Ep 114 - Healing with the Universal Current of Sound with Tamiko French

[00:00:00] Cynthia: You are listening to the Well Connected Twin Cities podcast. I'm your host, Cynthia Shockley, and I'm here to learn alongside you through meaningful conversations with health and wellness practitioners. This is your time to experience some mindset shifts, learn practical tips, and get excited about what is possible.

[00:00:22] We want you to own the power of choice in your personal well being journey. Let's discover what's possible right here in our Twin Cities community.

[00:00:33] Hello and welcome to the Well Connected Twin Cities podcast. I'm your host, Cynthia Shockley, and today we're speaking with Tomiko French. And let me tell you Tomiko's story of healing and just her whole hero's journey is incredible. So please stay tuned to listen to her own story of how she healed her vision and this brain inflammation that she had with Sound healing and about how she was able to use all these tools that she's learned for herself around crystals around sound to also then support her own community.

[00:01:12] I think this is a really important story for those who might feel lost, who might just need some inspiration or options out there

[00:01:22] If you're interested in working with Tomiko or learning more about her services in particular, that starts around 40 minutes. So this is one of our longer episodes, but I really wanted to make sure we held space for Tomiko's story because it's just such an amazing and beautiful one. Since 2011, Tomiko French has been a multidisciplinary creative with a background in dance performance and choreography.

[00:01:47] Additionally, creating jewelry and sharing her gift with communities abroad has been a sincere passion that is now her full time business. Her love for science, nature, and the magic between them is carefully synergized with each service she delivers. Whether it be crystal consultations, crystal healing, custom functional jewelry, or a unique sound bath, you can discover something that illuminates your soul.

[00:02:11] Her vibrationally charged work has been featured in rituals in Midtown Global Market, at various pop up shops, and resident at Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center, where she is a teacher and welding artist. In 2020, she added some Sound healing to her array of services in response to the rising needs of safe, calm spaces from the murder of George Floyd and the homeless displacement, where many volunteers and homeless needed some form of calm.

[00:02:39] She's been accredited with the international Natural Healers Association, and has been featured in Salt Salon Spa, Abbott Hospital, and Mother Baby Center, One Yoga, Watershed, Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center, and George Floyd Square. Her current and future projects include youth sound healing events, and relax, sound healing sessions, and dancing sound session events. And here we are with Tomiko French herself. Hello, Tomiko. 

[00:03:12] Tamiko: Peace and blessings. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor. 

[00:03:17] Cynthia: It's an honor to have you. I'm so glad we were able to just connect and make this conversation happen because I feel like there's just so much I'm personally Curious about. And I'm excited to dive into some of these questions and share your work with our audience.

[00:03:34] But I also want to start off with just a question to get to know where you're at right now as a human being. I used to ask a lot, just what's bringing you joy, but I think it's important to also address some of the things that are. not bringing us joy, right? Because it's both this whole being human thing.

[00:03:59] So I want to ask about your rose and thorn. Are you familiar with this exercise or this prompt? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, it's very corporate, but I'm gonna bring it in here and would love to hear. 

[00:04:13] Tamiko: Okay. So I would say my thorn, and it's an absolutely beautiful thorn of process. I would say is. the time management of having so many things that I'm a part of, that I am in creation with, and balancing it all.

[00:04:39] It's always a dance between the three or four different Things, disciplines, practices that I'm in. And so I'm always missing something. I feel like I'm in community, but I'm always working. And that is a thorn. I've been trying to pull it out and find ways to decrease.

[00:05:04] What it is I'm doing find ease and flow which pulls me into the rose. Yeah, the rose has been, oh man I have found that I feel completed with my sound. What I would say my sound orchestra, I started with my hand pan hand pan is a instrument that looks like a steel pan, but it's convex. It looks like a little flying saucer that's been depicted in all the old movies and things.

[00:05:46] And it is absolutely a divine, beautiful instrument and I really love it. It. Pairs well with all of the things that I do in regard to the singing bowls and tongue drum and all of that. And it just is, it's just great. And I experienced a really great time yesterday. In the midst of all my busyness, able to capture myself at the lake and take some focused time.

[00:06:17] And reflect and build Soniscape at the lake. And that was just such a blessing because I never get a real ample opportunity. Ample opportunity to relax in that way. And create music, I'll say. I do sound baths for myself daily, but that was a moment of creation, like being in creation with water that I've been trying to cultivate for a long time.

