Help Sally Make Music and Magic in Sedona

Hi! I’m Sally. I’m a yoga teacher and sound healer in the Cleveland area.

Long Story Short: I have been hand selected as one of only 8 participants to journey to breathtaking Sedona, AZ to make music under the tutelage of two phenomenal humans named Srikala and J Brave. Both are musicians, producers, mentors, teachers, and spiritual leaders. They have each played a pivotal role in my own growth over the past 2 years and I am ecstatic for this unique opportunity to work with them. We will commune in the desert for 4 days together and I will return home with 3 musical demo tracks to share with all of you.

The retreat is in less than a month and I could use your support to help me get there. Your generous donations will help pay for tuition, room and board, air fare, car rental, and other travel expenses. Your gift to me will come back to you in the form of the songs I create and the experience I gain to help me create more and better content for my yoga, music, and sound healing projects in the future.

Long Story Long: If you knew me as a kid, you probably remember me as the girl who was always carrying around a cello. Maybe you sang with me in the choir. Music was my lifeblood but once I left school I put my own music making aside to pursue other things. It was the wrong choice.

Fast forward a few decades: In 2014 my life came to a crashing halt. I was an overworked mother of two young kids and my health was starting to fail. Chronic pain, debilitating fatigue, and an insurmountable brain fog began to take over every moment of my day. Many medical tests later and the doctors confirmed the nightmare of all nightmare diagnoses: Fibromyalgia. It’s the one where you get ridiculed and told that it’s all in your head. There’s no cure, and no effective treatment. Millions of people struggle everyday with the mystery of this chronic condition, suffering the loss of basic functioning only to be stigmatized, dismissed and ignored.

When the doctors told me the news, the word “Fibromyalgia” hit me like a freight train. I had been given the same diagnosis years before when I was 17. The pain in my hands, neck and shoulders had been the reason I stopped playing the cello; it was like losing my best friend. That was 1994 and the stigma of the diagnosis, along with the fact that there were no good treatment options, made me toss the word Fibromyalgia out of my vocabulary altogether; I would not be associated with such an embarrassment. To have this label placed upon me again was utterly deflating. I was up against a formidable enemy and backed up against a brick wall.

In September of 2015 my mother passed away from lung cancer. Eighteen months later my father suffered a massive stroke and did not survive. During the time of this unfathomable double blow, my low back gave out. I was forced to stop practicing yoga due to the pain of the injury. I continued to teach classes but my own personal practice–my emotional anchor, my medicine, my therapy–was no longer available. The Fibromyalgia symptoms only got worse, and I spent the better part of two years mostly bedridden, crawling out of bed only to teach a yoga class, to pick up my kids from school, and to do the most basic things to barely stay alive. The whole time, I told almost no one what was really going on because the grief and shame of my situation were too great.

Without my physical practice to help me cope, I knew I had to redefine what yoga looked like in my daily life. I began to explore chanting and mantra, a traditional part of the practice that I had previously avoided. Something powerful was awakened in me; chanting became the spark that lit up the darkness. My heart began to open; my voice cleared. Quite suddenly and unexpectedly, I had a whole new singing voice. It was often raw but it felt powerful. It was loud. I began to trust it. All of those years in my youth when I made music, I was always encouraged to play the cello but when it came to singing, the response from others was usually “meh”. I never imagined that I would feel compelled to sing in front of other people, but as I began to play around with my new voice I gained confidence. I toyed with being really brave, and when I sang for other people they told me they liked it. This new voice became a gift born out of so much pain, and I began to hear a whisper in my ear, like I suddenly had a direct line to a conversation with a divine source. The whisper said “Sally, I am giving you this voice now so that you can share it with the world. It’s very important that you understand this piece. Your voice is no longer for singing to yourself in the shower or in your car. This is for everyone.”

In the years since I first felt this vocal awakening, I have very humbly and patiently begun to nurture more facets of musical exploration. I have gone back to the beginning in so many ways. I started with a simple drum. My boss Tammy Lyons asked me to bring the drum to a yoga event at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and sing as the grand finale to the event. It was the first time I sang in public outside of my own yoga classes, and the crowd was about 2,000 people. After that feat of courage I knew I could continue to walk this musical yoga path. (Thank you, Tammy, for believing in me!) I spent Covid lockdown learning guitar and diving deep into the mythology of India that informs the traditional yoga chants. I became a Certified Sound Healing Practitioner, bought a bunch of magical healing instruments, and began hosting sound baths at my yoga studio. Finally, last fall, I found the courage to begin to heal the cello-sized hole in my heart. I got my old instrument a tune up and signed up for lessons.

SInce the total health breakdown of 2014 I have been on a very slow path to healing. There have been countless ups and downs along the way and many times I almost gave up all hope that I would ever feel better. But the human spirit prevails, and every day I find a way to keep moving in the right direction. Through all the grief, the music has been the source of joy that turns me back toward the Light. The music, and the community of amazing people I am so blessed to share this journey with. Keeping the faith can be an arduous task, but fortunately I am surrounded by people who love me and believe in me: my family, friends, colleagues and students have kept me inspired and caught me when I’ve stumbled. I know that YOU–the people who love and believe in me–you really want to see me step into my own light, you want to see me rise above the despair of the chronic pain and fatigue that lingers despite so much progress. You have all given me so much love and patience over the years, and I really want to give something back to you.

The opportunity I have right now to work with these two amazing musicians who are also my teachers is a once in a lifetime moment. I am over the moon with joy and gratitude that I have been accepted into their circle for this retreat in Sedona. I am going to return with 3 songs created in the breathtaking desert landscape in the company of 7 other brave souls awakening their own creative power. The retreat will be a wonderful healing gift for me personally, but the songs will be for you. They will be the fulfillment of the promise I made to that divine whisper, years ago, that I would use my voice to love and serve all of Creation.

Please help me make this dream come true.