, in what ways you
(08:33):
were talking about that You're doing a lot of retreats,
and you're working a lot with people, and you are
a forgiveness specialist, So in what ways do you think
music can really serve as a vehicle for personal healing?
Whether it's as from the artist itself, like us going
into writing and singing, or also for the listener to
(08:54):
hear these stories, to connect with these stories that we
all carry.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
Yeah, well, like you said in the introduction, I think
music's medicine. It's like it does, it does something for
our soul that you know. It's like I think we're
talking about a different level of something that's inarticulate, but
we all sense into it that we know. Sometimes if
you think there's like something that's really complex, or there's
(09:22):
something that's you know, like needs to be summed up,
people will often quote a poem or a song lyric
because they they carry.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Like the essences, you know, like that there's something very.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
Through the process of songwriting, which I which I love
because it's a discipline you're distilling something, trying to transmit
something in a few minutes, and it's the essence of
something that carries the resonance. So when I wrote that
it was truly authentic. I wasn't like I wasn't making
anything up. It was like, would I translated you know,
(09:55):
like the story I didn't specific about what actually happened
to this person.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
I used the I.
Speaker 5 (10:02):
Tried to use strong imagery, even to a certain extent,
used the kind of imagery that she might use in
her songwriting. So I was sort of like it was
almost like an homage to her in terms of the
kind of she uses very dark imagery sometimes when she's
using uses me too as a therapy as a way
of expressing. And so I feel like always what I
(10:25):
try and do with writing, and I'm sure you do
the same with yours, is we're trying to submit something
that's that's a heartfelt, authentic resonance and because it's moving,
something that then hopefully connects with something in the listener
that is also move And that's that I think that's
the power of me and why it's healing. Because if
(10:47):
you get like an exact match, a bit like the
homeo homeopathy equivalent, where you've got an exact match like
viewers like, yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
That's probably why the resonance comes into the field. If
you if you're attracted to a certain tempo or a
certain type of music, a certain type of story, then
that's exactly what you might need to come back into
balance or to awaken something deeper. So how do you
balance that, Barber? We have our personal stories. We have
(11:18):
our experiences, we have everything that we've heard, and then
we have the understanding of universal themes and the collective
How do you balance that when when writing your music?
Do you do it more from this is my personal
experience or do you tend to take that essence of
what you've gone through and then relate it to a
(11:41):
collective theme.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
I try and make it accessible, which is the like
the individual universal, if you understand what I mean, trying
to talk to both of them. So I think it
needs to be it needs to be relevant to me.
And also I can't I'm not good. I never think
I would be a good novelist, Like I find it
(12:04):
hard to make things up. I'm too, I'm kind of
like I'm a bit nerdy about that and very it
has to be truthful. And but at the same time,
because I am a human being and I have experienced
with lots of other human beings, I feel like the
themes that I'm trying to sing to and express have
resonance and relevance to other people. And also because it's
(12:25):
it's a subtle world, and I'm trying to be accurate
with my nuances, like with the emotional nuance and some
like popular music and things that are easily accessible sometimes
don't have the depth or complexity that I want. It's
not that they're complicated, but just they like I said,
(12:45):
songs are often simple that they they are simplicity on
the far side of complexity that condense something that's actually
quite beautiful and hard to articulate into something fible. And
and I do, especially this album, i feel like I've
been writing two more universal.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Themes about the world.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
So although they are there's a there's a few love songs,
but I always try and make those accessible well and
so that they're not just about specific beloved. They could
be about your relationship with the divine. But also there's
a couple of songs, so the one, the title track,
wake Up as One, is very much about it's like
a longing for us as humanity, wake Up as One.
(13:29):
And then there's another song which is still to be released,
called Sky Spies, which is about the desecration.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Of the sky.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
Because like that, I think like the night sky should
be sacred. There's something about it that that should not
have things floating about in it, and so that so
my but it's also an allegory really.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Of the.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
The encroachment of mankind into nature. So it's so so
I'm I'm trying to write on multiple levels if I
if I can, and and some to be fair, they're
much more straightforward, simple, accessible, and others I try to.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Of a statement with what was the toughest song you
ever wrote?
Speaker 3 (14:16):
You've had a lot of albums, or you do have
many albums out there, what was what was one of
the hardest that you had to wrestle with.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
That's a really good question, car, I don't I don't
know which one hardest. One of them from a previous album,
from my album Playing my Heart is called Amazing Grace,
and it's it's it was when I was in a
really dark space for myself and and I remember walking.
So I always used to like record bits of snippets
(14:52):
of song when I was working on something back to
myself and when I was walking sometimes work on you know, themes,
lyrics or melody, and and that whole trying to sort
of I was wanting to fold in this part of
the Amazing Grace because I have a story with Amazing
Grace through other line. It's a very significant song, the
(15:12):
traditional song. And then so I wanted to bring.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Some of those lyrics in and then to make it
my own version of and.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
It was it was, it was similar.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
It was a very wide perspective, it was very personal,
and yet it was it was it was an existential
like even if there's no mean, you know what, if
there's no means, even if even if we never understood
what life is about, it's still awesome.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
There's like like we are in awe of this whatever
this is that's creating everything.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
So that so that I think that probably was actually
one of the most difficult things to try and articulate, to.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Try to weave that together because the original amazing grace,
of course has been sung by so many people, so
to do your own twist is maybe the wrong version.
It's a beautiful it's a beautiful song. Yeah, I've always
loved your I've always loved your writing. Whereber do you
have a certain.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Ritual?
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Are you are you waiting for the divine grace to
descend and you sense that something is a question that
wants to be followed or do you really every day
have a writing practice and have a toning or singing
or humming practice where you're inviting songs and words into
(16:31):
your life.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
I usually go through phases with writing, often like a
seam of you know, several different things will come all
at the same time, and I'm quite I try and
be intuitive about it that, Like the my favorite process
is to begin by singing or playing something. And I
actually am learning the piano at the moment, which is
(16:54):
just wonderful to be learning at another instrument at this
advanced age, and that's opening things up. So I'm improvising
a little bit on the piano, but I'm not yet
at the point where i can write whole songs and
remember what I'm doing because my playing isn't good enough.
But with the guitar, I'll often like find something and
I've heard the Beatles used to talk about this. If
(17:16):
you're still humming it the next morning, then it's a
memorable It's still alive and it's a memorable song, so
we know worth working on.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
And so I kind of do have that test.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
I make lots of little parts of things and then
and then they seem to evolve. And I love being
with the process. And I do that in fact with
my therapeutic process when I'm working with clients as well.
Is I try and show up with no agenda, and
I'm listening to like where are we going? And it's
the same with the song. Sometimes I don't know if
you do this where you just make sounds, and sometimes
(17:48):
the sounds suggest words, and sometimes I have a theme.
Sometimes there's something that I'm feeling passionate about. Usually it's
something that i've felt evoked by. Will like also be
in the drive, you know that that'll be what's making
me want to be playing my instruments at that point,
because I'm feeling I've got something to be said.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I also approach it from many different ways. Sometimes I
hear like I hear melodies or hear certain harmonics, and
then I'll jump from there. Sometimes I have a poem
that I've been you know, writing down, or little threads
of poems or poetry, and then it'll turn into a song.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And sometimes I was very I had a lot of.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Joy in the last years because I was a little
bit blocked through this COVID time in my writing and
just coaching a lot. And then I realized, if an
artist can sell a sketch for fifteen thousand dollars or whatever,
why can't I just do two lines? I mean, you're
talking about the essence and distilling it down. And then
(18:59):
I started writing like little mantras for women's circles and
you know, little small pieces of the small threads that
you can be later woven together. And I found that
very liberating.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You just not have to.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Complete big works, just to do little things. I found
it be liberated, like knitting your first little pair of mittens,
you know, not worrying about the fishermen sweater.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
It's like, oh, I got I just did a pair
of mittens, you know.
Speaker 8 (19:28):
I love it.
Speaker 11 (19:29):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
That's such a good I'm going to steal that idea
little mantras I really love.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Yeah, little affirmations.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Right, Sometimes you just have the hook or the refrain
and you're like, oh, I don't have the rest of
the verses.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I don't have the bridge. And it's like, oh, but
that can be done.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
That can be done like in meditation circles and women's
circles or in our own practice, right, that can be
done exactly. You are also well, I gave you a
beautiful interview and so about forgiveness. We talked all about forgiveness.