[00:06:47] I think I want so much to develop a lakeside tour of us performing. And I've been saying this for probably a year and it's always life pulling this or that to not do it. So it's happened. And this is the second time I've found myself by a body of water. Playing. And so it's going to be a thing every week.

[00:07:08] I'm finding a body of water to play by. So yeah, that's been the roles is actually doing that. And a few other things have come into fruition following. The consistency and following through. Yes. 

[00:07:22] Cynthia: Yeah. As an entrepreneur and creative, I'm sure it's just so much coming in and that thorn of feeling like there's a lot happening all at once.

[00:07:38] I can resonate with, wow, it's a lot, but also it's all feeling so aligned. And it all feels like it's driving towards purpose. So I want to be here with the busyness. Yes. 

[00:07:49] Tamiko: Yes. And while I am missing performances. And amazing opportunities in the community to build community holding space for community and how I do and working with community is also necessary.

[00:08:11] As an entrepreneur, knowing that you have to remain consistent in building. Your work so that it has a lasting effect, it has sustainability, you, you face those thorns and those roses all the time. Cycles daily. Yes. So hot. 

[00:08:33] Cynthia: You're like, it's worth it. The rose is so beautiful. 

[00:08:36] Tamiko: Yeah. And you can see the rose.

[00:08:38] It may not, it just may be a bud, but you can see the rose. You can see it blooming. 

[00:08:44] Cynthia: Oh, beautiful. I'm so excited to dive into all the amazing work you're doing, but let's start with your origins, right? You started professionally in the dance and performance space and. You did then transition and bring some of that with you into the healing space.

[00:09:04] I'd love to hear, what that journey was like moving from performing dance and then into what you're doing 

[00:09:12] Tamiko: now. Okay. So it's a interesting trajectory. I started at 14 at North High School dancing and a production called Babu's Magic with Chuck Davis. The African American dance ensemble in North Carolina, rest in peace and power Baba.

[00:09:36] And he introduced me to building community unity solidarity, all the things, the love of the community, the vibrancy of community and strengthen community. And it affected basically everything that I was and that I did from then I left at. In 1997 to Philadelphia and I got my degree in dance there working with his protege, who was my mentor, Dr.

[00:10:08] Kariyama Walsh Asante and all of this focusing in on African modern and jazz work and hip hop. Blending those. My work was very much so a fusion. So the way that I layer in wellness work is very much the way that I dance, which is interesting through line. Once I was moved to Kansas City, I went to Kansas City to help my mom who had moved from Minneapolis to Kansas City.

[00:10:38] I started working at a substance abuse treatment center. And this was for teens focused in on teens. It was a residential center and this experience transformed the way that I taught anything because I believe focusing in on codified ways of teaching gives us a platform and structure and things.

[00:11:05] But us as human beings. Are ever changing and are individual and we're not books are experiences, very exclusive to that one energy and you have to be able to be open and vulnerable and willing to be flexible enough to, by any means necessary, find the way to connect to expand to grow that energy.

[00:11:42] Especially when it's a youth, and my first day at that job, the young people managed to steal my money my car was impacted some and they were determined because I was, coming in with all this fire, all this wanting to help you. I want to help you. I want to be here. That was my perspective, right?

[00:12:09] And they tried to take the wind out of my sails. And when I came back the next day, when I was crying, I was just all out of my emotions then. When I came back the next day, they were surprised because they tried to get me to leave. And it's crazy when you're at your lowest point and you don't think that anyone cares.

[00:12:33] all the ways you'll self sabotage yourself to, say, yep, I'm proving my point. No one cares. And and I just thank the creator for my willingness to be open and vulnerable to the human spirit at that moment and share my silence, my willingness to be still and not tell them what I think I know about them and listen to the ways that moment in time can teach me.

[00:13:12] And so allowing them to share the stories to be vulnerable and authentic and dig in and say what's on their heart, how those moments helped them to grow how their pain transformed into beauty and resilience through talking one. But also I had the privilege to work as. They're art therapies coordinator.

[00:13:42] And I went on to manage five different locations. This was at Preferred Family Healthcare in Kansas City. And with my work in the music music Mondays Group is what we started with. And then we built into a painting. A program we were able to build a sobriety garden and they built the race beds and put in all types of art fixtures with different quotes from themselves and other people.

