Almost 20 years ago, my creative friend Cathy Nosaty and I met at the Peace Theatre, where I was programme director and she was musical director. We loved working together, and working for a culture of peace in the world, and thus began a deep friendship. Her husband Mark Korven and I became friends as well, and soon our families made music nights and poetry salons at each other’s homes and in the wider community.
I love collaborating with Cathy and Mark, who have both composed amazing music I feel that enhances and supports my poetry; we have worked together on both live and recorded creations, for poetry reading series, festivals, and for the wider community. Cathy and I began creating and recording meditations to calm kids down after the success of the meditation sessions with children at the Peace Theatre summer camps.
For the past decade, Mark and I have worked together collaborating with musical video poems; his wonderful film skills and creative eye, as well as insights for gorgeous musical compositions, have made some award-winning short performance poetry films.
In April 2020, Cathy and I worked with my sound designer son Gabe Flaherty to record “Poetry and Healing,” a fundraiser for Sick Kids at the start of the Pandemic. Over 1700 people enjoyed Toronto poets reading about poetry and healing, and my own meditations and poems to their moving musical bed tracks.
Ten years ago, we got the idea to record my meditations from my yoga classes to be combined with their beautiful musical soundscapes as bed tracks. The result was three healing CDs, “Towards Stillness,” “Spring Awakening” and “Towards Healing.” These four tracks are from our most recent collaboration of musical guided meditation and imagination journeys.
I am so grateful to Mark Korven, Cathy Nosaty, and Gabe Flaherty for their inspiring gifts and endless skills in making these meditations possible. Music soothes the wounded beast.
Towards Healing
Deepening Stillness
Poetry and Healing
Early in 2020, I was honoured to be invited by Toronto Poet Laureate Al Moritz to read a poem at his lecture and poetry reading, “Poetry and Medicine” at Sick Kids Hospital for staff. After the event, several poets and physicians suggested we have a reading about poetry and healing with Toronto poets as a fundraiser for Sick Kids Hospital. The event was to take place on April 5th, 2020, but was cancelled due to the pandemic.
Bringing “Poetry and Healing” online was my response to this event being cancelled, and Lesley Fletcher and Laura O”Brien at the League of Canadian poets helped make it a month-long event of 12 Toronto poet’s reading their poems, reflecting on the relationships of poetry and healing, and then musicians Cathy Nosaty, Gabe Flaherty and Mark Korven made soothing music to my meditations pondering these poems. Each meditation ends with a related writing prompt, for those who wanted to respond to the poetry and pondering. It gave listeners a chance to relax, reflect and respond creatively. Over 1700 people listened and wrote in response. Feedback was positive that these meditations helped listeners to find peace and calm in the challenging times as we navigated this new reality called Covid. We were able to raise $1000 during National Poetry Month in April.
Each 10 or so minute meditation guides the listener too soothing music towards relaxation, peace, calm, quieting the mind, feeling our interconnectedness, with the invitation to engage in a creative outlet …