So you are considered a forgiveness specialist, right, So how
(20:12):
does forgiveness play a role in your own healing work
and also in.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
This album and in songwriting, it's it's it's a lovely
question again, actually, kraa thank you.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
So there's a couple of things forgiveness.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
And just to be really clear what I mean about forgiveness,
I have very specific definition which means it's forgiveness is
the absolute refusal to hold onto your ill will or
grievance against someone for what they did or didn't do,
because often we resent people for what they didn't do
as much as we resent them for what they do.
But it's for me, it's a personal practice. It's not
(20:49):
a theory that's out there that needs to be addressed
like once in a lifetime you know or likes only
for tragic, challenging circumstances. It's in every day, daily mental
and emotional and relation practice. I've and I've had it
as my practice for thirty years, ever since I first
did my sort of original training and mentorship around teaching
(21:10):
this kind of work. And for me, it's the missing
piece that we as a humanity need to learn how
to manage our emotions. We need to learn how to
manage our minds, and we need to learn how to
undo the tangles between the heart and the mind, and
of course that is the territory of songwriting as well,
the tangle between the heart and the mind. And and
(21:33):
funnily enough, on this album, I also have a song
called Forgive Me, which is the you know, when I
talk about forgiveness, there's often three different threads. There's the
need to forgive those who've trespussed against us, and then
there's the need for us to be forgiven by other people,
and then there's self forgiveness. And you know, when we're
talking about forgiveness, like we need to consider all of
(21:56):
those things that it's a it's a complexity. And even
sometimes when I'm guiding a client through a forgiveness process,
although they might need to forgive somebody, at the same time,
there may well be things that they need to be
forgiven for that included in the process. So it requires
this humility and willingness to admit that you're resentful in
(22:19):
the first place, because we don't really like to admit
that unless we can get a friend into agreement with us,
and then we can kind of bounce off each other.
And in fact, funnily that the other day I heard
a podcast where this I can't remember his name, actually
James can't remember somebody or other.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
But he's written a book called The Something about the addiction.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
Of resentment or of revenge and why and why we
want to have revenge and it's and I haven't read
it yet because it's only just out, but I'm very
curious about this desire in us that wants to make
things even, like if somebody does something to us, we
want somehow to balance the books or you know, we
(23:03):
want to get back. And we're seeing this on the
global stage all the time. So somebody does something and
then the other side say, well, we need to get revenge,
you know, like we cannot let that go an eye
eye right, and eye for an eye exactly for truth, right, yeah, yeah,
and then the eye for the eye makes the whole
world blind.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
You know, like where does that end?
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Because if you're getting revenge and then the other people
are getting revenge and then you're getting revenge, it's like,
where's that ever going to stop? So so the practice
of forgiveness it's not about not setting boundaries, and it's
not about not taking significant action when there's danger. And
in fact, this guy was talking about forgiveness is something
that you do about what's happened in the past, and
(23:43):
then what needs to happen in the future is something different,
you know, like sometimes you need to leave relationships if
you're in danger. You don't just forgive your abuser. You
leave and you get help and then maybe when you're ready,
you do your forgiveness work. So it's not sort of
it's not a cure all, but it's essential for us
to be able to move past the grievances that we have.
(24:05):
And I can't do anything about the global stage. I
can do things about my own heart. What do I
want to carry in my own heart and do my work,
and when I feel resentful of things that happen in
the world, I also do my forgiveness work on those things.
On certain leaders, you know, I will do my work.
I'll put them on my forgiveness list, and I'll take
my time and I'll do my work because I don't
(24:28):
want those feelings that particular chemical cocktail in my bloodstream.
And that's the most important thing.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, yeah, talk about chemical cocktails.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Talk about how this work can shift our vibrational being
that something we call now vibrational wellness.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Talk about those chemical cocktails.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
Yeah, well it's I mean, it's extraordinary and like not
surprising that when you are harboring a grievance and you're
thinking about that resentment and it's bothering you.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
And this is I know to put somebody on my list.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
If I'm waking up in the morning thinking about them
instead of the song that I'm trying to write, then
I know I've got a grievance.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
I know that there's something on my mind.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
And the chemicals and if you think about the word resentment,
it comes from the Latin centier, which is to feel,
and so you're refeeling those feelings and they can be addictive.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
And that's the trouble.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
It's because you're you're fantasizing about well, how can I
make it even, how can I get back of that person?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
What can I do so that.
Speaker 5 (25:28):
The trouble with that is it can be addictive. The
downside of that is you're addicted to a toxic substance.
You know, it's you're and you may have heard those
lovely quotes about you know not you know, holding onto
your resentment and not forgiving is like taking poison and
hoping the other person will die, or my particular favorite,
which is is like setting yourself on fire and hoping
(25:52):
the other person will be bothered by the smoke because
they're not even in the same field as you, but
you are the fuel, Like you are burning up yourself
by having those negative emotions. And and if you mean
as I know, I know you do believe like that,
there's a frequency to these different feelings and these different emotions,
(26:12):
and forgiveness to me is probably the highest spiritual practice
because it requires it requires love, but it also requires
a surrender and a letting go and a humility and
a willingness to admit your shadow side, you know, not
just the other person's shadow. So there's so it's it's again,
(26:32):
it's a it's a complex thing that we're trying to
ask ourselves to do, and it's hard, and you know,
that's that's why I think of it as a practice,
because it's a bit like yoga. You don't say or
I've done yoga. You do yoga because you need the
practice and then every time you do it, it helps
you to move the muscles that need to be moved.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
And forgiveness is the same.
Speaker 5 (26:53):
You're you're learning how to hold your heart open and
to not close it down. And that means being willing
to be vulnerable. It means willing to connect with things
that are or to let them in when you know,
like the world situation at the moment, it's really hard
to stay open to all the multiple challenges and tragedies
(27:14):
that are that we see in our news feeds. That
takes a lot of work to be able to hold
that with grace and to want to see beyond that
and the resonance, especially of forgiveness. When I do online
group forgiveness coaching, I call them forgiveness fields because of
that really beautiful, roomy poem out beyond ideas of right
(27:36):
doing and wrongdoing, there's a field on meet you there,
because that's where we need to be together. We need
to be beyond the kind of the ordinary, thinking into
what else is possible, what healing is possible.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Let's all keep our hearts wide open wherever We're gonna
take a short break and hear from our sponsors, and
when we return, we're going to go more into the
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Speaker 2 (28:02):
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Speaker 3 (30:54):
Welcome back to Voice Rising, and we're so grateful to
have you all with us. If you're enjoying today conversation,
remember to subscribe to the show on your favorite streaming
platform and share this episode with your friends because your
support helps us bring more amazing guests to the show
(31:14):
that we can create waves of transformation together. And now
we're going to jump back in with Barbara day Hunt.
Welcome Barbara, welcome back.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Thanks.
Speaker 6 (31:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
So you work with all the layers of voice, which
I love.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
You said something in the beginning of the show it
was like untangling the heart or just understanding this heart, brain, coherence,
this body, mind, and yet there the voice is right
smack in the middle of it all. You, I'm sure,
work with like preverbal when we came onto the world
(31:53):
and we were just going like, ah, you know this
kind of stuff writing, journaling, SI, sipping, the sound of silence, speaking, songwriting, singing.
So talk to us about love affair of voice that
you've been having that I have. What is so magical
(32:18):
about our instrument the voice?
Speaker 4 (32:22):
HM, lovely, lovely question.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
But like you said, it is between the mind and
the heart that's the where the untangling needs to happen
or the expressing needs to happen, and there's just something
extraordinary about the sound making. And at the same time,
I'm also equally in love with silence. I just I
(32:49):
just love, love, love it when it's when there's silence
and then then there's sound.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
There's something about the juxtaposition of.
Speaker 5 (32:58):
The two that I and also the human voice, especially
choirs where it's just human beings standing together or sitting
together and making this most glorious harmony. And I love
the symbolism as well, where you know, when you do
(33:18):
those rolling oms in groups where you just somehow it's
like it has its own wave where you begin and
then the note changes or the chord changes, and sometimes
that's because one voice is changing the chord by changing
their note, and then it keeps moving and then for
some reason, even without any kind of agreement or anybody
(33:39):
ringing a bell, it's like the om ends.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
I love that experience because there's something just.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
I love the symbolism of one voice can change the
chord that's being played. And I feel like that's true
about how it matters that we each make our contribution
into the wider world because we change the chords that
are being played by what we offer and what we give.