[00:14:11] I wanted for folks to see their amazingness we learned various things in music and spoken word. They wrote all the time, as much as they could, and shared with their DJ O's and. Thank you. A therapist a psychologist, the work that they did in the art space, which was transformational used it as a platform for the recovery and for their transitions and being able to stay open and know that I am not the only pathway that me, my physical body is here, but it is what I expose you to is how I share other things.

[00:14:55] That give you that bridge into moving your experience to transform you to share with you what else could be the expansiveness and power of who you are in your story, that. Moment in Kansas City allowed me to come back home to Minneapolis in 2013 and built at that time I was experiencing chronic knee pain, some bursitis, Baker's cysts, all the stuff in the knees which in my family, it runs, to have knee problems and reproductive problems and things like that.

[00:15:37] And so I was battling that as well. I got into energy medicine in Kansas city with using stones. I was a stone collector as a child, so I had rocks all the time. But I was able to dig into more study then because I was wanting to find more natural means than this crazy pain relievers that left me sick.

[00:16:06] And so I started working with. Stones in 2006 and in working with those stones, I felt the pocket was nice, but what if I forget them in my pocket, I need them on me somehow. And if they're not on the spot, does it matter? So I played around with that, with them in the space and then they get lost in space.

[00:16:31] One day I wanted to create a pair of earrings. Because I couldn't find anything anywhere that really spoke to me. So I created some earrings that got a lot of attention. Didn't know that I had a gift to create and have the eye. As a young person, I took things apart and put things together all the time.

[00:16:57] But did not follow that as a career path. I was a dancer. So at this time, I'm like, okay I'm just going to make a few pairs to go with my earrings. Let me go with my outfits. I'm sorry. And then build, some outfits together that might. Be able to be speaking to my different chakras. We were getting into color theory.

[00:17:20] We were getting into understanding how the body can heal because I didn't want these cortisone shots. I didn't want to be on pain relievers the rest of my life. I wanted to fix what was going on with my knees, even though it was hereditary. And they told me that I couldn't change the trajectory of what happened.

[00:17:39] And at that time, 2007, at this point, they told me I had maybe about five years to seven years before I was going to be bone on bone cartilage gone. And I wouldn't be able to dance anymore. That was 2007. It's 2023. So like in perspective, I'm like, yeah, limiting belief. And words that are spoken into your essence, your energy that limit you, that you begin to believe can push you in a direction of sickness.

[00:18:15] And it was then that I started to understand that your words are power. Your thoughts are power. Your actions are power. Not just knowing that from a dance perspective. In the dance stage, we are able to create realities and worlds that shift people's consciousness, but that you are that consciousness on it.

[00:18:44] And so that was when I started to even dig deeper. So I created a couple of pieces of jewelry that were from stones, kept them on me. And then as we were rounding about 2011, I started using sound bowls as well. Would love them in the store, a little expensive at the time for me. But it was just the most angelic thing I'd ever heard.

[00:19:13] See somebody play and I wanted to do that. I got a few balls for myself and start playing. And that was the way that I felt like I could regulate things that were going on with me, runs in my family to have depression and PTSD, things like that. Had a few traumatic issues that I was digging through.

[00:19:34] And so singing bowls and crystals were my refuge . 

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[00:20:42] Tamiko: Transitioning to Minnesota, 2013. At this point I've developed making jewelry.

[00:20:49] Using stones, but still in the professional world, still having a full time job and things like that. That's just a hobby, a sidekick at this point. And finding ways to be in community and share that. I didn't see that it was like a mainstream practice. So I, still just did it for myself.

[00:21:12] Didn't have a community that I could connect with then. And so my goal was to work. As a teacher dance teacher and in 2015, I was able to achieve that by working at North High School, which is my alma mater. I'm teaching the same program that I graduated from. So it's an absolute blessing to be able to share that history, to share the passion and connection that was created in that room, in that building.

[00:21:44] Let the students, feel and see with connections and community is able to full circle basically, build connections in the community as well as in the school with history and legacy of North High School. Thank you. And the dance program still within that within getting sickness and blockages and stresses and compiled things.

[00:22:12] I had some reproductive issues. And we, I was undergoing a hysterectomy in 2018 that just disrupted everything. I was able to use stones to help the pain. But I still felt at this point I hadn't had children. So my focus was to go ahead and have the hysterectomy because I wasn't planning on having children.

[00:22:38] But the surgery impacted me on a huge level. I wasn't able to bounce back fully with. Go walking and wasn't able to dance. I tore some sutures in my stomach and had to be down for longer than expected. And this was a digging in now, but total, I'm going to have to be still and focus in totally on healing.

