Sense of Soul - Mystery Sean Johnson and The Wild Lotus Band

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

Today is a very special episode for Sense of Soul Podcast, we had the honor of having join us the very talented Seán Johnson, singer, storyteller, and teacher of spirituality and yoga. He is the founder of Wild Lotus Yoga, Soul School Teacher Training Program, Co-Curator & Coordinator, Putumayo Music For Yoga Series and the lead singer of The Wild Lotus Band, located in New Orleans Louisiana.  We are so very honored and super excited to share that this episode is the World Premiere of their amazing song “Dark Night” from their new album MYSTERY coming out Friday October 29th!  Seán shares a few amazing songs with us along with his AMAZING journey of how he came to be Seán Johnson & The Wild Lotus Band, one of our favorite bands of all time.  Wild Lotus’ own Sean Johnson & The Wild Lotus Band , Alvin Young & Gwendolyn Colman have spent the last 16 years making music, touring, and recording together. Their music merges ancient mantras, rock, funk, gospel, and world grooves. From their beginnings as a post-Katrina philanthropic music project raising funds through benefit concerts across the country- the band has gone on to become one of the leading voices in the burgeoning mantra music genre. They are favorite headliners at yoga and music festivals nationwide, their music has appeared on several Putumayo World Music compilations, and they are the first kirtan band to ever play The New Orleans Jazz Festival. The band’s album Unity debuted #1 on the iTunes World Music Chart and #3 on Billboard. Their new album Mystery will surely be nothing less, hop on their website right now, your Soul will be so happy you did!! Seán Johnson & The Wild Lotus Band, Wild Lotus Yoga & Soul School IG:@seanwildlotusband FB:SeanJohnsonAndTheWildLotusBand Please Subscribe, Rate and Review!  Learn more about Sense of Soul at www.mysenseofsoul.com. You can now listen to all of Shanna’s mini-series about her ancestral journey “Untangled Roots,” exclusively on Sense of Soul Patreon, which Seán Johnson & The Wild Lotus Band’s beautiful song “I Will Rise Again” is included in the last episode. https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart and soul. It's time to awaken. So today we have this Sean Johnson. He is a singer, storyteller and teacher of spirituality and yoga. He is the founder of Wild Lotus Yoga, the sole school teacher training program and the Wild Lotus Band in New Orleans, known for its mix of mantras, rock, funk and world music. And I'm super excited that we have hooked up with him because he just is one of my favorite artists. So I'm so happy to have him on. Thank you, Sean. Thank you so much, Shanna. Thank you, Mandy. So grateful to be here with y'all. Yes.

And shout out to Christy Christensen for hooking this meeting up. I was really, truly just going to, you know, make a suggestion that she listened to this amazing band that I love. And she's like, yeah, like I know him. Thank you, Christy. Love you. Yeah, she's awesome. I love her energy too. She's just super high vibe. She seems like she'd be really fun to hang out with. Oh, yeah. Full of life. Full of life. Shakti.

Lots of Shakti for sure. I love that. She owns it. So great to meet you. You too. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm so grateful. I listened to some episodes and love what y'all are doing and super grateful to be a part of it. Pulling you apart, no Listen up, listen Listen to your heart Listen up, listen to your heart That's all the voices that are pulling you, pulling you Listen up, listen Listen to your heart Well the river dried up but it flows inside you Love disappeared but it's hiding right behind you.

Listen, listen, listen to your heart. What feels so far away is so close you can't see it. Gotta close your eyes and trust to believe it. Listen, listen, listen to your heart. Well, it's been a windy road, I forget this often. Wanna be reminded, wanna make this offering. Listen up, listen, listen to your heart. Well, I've reached for the truth and I've searched for the guru.

Gonna tell you straight, she's hiding right inside you listen listen listen to your heart oh listen up listen to your heart god that's so beautiful the guru is inside you like that message is so strong it's one that Mandy and I really believe in let's talk about New Orleans real quick being Being from New Orleans. Yeah, yeah. Born and raised. I suppose it's a big part of, you know, who I am and the music and, you know, a lot of what I do. I love New Orleans because it's such a distinct culture, you know, unto itself, you know, which I find sometimes America can get a little, you know, homogenized. And I just feel blessed, lucky, you know, which I find sometimes America can get a little, you know, homogenized. And I just feel blessed, lucky, you know, that I got to be born here in a place that has a kind of indigenous

culture, you know, unto itself. So we have our own holidays and our own cuisine. And there's a lot of even language, you know, that doesn't necessarily translate to other places and rituals definitely you know a distinct kind of history from the rest of the country and architecture and the whole vibe you know of the city yeah polar opposite to colorado yeah i know totally different i mean i always think i'm like we went from being under sea level to being a mile high over sea level you know they don't have snowballs here. The only time they have is in the winter. When I first came here,

they didn't know what gumbo was or anything. It was awful. Now everybody's got a gumbo. She came to my house one night and made me gumbo. I was like, I'm making rue. And I'm like, what is that, like rhubarb? It took her a very long time. You put a lot of love in that.

You know, that's exactly what makes a rue is the love that goes into it. Yeah, you're right. You know, and nobody has momos here either. No momos, huh? You don't go by your mama's house on Sunday? Nope. You know, my parents met on the presidentship. Wow. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. So I always say I

owed my life to the muddy Mississippi, but they definitely were all about music as well. But the soul that comes out in your music, I think is what must have caught me. Like when I say soul, yes, your soul, your soul soul but also i think it is that soul that new orleans soul i mean it grabbed me the first time i heard you and as soon as i found out you're from new orleans it all made sense i was like okay this is it that's why thank you shanna i mean it's cool that your show is called Sense of Soul. And my teacher training program is called Soul School.