(34:07):
And we are the instruments.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
That's the thing.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
Even if you are playing an instrument, there's something even
more intimate about when it's the voice.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Yeah, we are the instruments. I really do think it
is the first instrument. And I mean we have the
heartbeat and so we have rhythm. Of course, so the drum.
Many people say the drum is very very close to
the heartbeat. And yet the voice is so magical because
(34:40):
it doesn't only go between our heart and mind. It
goes between our personal experiences and the collective. It also
goes between the past, the lineage, and without voice, it
would be very hard to project into the future. You know,
we're using our voice to meet people, to make meetings,
(35:00):
to create projects. It's this constant spiraling of the past
into the future and the vertical, you.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Know, the heaven earth.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
I'm so in love with the voice, as everybody knows,
and it's so lovely to.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yeah, meet somebody else on the path.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Also, when you were talking about essence and to distill,
and in the middle of that word is silence is stillness?
We come back again and again to the singing silence.
But I'm sure you know, as a coach and a
healer and as somebody who's doing a lot of work
with clients.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
There's a different quality of silence.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
If it's singing, if it's free, if there is love
in the room and somebody drops back into a deeper silence,
or if somebody feels like they cannot talk, they're not
allowed to talk. If they talk, they might get slapped
or hit. If they talk, they might be disciplined. Right,
(36:03):
So these are very yeah, these are these are we
we all are I always say this. Everyone's like, silence
is golden, and I'm like, I don't know about that,
because it depends on the silence exactly. It depends on
the quality of silence, right, yeah. And the same thing
is with the same thing as with voice. There are
(36:25):
people that are voicing without thinking twice about what they're saying.
They're just throwing their voice out into the world, not
even seeing if it's going to hurt somebody or not.
And then there's other people that speak with so much
kindness that one word can heal. I mean, I've been
lucky enough to experience that one word of unconditional love
(36:47):
can heal a decade of pain. It's unbelievable, Like one
one word and one short embrace can heal.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I find that just stunning. It just blows my mind. Yeah,
it's it's true.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
And I love what you're saying because when I when
I work with clients, sometimes part of the process I
invite them into like reclaiming things, so either from the
person that they're forgiving or just just reclaiming some equality,
and often they want to reclaim their voice. That's that's
something that they feel like they haven't had through their lives,
(37:26):
or they haven't been allowed to freely express really really
important to you know, to have that sense of being
able to be who you are and to express it
into the world. So I yeah, it's it's it's profound.
And also the other thing I was reflecting on just
listening to what you were saying is about the power
of some people's voices. My sister's husband remarry her ex
(37:52):
husband remarried, and his new wife is an absolutely beautiful singer,
and the first time I heard her saying, burst into
tears because it was so beautiful. She's just like got
such a clear, pure transmission. And there's something about some
voices or even I was just thinking as well about
people like Martin Luther King right with the It's not
(38:14):
just what he was saying, it was the sound of
his voice as well, and it's it's like if those
things I think wonder whether it's just something about being
in alignment, like the resonance of who you are is
so beautifully attuned that everything that you say like rings
rings true or something.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
I don't know, what do you what do you think?
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah, yes, it's a fascinating thing because there are great
people of this world and great minds. People used to
ask me like, can you hear in a voice if
somebody is good or whatever? And I said no, because
you have Martin Luther King, for example, I have a dream.
These are very simple words, and yet with his full
bodied voice intent and they changed the consciousness of our world.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
At the same time, you had Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Who had a very very strong, clear voice, and he
also shifted the trajectory of our world. And at the
same time you have people that are highly powerful or
great artists and they have a very tight or muddy voice,
(39:27):
and it is fascinating because you know that they're doing
good work for our world. And it says if that
that way of expression cannot yet is not yet open,
like a river that's damned. And I often say this
to the clients, and then I want to jump into
your beautiful.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Other song that you brought with. But if you the hardest.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Or not the hardest, but the most beautiful clients that
I've had, they come with really really big hearts, and
these hearts have experienced a lot, and then they have
really brilliant minds, and then they're trying to kind of
find their way between this big heartfield and this big
(40:15):
you know, many many thoughts and questions and and all
these things, and then you have this tiny little throat
that's balancing this massive amount of energy. And sometimes say
get stuck, you know, and I'm like, well, of course
you're getting stuck. It's like a huge river right on
one end and another huge ocean on the other end.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
In the middle, you have this tiny little thing. And
only when you open the.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Throat through singing and writing and all all this voice
work through expression, can it even match the greatness of
these people like Martin Luther King, I mean, a great,
a great human being who risked so much to live
his vision. Right, So I think, yeah, that's my my
let's go into your song, Barber. My dream I mean
(40:59):
now that you know Martin in the room, is really
to understand that we're these amazing instruments.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
For peace and for love, and we have the ability, if.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
We connect to our channel and don't get distracted by
everything that's pulling on us, to wake up as one.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
And that is what this next song is about.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
So share with us how this next song is gonna
shift the consciousness of planet.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Like, what are you bringing to the chord?
Speaker 5 (41:44):
H What I'm bringing is a vision and a longing
for us to awaken as one, and not even just
one humanity, but one life, because we want to include
all of life, all of nature, you know, all all creatures.
You know, we can't just say, oh, you know, we're
going to wake up as one humanity. And when I
(42:06):
say wake up, I mean not just think about it theoretically,
but just know that like we're we're one, Like the
essence of me, that the life force that's flowing through
my veins is the same essence that flows through your
veins and through Christopher's veins and through every blade of grass.
It's like that is the same thing. And so you can't,
(42:29):
you know, consciously want to destroy. It's like blowing off
your own elbow. If you if you know that you
are one whole thing, you would never blow your own
elbow off and think had that got the elbow?
Speaker 3 (42:41):
You know it?
Speaker 5 (42:42):
And and I really believe that we are in an
existential crisis and this is if we don't awaken, then
I don't see how we could possibly survive. It's like
that we need to move on to a completely different
way of operating everything. It's not just one, it's not
like something needs to change, but the way we do
everything and why we do everything has to change.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
And I love that is because no is that because
we can because we know from quantum physics it's possible.
Speaker 5 (43:12):
Yeah, And that I think that's my frustration is it
doesn't have to be like this, you know, like we
And there's there's a really lovely Hafe's poem that says,
you know, everyone's invited to meet the friend you know
that's the divine and that narrows down all our choices
to just two. You can come to God dressed for dancing,
or be carried on a stretcher to God's ward. And
(43:34):
I love that because like, we're gonna end up being
carried on stretchers if we but we don't have to.
We could come to God dress for dancing, and so
that and that, so that line dressed for dancing, that's.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
In this but in this song comes from that poem beautiful.
Let's listen in wake up as one, Barbara ja Hunt here.
Speaker 8 (44:00):
The voice deep in my heart.
Speaker 15 (44:04):
Even the wild storms are raging and tears apart.
Speaker 6 (44:11):
And the whole world on fire, watching it burning.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
But it feels like I'm drunk.
Speaker 14 (44:24):
Well, we gonna wake up pass one. Well, we gonna
wake up as one.
Speaker 15 (44:35):
It's okay to feel crazy, um crack, to feel so
confused and not understand.
Speaker 8 (44:47):
How do we wake up?
Speaker 6 (44:50):
From us versus them? To all of us?
Speaker 8 (44:54):
All of us.
Speaker 14 (45:00):
Gonna wake up past one? How are you gonna wake
up past one?
Speaker 15 (45:10):
Get everyone around the table, bring Luis to.
Speaker 6 (45:21):
Serving of creating a shine this curtain of peace. Come on,
let's like cup past one. Come on, let's wake up
(45:43):
past one.
Speaker 8 (45:47):
Come with your thong, your vision, your dreams, come with them,
any your their means, Come.
Speaker 6 (45:58):
With your.
Speaker 7 (46:01):
Kiss yours, come dressed for Dulton.
Speaker 6 (46:09):
Color.
Speaker 8 (46:09):
Let's wait up bast one, Cola, Let's wake up one.
Speaker 16 (46:18):
Come on, come on, let's wake up. Come on, let's
grow up, come on, let's clean up Colette shop.
Speaker 8 (46:31):
Come on, then, come on, then.
Speaker 6 (46:43):
Wake up as one.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Barberus with me in the studio. She's here at the table,
bringing her gifts to the feast and serving the whole
creation in this garden of peace.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
What would you say.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
To someone who would come to you and say, you know,
I feel like I'm in a bad dream. I'm asleep.