[00:23:08] And so it was it was one of those thorn times. And so with a lot of meditation, breath work easy yoga, as I started to heal crystals and sound to help calm me I was able to, in about maybe 12, 14 weeks, To be okay with the help of friends, network of friends, guaranteed and return back to work and then in the following year, and this is going to be pulling into the actual, like, why this is where it is to this moment, practicing all of that inside of that time, 2019, I was offered.

[00:23:59] A opportunity from the American High School Theatre Festival to produce a show, direct a show for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. which is the largest arts festival in the world. And that was a huge honor. And at that time, my whole manifestation of this job as a dance teacher, as a community artist, as I wanted to build an art center, that was my trajectory as a teenager.

[00:24:31] And I spoke that. I wanted an art center. I wanted to have a place where, it didn't matter if you had the money to study, you could come and be a part of community like I was as a kid and at. 40 years old. We got this opportunity. So from 18 all the way to 40. And I was like, yes, it's coming into fruition.

[00:24:56] It's hey, okay, they have ran away from it here and there and gotten off track. But the creator would say, Hey, this is an opportunity for you To go ahead and build what has been in your heart for this long time. And I took that opportunity, got some help from the North High School Alumni Association to, to solidify our entry and this 2019 still teaching.

[00:25:30] Involving wellness practices at this point in school sound and meditation crystals are all over my office and teaching kids about different ways that they can align their energy and help them through their difficult times. And then 2020 comes about. And with our wonderful trajectory or the above 19 students in my cast.

[00:25:56] For that production. I'm still teaching. We get the news that we are not coming back to school and it was flooring. It was absolutely leveling to legacy arts group is the vein of business that I had to start in order for us to perform in Edinburgh. And it was just devastating. Let's just say it was just devastating.

[00:26:25] And then having that on top of the murder of George Floyd in our area at Powderhorn is where I lived. It was just overwhelming every day. Ab Hatterhorn in May 25th, and that weekend was absolute chaos. I lived across from the park and being able to hear, see, feel the pulse, the fire of the people protesters, the folks that were infiltrating the crowds and the police. It just. Was a lot. And I think it affected me in various ways that I may not have addressed.

[00:27:18] I think all of us, at some level, we were moving through we were surviving, we were battling every day to keep our sanity, really. And so sound became literally a mainstay a couple times a day. Now Wednesday, we're a couple of times a day, we're surrounding ourselves with stones. And at this time still, of course, with the jewelry business growing and sound for me growing.

[00:27:49] I came outside my home and helped where I could. So first. Food delivery, coming, talking with people, sharing time, because that's what we had, yeah, time, summer of 2020. We congregated at 35th and Bloomington at Graffiti Garden, which is at Modus Locus, literally cat a corner or from Powderhorn Park, and I played sound there shared stones there.

[00:28:26] And it started to gather other practitioners and other community members. And on Wednesday, it became a thing. We come out and we would heal together, share practices together, talk. And those folks that were down at Powderhorn Park that needed a break, that were serving the transient population, our homeless challenged, home challenged, excuse me, population would come over.

[00:28:55] Thank you. And get food and be in community. And also at George Floyd square it just was a transformational time and building connections and community. And so for 2020 became more of a caretaker provide services and also find ways to fill my cup. 

[00:29:18] September 2020 was the toughest spot, and so this is the transformational moment for me.

[00:29:26] I was finishing one of the largest projects I'd ever done at that time with the stonework vibrational art and my body had undergone a wave of stress. With this murder of George Floyd, providing for the community and not addressing constantly, and give mode and I developed some migraines from this role.

[00:29:58] That I thought I was serving and that's the thing you may think that you're doing thing but always self analysis always coming back to center and self and I'm saying, Hey, you know what, this is what's needed right now. This is what's need telling myself that will spirit would have it that wasn't true.

[00:30:18] I was telling myself something that was not true I needed to be in my body. not be for someone else. And at that moment, the stress Overwhelms my body and inflammation take over my took over my head and turned off my ocular nerves and I couldn't see. It was like a light switch, so it was in the middle of the day.

[00:30:49] So being blind, being totally in the blackness was the scariest thing I'd ever experienced. In addition to that I couldn't walk and the inflammation was through my spine as well. I learned that at the doctor. Once went to the ER, my partner took me to the ER and they told me that from the MRI they could see liquid on my brain.

