Spirit in Action
Medicine Song Woman - Brenda MacIntyre
Brenda MacIntyre is a singer and a healer - hence her healingsinger.com web site. She has taken a background of difficulty and abuse and, with inspiration from her aboriginal/First Nations ancestry and inspiration of Spirit, she converted into a gift of healing for herself and others through song, visions and intuitive healing.
- Broadcast on:
- 20 Mar 2011
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world alone ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeet. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world alone ♪ Today for Spirit in Action, we'll be speaking with Brenda McIntyre, also known as Medicine Song Woman, a Canadian musician and healer who blends First Nation insights and practices with more modern revelations and even personal spiritual experiences to guide her healing work. You can find out more about her at healingsinger.com and she joins us today from Toronto, Ontario. Brenda, thanks so much for joining me for Spirit in Action. - Thanks for having me on your show. - The current CD that you came out with, Medicine Song Woman, I think is also your identity. Is that the name you go by more typically than Brenda or how do you work then? - Well, it's a good question 'cause a lot of people think Medicine Song Woman is a title and it sort of is in a way but it's a spirit name that I was given by an elder in a community, so I go by Brenda McIntyre, I go by Medicine Song Woman, they're both my name. Traditionally, the way I would introduce myself in the Ojibwe language, I would say Greetings, my name is Brenda McIntyre, my spirit name is Medicine Song Woman and I'm Owl Clan. In Ojibwe in Adawa, my home is Toronto, but my other home is Camelot species 'cause my spirit is home there. What I do, I work with creative intuitive women, I work with a lot of people, but I really focus a lot on women because the teachings and the songs that come to me end up being what women are looking for, especially those who have been through some kind of a struggle or trying to reach their full potential and having a little bit of struggle with that, sometimes confusion, fear, sometimes even worse abuse and stuff like that, because I've been there. So I understand and so most of the people who come to my workshops and most of the people who come and listen to or purchase my music end up being women who have been through a lot and are really trying now to lift themselves up. - When you say Brenda that you've been there, what do you mean by that? - Well, from a very young age was depressed, didn't know it because there were no sort of counseling, service, or anything like that. My mother was manic depressive, my doctor's family that raised me, my mother committed suicide when I was 15. My father died of a heart attack about two years after that and then it was on my own, pretty much. I was with relatives, but it just wasn't, I couldn't handle it. And so I moved to Toronto, that's when I moved from British Columbia to Toronto. And when I moved here, I went through a lot of stuff and I had no relationships, kills, except for what I saw in the family that I was raised in, which was not healthy. So I went through a string of abusive relationships. I had incredibly low self-esteem, carried a whole bunch of anger around that I didn't even know was there. And grief that I wasn't really, wasn't allowed to, wasn't able to release. Also because of all the stuff that I went through developed chronic health conditions. And so it was a difficult upbringing. After that, living here in Toronto, it took me still so many years before I really found myself, before I found my voice, even though I've been singing all those 24 years and I could sing. But speaking my truth and being real, like just being who I am, that's taken a long time to get over and I, to cut to sort of short. I mean, it's been a long journey, but there was one Native American healing session in particular that really, really helped me and that was sort of, I guess it was my first kind of real spiritual awakening, like really solid turning point for me. In that ceremony, I found my voice and I connected to my spirit again after kind of being separated from the core who I am for a long time. When I did that was the first time I heard my voice as two voices when I was singing. And I was told that I had called my spirit back with what the elder told me. Ever since then, it's kind of been, I felt like I had people to go to, finally who understood me. I'd have reconnected to the Native community here after not really knowing my heritage or anything about my background as an adopted child. So I've been through a lot of stuff and at the same time, I've learned sort of shortcuts, if you will, and they're not really shortcuts, but they're a way that you can a lot more easily connect to your spirit, get back to being yourself, get rid of a lot of the fear that you're experiencing and just really have a sense of who you really can be of your true power because I think a lot of women and a lot of men, a lot of people just don't realize how much real, and I don't mean power in a sense of control, and I know that you know that, but for anyone who's listening, I'm talking about the power that comes from inside you that is who you are, that's who you're supposed to be or what you came here to do. And when you discover that, it's just incredible. I've been singing all these years, but I just recently started doing the healing work that I do and I never knew that that would happen. I've always known that I would sing, but I never knew that I would become a healer since I've been doing that work. The miracles have been happening for me. My chronic health conditions, like one by one, just dropped away through my healing journey and the last one being just only a few weeks ago. So I'm still going, wow, is it really gone? I really believe is because of the healing work that I'm doing now, because I also, things like my