I really want to fear what you feel, Barbara about
this world. But I, you know, have all this stress
and all these problems, and I just don't really think
that there's it doesn't make any sense to me. People
(47:24):
are bombing people, there's genocides. Like what is this thing
called at the come back to the garden at piece?
Speaker 2 (47:32):
So how can.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
How can your words help these people to realize that
the world is a magical and a beautiful place. What
would be the first steps?
Speaker 4 (47:46):
Well, it's funny, isn't it, Because.
Speaker 5 (47:50):
When you look, when you really step back and look
at the way the world is, that all of the
things that we've superimposed on it, like the way we
produce food, or the way we run our economies, or
the way we educate, or the things that we value,
they're they're chosen, they're created, they're not they're not you know, inherent,
(48:13):
they're cultural things that we've chosen. And so although it
looks like it does look like it's you know, fixed,
and nothing can be done to change it that because
it's even even with things like war, they're based on beliefs.
And I remember watching a talk by an anthropologist Augustine Tuentez,
(48:37):
and he says that war, like being able to inflict
mass scale violence on groups of people, only happens if
you can make the people who are doing the violence
believe that that is what they should be doing. And
so if you think about that, the whole of what
(49:00):
is driving what we do, and not just war, but everything,
it's based on our beliefs. And that's just something that
you think. It's not real, it's not tangible, it's something
that you think is true. And to me, that makes
the whole thing very flexible because if we're only doing
things because we think that it's something important, or we
(49:22):
believe it's true, or it's a value that we think
is important, then we could change our values. So if
we'd rather than always seeking profit or to win or
you know, the competitive advantage. If we decided as a
humanity that we want to make the world work for everyone,
that we want to make sure that well being is
(49:44):
the bottom line, not profit, we would everything would change
because we would be serving a different value set. And so,
I mean, I look at the world and I feel despair,
and there's a part of me that tells myself there
is no way anything's gonna change because the power that
is creating the way things are game A is currently
(50:07):
continuing to do that very successfully. And you know, you
could argue that social media and things like that influence
how we think, and so that's being compounded. However, there's
a lot of people on social media and there are
some amazing projects all around the world of people doing
things differently, of saying no, this isn't acceptable, we want
to do something different, and things happening from the ground up,
(50:29):
because I think that's the way change will happen. It
will come from the ground up. It won't come top down.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Yeah, like the roots of a tree right ground up,
and they're resilient and strong.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
And I think what helped me on this path is.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
To take care of my own corner, not to say
I'm ignoring the bigger fights, but to say you said
this at the beginning of the show, I need to
do the work of forgiveness. I need to create a
garden where I get my food, which I have in
the middle of a metropolitan city like Berlin. I do
(51:09):
have a community garden. You know, if we all kind
of look at where we can shift in little ways,
it's that one voice in that home wave which is
going to shift the cord, right. Yeah, And I think
that for me that helped me a lot, because I
remember being in such despair thinking how in the world
(51:30):
am I going to change?
Speaker 2 (51:31):
I mean, there's so many things that are in just
and not right. They're really not right.
Speaker 8 (51:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Children being bombed is simply not acceptable in my book.
But I can make sure that the children in my
life are incredibly well cared for and taken care of,
and hopefully this will send ripples of love and beauty.
And also by you producing music, by doing retreats from us,
all meditating together, taking the time to be together in circle,
(52:04):
this is this is I think what we can do.
So what would you love the listeners to take away, Barbara,
We didn't get a chance to talk about your third single,
because you're you're working a lot on a new type
of animation, which I love, So you'll have to come
back to the show to share more about that process.
But what would you love people to take away from
(52:27):
your music?
Speaker 5 (52:29):
Well, I think, like you just said, like it took
for us to each do our individual work to heal,
to use music to heal, but to do your own
forgiveness work, you know, like taking care of your own heart.
That is your sacred duty, if you like, because that's
the only thing really you can do anything about.
Speaker 4 (52:47):
And then to put.
Speaker 5 (52:47):
Yourself in positions where you can use your voice, you know,
to change, to question things, to question the status quo,
as Simon Sineok says, you know, like to ask questions
and to say why.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
Is it like this?
Speaker 4 (53:00):
And what else is possible? And there are some amazing things.
Speaker 5 (53:03):
I had a conversation with a friend of mine who
runs a charity today and and she was talking about
the power of nonviolent communication, and there are amazing tools
and things that are available. And my vision would be
that we start using those and and doing our work
and taking it seriously because I think our inner world
(53:23):
is like that's where we have the most flexibility, and
then that gets reflected in the outer world. And and
and music is such a it's again, it's just such
an amazing vehicle for communicating what's really important and and
bringing joy.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
And that's that's the other really important thing. I'm just
what would a party be like without dance music?
Speaker 3 (53:47):
And what was your phrase from the beginning, joy of
pan joy Joy, pan joy exactly. So thank you Barbara
for sharing your wisdom and your music and your heart
art and your vision for our world today with us
here at Voice Rising for all you other beautiful souls
out there who are part of our Voice community. If
(54:10):
today's conversation inspired you and you want to explore more
the transformative power of your own voice, I invite you
to come visit me at School of Voice dot Berlin,
or check out Barbara Jay Hunt's work also, She's doing
beautiful work out there. And then share this episode with
friends and tune in again. And let's build a world
(54:31):
that is sound and that is in harmony and that
is connected to vibrational wellness.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Because we can flip it.
Speaker 3 (54:39):
We can, we can really flip flip the story, right, Barbara,
We can flip it.
Speaker 5 (54:45):
We can we can, and thank you as always for
wonderful conversation, car and brilliant questions, and also many blessings
to everybody who's listening.
Speaker 4 (54:53):
And you know what you do matters, So what you
do matters.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
Let the beauty you love. How's the roomy crow, Let
the beauty you do, be what you love.
Speaker 8 (55:03):
No, let the beauty you love be what you do.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
Everybody, stay good and keep on singing and writing songs, reading, journaling,
and speaking kind words to each other.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
A bye.
Speaker 11 (55:19):
That's a baddest time. Start be
Speaker 3 (55:33):
We have
Welcome to Voice Rising with Kara John's Dad. Enjoy weekly
conversations with leading luminaries, pioneering visionaries, singers, poets, musicians, and
sound healers as we explore the profound role our voice
plays on the path to self realization and global enlightenment.
The internationally acclaimed singer, composer, author, healer, recording artist, voice expert,
(00:25):
creator of Voice Your Essence, and founder of the School
of Voice, Kara John's Dad uses her extraordinary spiritual gifts
to empower others. Everything in this world vibrates, Everything has
a frequency. A pioneer in the field of voice work
and transformational songwriting, her breakthrough methods are helping thousands of
(00:46):
people worldwide fine tune their body, mind, spirit system and
unlock the energetic frequencies of limitless creativity, health and abundance.
Share your voice, ask your questions, join in the conversation,
receive life changing positive transformation, and rise together to create
a sound world. And here's your hust Kara Johnstad.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Hello, everybody.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Join me today for an inspiring and heartfelt conversation with
the talented Barbara J. Hunt, singer, songwriter, author, and forgiveness specialist.
Barbara's here today to invite us into the world of
her new single Spider, a deeply emotional piece from her
upcoming album Wake Up as One, and we will explore
(01:40):
the transformative power of music and forgiveness and how music
serves as medicine, whether through the creative act of writing
songs or the healing resonance found in music that speaks
to the soul. Today we will also have the chance
to delve into the art of forgiveness with Barbara's Forgiveness
(02:00):
Made Easy process and discover the power of unburdening the
heart to transform emotional wellbeing. And I know from my
own experience that songwriting is a great way to unburden
the heart. Her creative journey extends beyond music, and we'll
also explore how she brings her life to her work
(02:20):
to life through stop motion animation, showing us the beauty
of blending artistic expression with healing.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
So come along, Go, get yourself a cup.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Of tea, and be part of this uplifting and enlightening
conversation on music, healing and conscious transformation. Welcome Barbara to
Voice Rising.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Thank you so much, cars such a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
It's wonderful to have you with me today? So so many.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Things are happening for you.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
You do have a new release.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Coming up, and what does that feel like deep inside?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (02:57):
Well, it's been a labor of love and I've been
so blessed to work with some really amazing musicians and
it's just been joy upon joy. I love the creative process,
especially with others. And in fact, when I finish the
editing process, we've done all the recording, and I finished
the editing process, and when I drove home that night,
(03:18):
I cried because I'd so enjoyed working with these amazing beings.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I love that title. Joy upon joy, a pan joy.