[00:31:22] I had fluid on my brain and through my body and they said I had something called hydrocephalus. Which is a condition that usually you're born with. But hypertension basically on my brain and with different specialists, I went to an eye specialist. I went to neurology specialists and things that couldn't really find anything wrong with me.

[00:31:49] And the doctors had said I needed to get a shunt in my neck. And a spinal tap to pull this liquid off my brain. Otherwise I'm not ever going to see normally again. And I wouldn't walk normally again. Now, mind you, I'm thinking, 2006, 2007, I was told that I wouldn't have knees basically have any cartilage and I'm still walking.

[00:32:17] And then relived my experience getting my hysterectomy with how long it took me to recover not knowing exactly what. was being taken from my body and not knowing the effects it would have on my walking capability. So at this point, with all of the mistrust for doctors and their practice, and then me being a black woman and all the experimentation that has happened on my people, I totally declined any knife being put to my body.

[00:32:59] And I totally at that moment dedicated myself to figuring out how I was going to survive this and thrive through this without a surgery. In the emergency room, my partner looked up different ways for us to attack this. . 

[00:33:22] At this point I had refused the medical surgery and we're looking at ways to combat this. As I told you before, June 10th through today, we have a collection of wonderful practitioners that I've been able to share Wednesdays with for Wellness Wednesday.

[00:33:45] And I said I've I have friends, I can ask questions. So I basically just turned to my wellness Wednesday friends and said, Hey, can you help me with this? And they did. And once a week I got craniosacral therapy and acupuncture and massage. And also I tried lymph massage too.

[00:34:14] And. I was able to meet with her biologists who gave me some wonderful tinctures. And the one thing I had every day was sound and crystals. And so I did that every day, and I did not find relief at first. The Tibetan bulls were calming, but my migraines were still there and the inflammation a pressure on my head was still there.

[00:34:47] I could see for about maybe 20 minutes a day without getting fuzzy. And then I would have to take a break, close my eyes, rest, breathe, and then I could go, about maybe 15 minutes and then go back to what I was doing, but constantly through the day I've had to take a break. It was like that for teaching as well.

[00:35:06] I moved through that very hard time and in a very slow fashion and folks had a lot of grace with me while that was happening. My study of myself. led me to some research for the sound healing research foundation. And in that thumbing through different articles and empirical research papers found that this note F sharp, that is your higher heart chakra connected to your thymus gland is extremely effective at helping you to pull off toxins from the body.

[00:35:52] Through the endocrine and immune system and so that note was not something that I thought I could get here. I thought it was not to order it off Amazon or something. But in Anoka, I was able to grab a bowl. And I got that bowl and I started my journey with that sound and it pulled off my migraines after a week.

[00:36:15] So 30 minutes to an hour a day, a week. And it wasn't pulling off the inflammation, so I was still feeling like someone was pressing on my brain. And that's this liquid in my head. And so I was still experiencing some vision issues. But the migraines. So I'm like, I'm making progress. What else can I do?

[00:36:37] And after research research, I still couldn't find anything that help. So intuitively, this is the intuitive part when you're that's a word with sound and other things. People do things intuitively the doctor told me that they needed to take a spinal tap.

[00:36:55] And the area that they touched on my back, I had meditated over and did some deep breathing over to move whatever this is that they said they needed to and it happens to be in my sacred area. I got a D bowl. The D bowl is what. connects to the sacral area, sacral chakra. And so that D bowl and F sharp note are actually harmony, and our bodies love harmony.

[00:37:23] Our bodies crave harmony and balance, and it feels blissful when we are there. And we all know that music is universal, and when we feel the connection of these notes We feel at one with our humanness to nature and everything. And with our emotions, we're in alignment. And so this harmony I was able to play for about two weeks.

[00:37:56] Every day, a little bit longer, as long as I could take it 30 minutes to an hour. And that was it two weeks and I have not been back to the doctors. When I realized that I could see normally and that there was not pressure on my brain

[00:38:15] I was transformed. I was like, okay, this is miraculous. And I can't say it was just the frequency I prayed, meditated, focusing on my mantra. I am healed. I remove all negativity from my body, all toxins from my body. This liquid cannot stay on my head. I have to get better. I am better right now. I'm better every day.

[00:38:45] I'm better. I would say this to myself when I woke up, when I was playing, when I was eating all of the things. And that positive self taught affirmative focus, that frequency in my mind that I must overcome this, coupled with the frequency of the sound and all of the once a week therapies that I was doing in that deep breathing focused in on my mantras.

