musical career currently she travels worldwide to share her unique lens of a original boken speired melodies and sacred indian devotional chance personally i'm so excited that she's here to join us and i just know you're going to want her to back and enjoy positive energy start right  i'm here with brenda mcmorrow all the way from canada i welcome the positive energy brenda thank you michelle so good to be here i'm just glad that you're here you're so excited i've been following you and it's so nice to meet you in person thank you thank you and i've been watching your episodes and it's so nice to meet you in person this is this is a treat it's mutual so you perform devotional music and care time and both are very ancient spiritual practices they're not just musical performances they're spiritual practices so explain a little bit maybe for a first timer hearing what is cure time what is devotional music and how did you come to the bhakti path yeah  be the practice of cure time originated in india although this kind of singing together that we do really takes place in every culture of the world and every tradition really there's always a tradition of singing together that has happened in different cultures different spiritual practices this particular one utilizes montra sanskrit mantras which are ancient like sound formulas vibrational sounds that originated in india but are now being used and experienced by people all over the world and it really is a practice of singing together so singing back and forth call and response people can also chant on their own however when we do our our concerts their culture tons it becomes extremely participatory so there's some of sometimes i'm singing on my own to the audience but mostly where we're singing back and forth and then all together it's quite amazing to have that you know it's like a conversation and dialogue and interaction totally yeah and i mean you asked how i came to it and it was i mean i could say it was by mistake are it was a mistake it was a it was unexpected a friend had knew that i had just started yoga this was back in the early two thousand and she said you know there's this workshop and it's music and it's kind of yoga music and i thought well i'm sure let's go because i was a musician for many years and i went i thought wow were chanting in sanskrit i have no idea what this is and i was a little at first i was like i don't know and by the second song i had just this this knowing beyond my mind that that's what i was going to be doing and right after i i knew this my my mind came in and said but you don't know anything about it how could you do this and but this deep knowing in my heart just said it doesn't matter this is this is this is the thing to do so i went on an exploration of learning and writing melodies for chance and then started to tour sharing it because it just felt so so true for me and so wonderful like you know like everything was leading up to that you have a sign you got it and sync with something that you were just meant to do yeah it definitely you have discovered that and wonderful for all the people who get to participate in that so i know that it's very powerful practice it really brings you into a state into a oneness what are some of the benefits and is it for everyone well i believe that anyone who feels drawn to it or curious about it i always say give it a try and see see if it's for you there's there seems to be an almost an pull that people feel sometimes people come to a cure time and or a workshop and say i'm not sure why i'm here you know it's something you should do something that pulled me and that's great i say follow that you know if you just feel like this is interesting our minds might say well this is kind of different and strange and anything that was really nervous but if your heart is pulling you give it a try and see if it's if it's for you and i think the benefits are vast so i'll the time and so when we chant the mind kind of gets occupied with the month and then this space starts to open up and there's just the sense of coming home that happens and and then there's physical benefits  you know the respirations slows down there's just a sense of well being that happens that continues afterwards as well there's there's many things and then there's the sense of community it's like we feel we start it's like the walls of separation start coming down when we're chanting in a group people often say that i felt like wow this connection that i've not felt before and that's really our true state is is that we are connected with everything and a practice like your time can help to to loosen up the thoughts that keep us separate you know and we just start to really feel it now so can you compare or contrast that to meditation in general and do people tend to kind of lump it in with that i mean it is meditative of course but it's much more than that as well right well i've i've heard cure a ton of being described as ecstatic meditation and for me it has the same effect as  meditation because when we are we're we're meditating say focusing on the breath and allowing ourselves to to really deep into that it's a similar result when we're focusing on the  putting our attention there it's this this deepening that happens is very similar and the sense of well being and peace for me personally whether i'm meditating quietly or chanting is very similar yeah there's nothing else like it in terms of relatively fast direct experience of your energy nature and your true nature and it definitely does change your mind i mean it literally changes your brain waves of course yes but it shifts you into such a different state that i feel that too it's hard to describe you have to feel it to describe it puts it into the intellect that's right yeah i mean i experience yeah to know what it is we're talking about and did you can describe the feeling but still it doesn't come close to the is i can't even imagine can you share a little bit