That's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
So your new single is entitled Spider or is it
your first single?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's profoundly moving and maybe you share with us a
little bit about the story and how this track came
to life.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Yes, thank you. It's my second single.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
So the first single is the title track that wake
Up as Won, and the second one is Spider, and
in fact I have I do have the third one
out already now, which is the one with the stop
motion animation. So but Spider is very meaningful because I've
worked most of my adult like doing coaching and as
a mentor, and ended up specializing in forgiveness. And I
(04:09):
had the happy experience of working on a retreat for
seven years and we would help people do they were
doing a cleanse, fast and taking care of their bodies,
but we'd also do very deep emotional work with them.
And one particular client came and she had such a
devastating story. So when I work with her on what
(04:30):
needed to be given, it was just so moving and
I hadn't really I mean, I hear lots of very
challenging stories, but this was a completely different level, and
I didn't really know how to calibrate what i'd her
her amazing resilience. She was a really she is a
(04:52):
beautiful human being. She's a songwriter, and I was really
seeing how her willingness to do the deep emotional work
to overcome really significant aulta trauma was just so inspiring
and incredible that I was moved to write this song.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
And that's so that's really where where it came from.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Was my response to honoring this, this human being a
healing journey, and then so that the.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Lyrics really are a reflection of that.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Let's listen to that track. Where we brought it with
her to studio today. So it's the track is spider.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
She was a spider.
Speaker 7 (05:50):
In the corner, trying to terrified again the war, bewilled
by cruelty, welcome been bleeding as.
Speaker 8 (06:10):
Still have beauty and dude still so still fucking still
her son. She seems spied, spied.
Speaker 9 (06:45):
Spy, spied.
Speaker 10 (06:53):
Leader ponting, but at this a little of the resurrect belivinglded.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
She trans figures, paying to beauty. Only love can bring
the dog with head to.
Speaker 8 (07:16):
Let see her beauty, see her. So han he fucking
(07:38):
he s.
Speaker 6 (07:40):
To sing s spy, the spies of spies, spy.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Spider, Barbara Jahanes. She's sitting here, right here with me
in the studio. I somehow when I think of a
beloved spider, I do. I'm carried back to Charlotte's Web,
that book that I had loved and always cry with
the beauty of it all. Barbara, in what ways you
(08:33):
were talking about that You're doing a lot of retreats,
and you're working a lot with people, and you are
a forgiveness specialist, So in what ways do you think
music can really serve as a vehicle for personal healing?
Whether it's as from the artist itself, like us going
into writing and singing, or also for the listener to
(08:54):
hear these stories, to connect with these stories that we
all carry.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
Yeah, well, like you said in the introduction, I think
music's medicine. It's like it does, it does something for
our soul that you know. It's like I think we're
talking about a different level of something that's inarticulate, but
we all sense into it that we know. Sometimes if
you think there's like something that's really complex, or there's
(09:22):
something that's you know, like needs to be summed up,
people will often quote a poem or a song lyric
because they they carry.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Like the essences, you know, like that there's something very.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
Through the process of songwriting, which I which I love
because it's a discipline you're distilling something, trying to transmit
something in a few minutes, and it's the essence of
something that carries the resonance. So when I wrote that
it was truly authentic. I wasn't like I wasn't making
anything up. It was like, would I translated you know,
(09:55):
like the story I didn't specific about what actually happened
to this person.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
I used the I.
Speaker 5 (10:02):
Tried to use strong imagery, even to a certain extent,
used the kind of imagery that she might use in
her songwriting. So I was sort of like it was
almost like an homage to her in terms of the
kind of she uses very dark imagery sometimes when she's
using uses me too as a therapy as a way
of expressing. And so I feel like always what I
(10:25):
try and do with writing, and I'm sure you do
the same with yours, is we're trying to submit something
that's that's a heartfelt, authentic resonance and because it's moving,
something that then hopefully connects with something in the listener
that is also move And that's that I think that's
the power of me and why it's healing. Because if
(10:47):
you get like an exact match, a bit like the
homeo homeopathy equivalent, where you've got an exact match like
viewers like, yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
That's probably why the resonance comes into the field. If
you if you're attracted to a certain tempo or a
certain type of music, a certain type of story, then
that's exactly what you might need to come back into
balance or to awaken something deeper. So how do you
balance that, Barber? We have our personal stories. We have
(11:18):
our experiences, we have everything that we've heard, and then
we have the understanding of universal themes and the collective
How do you balance that when when writing your music?
Do you do it more from this is my personal
experience or do you tend to take that essence of
what you've gone through and then relate it to a
(11:41):
collective theme.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
I try and make it accessible, which is the like
the individual universal, if you understand what I mean, trying
to talk to both of them. So I think it
needs to be it needs to be relevant to me.
And also I can't I'm not good. I never think
I would be a good novelist, Like I find it
(12:04):
hard to make things up. I'm too, I'm kind of
like I'm a bit nerdy about that and very it
has to be truthful. And but at the same time,
because I am a human being and I have experienced
with lots of other human beings, I feel like the
themes that I'm trying to sing to and express have
resonance and relevance to other people. And also because it's
(12:25):
it's a subtle world, and I'm trying to be accurate
with my nuances, like with the emotional nuance and some
like popular music and things that are easily accessible sometimes
don't have the depth or complexity that I want. It's
not that they're complicated, but just they like I said,
(12:45):
songs are often simple that they they are simplicity on
the far side of complexity that condense something that's actually
quite beautiful and hard to articulate into something fible. And
and I do, especially this album, i feel like I've
been writing two more universal.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Themes about the world.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
So although they are there's a there's a few love songs,
but I always try and make those accessible well and
so that they're not just about specific beloved. They could
be about your relationship with the divine. But also there's
a couple of songs, so the one, the title track,
wake Up as One, is very much about it's like
a longing for us as humanity, wake Up as One.
(13:29):
And then there's another song which is still to be released,
called Sky Spies, which is about the desecration.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Of the sky.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
Because like that, I think like the night sky should
be sacred. There's something about it that that should not
have things floating about in it, and so that so
my but it's also an allegory really.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Of the.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
The encroachment of mankind into nature. So it's so so
I'm I'm trying to write on multiple levels if I
if I can, and and some to be fair, they're
much more straightforward, simple, accessible, and others I try to.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Of a statement with what was the toughest song you
ever wrote?
Speaker 3 (14:16):
You've had a lot of albums, or you do have
many albums out there, what was what was one of
the hardest that you had to wrestle with.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
That's a really good question, car, I don't I don't
know which one hardest. One of them from a previous album,
from my album Playing my Heart is called Amazing Grace,
and it's it's it was when I was in a
really dark space for myself and and I remember walking.
So I always used to like record bits of snippets
(14:52):
of song when I was working on something back to
myself and when I was walking sometimes work on you know, themes,
lyrics or melody, and and that whole trying to sort
of I was wanting to fold in this part of
the Amazing Grace because I have a story with Amazing
Grace through other line. It's a very significant song, the
(15:12):
traditional song. And then so I wanted to bring.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Some of those lyrics in and then to make it
my own version of and.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
It was it was, it was similar.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
It was a very wide perspective, it was very personal,
and yet it was it was it was an existential
like even if there's no mean, you know what, if
there's no means, even if even if we never understood
what life is about, it's still awesome.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
There's like like we are in awe of this whatever
this is that's creating everything.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
So that so that I think that probably was actually
one of the most difficult things to try and articulate, to.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Try to weave that together because the original amazing grace,
of course has been sung by so many people, so
to do your own twist is maybe the wrong version.
It's a beautiful it's a beautiful song. Yeah, I've always
loved your I've always loved your writing. Whereber do you
have a certain.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Ritual?
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Are you are you waiting for the divine grace to
descend and you sense that something is a question that
wants to be followed or do you really every day
have a writing practice and have a toning or singing
or humming practice where you're inviting songs and words into
(16:31):
your life.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
I usually go through phases with writing, often like a
seam of you know, several different things will come all
at the same time, and I'm quite I try and
be intuitive about it that, Like the my favorite process
is to begin by singing or playing something. And I
actually am learning the piano at the moment, which is
(16:54):
just wonderful to be learning at another instrument at this
advanced age, and that's opening things up. So I'm improvising
a little bit on the piano, but I'm not yet
at the point where i can write whole songs and
remember what I'm doing because my playing isn't good enough.