[00:39:20] Yeah, I mean that layered effect. Is what I believe gave me the result that it did the power of belief, the power of owning vocalizing, moving through that with a full expectation of healing and recovery, I think transformed my body. So that in and of itself is the reason why my life moved into serving the community now through.

[00:39:57] wellness practices, alternative wellness practices, traditional medicine.

[00:40:02] Cynthia: Gosh, Tamiko, no wonder you are such an advocate for building and collecting a wellness toolkit. Just, it sounds as you were learning and developing your toolkit, it was not just for the community, but for yourself. And so you were able to do both alongside each other. And so now, with your own lived experience of the power of these healing modalities, I wonder how that's now informing what you're doing now, the projects you're working on currently. 

[00:40:38] Tamiko: Amazing. My focus now has been on building community and understanding how sound crafts, the backdrop and the focus of spaces and transforming mindset.

[00:40:58] As well as health, the current projects the projects that I've been able to work on, which have been transformative. Have been at Abbott Hospital the Mother Baby Center, as well as the Maine Hospital the Penny George Center Penny George Institute for Health and Healing, as well as me playing in the community.

[00:41:19] So that's another love of mine I just set up at George Floyd Square on the street or somewhere on the street and just play because we all need even just five. Minutes of calm to bring us back into alignment and remember the amazingness of who we are, honestly, and truly and it's led me to build practices in community.

[00:41:44] Playing still wellness Wednesday that is happening now, instead of every Wednesday during the pandemic, it's once. When, once a month, the last Wednesday of the month which is still free and low cost. We are seeking donations because of sustainability at this point. Because everybody is a practicing community member of their business and this is what they do full time.

[00:42:07] So the volunteer piece of it is something that we're seeking to get donations for. So that is one way that we're seeking community building. And building some sustainability around that with financials my partnerships have been all over at this point. I work with one yoga and do a new moon full moon sound bath with the community there.

[00:42:36] Free, not free, but a sliding scale for the community but open to anyone, not free for anyone to come in and be a part of that one yoga community or just one off. They want to come in and take sound with me. I'm also doing a sound healing course sharing my method and how I have built Wellness through sound and allowing people to learn with my work as well as purchasing their own instruments how to build soundscapes for themselves and their families and building a.

[00:43:12] network of healing musicians, healing practitioners. And I just imagine this world where we're able to create sound as it were. And if you think back when we were. In Africa, and the first music that there was drum, your first music was your heartbeat. And getting back to understanding that current, universal current of beat, of rhythm, of flow, of water.

[00:43:48] of seamlessness, that we are all part of that consciousness. And so creating experiences and immersion experiences that involve this current, these waves of sound being able to share the connection between that flow, between your nervous system, and how sound Can share it's a transformative ability with your nervous system is amazing that practice another another event that has been happening for now a year and a half.

[00:44:27] Going into its second year is a radical sense of love and power, which is my work that is partnered with Kelly Shea and Anika McMullin, which has been transformational, really, from creator space to the joyful noisy yachts on Watergate Marina, and then also at Watershed Spa. We've been able to create a beautiful trifecta of layering wellness practices for body alignments and just mindfulness, full on mindfulness of all of the ways that you can be expansive.

[00:45:07] Build your reality, your destiny, as well as focus in on your wellness tackling different ailments and also just insights on how you can build your wellness toolkit with breath work, yoga, and sound coupled together, taking them separately, layering them together, building the way that it is authentic and needed for you.

[00:45:32] My future projects are a. experience called Healing House, where I feel bridging the worlds between our music that we listen to and the frequencies of sound healing. are absolutely sublime and amazing. So I'm partnering with The House DJ and bringing sound healing into the mix. I've done this experimentally with a few DJs, but I plan on starting this at the Real Magic House in Hudson, Wisconsin, because it's where we began this journey.

[00:46:10] And then bringing it to Minneapolis in October, hopefully it'll be a part of the restorative wellness response and wellness week. That is my hope, my sincere hope that we are building together. And so this event is basically a wellness event with party vibes. That's how I coined it. Yes. I love it.

[00:46:31] And so Healing House is on the way. And then I do a corporate reframe. Which is sound healing for corporate spaces. And I'm building that where we come in and we share, authentically look at our learning and personality styles, focusing on intention on openness and expansiveness for productivity and building community building.

