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copyright © 1999, by Karyn Greenstreet. All rights reserved.
KG: I have your book here in front of me. It is absolutely delightful! I love the illustrations that you used, and how you used them in conjunction with the meditation. I thought, "On printed page, how do you make a meditation come alive?" I had to tell you that I think you have done a stellar and stunning job with the whole context of the book and especially those meditations with the illustrations are just charming. I love it! NM: Thank you very much. When the instructions for putting The Beckoning Song of Your Soul together came through me, it was very clear that it was to be a visceral book, designed to effect the reader physiologically. For example, I used the landscape format, which is where the book is longer then it is tall. It effects the body the same way looking at a lovely landscape does. The chakras open up. KG: Absolutely. I picked up the book and I said, "Okay, I am going to look at it." I was in my office at my desk and within five minutes I knew I wanted to go lay on the couch and read this! NM: I love the book too! I continue to be surprised and delighted by how it effects me. I can be caught up in some struggle, but the minute I open the book I am drawn to stop everything, sit on the floor and enjoy life once again as a child. I know I am the author, but I feel the creation of this book was more of a stewardship. I just followed the instructions from spirit. There was a period of time when the book first started birthing itself that I had to battle with my ego's idea of how the book should look. It had a desire for more sophisticated artwork. But, as always, spirit won. And now I can see the wisdom of the whimsical, childlike drawings. They have the ability to pull me into a place of innocence and wonder, where I remembered how to look at the world with the soft eyes of a child. Over time, I began to see that every part of this book was designed to return people to that sweet place within themselves. Looking at the drawing themselves takes you on a journey. So do the stories, the text and the exercises. In this one book, there are many journeys and many ways to travel. KG: I found myself first looking at the drawings, almost like stepping stones, having them step me through the different pieces of the book. Then I started reading just the stories, because they were in a different typeface, I could grab them really quickly. I felt like I was reading the book intuitively, enjoying myself. NM: That is exactly what I want people to do. In fact, when I go to book signings, I always tell people to put my book in a place of honor … right by your toilet! I want you to live with it. I want you to use it. Don’t put it on a shelf. Put it either in between the two seats of the car or on the kitchen table where it is going to get jelly on it. So it can be used! And I wanted it to be small enough for a person to put it in their briefcase, or their bag or their backpack, so that they could carry it with them and just flip it open whenever they need to return to themselves. I wanted the book to be fun, delightful and accessible; so accessible that the whole concept of the paranormal was not intimidating. I wanted a book that my Aunt Tilly or my grandmother might read. They might not do the exercises, but through the drawings and the stories, that they would go back to "that" place. KG: Can you give us a little bit of your background and then what lead you to write this book? What was the jump? NM: I think I am going to have to go back about 22 years ago. At that time, I was an artist and a dancer living in San Francisco. I had a studio. I was very content with my life. I planned to grow old doing those two things. Then I began experiencing several paranormal events that literally changed the course of my life. The first one was a spontaneous opening. I was just walking down the street, deep in thought, choreographing something for class the next day. I was watching my feet, a habit I have always had, being deep in thought as I am walking. Then I had an impulse to look up and what I saw took my breath away. Suddenly I was not seeing other people’s clothes or their skin, I was seeing right into people’s bodies! I was also experiencing an awareness, or a knowingness, of what was out of sync with them at that moment, without even knowing them! It was a little bit strange, to say the least. The second event happened a few months after that. I started being awakened in the middle of the night with an experience that I can only describe as information being downloaded into my head. The information was about how to you use your breath and the sound of your voice to rebalance your body physically, emotionally, and energetically. KG: Were you doing meditations during this time? What would have lead you to become open to this? NM: When that very first event happened I began studying with a very prominent psychic. Somebody had referred me to her. She attributed a lot of it to the fact that I was in the dance studio so many hours a day. You can activate your intuition in many, many ways. I wasn't doing a traditional meditation practice at the time, but I was spending many hours everyday doing artwork and movement, which I consider forms of meditation. I believe these activities contributed a lot to the opening of my intuition. KG: You sounded surprised that it had happened. Obviously, it didn't sound like you were working on making this happen. When you were walking down the street and you were looking down at your feet and you had this flash, what was really happening for you? Maybe not consciously preparing to get these downloads of information, but were you just wondering around leading what you would consider leading a normal life and it just happened? How had, consciously or subconsciously, you prepared yourself for this to happen? NM: I think it happened because I was really open. I think that it happened because it was time. There were several pieces that started falling into place after the first two events occurred that made me see that it was my destiny. Then the third event happened, when I was standing on