But with the guitar, I'll often like find something and
I've heard the Beatles used to talk about this. If
(17:16):
you're still humming it the next morning, then it's a
memorable It's still alive and it's a memorable song, so
we know worth working on.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
And so I kind of do have that test.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
I make lots of little parts of things and then
and then they seem to evolve. And I love being
with the process. And I do that in fact with
my therapeutic process when I'm working with clients as well.
Is I try and show up with no agenda, and
I'm listening to like where are we going? And it's
the same with the song. Sometimes I don't know if
you do this where you just make sounds, and sometimes
(17:48):
the sounds suggest words, and sometimes I have a theme.
Sometimes there's something that I'm feeling passionate about. Usually it's
something that i've felt evoked by. Will like also be
in the drive, you know that that'll be what's making
me want to be playing my instruments at that point,
because I'm feeling I've got something to be said.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I also approach it from many different ways. Sometimes I
hear like I hear melodies or hear certain harmonics, and
then I'll jump from there. Sometimes I have a poem
that I've been you know, writing down, or little threads
of poems or poetry, and then it'll turn into a song.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And sometimes I was very I had a lot of.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Joy in the last years because I was a little
bit blocked through this COVID time in my writing and
just coaching a lot. And then I realized, if an
artist can sell a sketch for fifteen thousand dollars or whatever,
why can't I just do two lines? I mean, you're
talking about the essence and distilling it down. And then
(18:59):
I started writing like little mantras for women's circles and
you know, little small pieces of the small threads that
you can be later woven together. And I found that
very liberating.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You just not have to.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Complete big works, just to do little things. I found
it be liberated, like knitting your first little pair of mittens,
you know, not worrying about the fishermen sweater.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
It's like, oh, I got I just did a pair
of mittens, you know.
Speaker 8 (19:28):
I love it.
Speaker 11 (19:29):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
That's such a good I'm going to steal that idea
little mantras I really love.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Yeah, little affirmations.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Right, Sometimes you just have the hook or the refrain
and you're like, oh, I don't have the rest of
the verses.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I don't have the bridge. And it's like, oh, but
that can be done.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
That can be done like in meditation circles and women's
circles or in our own practice, right, that can be
done exactly. You are also well, I gave you a
beautiful interview and so about forgiveness. We talked all about forgiveness.
So you are considered a forgiveness specialist, right, So how
(20:12):
does forgiveness play a role in your own healing work
and also in.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
This album and in songwriting, it's it's it's a lovely
question again, actually, kraa thank you.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
So there's a couple of things forgiveness.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
And just to be really clear what I mean about forgiveness,
I have very specific definition which means it's forgiveness is
the absolute refusal to hold onto your ill will or
grievance against someone for what they did or didn't do,
because often we resent people for what they didn't do
as much as we resent them for what they do.
But it's for me, it's a personal practice. It's not
(20:49):
a theory that's out there that needs to be addressed
like once in a lifetime you know or likes only
for tragic, challenging circumstances. It's in every day, daily mental
and emotional and relation practice. I've and I've had it
as my practice for thirty years, ever since I first
did my sort of original training and mentorship around teaching
(21:10):
this kind of work. And for me, it's the missing
piece that we as a humanity need to learn how
to manage our emotions. We need to learn how to
manage our minds, and we need to learn how to
undo the tangles between the heart and the mind, and
of course that is the territory of songwriting as well,
the tangle between the heart and the mind. And and
(21:33):
funnily enough, on this album, I also have a song
called Forgive Me, which is the you know, when I
talk about forgiveness, there's often three different threads. There's the
need to forgive those who've trespussed against us, and then
there's the need for us to be forgiven by other people,
and then there's self forgiveness. And you know, when we're
talking about forgiveness, like we need to consider all of
(21:56):
those things that it's a it's a complexity. And even
sometimes when I'm guiding a client through a forgiveness process,
although they might need to forgive somebody, at the same time,
there may well be things that they need to be
forgiven for that included in the process. So it requires
this humility and willingness to admit that you're resentful in
(22:19):
the first place, because we don't really like to admit
that unless we can get a friend into agreement with us,
and then we can kind of bounce off each other.
And in fact, funnily that the other day I heard
a podcast where this I can't remember his name, actually
James can't remember somebody or other.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
But he's written a book called The Something about the addiction.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
Of resentment or of revenge and why and why we
want to have revenge and it's and I haven't read
it yet because it's only just out, but I'm very
curious about this desire in us that wants to make
things even, like if somebody does something to us, we
want somehow to balance the books or you know, we
(23:03):
want to get back. And we're seeing this on the
global stage all the time. So somebody does something and
then the other side say, well, we need to get revenge,
you know, like we cannot let that go an eye
eye right, and eye for an eye exactly for truth, right, yeah, yeah,
and then the eye for the eye makes the whole
world blind.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
You know, like where does that end?
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Because if you're getting revenge and then the other people
are getting revenge and then you're getting revenge, it's like,
where's that ever going to stop? So so the practice
of forgiveness it's not about not setting boundaries, and it's
not about not taking significant action when there's danger. And
in fact, this guy was talking about forgiveness is something
that you do about what's happened in the past, and
(23:43):
then what needs to happen in the future is something different,
you know, like sometimes you need to leave relationships if
you're in danger. You don't just forgive your abuser. You
leave and you get help and then maybe when you're ready,
you do your forgiveness work. So it's not sort of
it's not a cure all, but it's essential for us
to be able to move past the grievances that we have.
(24:05):
And I can't do anything about the global stage. I
can do things about my own heart. What do I
want to carry in my own heart and do my work,
and when I feel resentful of things that happen in
the world, I also do my forgiveness work on those things.
On certain leaders, you know, I will do my work.
I'll put them on my forgiveness list, and I'll take
my time and I'll do my work because I don't
(24:28):
want those feelings that particular chemical cocktail in my bloodstream.
And that's the most important thing.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, yeah, talk about chemical cocktails.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Talk about how this work can shift our vibrational being
that something we call now vibrational wellness.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Talk about those chemical cocktails.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
Yeah, well it's I mean, it's extraordinary and like not
surprising that when you are harboring a grievance and you're
thinking about that resentment and it's bothering you.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
And this is I know to put somebody on my list.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
If I'm waking up in the morning thinking about them
instead of the song that I'm trying to write, then
I know I've got a grievance.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
I know that there's something on my mind.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
And the chemicals and if you think about the word resentment,
it comes from the Latin centier, which is to feel,
and so you're refeeling those feelings and they can be addictive.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
And that's the trouble.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
It's because you're you're fantasizing about well, how can I
make it even, how can I get back of that person?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
What can I do so that.
Speaker 5 (25:28):
The trouble with that is it can be addictive. The
downside of that is you're addicted to a toxic substance.
You know, it's you're and you may have heard those
lovely quotes about you know not you know, holding onto
your resentment and not forgiving is like taking poison and
hoping the other person will die, or my particular favorite,
which is is like setting yourself on fire and hoping
(25:52):
the other person will be bothered by the smoke because
they're not even in the same field as you, but
you are the fuel, Like you are burning up yourself
by having those negative emotions. And and if you mean
as I know, I know you do believe like that,
there's a frequency to these different feelings and these different emotions,
(26:12):
and forgiveness to me is probably the highest spiritual practice
because it requires it requires love, but it also requires
a surrender and a letting go and a humility and
a willingness to admit your shadow side, you know, not
just the other person's shadow. So there's so it's it's again,
(26:32):
it's a it's a complex thing that we're trying to
ask ourselves to do, and it's hard, and you know,
that's that's why I think of it as a practice,
because it's a bit like yoga. You don't say or
I've done yoga. You do yoga because you need the
practice and then every time you do it, it helps
you to move the muscles that need to be moved.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
And forgiveness is the same.