One of the reasons why I named it that was because it lives in New Orleans. And New Orleans is such a soulful place. I've often thought about what's the difference between soulful and spiritual. And, you know, just kind of fun to to reflect you know upon that and for me it has something to do with the earthiness a groundedness that the land the water there's a sense of flavor and it was interesting we were talking earlier about you guys living in Colorado and when I go to places that are higher altitude mountains or even like the San Francisco Bay Area, where it seems like this kind of palatial, literally high, you know, it's a sense of like maybe spirit, but not perhaps necessarily like this, that same kind of a sense of being of the ground and the water. I know that sometimes you have guests that talk about the chakras. For example, Christy's new book about the chakras.

Years ago, I had a conversation with a friend who compared the spine, the human spine, to the Mississippi River. Just thinking about locations along that line being like chakra points. Guess where New Orleans would be? Down low. points you know well guess where New Orleans would be down low you know we live in a culture that I feel like we're conditioned to think of higher as sometimes being better you know often teach this as well that that's not the case they're just different places to dwell and to go down to go deeper you know has a power you know primal primordial power to it as well and i feel like so

new orleans as say like a first or second chakra place you know has a primordial like primal incredible potent power to it and oh my god you're speaking to my it's funny because we have a lot of people come say from california to do like our bhakti immersion me and my band do this this event and i just always trip out that people are coming to new orleans to go on a from california to go on a spiritual retreat i love that you know and it's like because it's giving them something different you know so different and again it's not about better or worse or higher or lower i don't want to get caught in that duality. But yeah, New Orleans, it's potent.

There's no place like New Orleans. I used to cry when I got there because I knew I would leave. I still do. My soul belongs there. I know this. And I know this is because I have deep, deep, deep roots there. You know, doing my ancestry explains so much. I mean, I even have freaking Marie LeBeau in my tree. Wow. Yeah. I did my DNA test. It was a shocker.

So much changed after that DNA test, especially how I looked at the world. But the one thing that didn't change was my love for New Orleans. And you described it like I've never heard and I think it's the feelings inside of me that you just put into words which I think you do so well in your music I don't know what the hell these mantras are saying I can barely say the words but yet you sing them so beautifully your band is freaking amazing But then you also tell a story. And that is a way for me anyways, to then learn more and connect more with the mantra. One of my intentions, you know, in creating mantra based music is to try to not just like throw a sanskrit mantra into any random melody you know or rhythm but to really try to tap into the archetype of the mantra and what it represents for our humanity which transcends

culture language belief systems systems you know it's, there's a metaphor that I often think about, Meister Eckhart, who's a great Christian mystic from Germany, he said, God is like a great underground river. And there are many wells that can take us to that river. And the thing that I am most interested in passionate about is the underground river, and not getting too caught up in the wells. You know, I want to go below the things that oftentimes can separate us, you know, and cause a lot of suffering and dogma. And I'm the child of, my mom was a nun. My father was a Jesuit, starting to be a Jesuit priest in the seminary. And I have, you know, tons of aunts and uncles who are all ex priests and nuns and, you know, friars and deacons. And, and, wow. So, you know, I feel like part of

my kind of family karma is in a way to overcome dogma, because so many of them experience dogma, hypocrisy, for tyranny of hierarchy and the suffering and the pain and the trauma and the damage that can come from experiencing that. My parents basically left the Catholic Church and raised us to be very sensitive to dogma, to have big antennas, you know, in a sense for that. And so I try to remember that, you know, in the music that I create in the teaching that I

do. And I'm not one to be someone who says that I have the answer, or to teach from a system that says this is the system. I really try to create space for people to be empowered in their own voice, you know, in their own sensitivity to what's meaningful, you know, for them. So I seek to do that, you know, in my band, we seek to do that through our music. And one of the ways is really the archetypes, the deeper kind of symbolism of what these mantras represent. I think that can take us to the underground river. So there's a mantra, there's the obviously the literal translation of that, then there's the symbolism of it, and then how does the music create the feeling of that and help to take side with mantras to try to make them even more accessible, particularly for people, as you said, who are not maybe practicing yoga or familiar with these, you know, beautiful, powerful Sanskrit sounds. thing is I've always been interested in honoring the practice of chant in lots of different traditions. Our last album, Unity, actually had chants from different cultures and traditions. And so it's about trying to find a universal way to connect to spirit that's not necessarily

attached to a particular system or particular dogma. That is amazing. So is that what really inspired you then for this new album, Mystery? Mystery came from a conversation I had with my bandmate Alvin Young. He and I love to just have conversations about different things, but this one kind of traced to spirituality. He was talking about he was hanging out with some friends who were hardcore atheists, and he respects them a lot, and they're very intelligent, and they were having a really deep conversation about God or the divine or spirit or whatever you want to call it, and his friends were adamant that doesn't exist. for me to believe that someone wouldn't actually believe in at least mystery, at least the sense of not knowing, but that there's some sort of a force and it doesn't matter what it looks like, if it's someone with a long beard or if it's you know whatever, that there's a mystery, there's a mysterious force that can help to guide us, that we can tap into or that that even exists beyond us and transcends us and so we had a great conversation and as he said

that just this kind of spark went off I was like and I'd love to create an album honoring mystery in a sense it's like gospel music like honors honors Jesus, you know, different devotional music from different traditions, honors like that particular expression of God or the divine, which is so beautiful and so cathartic. I'd like to make an album that just honors what we don't know and celebrates that, you know, in a devotional way. Of that honor what we don't know. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

