Music is medicine for the spirit within us, there is healing in music. Before I went into sing for my folks at the assisted living facility, I prayed for the music and my voice to bring them healing. The residents choose the songs I would be performing, because I have no idea what kind of music to sing for a group of folks between the ages of 70-100. I am given a half an hour to sing and this set has eight song selections. I set up my equipment, get my usual pre song beverage, hot lemon water with honey. I present myself at the front of the dining room and about 20 residents, staff, and guests are in attendance. They are wide awake in their chairs, looking at me, blank expressions on many of their faces. The music starts and I begin my set. I look at each of them as I sing. I smile, I sway with the tempo of the song, I allow Spirit to control my voice. Three of the residents fall asleep while I sing. I have three singing along. I have quite a few with half smiles, and quite a few just blank expression. After each song I receive an applause. After the performance is over, I walk around and speak with each resident and thank them for being there and for their requests. I also ask them if there was any other songs they would like to hear for next month's performance. I pack up my equipment and go home. I reflect on the performance and Spirit makes known to me something which I never thought of before. The residents were receiving healing as I was singing. The three who fell asleep are in need of deep healing, something is going on within their body, and sleep is the fastest way to heal. The ones singing along are receiving healing through activly singing along. The half smile folks were in remembrance, the familiarity of the music took them to a happy place in their past. They were being healed through nostalgia. The empty expression folks were entranced, receiving healing while absorbing the fullness of the experience. I always feel better physically, mentally, and emotionally, during and after these performances. This is where I receive healing.

there are moments when this presence becomes stronger, and it’s difficult to put into words how much depth and intensity is behind it… it feels like a kind of longing, like an open fire… or maybe more like a glowing ember, because it reaches deeper in those moments, everything I do in the material world suddenly feels secondary, almost distant, and exactly then I feel His presence the clearest does anyone else know this feeling? and if so… how would you try to describe it?

Contrary to what many believe, the inner child has nothing to do with the past or age. It is simply a metaphor for the self before it was shrouded in veils of identities. It is merely a metaphor for our natural state of being, for our essence, which is still hidden beneath personality, conditioning, and trauma. For a self that does not see itself as separate, for a pure, unassimilated self that does not identify with illusions. As Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is within us, but we can only enter it as children. Or as Nietzsche said: “But tell me, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred ‘Yes.’ Yes, for the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred ‘Yes’ is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers his own world.” The inner child is you, the true you, without the illusions with which it confuses itself.