a street corner in San Francisco waiting for the bus to go down into the financial district. I was still teaching dance then, and I was going down for a lunch hour class. As I stood there waiting, my life began flashing before me. Frame by frame, I was re-experiencing moments from my past. Once again, I began questioning my sanity. Did I have the flu? Was it something I ate? As I let myself relax into the experience, I began to realize I was being given the chance to see how different my life would have been if I had known how to access and utilize my intuition throughout my childhood. It was at that moment, I made a conscious decision to devote my life to teaching the information that was being passed to me nightly. I wrote my first book The Beckoning Song of Your Soul, A Guidebook for Developing Your Intuition as part of meeting that commitment. KG: You began to teach classes? NM: I grew up in a conservative family where nothing like what I was experiencing would ever be considered a possible reality, so I wasn't telling anybody what was happening to me. I just started doing the exercises and recording any information I received in the wee hours of the night. Eventually I told a couple of friends and they began pestering me into teaching them the exercises, also. When they experienced similar results, the interest in this information traveled like wild fire. Before I knew it, I was being asked to teach classes. For the longest time, I really wanted my life to just go back to the way it was. I just wanted to be a dancer; I had an investment in being a famous artist. I did everything I could possibly do to sabotage the situation. People would ask me for a business card but I never bothered to make one up. KG: Did you have any kind of intuitive or psychic experiences when you were young, like a child, or a young teenager. Or did this sort of happen in your 20s or 30s? NM: Since I grew up in a family where this whole realm of experience was totally "poo-pooed", I just learned to push all intuitive or paranormal experiences aside and ignore them. But after my first opening, it became more and more difficult to block my inner voice. Memories and visions began to flood my life. I also began having the same recurring dream that I had throughout my childhood and had never understood. In the dream, I would open my mouth and out would come these sounds that would put me in a state of ecstasy. As I said before, I didn't know what this dream was about until I began receiving this information and doing the exercises. KG: That leads me to the exercises in your book which seem to be very much geared towards connecting to your spirit and how people can become disconnected. One of the means that you use is this idea of "toning." Can you explain that a little bit? NM: Your voice is the sound reflection of your soul. It can make you aware of the condition of your soul through the quality of its sound. These exercises help you learn to use your voice in a manner that reawakens your soul and strengthens your intuition. I believe everyone has a beautiful voice because everyone one has a beautiful soul. Indigenous tribes believe that you are not whole until you can sing your soul song. Toning teaches you how to sing your song and to sing it loud. KG: In your book, you talk about when someone's persona or outward appearance and their voice don't match and you say they are "disconnected." How does that happen? Is that a purposeful thing? What does that mean and what can you do about it? NM: I feel there is a moment in many children's lives where they realize their parents are unable to embrace who they really are. This realization is very painful to their soul. In order to survive, and numb that pain, they need to "split" their body from their soul. One way this is done is by changing the sound of the voice (physical form follows sound, so by changing the sound generated by the voice, you force the body to vibrate at a frequency different then the soul's). When there is a separation of the body and the soul, the body will naturally entrain with the vibration of the family. The problem with this alignment is it becomes extremely difficult to access your soul and its wisdom. Instead, you are forced to draw from the behavior responses you learned from your parents during your early childhood, and even in the womb. When you tone, you help your body and soul release that pain and confusion and then you can return back to your true voice. This is where the soul song is sung from. How can you tell if you are "split"? Very simply, if you have lost your hope or direction, if you have lost your ability to love or be loved, or if you are feeling generally overwhelmed, then I feel you have lost connection with your soul. This is where I find toning very helpful. The minute you get your voice vibrating correctly, it re-balances your whole system and you usually get instant clarity and an inner calm. You literally rebalance yourself and draw, once again, from your soul energy, because that is the way we are designed to be. If you are out of balance and you are stressed, then you are going to draw from the imprint of your family upbringing. KG: Right, you will revert back to that. NM: You will revert back to that automatically. It is kind of a default backup system. And since we live in very stressful times, it is very easy for those old splits to be re-triggered. The wonderful thing about toning is you can do it anywhere or anytime, even in a store or in the middle of a conversation, and it enables you to be more open, clear and in touch with your inner voice. KG: You mentioned connecting with your soul. You also mentioned making outer connections with community as well. Why are these inner and outer connections so crucial? As an example, you talk about getting in touch with your spirit and the different ways you can do that and knowing your true voice. The question is why are making these connections so crucial? Why can't we just live the way we live? NM: I believe that, as souls or as spirits, we have come here to share who we are and all the knowledge and wisdom that we have ever acquire to make this a better place. If you aren't connected to your