That's huge. So I just want to dig in a little bit more. I'm like, I knew your story was going to be good. I was telling Shannon, I can't wait to hear his story. So when you told me about your childhood and how you were raised and what your parents did, I was like, there it is. There's that story. You know, because Shanna and I talk a lot about how a lot of times pain turns into purpose. We also talk a

lot about how sometimes we have to do a lot of like inner child work to find it. You talked about the dogma. How did this shape your music? And were you like the black sheep then of the family or were you embraced for it? Sure. Thanks, Mandy. You know, we were raised really non-religious. My parents had had such a painful experience inside of the confines, you know, of the church that they turned their backs on it. Took them a little while. I'll tell you a funny story. My mom, they actually had their wedding in the chapel of the convent where she was a nun, and they had their reception downstairs in the ground floor. There's a ceremony when you go in to be initiated as a nun where you actually marry Jesus.

That's a wedding ceremony with Jesus, and they cut your hair. The joke in the family is that she married Jesus upstairs in the convent, and she married my dad downstairs. We actually have like home movies of both of those ceremonies, you know, and I never got around to it, but I was going to make a documentary and have them like juxtaposed, you know, the two ceremonies. So my parents really, in a way, I feel like raised us in rebellion, you know, in a sense, and also in their own healing. I also don't want to say that Catholicism is bad or that Christianity is bad. That's not what I'm

saying at all. But for them, for their personal experiences, they had, you know, just experienced a lot of dogma. And so they raised us without it. And that created a kind of an openness, I feel a sense of maybe healthy skepticism at times, I would say, definitely a hint, particularly from my father's cynicism a little bit, which I think can be at times healthy, you know, as well. Your blessing of that. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I think so. So when I started to go more down the spiritual mantra in the family. And my parents are incredible. They always supported me and my brother's passions, you know, and they did not expect us to take a certain path.

They were listening to us, and they wanted to give whatever they could to support us in following that. So when I started going more into spirituality and its different forms, I think they were perhaps a little maybe scared for me at times, but also totally supportive. And they come to every single concert. They know where I'm coming from. And I've shared with them that, like you said, they're a part of it. The reason I'm doing it is because very much because of, you know, the blessing of their story and what they've passed on. But Catholicism in Louisiana is no joke.

You know what my mom told me when I was down there just a few weeks ago? She was showing me some old pictures, and her and her sister were showing me. We were saying goodbye to our brother who was going to be a priest. I said, wait, what? Who was going to be a priest? And she was like, well, back then, if you had a big family, it was kind of known that one of you would be a nun, one of you would be the priest. They looked at me like, yeah, that was like a thing. It was huge. You know, and my grandparents, I think were very well respected because so many of their kids ended up going to the convent or seminary or monastery. And that mattered. It mattered a lot. Yeah, it was really, really significant, you know, at that time. Sean, you said something that I just love.

Healthy skepticism. Those two words together are really cool because I know when I was a skeptic about certain religions and when I was searching, I had guilt for being a skeptic. I don't know where that came from, conditioned maybe, but I love that you put those two words together. Yeah, I think they can go together. I feel like sometimes when we don't have a little bit of that filter, we can be untethered, you know, in a sense and ungrounded. it can create that sense of not maybe not being anchored and so i think skepticism can be a force that can anchor us and help us to filter whatever experience we're having whether it's a teacher or a person or a teaching or you know where someone's coming from i think it's good it's a good tool to have but again if it gets if it's too much and it becomes sort of toxic

cynicism it can shut everything down and close off our hearts you know and our souls so I think there's like anything in moderation it can be really useful. Well keeping that curiosity which I heard in one of your songs that I was listening to in your new album that's coming out. Truly just absolutely amazing. And so many different things I was feeling like, you know, in the beginning of Turn the Wall Into a Door. I mean, the beginning is so New Orleans. I'm like, oh, yes.

But then, you know, you had other songs that literally put me in tears because they were so beautiful and you have a gorgeous voice. Your band is incredible can you talk about your band sure um well it kind of goes back to what mandy was talking about with um i think you said finding purpose through pain and i know that that's something that you know many of us in a way have had like an initiation like through some sort of pain or suffering that actually has opened us to a new possibility and that's actually a theme you know in the album which is how grace you know and blessing gifts live sometimes inside experiences that you know we would never think we would receive that you know. So the band was formed.