[00:46:53] in the corporate space, which is not always so evident. Healing in the corporate space is really also needed. That program is being built with me and a few other practitioners, as well as youth sound and movement and sound. Working with dancers and Anika McMullin, myself, and Jess Pierce already have done one with Dance Projects by Me, where we did migration stories, and we infused healing music underneath this movement language that they had built, which is super electrifying and amazing that happened this past summer.

[00:47:31] So definitely just a lot on the horizon. 

[00:47:35] Cynthia: So much and so much alignment, like we were talking about at the beginning of our conversation. I'm excited to continue hearing what you're doing, how you're bringing your own personal magic into the world, and I'm so excited for you to share it with Twin Cities Wellness Week in October.

[00:47:55] I'm looking forward to that. Maybe we'll have to do another episode about what's in store.

[00:48:00] Tamiko: Yes. Indeed. What's in store? Indeed. I would love to do another episode to share the developments of what's been happening. 

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[00:48:54] Cynthia: Yes. And now if someone listening is okay, I want to work with Tomiko. I know you do one on one jewelry design. You do one on one vibrational wellness sessions.

[00:49:03] What would that look like and how can they work with you? 

[00:49:07] Tamiko: So I am literally a text to phone call a ping away. I'm always somewhere in the community. The one place that I'm always working out of as far as vibrational jewelry and space clearing artwork is concerned is at Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center at George Floyd Square.

[00:49:26] I am there every week working with community clients and would love to build with you there. Otherwise just. Shoot me a message. My website is www soul speak expressions.com. You can ring me there or on my ig, which is Soul Speak Expressions. I'm on all platforms. So wherever you're at, I'm somewhere around.

[00:49:53] I love to just be in community. I'm a collaborative worker. The way that I build work is with the energy that you give me, your intention, your focus, and we build energetically finding crystals and metals that are Aligned with you and your journey right now, what you're calling into your life.

[00:50:12] 

[00:50:12] Cynthia: So

[00:50:13] lots and lots 

[00:50:14] of ways to connect with Tomiko and all of the links that you need will be in the show notes along with her website where there will be a link to donate if you feel called to for her sound work and also for Wellness Wednesday. Also important to support just these beautiful healing experiences that are offered.

[00:50:35] for free or low cost to other community members who might not be able to afford it. So I think that's really important and amazing work that you're doing, Tomiko. And I know that there's also this beautiful update that you shared earlier when we were off the recording. Do you mind sharing with everyone else?

[00:50:56] Tamiko: Sure. Sure. My youth group, Legacy Arts Group that I mentioned earlier, we have an opportunity to go back to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for 2025, and I'm just excited and elated to do that work again as a director, building with other young directors here. In Minneapolis the work is going to be focused again on mental health and the transition from COVID to the murder of George Floyd, to the various things that are happening in our world, centering and collaborating with our youth and their voices, empowering their voices, collaborating And inviting them to really elevate their voices in this platform.

[00:51:44] The thing that makes this special and the reason why Minnesota, Minneapolis needs to be at the table is this will be the second year out of 29 years. This organization has been moving. In this direction to keep sharing young voices on the Edinburgh platform for this largest arts festival in the world.

[00:52:07] And all of our suburbs just about have gone. And I want to continue to keep Minneapolis at the table. And if I can be of help to do that's what I'm going to do. The reason why the support is needed is because it is an expensive trip. They get two weeks of travel.

[00:52:24] One to London and then also to Edinburgh for performances. On the Edinburgh stage in which we do go out in bus, which is canvassing. 3 million people that come to that show. For that month of festivals, mind you, there's borders book festival, there's a pleasant. There's the underbelly. Any kind of festival that you could imagine it's happening at the same time converging on Edinburgh.

[00:52:49] Plus they have many different cultural events and tours and things that you can take place. But the real meat of this is representation and being able to have a international experience. We are at the table in a powerful way, and we had made Headway as the first Black group to go, as well as I'm the first Black director to create work, present work and we also got an award for best in show.

[00:53:18] It was absolutely transformational. All packed out shows, all standing ovations, and to see them, Stand in their power, knowing that even though they experienced some trauma, even though I experienced these things that they were uncomfortable sharing, that Their pain became power and beauty, and also solidarity and advocacy and visibility of the multifaceted ways that youth can show up in their power, that youth can be elevated and strengthened to follow their voice, their intuition, their path, and use their voices to build their destiny.

[00:54:06] All four of those wonderful individuals that I had the honor to work with. Are just so powerful and transformational in their work right now, whether they're in college or they're working in community. And so it's just a beautiful experience. And I want to continue to build that experience with community cannot do it by myself.