soul, then it is very difficult to implement or manifest what you came here to do. Imagine that every single person on the earth played an instrument and we all played in the same orchestra. If you play the notes that you are designated to play, the music on the earth is going to be absolutely exquisite, healing and very transformative for everyone. KG: It creates a harmony. NM: Yes! It makes a harmony. And harmony begets more harmony! KG: The question is, why would someone want to get in touch with their intuition to develop it and how do things like toning and art play a role in that? (Those are really two questions.) NM: Developing your intuition is a way to be more efficient with your energy. It helps keep you on track and in touch with what is important. In stressful times, it is very easy to forget that life is to be enjoyed, to be savored. If you are not in touch with your intuition, or it is underdeveloped, it becomes more difficult to make the right choices for yourself. Different situations and personal preferences call for different techniques to assist in the reconnection of your body and soul. The techniques I teach are taught in a progression. It starts out with the breath. If you are breathing fully, your whole system opens up and your intuition is activated. When you add sound, you increase the vibration, which encourages the intuition to blossom further and faster. Sound can be like a vitamin, helping your body adjust to stressful situations. It can also be like a salve, assisting the whole system to heal from past traumas. From the toning, you move into singing your soul song. You may notice that your body moves differently when you are singing your song. I approach movement by building an awareness of the patterns and movements my body makes as it is moved by my soul song. Once you have an awareness of those movements, you will also be able to render them on paper, forming your own personal mandala. Why are these observations important? Over time, you will have compiled an awareness of sounds, subtle movements and images that can instantly transport you back to your soul and its voice, your intuition, in any situation. KG: These are sort of holistic approaches, whether it is physically drawing a mandala, making sounds, paying attention to how you are moving your body, or paying attention to how you are breathing, it is a very holistic approach to remembering that and getting back to that. NM: I agree. I think it is also a way of staying whole. The wonderful part for me is you can be in the middle of a conversation and suddenly realize something feels wrong. If you, at that split second, can do one of these things: either pop that visualization into your mind, or move your hands or make sure your breath is getting all the way down into your lower belly, you will automatically reconnect with your essence. KG: Sort of like a touchstone? NM: It is as easy as that. When your body and soul are connected, others can see and experience who you really are. This can change the way others relate and respond to you. KG: When you began to do these techniques, did you find they actually helped you with your art or your dancing? NM: It helped me stopped struggling with myself, and consequently my ability to express myself took a quantum leap. I also gained a deep, primordial understanding of what I was doing and how it was being accomplished. I had experienced the life force energy before, but it was intermittent. After I began the exercises, I could stay suspended in it for quite a long time. KG: If a person were just getting started, where would they get started? It seems like there are many different exercises that you could do. What would be something that someone who is really new to this would start with? NM: I would suggest they start with their breath. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. As you inhale, follow your breath all the way down into your lower belly and feel it fill up like a balloon. To exhale, squeeze your abdominal muscles. Follow your breath out of your mouth. Your chest should not be moving. I recommend placing one hand on your lower belly and one hand on your chest when you first do this exercise. This way you can be sure that your lower belly is working right and that your chest is not moving. If anytime you were stressed, you took the time to do five deep breaths like this; you could shift your body back in alignment with your soul. The other things that I recommend are humming, singing, dancing and doodling, because they all have the ability of shifting you from the left hemisphere of the brain to the right, which is where your intuition lives. KG: On that same line of the work that you do, what are you doing now? Are you still teaching? NM: I am teaching a lot. I am also writing three more books, simultaneously. KG: On what topics? NM: The three topics are: learning to embrace the gifts received from your family; balancing your inner male and female energy; and designing a "power deck" based on your soul song. KG: We are coming up to the end of the hour, but how can people get in touch with you? NM: People can get in touch with me through my web site which is http://www.jps.net/innereye or they can contact me at P.O. Box 559 Mt. Shasta, CA 96067 KG: On your web site, will they find out about classes and readings as well? NM: On the web site, they will find out more about readings, classes and my book. I am trying to keep my calendar current with my upcoming lectures and workshops. KG: That's great. Do you have any last impressions that you want to leave people with? NM: I do. I want people to remember that there is a great goodness that lies deep within them. They only need to wipe away all the stress and external pressure and "shoulds". They will then be able to find and experience that beautiful bud that they are. That is what I hope people will gain from either viewing my web site, reading my book or this interview. If you are able to find that bud, then your soul can blossom into an active and contributing member to the universe and we will all benefit. KG: I want to thank you for the information. I love your work! |
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