Our birthday is Hurricane Katrina. So when Katrina came to New Orleans, I evacuated with my family. We left for Austin, Texas. We stayed in a Motel 6 there and watched CNN, watched the city. At first, there was a sense of relief because it was like the storm shifted a little bit, and we thought we were spared. And then, you know, a few hours later, we realized that all the levees had failed because of the failure of the design of them, and the city was slowly filling up with water. So 80% of the city flooded. And many people

perhaps remember or have seen images of, you know of the state of the city at that point. So many people died and displaced. So it was really horrible to watch. I remember even driving out of the city and just having this horrible feeling in my gut and just bawling, just thinking it's never going to be the same again. So we were in Austin and I've sent my first text message you know in a motel you know after that and you know on the old flip phone and because all the cell phone towers were down and anyway daily we go to this bookstore where they had

wi-fi and I had a laptop and I would go check my email and I started getting email messages from yoga communities all around the country who I'd never met before. They were just asking what they could do, how they could help. And something that I had always wanted to do was to tour with a band and go around. And I'd been doing some workshops here and there around the country, but this was a kind of a dream. And so I came up with the idea to do a bunch of benefit concerts, you know, and see if we could raise some funds for some causes related to recovery from the storm. And so I responded to the emails and said, well, would y'all be interested in having us come, you know, and play some music and we can raise some

money to support, you know, what's happening in New Orleans? So many of them said yes. And that was the seed of the band. I've been playing with my brother, Matt, at the time. It was one of the founding members of the band. He was with me, you know, at the motel. And he was like, hey, man, I don't have anything better to do. Can I play my sax and my guitar? I'll go I called up my friend Alvin who just moved to Asheville from New Orleans one week before Katrina like sold his house packed up his stuff and moved oh my gosh and I said yeah you want to join me and we can cook up some music and so our current percussionist and vocalist Gwendolyn Coleman was living in Asheville at the time and we met her there and she eventually you know just a couple months later, joined, moved to New Orleans, which no one was doing in September 2005.

Everyone was moving away, and we started going around, and it was very raw. It was really vulnerable. We were singing with people who were really feeling for New Orleans. It was one of those times in a 24-hour news cycle when so many things are happening, and you just get numb watching all the bad news. It was one of those stories that captured, I feel like, the imagination and the hearts of the whole country and the world. So we were chanting and singing and releasing and crying, and it was a really powerful ritual in a way to participate with people.

People opened their homes to us. We raised a bunch of money. And so the story of the band comes from searching for some kind of grace amidst destruction. You know, in pain and suffering. And that has become really like a theme through our music. Now we're going on year 17 together. Wow. I don't, I don't know that my body has ever had chills this long. Like that entire time I'm looking down, like, I don't know that my, my body has ever had like goosebumps this long ever. Like there's just that story and the way you

say it i felt it i felt it wow what a powerful powerful story do you have video of any of these events that you did i don't really have uh don't really have much besides a few photos you know from that time you had shitty phones then i know i know yeah um you know i wrote a song that we could consider sharing uh just as a way to piggyback on that story called i will rise again and it really comes from originally the experience of katrina you know in new orleans and wanting to work with a mantra om Om Namah Shivaya, which is one that connects us to the spirit of, of transformation, which sometimes can come in the form of destruction, or endings, you know, things shifting forms. And, you know, one of the

things that causes so much suffering is when that happens to us in different ways and wondering, you know, what's going to happen and not not being able to see you know what's ahead and so the mantra is really sung to help us to cultivate like a sense of faith amidst challenge adversity uncertainty destruction I will rise again Through rain and floods and winds Knock me down Now stand up Oh, I will rise again

Om Namah Shivaya Om Namah Shivaya I will rise again That almost brings tears to me because it's so heavy on my heart. It's like I want all to listen to that and that we can all just pray and hope that out of destruction that there will be something greater. Yeah. Yeah. Powerful words.

When we hear the word mantra, it's become just like an everyday word. What are the feelings attached to a mantra for you and what does it do to your body? Like what does this mantra and this music do for your soul and your physical body and what does it do to your body? Like what does this mantra and this music do for your soul and your physical body and what does it offer to others? So a mantra is a sound that can transform our consciousness and one of the literal translations of it is a sound that can either help us to release ourselves from the restlessness and the anxiety of our minds, or it can actually focus our minds. And so it's a tool in a sense. And a lot of times people who are first introduced to mantras want to know what the meaning is. And that's important, but it's not really about the code, you to know what the meaning is. And that's important,

but it's not really about the code, you know, of the meaning. It's more the experience of it, the physical resonance of moving sound as energy through the body, of vibrating our organs and our skin and our bone and our tissue, and the impact and the effect that that has on our nervous system. And there have been some wonderful studies that have been done particularly about that, the impact that chanting or singing can have on the way we feel. And there's a great Sufi teacher named Hazrat Anayat Khan who said the voice is the barometer of the spirit and this can be proven let's say you call up a friend or a family member in the first few seconds that you speak to them there's a lot that's revealed just in

the sound of their voice so you hear like call up your mom and you're like mom are you okay because you can just hear in the tone of her voice that there's something little off or mom you seem like you're in a great mood today you know well mantra is actually recognizing the voice is the barometer of the spirit but also that we can change our consciousness our mood through our voice through sound and that we can shift the way that we feel through the resonance of our own voice and so there's been a bunch of studies done, everything from people who are recovering from cancer. One group chants,

the other group doesn't. The group that chants recovers more quickly. There's a great doctor named Dr. Alfred Tomatis who discovered that there's a mechanism in the inner ear that resonates when we sing versus when we listen to music and it feeds the brain electrical potential. There have been studies that have been done on pandits who are yogis who have memorized all of these Sanskrit mantras and they do studies on their brains and they actually have a larger capacity for memory and recollection. And so you can see like significant differences in their brain patterns from people that, you know, don't chant. And one thing that I often try to connect with when I'm sharing Manthro with people that are new to it

is just to think about the common ways that sound is utilized. For example, in a hospital, surgeries are done with sound. So sound used to break up kidney stones, gallbladder stones, cataracts, all these blockages, specific frequencies of sound. Ultrasound would be another example, you know, of that. So even the word sound, one of the translations of it is health, right? If something is sound, it's healthy, it's sturdy. what's interesting is we live in such a visual culture that's focused on seeing and projecting out there and i think that a lot of times we take for granted the power of sound and vibration to shift our awareness yeah you know after my near-death experience i told people that I felt like I had to go blind to see. And a lot of times I do just that.