[00:54:27] So not only with that, they get three college credits for participating. So it's not just that they're going to perform and it's fun and things teachers that are part of it get traveling credit, education credits, as well as the students get three college credits and they partner with the university to do that.

[00:54:45] And that's important all in itself. That they get this international experience they perform, they understand their process, and they share it and get the credit to do that, and the way that I've constructed this is that the students learn from the ground up how to build a show, they get to score the show, they get to co write and direct the show.

[00:55:06] I have a tech component to that and my adults are also in part of the education, the mental health and well being. That's a huge component because at all times we have to coach them into being versatile, being present, being in the moment and moving through their challenges to get where they desire to go.

[00:55:27] And that coaching is so important to their development. So I don't feel that this is a frivolous or luxury leisure event. This is a humongous teaching tool to share that we are more than just the boundaries of the city. We reside here, but we are global. We are exponentially, amazingly powerful.

[00:55:53] And we have an opportunity to share that with the world. Gosh. 

[00:55:58] Cynthia: What an amazing opportunity. I'm so glad that you have that coming up. And COVID didn't completely knock that experience away from you. Oh my goodness. From all the kids. Oh my gosh, you tried. I know. It was like so heartbreaking to hear.

[00:56:16] But. You're invited back. It's something that clearly has value or is seen, obviously it has value but that Edinburgh that the community also is yes, like we definitely want to make sure this happens. 

[00:56:32] Tamiko: Yeah. I really am just deeply appreciative and honored to be able to do it again.

[00:56:38] And then my goal is to partner with other directors. To build, connectivity, because also it's networking. I am not the door. There are many doors. There are many ways that intergenerational education and story building history telling can. And it doesn't just come through me, it comes with community and unity in that.

[00:57:06] Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. We'll start recasting in August, late August into September and building our story and connecting with different community members to build that too. 

[00:57:19] Cynthia: Awesome. And is information on that also on your website or is there a separate website? 

[00:57:25] Tamiko: There is LegacyArtsGroup.

[00:57:28] com but it will also be tagged on Soul Speak Expressions, too. So you'll be able to get there either way, but LegacyArtsGroup. com. And we're partnered with we're partnered with Springboard for the Arts who has been so amazing and gracious in holding us and helping us to build the financial means to have that trip happen.

[00:57:48] And all of our different ways that we're partnered. With the community to so I'm just really happy about that partnership with springboard for the arts and various folks that have given to we had at least a good 200 donors over the life of the projects. And that has just been transformational, the belief in community.

[00:58:12] Strong and I remember it. If it wasn't for the community, I would not have gone to college. I would not have been able to sustain my work if it wasn't for community. So powering community is huge. 

[00:58:27] Cynthia: Amazing. I wonder, Tamiko, there's been so much from your own healing journey to how you're showing up for a community and just all the different ways that you are introducing these experiences.

[00:58:42] Healing modalities to add to the healing toolkit for every single person out there, including yourself. I wonder if there were one takeaway that a listener could walk away from this conversation with, what would you hope that would be?

[00:58:58] Tamiko: Major takeaway would be expand your idea of wellness. Try, be open. To every way that is possible,

[00:59:16] find joy in the small little things because those are monumentally huge. The act of breath, the act and power of your own mind. Life happens simultaneously. Our life happens in a layered fashion at all times. And your wellness crosses and layers in the same fashion. And so to have many things. To draw upon, to know about, to build with is a very important thing for our wellness, so be open to all the ways that you can experience your expansion, your ascension, your bliss, and your joy.

[01:00:11] Cynthia: Thank you so much, Tomiko, for everything that you are. Oh my goodness. Just a walking testimonial to community support, to leaning on all of the different modalities for healing that are out there and coming out stronger, more vibrant. I'm honored that we got to connect and have this conversation. 

[01:00:36] Tamiko: Thank you.

[01:00:36] I'm honored to be with you and share an energy with you and the best is yet to come. This is one of many, I'm sure. 

[01:00:46] Cynthia: Thank you so much for listening to the Well Connected Twin Cities podcast. Did you learn something new? Did you feel that spark of hope and excitement for what is possible? Because so much is possible. Tell us about it in a review on Apple podcast. Not only would we absolutely love hearing from you, but these reviews help our ratings and help other curious minds like you find this resource.

[01:01:11] We are always better together. Thank you again and see you next time.