Speaker 5 (26:53):
You're you're learning how to hold your heart open and
to not close it down. And that means being willing
to be vulnerable. It means willing to connect with things
that are or to let them in when you know,
like the world situation at the moment, it's really hard
to stay open to all the multiple challenges and tragedies
(27:14):
that are that we see in our news feeds. That
takes a lot of work to be able to hold
that with grace and to want to see beyond that
and the resonance, especially of forgiveness. When I do online
group forgiveness coaching, I call them forgiveness fields because of
that really beautiful, roomy poem out beyond ideas of right
(27:36):
doing and wrongdoing, there's a field on meet you there,
because that's where we need to be together. We need
to be beyond the kind of the ordinary, thinking into
what else is possible, what healing is possible.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Let's all keep our hearts wide open wherever We're gonna
take a short break and hear from our sponsors, and
when we return, we're going to go more into the
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Welcome back to Voice Rising, and we're so grateful to
have you all with us. If you're enjoying today conversation,
remember to subscribe to the show on your favorite streaming
platform and share this episode with your friends because your
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(31:14):
that we can create waves of transformation together. And now
we're going to jump back in with Barbara day Hunt.
Welcome Barbara, welcome back.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Thanks.
Speaker 6 (31:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
So you work with all the layers of voice, which
I love.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
You said something in the beginning of the show it
was like untangling the heart or just understanding this heart, brain, coherence,
this body, mind, and yet there the voice is right
smack in the middle of it all. You, I'm sure,
work with like preverbal when we came onto the world
(31:53):
and we were just going like, ah, you know this
kind of stuff writing, journaling, SI, sipping, the sound of silence, speaking, songwriting, singing.
So talk to us about love affair of voice that
you've been having that I have. What is so magical
(32:18):
about our instrument the voice?
Speaker 4 (32:22):
HM, lovely, lovely question.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
But like you said, it is between the mind and
the heart that's the where the untangling needs to happen
or the expressing needs to happen, and there's just something
extraordinary about the sound making. And at the same time,
I'm also equally in love with silence. I just I
(32:49):
just love, love, love it when it's when there's silence
and then then there's sound.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
There's something about the juxtaposition of.
Speaker 5 (32:58):
The two that I and also the human voice, especially
choirs where it's just human beings standing together or sitting
together and making this most glorious harmony. And I love
the symbolism as well, where you know, when you do
(33:18):
those rolling oms in groups where you just somehow it's
like it has its own wave where you begin and
then the note changes or the chord changes, and sometimes
that's because one voice is changing the chord by changing
their note, and then it keeps moving and then for
some reason, even without any kind of agreement or anybody
(33:39):
ringing a bell, it's like the om ends.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
I love that experience because there's something just.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
I love the symbolism of one voice can change the
chord that's being played. And I feel like that's true
about how it matters that we each make our contribution
into the wider world because we change the chords that
are being played by what we offer and what we give.
(34:07):
And we are the instruments.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
That's the thing.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
Even if you are playing an instrument, there's something even
more intimate about when it's the voice.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Yeah, we are the instruments. I really do think it
is the first instrument. And I mean we have the
heartbeat and so we have rhythm. Of course, so the drum.
Many people say the drum is very very close to
the heartbeat. And yet the voice is so magical because
(34:40):
it doesn't only go between our heart and mind. It
goes between our personal experiences and the collective. It also
goes between the past, the lineage, and without voice, it
would be very hard to project into the future. You know,
we're using our voice to meet people, to make meetings,
(35:00):
to create projects. It's this constant spiraling of the past
into the future and the vertical, you.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Know, the heaven earth.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
I'm so in love with the voice, as everybody knows,
and it's so lovely to.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yeah, meet somebody else on the path.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Also, when you were talking about essence and to distill,
and in the middle of that word is silence is stillness?
We come back again and again to the singing silence.
But I'm sure you know, as a coach and a
healer and as somebody who's doing a lot of work
with clients.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
There's a different quality of silence.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
If it's singing, if it's free, if there is love
in the room and somebody drops back into a deeper silence,
or if somebody feels like they cannot talk, they're not
allowed to talk. If they talk, they might get slapped
or hit. If they talk, they might be disciplined. Right,
(36:03):
So these are very yeah, these are these are we
we all are I always say this. Everyone's like, silence
is golden, and I'm like, I don't know about that,
because it depends on the silence exactly. It depends on
the quality of silence, right, yeah. And the same thing
is with the same thing as with voice. There are
(36:25):
people that are voicing without thinking twice about what they're saying.
They're just throwing their voice out into the world, not
even seeing if it's going to hurt somebody or not.
And then there's other people that speak with so much
kindness that one word can heal. I mean, I've been
lucky enough to experience that one word of unconditional love
(36:47):
can heal a decade of pain. It's unbelievable, Like one
one word and one short embrace can heal.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I find that just stunning. It just blows my mind. Yeah,
it's it's true.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
And I love what you're saying because when I when
I work with clients, sometimes part of the process I
invite them into like reclaiming things, so either from the
person that they're forgiving or just just reclaiming some equality,
and often they want to reclaim their voice. That's that's
something that they feel like they haven't had through their lives,
(37:26):
or they haven't been allowed to freely express really really
important to you know, to have that sense of being
able to be who you are and to express it
into the world. So I yeah, it's it's it's profound.
And also the other thing I was reflecting on just
listening to what you were saying is about the power
of some people's voices. My sister's husband remarry her ex
(37:52):
husband remarried, and his new wife is an absolutely beautiful singer,
and the first time I heard her saying, burst into
tears because it was so beautiful. She's just like got
such a clear, pure transmission. And there's something about some
voices or even I was just thinking as well about
people like Martin Luther King right with the It's not
(38:14):
just what he was saying, it was the sound of
his voice as well, and it's it's like if those
things I think wonder whether it's just something about being
in alignment, like the resonance of who you are is
so beautifully attuned that everything that you say like rings
rings true or something.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
I don't know, what do you what do you think?
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah, yes, it's a fascinating thing because there are great
people of this world and great minds. People used to
ask me like, can you hear in a voice if
somebody is good or whatever? And I said no, because
you have Martin Luther King, for example, I have a dream.
These are very simple words, and yet with his full
bodied voice intent and they changed the consciousness of our world.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
At the same time, you had Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Who had a very very strong, clear voice, and he
also shifted the trajectory of our world. And at the
same time you have people that are highly powerful or
great artists and they have a very tight or muddy voice,
(39:27):
and it is fascinating because you know that they're doing
good work for our world. And it says if that
that way of expression cannot yet is not yet open,
like a river that's damned. And I often say this
to the clients, and then I want to jump into
your beautiful.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Other song that you brought with. But if you the hardest.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Or not the hardest, but the most beautiful clients that
I've had, they come with really really big hearts, and
these hearts have experienced a lot, and then they have
really brilliant minds, and then they're trying to kind of
find their way between this big heartfield and this big
(40:15):
you know, many many thoughts and questions and and all
these things, and then you have this tiny little throat
that's balancing this massive amount of energy. And sometimes say
get stuck, you know, and I'm like, well, of course
you're getting stuck. It's like a huge river right on
one end and another huge ocean on the other end.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
In the middle, you have this tiny little thing. And
only when you open the.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Throat through singing and writing and all all this voice
work through expression, can it even match the greatness of
these people like Martin Luther King, I mean, a great,
a great human being who risked so much to live
his vision. Right, So I think, yeah, that's my my
let's go into your song, Barber. My dream I mean
(40:59):
now that you know Martin in the room, is really
to understand that we're these amazing instruments.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
For peace and for love, and we have the ability, if.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
We connect to our channel and don't get distracted by
everything that's pulling on us, to wake up as one.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
And that is what this next song is about.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
So share with us how this next song is gonna
shift the consciousness of planet.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Like, what are you bringing to the chord?
Speaker 5 (41:44):
H What I'm bringing is a vision and a longing
for us to awaken as one, and not even just
one humanity, but one life, because we want to include
all of life, all of nature, you know, all all creatures.
You know, we can't just say, oh, you know, we're
going to wake up as one humanity. And when I
(42:06):
say wake up, I mean not just think about it theoretically,
but just know that like we're we're one, Like the
essence of me, that the life force that's flowing through
my veins is the same essence that flows through your
veins and through Christopher's veins and through every blade of grass.
It's like that is the same thing. And so you can't,
(42:29):
you know, consciously want to destroy. It's like blowing off
your own elbow. If you if you know that you
are one whole thing, you would never blow your own
elbow off and think had that got the elbow?
Speaker 3 (42:41):
You know it?
Speaker 5 (42:42):
And and I really believe that we are in an
existential crisis and this is if we don't awaken, then
I don't see how we could possibly survive. It's like
that we need to move on to a completely different
way of operating everything. It's not just one, it's not
like something needs to change, but the way we do
everything and why we do everything has to change.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
And I love that is because no is that because
we can because we know from quantum physics it's possible.