reflexes that used to be really bad. And all of a sudden, I noticed one day actually remarking to my neighbor that all of a sudden, I seemed to be able to catch things, like just an instant that would have fallen and I would have been looking at it going, oh well, I missed that. So all kinds of really neat things have happened for me just because of doing the healing work, it feels like I'm getting, I don't know, more clear, more focused and more guided every day. - Wow, that's an amazing journey, quite a history with the abuse. The family you were raised in, you were adopted for some reason. I guess I don't need the full laundry list of what was wrong with that family, but I'm wondering about the spiritual religious outlook you were raised with, because clearly it didn't lift you up. So where did you start from? And that's not to defame where you were at, but you didn't have the thing that you needed at that point. - Yeah, that's a great question. I was adopted at birth. The family that raised me, I would say that they're not religious. I mean, they had both my brother and I baptized shortly after we were brought home as babies, but as far as going to church and stuff now, they didn't go to church and so there wasn't really anything. In a way, it was kind of good because I don't think I would have fit into, and I'm pretty sure it would have been Christian because they were, I guess, adopted. It would have been really strange for me in foreign because I was spiritual, all my life I've been spiritual. I didn't know that's what it was, but things like being very connected to the land, having spiritual experiences. I was taken out books from the library as soon as I could read about ESP and things like that, which is what it was pretty much called back then. Anything to do with dreaming or mostly dreaming, actually, when I was really young because I had some really terrifying dream experiences and some that felt real, that it wasn't even a dream. Like, it was actually happening to me and nobody would believe me. So I was really researching on my own and kind of developing my own spirituality, I guess. And also, going up into the hills where I lived in Kamali, BC, 'cause I connected so strongly to the land there, the sagebrush that grows there, I can just smell that and be put into, I feel like I'm in heaven when I smell that. And it has nothing to do with my painful experiences. Like, I was extremely shy, had no friends, really, just a couple of friends that I had growing up and was really hard childhood, but somehow still that sagebrush can take me back to a really, really beautiful place. But, you know, I didn't realize either that sage is used as a medicine in our culture. It's used for a purification ceremony and I didn't even realize, but I had connected to it completely. I also had a connection to stones. I would always, I was collecting them from when I can remember. Everything I can remember are picking them up, always picking them up, going places and having to get one, something from wherever I went. And I still view and now I use those stones and also crystals in my healing work that I do. And another thing that happened too, actually, when I moved to Kamloops, which was really powerful for me and I didn't know it then, I moved there in the summer when I was just gonna, I would have been six, I guess. That fall when I started going to school, I think it was the second day of school, when I walked to school and also when I walked back from school, I had this vision, I didn't know anything about visions, right? I'm just like, I'm a creative kid. I see this thing, but it wasn't going away. And I was like, it's like it's sitting there, right where my third eye is. It's just sitting there, like in the middle of my forehead, I can see this symbol. And it was a very simple line drawing, like a petroglyph. But I've never seen it, I've never seen it anywhere else. I would see this every single day for all of the nine months or whatever that I went to school that year. I knew it was important. Stuff like this would happen to me and I would always draw it or write it out, journal about it if I thought it was important. And sure enough, only in 2006, I saw that symbol again in something else. And when I saw it, all of a sudden I had a painting of it that I like I was able to paint. My third painting, I think I had ever done, and that was on my spirit connection CD. I used it as my cover because the CD ended up being teachings and songs that were all to do with this vision that I had had when I was a kid. And it was like within a few days, all of the teachings and the songs and the painting all poured through me. It just literally poured through me. And I was periodically recording things and writing them down and drawing and painting. It was incredible. - If we go to HealingSinger.com, what will we find? Will we find any of your artwork? - Well, you'll find my CDs, and I did both of the covers of the last two CDs. One of them is Medicine Song, which was just released in August 2009. The other one is the Spirit Connection Painting. I'm talking about from that vision in Kameligs when I was a child. So those are up there. And I had some paintings up on my website for a while, and I took them down. I've been focusing on different work. I have so many projects on the go that I had to take them down. And also, I'm exploring some things in my art because it's always the spiritual. And what I have been doing is a painting for each of the songs on the Medicine Song CD. And then that's gonna come into play later on. Some of them were done before the CD was done. What happens is I see visions when I'm singing, particularly when I'm channeling a song, when I'm bringing a new song in, for me to paint them when I'm singing is a challenge. And I need to find a way. So I'm gonna be taking some time to explore that. And then we'll see about my art. But for now, I've been focusing on the CDs and just singing in general. And the healing work