I will specifically challenge myself to close my eyes for long periods of time. And I feel like that's when I can really, really actually see the truth and those inner deep messages. And you're right. You're taking things in without labeling it. You're just feeling it. Wow, thank you. You are so poetic with your words. The way you just described that, beautiful.

Could you please tell me that doctor's name? Dr. Tomatis. You mentioned that inner ear. Tomatis. Okay. And really interesting, he actually called in. There was a Benedictine monastery, I believe it was in France. and there were a bunch of monks that had been there for decades, and they all fell sick at the same time. And so they brought in all these experts to try to figure out why they were ill.

And so they brought in like, you know, somebody who said, you guys work too much. You should work fewer hours, and that didn't work, and they brought someone in who said, you're sleeping only six hours a night. You need to sleep more, and they got even more sick. So finally, they brought in him, and he did some research and figured out they had hired a new head of the monastery who was a reformer, and one of the things that he told them is that they shouldn't be chanting during the day. They would chant, I think, six or seven times a day, the vespers, and they stopped. And that was the thing that marked the point where they started to fall ill. And so

Tamadas asked them to start chanting again. And as they started to sing again, their health came back. And he was fascinated as a doctor and a scientist, why did this happen? And that's when he discovered that inner ear. So I was going to say, I was chanting because I was trying to, it was a miracle for me. I had some post COVID symptoms with my stomach, did some chanting specifically to work that vagus nerve. But at the same time, I ended up having like severe case of vertigo and had to go to the hospital because it wouldn't stop. It was all inner ear stuff. It's so crazy. Wow.

No one could ever explain that. But that was all around the same time. Wow. I also thought about the power of chanting. that like they will go to an event and like all of a sudden because people are chanting and becoming very powerful in their words they find themselves doing destructive things like vandalism or doing things that are out of character for them because it's almost like they're in a trance like they get caught up in the chanting and the sounds and the energy and it ends up being like a

negative thing so I mean it can be powerful in both the dark and in the light yeah I mean I feel like chanting is a practice that brings to the surface, sometimes what we haven't integrated inside of ourselves. One of the things that I really love and value about bhakti yoga, which is the one of the forms of yoga that chanting, you know, is a significant practice is that it honors all of the full spectrum of human emotion. It's not the kind of new age woo woo. It's all love and light and let's all, you know, unicorns and sparkles and try to be happy all the time, but really honoring the full palette, all the colors, you know, of the human experience. And again, not being dualistic

and thinking about dark as bad and light is good, but more honoring like all the different shades of that. So when we chant, sometimes, yeah, we can find, personally, I'll speak for myself, I can find myself tapping into a grief or an anger, you know, that is inside of me. And I find the practice to be incredibly liberating because it helps me to purge that. And so I find it to be both a practice to exercise our emotions, lots of different kinds of feelings and moods, but also in a sense to exorcise, you know, clear and purge and release and let go, you know? Yeah. Do you have to sing good to do this? Absolutely not. And that's one of my missions is to create brave spaces for people to sing

because we're dealing with so much crap from our culture our dominant culture here in the united states and beyond that is not very supportive of people singing together in public there's so much there's so much negativity and competitiveness and judgment and really dysfunction i find and it's cutting us off from one of the most powerful gifts that we have as human beings, which is to use our voice to sing, to speak our truth, and so when we don't sing, you know, so many of us, including myself, are carrying around wounds about our voice. Maybe we had a family member who told us not to speak, or maybe we had a coach who criticized us, or maybe the choir teacher who was like, shh, how about you just mouth the words, okay? You know,

it's like, I think a lot of us are carrying around incredible amount of woundedness around our voice, and so what I love about creating spaces for people to sing inside of is to try to disarm that and make a space for people to heal their voices in the simplest way by just singing. I love that. Your voice is very emotional. So many people just find all of that pain and suffering wells up. But it's an incredible way to release that. And I really want to encourage everybody, try to find a safe, brave space to sing, even if it's a closet or the shower or your car. Because it's so therapeutic. It's amazing.

I read an article that you wrote. It was called, I think, The One Man Found His Authentic Voice by Singing for Inspiration. It was on your website. First of all, you're such a beautiful writer. But I loved how there was this one part that stuck out to me. You talked about how you think of the founders of yoga as the mad scientist of consciousness. I loved that. Yeah, well, I, you know, I think that, for me, it's been really, and I think this is an important path for everybody who both practices and teaches yoga, particularly those of us that are coming from not the culture of origin, you know, of yoga, yoga has its roots in India. And I think it's really important to find ways to name that,