Speaker 5 (43:12):
Yeah, And that I think that's my frustration is it
doesn't have to be like this, you know, like we
And there's there's a really lovely Hafe's poem that says,
you know, everyone's invited to meet the friend you know
that's the divine and that narrows down all our choices
to just two. You can come to God dressed for dancing,
or be carried on a stretcher to God's ward. And
(43:34):
I love that because like, we're gonna end up being
carried on stretchers if we but we don't have to.
We could come to God dress for dancing, and so
that and that, so that line dressed for dancing, that's.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
In this but in this song comes from that poem beautiful.
Let's listen in wake up as one, Barbara ja Hunt here.
Speaker 8 (44:00):
The voice deep in my heart.
Speaker 15 (44:04):
Even the wild storms are raging and tears apart.
Speaker 6 (44:11):
And the whole world on fire, watching it burning.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
But it feels like I'm drunk.
Speaker 14 (44:24):
Well, we gonna wake up pass one. Well, we gonna
wake up as one.
Speaker 15 (44:35):
It's okay to feel crazy, um crack, to feel so
confused and not understand.
Speaker 8 (44:47):
How do we wake up?
Speaker 6 (44:50):
From us versus them? To all of us?
Speaker 8 (44:54):
All of us.
Speaker 14 (45:00):
Gonna wake up past one? How are you gonna wake
up past one?
Speaker 15 (45:10):
Get everyone around the table, bring Luis to.
Speaker 6 (45:21):
Serving of creating a shine this curtain of peace. Come on,
let's like cup past one. Come on, let's wake up
(45:43):
past one.
Speaker 8 (45:47):
Come with your thong, your vision, your dreams, come with them,
any your their means, Come.
Speaker 6 (45:58):
With your.
Speaker 7 (46:01):
Kiss yours, come dressed for Dulton.
Speaker 6 (46:09):
Color.
Speaker 8 (46:09):
Let's wait up bast one, Cola, Let's wake up one.
Speaker 16 (46:18):
Come on, come on, let's wake up. Come on, let's
grow up, come on, let's clean up Colette shop.
Speaker 8 (46:31):
Come on, then, come on, then.
Speaker 6 (46:43):
Wake up as one.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Barberus with me in the studio. She's here at the table,
bringing her gifts to the feast and serving the whole
creation in this garden of peace.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
What would you say.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
To someone who would come to you and say, you know,
I feel like I'm in a bad dream. I'm asleep.
I really want to fear what you feel, Barbara about
this world. But I, you know, have all this stress
and all these problems, and I just don't really think
that there's it doesn't make any sense to me. People
(47:24):
are bombing people, there's genocides. Like what is this thing
called at the come back to the garden at piece?
Speaker 2 (47:32):
So how can.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
How can your words help these people to realize that
the world is a magical and a beautiful place. What
would be the first steps?
Speaker 4 (47:46):
Well, it's funny, isn't it, Because.
Speaker 5 (47:50):
When you look, when you really step back and look
at the way the world is, that all of the
things that we've superimposed on it, like the way we
produce food, or the way we run our economies, or
the way we educate, or the things that we value,
they're they're chosen, they're created, they're not they're not you know, inherent,
(48:13):
they're cultural things that we've chosen. And so although it
looks like it does look like it's you know, fixed,
and nothing can be done to change it that because
it's even even with things like war, they're based on beliefs.
And I remember watching a talk by an anthropologist Augustine Tuentez,
(48:37):
and he says that war, like being able to inflict
mass scale violence on groups of people, only happens if
you can make the people who are doing the violence
believe that that is what they should be doing. And
so if you think about that, the whole of what
(49:00):
is driving what we do, and not just war, but everything,
it's based on our beliefs. And that's just something that
you think. It's not real, it's not tangible, it's something
that you think is true. And to me, that makes
the whole thing very flexible because if we're only doing
things because we think that it's something important, or we
(49:22):
believe it's true, or it's a value that we think
is important, then we could change our values. So if
we'd rather than always seeking profit or to win or
you know, the competitive advantage. If we decided as a
humanity that we want to make the world work for everyone,
that we want to make sure that well being is
(49:44):
the bottom line, not profit, we would everything would change
because we would be serving a different value set. And so,
I mean, I look at the world and I feel despair,
and there's a part of me that tells myself there
is no way anything's gonna change because the power that
is creating the way things are game A is currently
(50:07):
continuing to do that very successfully. And you know, you
could argue that social media and things like that influence
how we think, and so that's being compounded. However, there's
a lot of people on social media and there are
some amazing projects all around the world of people doing
things differently, of saying no, this isn't acceptable, we want
to do something different, and things happening from the ground up,
(50:29):
because I think that's the way change will happen. It
will come from the ground up. It won't come top down.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Yeah, like the roots of a tree right ground up,
and they're resilient and strong.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
And I think what helped me on this path is.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
To take care of my own corner, not to say
I'm ignoring the bigger fights, but to say you said
this at the beginning of the show, I need to
do the work of forgiveness. I need to create a
garden where I get my food, which I have in
the middle of a metropolitan city like Berlin. I do
(51:09):
have a community garden. You know, if we all kind
of look at where we can shift in little ways,
it's that one voice in that home wave which is
going to shift the cord, right. Yeah, And I think
that for me that helped me a lot, because I
remember being in such despair thinking how in the world
(51:30):
am I going to change?
Speaker 2 (51:31):
I mean, there's so many things that are in just
and not right. They're really not right.
Speaker 8 (51:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Children being bombed is simply not acceptable in my book.
But I can make sure that the children in my
life are incredibly well cared for and taken care of,
and hopefully this will send ripples of love and beauty.
And also by you producing music, by doing retreats from us,
all meditating together, taking the time to be together in circle,
(52:04):
this is this is I think what we can do.
So what would you love the listeners to take away, Barbara,
We didn't get a chance to talk about your third single,
because you're you're working a lot on a new type
of animation, which I love, So you'll have to come
back to the show to share more about that process.
But what would you love people to take away from
(52:27):
your music?
Speaker 5 (52:29):
Well, I think, like you just said, like it took
for us to each do our individual work to heal,
to use music to heal, but to do your own
forgiveness work, you know, like taking care of your own heart.
That is your sacred duty, if you like, because that's
the only thing really you can do anything about.
Speaker 4 (52:47):
And then to put.
Speaker 5 (52:47):
Yourself in positions where you can use your voice, you know,
to change, to question things, to question the status quo,
as Simon Sineok says, you know, like to ask questions
and to say why.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
Is it like this?
Speaker 4 (53:00):
And what else is possible? And there are some amazing things.
Speaker 5 (53:03):
I had a conversation with a friend of mine who
runs a charity today and and she was talking about
the power of nonviolent communication, and there are amazing tools
and things that are available. And my vision would be
that we start using those and and doing our work
and taking it seriously because I think our inner world
(53:23):
is like that's where we have the most flexibility, and
then that gets reflected in the outer world. And and
and music is such a it's again, it's just such
an amazing vehicle for communicating what's really important and and
bringing joy.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
And that's that's the other really important thing. I'm just
what would a party be like without dance music?
Speaker 3 (53:47):
And what was your phrase from the beginning, joy of
pan joy Joy, pan joy exactly. So thank you Barbara
for sharing your wisdom and your music and your heart
art and your vision for our world today with us
here at Voice Rising for all you other beautiful souls
out there who are part of our Voice community. If
(54:10):
today's conversation inspired you and you want to explore more
the transformative power of your own voice, I invite you
to come visit me at School of Voice dot Berlin,
or check out Barbara Jay Hunt's work also, She's doing
beautiful work out there. And then share this episode with
friends and tune in again. And let's build a world
(54:31):
that is sound and that is in harmony and that
is connected to vibrational wellness.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Because we can flip it.
Speaker 3 (54:39):
We can, we can really flip flip the story, right, Barbara,
We can flip it.
Speaker 5 (54:45):
We can we can, and thank you as always for
wonderful conversation, car and brilliant questions, and also many blessings
to everybody who's listening.
Speaker 4 (54:53):
And you know what you do matters, So what you
do matters.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
Let the beauty you love. How's the roomy crow, Let
the beauty you do, be what you love.
Speaker 8 (55:03):
No, let the beauty you love be what you do.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
Everybody, stay good and keep on singing and writing songs, reading, journaling,
and speaking kind words to each other.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
A bye.
Speaker 11 (55:19):
That's a baddest time. Start be
Speaker 3 (55:33):
We have
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