about what it's like to be on the road sharing here talking with diverse groups and cultures in places around the world you know what what stands out for you about that well it's  like you said i mean it's just it is such a blessing it's such a i feel honored and very lucky very blessed all the time and it's so traveling all over the world one of the things that  p to mind when you're asking about that is that i even though it's diverse cultures and different people that i meet with and same with the fascinating thing is the commonality like the shared  experience it doesn't it doesn't seem to vary like we can we were in south korea a few years ago singing in seoul and then and then in india and then in spain for example these three that when we were in the experience of opening our hearts together we're all labels we're all watching family you know there's not a difference culturally you know it i mean sure there is like different cultures bring different special aspects to the experience but it's just that everybody gets into their heart and it gets beyond the skin beyond the body you're connecting with your soul journalese and the interest and the openness everywhere we go is it's always so refreshing and so  beautiful for me to experience just to see it would go to a little tiny town in the midwest us where maybe people have never heard of it and just their willingness to try it and then the shared experience it's just so beautiful  and yeah so so just being able to to share it all around the world is one of the greatest blessings of my life and i'm so grab the so grateful just to see people's faces see how it changes them and opens their opens their heart and so yes what would be your hope talking about that going forward into the future with cure time what would you love to see because it really has the power to transform does well and what i do hope to see or what i do see happening is that as people come together to chant in a  group and share this with each other and deep into their own hearts that actually more of who they really are more of their the truth of their being is is uncovered and so that they take that into their lives and then in for between four walls it did the experience doesn't stop there it has this effect that continues because of people being more in their in their true being it really affects the rest of the world and i think that's how the world changes  through these it has to be that way yeah so it's a ripple effect yes yes so that's i mean i think that's the main thing that i see that's the bigger vision of this in terms of how it shifts people on a fundamental the humana human level yeah yeah so finally i want to ask you you also teach workshops and you do retreats and you've had some of your own deep spiritual unfoldings through this practice i know that your retreats include self inquiry and meditation as well as chanting so love to have you share maybe your main message from those from those gatherings give people a taste of fashion or yes well something cory was something i had come in come to even before care time and this is the the process of asking the question who am i a sensually it's sort of like a coal and you know the japanese koans where like if a tree falls in the forest does anyone hear it there's not really a direct answer to it but what it does is it allows for a deeper inquiry to happen so for who who am i it's like we rest back into the source of where we we come from sort of an unanswerable question because who we are doesn't really have words you know but it's a felt sense to to maybe put it simply it's more than that but so itself inquiry combined with the bhakti with the devotion aspect of chanting for me is a great combination and so i i often encourage people to retreat as were chanting is to to feel into the source of where this is all coming from rest back into who we really are like and to notice and to to to feel into that so there's i mean there's so much more i could say like if we had more time that people respond to that i can that yeah i mean it's wonderful we do exercises as well where we're we're we're working across from somebody else asking questions and listening and and delving and and then combining it with the bhakti it's just it's all very heart opening and has a great a great result because people i think we all really want to rest into that knowing of who we are but we're not quite sure how to do it right because society is just keeping us so busy all the time and in our minds so we live so long it is so much in our heads yes without even recognizing that so and they just read like a gentle invitation into our hearts yeah yeah exactly without pressure and it's nice people can take it at their own own pace too bea l it's really a beautiful practice yes and it's just wonderful but you're not alone on this journey as well that there really is a movement around this terms of bringing something so pure and some and something so engine back right and having it be relevant to now because it's really it's a tool to come into a knowing of our true nature you know it's a beautiful tool that we that we have so much reverence for and it's helped helps us very much and just like resting back into that place so you're going to be shot you're sharing some chance and songs on this show so thank you for that anything you like to say about those well i think what i'll do today is are two songs from my album my heart bounce down to you which is my latest album and the one is called my heart bows down to you and it's really about the gratitude of of really connecting with the beingness that we are and that that gratitude that can come up in that i open my arms to love is a poem by rumi that i set to music and it's really a fun one about the the body and the soul and how they both are they both are so relevant to this whole experience that we're having thank you so much thank you thank you for sharing think you think on your brand thank you my han my