you know, and recognize that and honor that, be authentic to that, respect that. And this has been my path to find my own voice and to recognize my own sense of belonging inside of that to try to find an authentic way to respect tradition and roots, but also to find my own path and honor my own ancestry and influences. So for example, I studied both yoga as well as Indian classical vocal music with Indian teachers. One of my primary teachers is a man named Russell Paul, who wrote a wonderful book called The Yoga of Sound. He's from South India. In the first few years of, you know, being exposed and practicing and studying with him, I was trying to sound like him. And that was my goal, was to mimic, in a sense. And I think that this can be a great stepping stone, you know, in any

learning process. To mimic our teachers is important for a time. But at a certain point, I realized that I'm not, I wasn't born in India. It's impossible for me to sing exactly like that. I wanted to try to find a way to honor what I was learning, but also to recognize and to name and to feel a sense of belonging in, for example, New Orleans, my Irish ancestry, which is a huge influence, you know, on me from when I was a child and before. And also the music that has inspired me since I was a child, rock music, funk, you know, folk music, you know, to try to find a way, and even as a yoga teacher as well, to contextualize the teachings of yoga, which have their roots in India, but to try to build bridges inside the culture and the time and the place, you know, that I'm living in now.

It's not everybody's path, you know, at all. And I have great respect for friends who have been studying, for example, Indian classical vocal music for decades, you know, and they've just gone deep, deep down that well. And their goal is to be as steeped in that as possible. But I realized that was going to be a presence and I wanted to respect that presence. But my sense for authenticity and sincerity comes from naming, you know, and trying to explore my own. Really? Authenticity is what captured me. I can't believe you played at the Jazz Fest. I mean, there's so many opportunities to be musical in New Orleans. I wanted to ask you, what's your favorite song of your own?

Of my own song? That you guys have done. Maybe one off of the new one and we can play something. Sure, sure, sure. Well, you know, I'm just going to name the one that comes through right now, you know, in this moment, because it's hard to choose. But this really goes back to that sense of pain and purpose, you know, as well. There's a song called Dark Night on Mystery that means a lot to me. I want to share what it's about, but I also don't want folks to listen to it and think of my story. I hope that they listen to it and connect to their

story. My brother, Jeremy, passed away in a drowning accident seven years ago. And, you know, it's been an incredibly painful experience. And it's been really traumatic for our family, as you can imagine. So I've been grieving that for a long time, and I think there will always be a sense of grieving, but I was with a friend who asked me, as a part of my grieving process, to write a song, to compose a song, to try to help, to move the energy and to try to find some expression, you know, inside of that grief. And so this song came from that process. And the song is really about grief, the journey of grief. And my journey in relationship with my brother has come from one of

still incredibly like missing his physical presence, his laugh, his hug, you know, he was very hilarious and like our family storyteller and had such a powerful, visceral, like physical presence. And I just like miss that every moment but over time I've been able to develop a subtler relationship you know with his spirit and connect to that you know in different ways and so the song is really about like wanting that it's about honoring grief and that sense of separation and pain, but then like praying for connection, you know, with that one that we've lost, or you could even translate it to that part of ourselves that we've lost. We've been singing it for a few years live and sharing it with people and something really powerful came through when I was recording it that for some

reason when you asked that question felt like maybe this is the one you know one of the songs to share today it's called dark night Satsang with Mooji Amém. Субтитры создавал DimaTorzok Salve Padrani Pasyantu Makas Chidukam Bhadpave Unchayam Vakam Yajamahim I am the Sultan of the Jamah I am the protector of the world I am the protector of the world I am the protector of the world Salve Padre, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo, Padre Santo I love you. Dark night, dark night Poured under, lost sight

Choked voice, please it's not real Whoever said that God don't steal Grey days, grey days Lost in a dull haze Emptiness I don't want to feel Whoever said that God don't steal Shantio God don't steal

Shantio Shantio Shanti, oh, Shanti, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Until. Dark night. Dark night. Swallowed up. Silent fight. Cut too short. Can't stop that wheel. Whoever said that God don't steal.

Great days. Great days. There's no end to it, no passageway Greed strikes, ain't got no shield Whoever said that God don't steal God don't steal Shanti, steal Shanti oh Shanti oh Ah

Shanti oh Shanti oh Shanti oh God don't steal Bright lights, bright lights Is that you hidden inside Light me up, let me know that you're here Whoever said that God don't steal Bright lights, bright lights Thank you. Light me up, please don't hide from me now Light me up, burn away all my doubts

Light me up, steal away all my fears Light me up, let me know that you're here Light me up, light me up Light me up, light me up Light me up, light me up, light me up, light me up. Om Shanti Om. Sharing an experience that I had. The first tour that I did with the band after Jeremy passed away, we were in a little

yoga community in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. And it was really raw to go out and even be in front of people again. I just felt so exposed, you know, in a sense, and had been just deep in grief with my family for weeks. And then it was a few months before we went out. And so it was raw. But one of the beautiful things about the music that we create is it's about vulnerability, you know. And I feel like if I'm not being vulnerable to a point, then I have no right to ask that, you know, of other people. So we invite people just to connect to their depths. vulnerable to a point, then I have no right to ask that, you know, of other people. So, so we, you know, invite people to just to connect to their depths. And so as I was singing there,

suddenly I felt my brother's presence got like a, I wouldn't say it was like a voice necessarily, but like a, just the thoughts came through so strongly. And it was basically the message was i'm giving you all my strength and i'm pouring my strength into you and as that was happening my voice just was filled with um power you know and like change it shifted the volume the resonance the image was just like this energy and and again, I don't want to sound too woo-woo here, but this is what happened, and I also want to share that there were a lot of people, and maybe folks have experienced this, when you're grieving, a lot of people, in wanting to console you, will say things that may or may not resonate, and a lot that don't resonate but this this was it man this was like a personal visceral uh actual experience that was not my imagination and uh what was interesting was

