Last Tuesday, I wrote about the history of my evolution as a musician, and this week, I promised the Mystery of it.

So, I was born remembering Music. When I was three years old I recognized the tool that would be, literally, at my fingertips for the rest of my life, that would shape me physically, change the structure of my brain, my hands, change the way I think, the way I hear things, the way I approach decisions. It’s really no wonder my eyes have atrophied to the point that they have. I rely on my ears for most of my input, which explains why I’m such a fan of silence, too.

But taking the 20,000 foot view of that whole life story, what I see, with my real eye, is soul contract after soul contract. My parents, gearing up and learning to play music in order to support me until I was ready to launch on my own: totally a soul contract. All the teachers who have mentored and guided me, especially Marcia Brandt, who remains one of my greatest teachers and dearest friends: totally a lifetime soul contract, and a soul friendship as well. All of the musicians I have worked with over the years, who have taught me and learned from me: soul contracts every one. Every student that has ever been in my teaching studio: soul contract.

The pattern is fascinating, actually. Well, to me anyway. People come into my life, we frantically, intensely, enthusiastically do what we agreed we would do together, and then . . . We’re done and it’s over and we go our separate ways and that’s it. Sometimes I never see those people again. Sometimes I do, but not often. And it’s okay, it’s perfectly okay, because there was love, and love remains, and music remains, and all is right with the world, amen.

But one of the biggest soul contracts was with my dad’s mom, who I never met. Laura Edith Turner, who married Joe Steele, if that was his real name (it totally wasn’t), had eight children, and died three days after her youngest was born, when my dad was three years old.

I never knew Laura Edith, but I know her daughters, and some of her granddaughters. Most of us are smart, nurturing, creative, gifted, and confident, comfortable being leaders, but happiest leading by making everybody else look good. We are artists, designers, nurses, musicians, mothers. We are driven to be of service. And Laura Edith was all of those things during a time when women were considered property, couldn’t vote, couldn’t own property, couldn’t work a job other than as a seamstress or a maid. Creativity and higher consciousness were not topics that the poor and middle-class women of the time had any time for at all — especially when they were busy raising a mess of kids with one always on the way.

Laura Edith was pissed about it. She was full of rage, which she had to hold in so she could pretend she was stupid chattel when what she was, was something quite else. She could have been  anything she wanted, in another time. But not this time. And so her rage was transmitted through her blood into her womb where her children grew, and for most of them that rage shut off their musicality. Her husband, my grandfather, could sit out on the front porch all night and play music for the neighbors, and that was all fine and good, but she had to clean up the supper dishes and put the kids to bed and finish whatever else she’d started during the day before she could have any peace.

My soul contract with her? “Live your life as though your gender doesn’t matter. Be everything you want to be and create everything you want to create. Be a leader. Be strong. Do what I couldn’t do. Find the way.”

Boy does that explain a lot about who I have become. I’m a woman, yes, but I have excelled in a field dominated by men. I have created obsessively, composed music, made records, written tens of thousands of pages worth of words over my lifetime, have some skills in the fiber arts, and am a highly skilled vegan jazz cook. Yeah, that’s a thing. My masterpiece is the “what do we have left that I can put together and make something with” special. I combine nurturing with creating, serving with creating, leading by creating. It’s so very clear that she and I had a deal, and that I have had a whole lot of help to fulfill it. And honestly, I hope I have another 40 years worth of stuff to do, because now that I get this, I promise you, I am just getting started. And clearly, when I needed something to happen, really needed it, like learning Reiki and Light Language and Sound Healing, I found the way to get it done. It has been a magical journey, made more magical now by the understanding that I have been supported in it since before birth.

What’s the purpose behind all this?

The other revelation that came from the remote healing session Sandy Kemp facilitated for me on Friday, was when she said, “Gayla, you’re a Sound Medicine Woman.” And for the second time in my life, lightning struck. Yep. That’s what I am, right there. How did I not know that?

Does it change anything? Not a bit. I wouldn’t change a minute of this life, because it all led me to where I am now, and I’m happier than I have ever been. What it does is give me confirmation that all of the things that I have done and been, have  shaped me into this instrument. I am a string in the Harp of Source, and that’s all I ever wanted to be. It confirms that if I follow the sound I will find whatever I need. Music is my magic, my modality, my superpower.

It will expand greatly my perspective on being who I am and what I am, and help me find new ways to help my clients be everything they want to be, no matter who they are. It will help me listen on an even deeper level to everything people have to say to me, verbally or otherwise. I will be listening for those spill words, oh yes I will. And it will inform every decision, every interaction, and every relationship from this day forward, even more than it already has.

I have so much unpacking to do in order to fully understand what this means, but the outline of it feels extremely exciting to me. As to why I was born remembering music and remembering so much about how to play the guitar, I still don’t entirely understand. But I know it’s significant, and I will continue to stay on the trail of answers. I have a lot of journaling to do, and a lot of listening to do. I have been kind of dreading summer, but right at the moment, being able to sit outside and listen to the birds and the bugs and the critters seems necessary. Thank you again, for reading/listening (I try to write like I would talk, so really, I’m talking to you as I write, so if you hear this in my voice as you read it, that was my intention). Back to your regularly scheduled program next Tuesday. Have a beautiful week.

Vulnerability and trust and truth are precious, and I’m so grateful that you are reading this now. If you want to get this in your inbox every week, let me know by subscribing. Thank you again.