uh and i was so grateful for it you know and i wept and and saying and it was just so powerful and it was so yeah it was such a gift. A few weeks later, we were in Pennsylvania at another event, and a woman walked up afterwards, and she said, I have a question for you. You mentioned your brother. Do you ever feel his presence? And I said, I do. I said, I have recently, actually, and she said, because he was with you tonight, and he was pouring all of his strength into your body. Her exact words. And she was like, I suppose, you know, a medium or, you know, just had the ability to see beyond the visible world. And that was the thing that if I hadn't had that personal experience, and she came up and told that

to me, I would have been like, thank you. That's lovely. Thank you very much. But I had an experience to back it up and it just solidified, you know, that sense of there being something very mysterious, but very present in the world that we cannot see. Thank you for sharing that. And I'm so sorry for the loss of your brother. I unfortunately share that pain. And I'm so sorry. Yeah, my brother's been so heavy on my mind lately because he was killed in Iraq and with all this news coming out. It's been really hard. But, you, um, my brother loved William Topley.

So I think tonight I'm going to go put William Topley on my radio and I'm going to dance around and think of what you just said. And I'm going to move that energy. I'm going to dance with him. And that's not woohoo at all, because I've had many experiences like that. And I grieve for your family too, because my family is forever changed. You know, you grieve your old mom, your old dad, you know, because they've changed.

And so thank you for sharing that. Thank you, Mandy. Yeah. Thank you so much. Sean, it has been such a pleasure. I love your music. I love you. I want to be friends with you forever.

Thanks, Shanna. That sounds great. I want to visit you when I come to New Orleans. I'd love to meet you. I would be friends with you forever. Thanks, Shanna. That sounds great. I would visit you when I come to New Orleans. I would love to meet you. You're a busy guy though. How many locations do you have right now? How many different studios you got going on? Well, we have one studio. We unfortunately had to close our downtown studio with COVID. And that was, another thing to grieve, but in a way it feels really right at this time to focus you know on one so where is that location we're in uptown new orleans not far from tulane and loyola universities for folks that are you know somewhat familiar with the city um can i

also mention i love the shout out to black lives matter on your website racism is is definitely always been an issue in Louisiana but we all need to find that voice and feel brave and courageous enough to speak up yeah I mean it's so easy to get numb in our culture and it's so easy especially given all of the stimuli you know that's happening around us to forget about each other and to lose touch with how interconnected, you know, we all are. And one of the unfortunate repercussions, you know, of being isolated in certain communities, and sometimes that isolation is based on, you know, privilege and, you know, race and so many other things is that it can really compartmentalize

our reality to where we lose empathy, you know, for each other, you know, as human beings. And then in that losing of empathy, we lose our own sense of responsibility and purpose. So yeah, I think it's really important for folks to find their own, again, authentic way to integrate social causes and social justice into spiritual practice. And I think sometimes you hear the expression thrown around a lot, bypassing, spiritual bypassing. And you know, really, it's about how we are not acknowledging humanity. And I think sometimes thinking of spiritual practice as an escape from reality, rather than as a way of being more purposeful and feeling more responsible for not only ourselves and our own personal journey, but the collective as well. Be a better freaking human.

Exactly. I'm going to encourage Shanna to share her mini series that she put together about New Orleans and some very enlightening knowledge and wisdom and stories and things that have been lost. It is the most moving story. She did such a wonderful job. I think you should share it with him because he's going to learn so much about New Orleans that he hasn't known. And she's put in like little tidbits of music in there. I don't know, maybe he could add a little tidbit for you in it. It's so beautiful, Sean. It is. It's so moving. You're going to be mouth dropped at what she's discovered over the last like three years.

It's painful, but it's also beautiful and it's going to blow your mind. We are so afraid to speak up. We have not spoken in so long that the history is just erased. It's very strong in my heart to share the stories. Shanna is very passionate about how we don't honor our ancestors like other cultures. And that's what her passion is, is really helping people to find their roots and to honor those people that are in our soil that have made us who we are today. That's so beautiful. And now it's time for Break That Shit Down. As y'all were talking about ancestors,

it reminded me of a song that we have on Mystery, which is called Healing. And in a way, it feels like a good follow-up to Dark Knight as well. And this is a song that I wrote in Ireland because whenever I go to Ireland, and I've had the blessing to be able to go there many times, I just feel this deep, powerful connection to my ancestors and so much music just comes through.

And this is also a place that has experienced a tremendous amount of pain and suffering and persecution and colonization. A lot of the music that I have learned from Irish traditional music actually comes from that. There's sad, sad songs as well that are used to, you know, to heal. But this song is called Healing, and it has a chant in it from Gaelic, from Irish Gaelic, that honors Bridget, who's both a goddess from pre-Christian Ireland, as well as a saint from Christian Ireland, who represents the power of healing, the home, the hearth, protection of the vulnerable, the poor, animals. And I've always just felt like a deep connection to her and wanted to dedicate a song to her. Thank you for saying that. I was going to ask you, who the hell is Bridget?

Maybe it's a song. And then the lyrics actually come directly from Irish Blessings, which have been shared for hundreds, thousands of years as a way of making the path of life, which can be really hard, a little bit easier, like a gift that people can give to each other. So the song is really about that. It's about just calling upon healing, creating a space for healing, and naming these blessings.

So I'd like to just offer this song as a gift to y'all and to your listeners. And I hope that there's a little piece, you know, a little seed in there that might touch your hearts. Bridget Doulomous Bridget Doulomous Bridget Dolomos Bridget Dolomos Healing, I'm letting you in Healing I'm finally ready to shed this old skin

Healing I'm letting you in Healing Help me begin again May joy and peace surround you now And peace be at your door May happiness be with you now And bless you, bless you evermore Healing, I'm letting you in

Healing, I'm finally ready to shed this old skin Healing, I'm letting you in Healing Help me begin again May love and laughter light your days With every step you roll Make good and faithful friends Because And always

Warm your heart And your home Healing your heart and your home. Healing, I'm letting you in. Healing, I'm finally ready to shed this old skin. Healing, I'm letting you in, I'm letting you in, healing, help me begin again. You always feel protected And guided every day With every gentle wind that blows Blessed every step of the way I love that song.

Thank you so much. I love that song. It's so beautiful. Where can people find you can you please share your information and let us know about the release date so everyone can hop on this and get this sure so if you want to know more about the work I do in a relationship to the band it's seanjohnsonandthewildlotusband.com. We're also on Instagram and Facebook. If you want to know more about what I'm doing in the world of yoga and yoga teacher training, as well as Celtic spirituality, you can go to wildlotusyoga.com.

I have a weekly online class that I share. We always do some singing inside of that, as well as some vinyasa yoga. And I hold space for a teacher training program called Soul School that I guide with my dear friend Mitchell Blyer that will be starting in January of 2022. And I also do every six weeks a Celtic spirituality online session around the wheel of the Celtic year with my dear friend Mary Megan from Ireland. And we also host retreats, spiritual retreats in Ireland together. We've got one coming up in April of 2022 on a little tiny island off the west coast of Ireland, where the first language is Gaelic. And it's just such a beautiful, enchanting place. Wow.

So those are some of the things. I am drawn to Ireland. I see it in my dreams. I don't know why I'm drawn there, but I know I'm supposed to go there. I've got Irish, obviously, as well. But wow, maybe, ooh, April. It's a very special place.

Yeah, I totally encourage y'all to go. Maybe I'll make it a birthday present to myself. That'd be amazing. Hey, maybe you'll make it for your best friend too. Yeah, I totally encourage y'all to go. Maybe I'll make it a birthday present to myself. That'd be amazing. Hey, maybe you'll make it for your best friend too. Yeah, for both Tauruses. All right. My son is a Taurus. I have one more really quick question. Wild Lotus, what does the name of your band mean to you? How did you come up with it? Great question. I was a part of a music project with my friend Hans Grunig many years ago, and we were trying to decide what to name it. And he was like, it's great, but I'm not really feeling it. And I was like, all right, well, I'm going to save it for something else. Well, opened a yoga studio, there it was, and the band, you know, as well.

I like wild as, you know, wilderness, which I think spiritual practice is all about, going into the wildness and the wilderness, the unknown, the mystery, you know, of consciousness and that which we can't see and exploring that. And then the lotus is a symbol in the east of something that also grows from the darkness, from the muck, from the mud, from a place that we can't see. And the pushing up through the mud, this lotus mudra, the pushing up through the mud actually creates the

beauty that eventually blooms at the top when it reaches the water and the surface and the sunlight. So it's a symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism as well for the spiritual journey. And one of my favorite proverbs from Buddhism is, no mud,

no lotus. Oh God, Sean, I'm serious. You've been such a blessing to our podcast. I am so excited. I'm such a big fan. Thank you so much. I'm serious. Like, go, Sean and the Wild Lotus Band.

I'm so supportive of your music. I send your stuff to people all the time. They love it. My whole house loves your music. And you help me clean. Yay. I'm going to dance to your song with my brother tonight. So thank you for that.

Thank you so much. Thank y'all. Really appreciate what you're doing with the podcast and all the many inspiring guests that you have. And I'm excited to share it with my friends and fans as well. Yeah. When is this release again? Say it again. So Mystery is our new album.

It's the first album we've had in seven years. It's coming out on October 29th, 2021. It'll be available on all of the streaming platforms as well as Amazon, anywhere you can stream or purchase music. It'll be there. We'll have some other ways we'll be celebrating the release as well. I love that it's dropping right around Halloween too. There's a lot of mystery in Halloween. Exactly. You know, the Celts believe that that's the Celtic new year because they believe the world is born from the darkness, just like we are born from our mother's wombs, the darkness of our mother's womb. So Samhain Halloween is that, that New Year time, that time of, you know, birth and possibility. So yeah, it feels like an awesome time to release. Thank you so much. Thank you, Shanna. Thank you,

Mandy. So grateful to be with y'all. Good luck with everything. Yeah, thank you so much. All right. Thanks, y'all. If you are looking for a way to enhance your connection with your higher self or getting deeper with your higher self or get in deeper with your spiritual journey, let me tell you, this album, Mystery by Sean and the Wild Lotus Band will definitely do this. This is soul music, people. You can get this album, Mystery, this Friday on any of the music listening apps. Sean and the Wild Lotus Band, Mystery, pick up this album.

I guarantee your soul will be so grateful that you did. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.