that I do as well. There's a program that will be coming out. Well, there's a couple of programs that will be coming out. One is to do a transformational stress release. It will include some recordings of medicine songs that were channeled at the time. Like I would be in a workshop and I'm channeling a song for the people in the workshop. Those songs tend to be anywhere from 12 minutes to 20 minutes long, depending. I have also a really nice guarded meditation with one of those songs behind it. And that's for stress release. And then the next program that's coming, and that probably will be later in the year. I would like to think it would be really soon because I'm just almost bursting with it. I need to get it out. It's called Sing Yourself Alive. I'm already doing the work of Sing Yourself Alive. I've been doing workshops that I call that for several years. And there are women's empowerment workshops involving hand drumming and singing and also some teachings and guided meditation. And also I view groups found healing within the workshops. Ever since I started the healing work in particular too, the workshops have become more powerful. The songs have always been emotionally healing. And I knew that. And I've seen that happen with other people doing drum songs as well. You know, people will drum and sing, and you'll see people tearing up in the audience and that sort of thing. But what happened since I started doing the healing work in 2008, the workshops that I do now where people are getting visions in them, they get in particular. And I find it interesting probably because I deal with headaches and I deal with back pain that people come to my workshops and then they leave without their back pain, without their headaches. And I think that's really cool. And then the visions, like connecting with spirit guides and this sort of thing, both things are happening just in the workshops. And so yeah, I want to be able to give that experience to people and it's going to become a lot bigger than even I have a big vision for this program, but it's really a big part of who I am, because that's kind of what happened to me in that Native American healing ceremony. It was done for me. It was like I sang myself alive. - Well, let's share some of the music so that people have an idea of what we're dealing with. Let's take some of the music from your medicine song CD that just came out this past year and give people an idea of how they would use it. So where should we start? - Well, Crystal Clear is a really nice song to start with. It's a water song. It came to me at a really special ceremony, actually, where the tradition when you want something from an Aboriginal healer or a traditional person, you would offer them tobacco. So I was doing the teaching after I was asked by this event organizer, what should she do? One of the good things to do with your tobacco tie before you offer it is to pray into it with the intentions that you want from this person, whatever the help is that you want. And it was a spiritual gathering kind of on top of this mountain in a really beautiful place near Toronto in Hamilton, Ontario. So I had this tobacco tie and they told me the story of it before I got up one stage to sing. It was such a beautiful story and basically what they did was the whole entire group prayed into that tobacco before they gave it to me. So it was easy for the song to come. So I was on stage, I think I sang one song or maybe two songs and then I said, "Well, I have to just channel one." I always know when I have to do that. I just have a feeling and I was holding that tobacco tie with my drum when I was singing. And I looked at the person I was singing with. I said, "Just, you know, what I'm gonna do." So just drum along and it'll be good. And this song came straight through very easily. Sometimes it takes me a while to get it when I do a healing session for someone and it's always a new song. So I have to learn it, right? It's not like my brain doesn't know it. My spirit can sing it. I knew the title was crystal clear. That was the word that was given for the title. But I went back to Hamilton a while after that, maybe two weeks later or something. And when I went back, the executive director actually at the Aboriginal Health Centre there had asked me to sing a song. So I thought it would be nice to sing that song 'cause it came from Hamilton and I sang it. And he knew it was a water song. And I didn't even have no idea it was a water song. I just called it crystal clear. But he mentioned something about, you know, what was that water song that you sang? And then that was when I realized, absolutely, of course, it's a water song. Because the other thing is Hamilton and Toronto are two connecting points to Lake Ontario. So this song, I sing it a lot for Lake Ontario. And it's also for the water within you. So I also recorded the Pacific Ocean. I went to California to do a mother earth healing ceremony they'd asked me to do. So just in April in 2009, I went there and that was one of my conditions to be able to go and do this as long as I can go to the ocean. And so I recorded the ocean waves and my producer just worked with that and that threw out the whole song. And the intentions of the song are to help clear you, help you to be able to focus. But also it's kind of like, when you listen, if you could listen to it and imagine that there's, you know, the sediment like that goes in the bottom of the river and it just sort of trickles down and that's how the water gets filtered. And if you can imagine that happening within your body while you're listening to the song, then it helps you to be able to clear out any of the toxins that are inside you. And also, if you have a glass of water and you let the glass of water be present while you're playing that song, it's actually going to purify the water. And then when you drink the water afterwards, it's going to be really good for you. - So maybe we should allow listeners a moment to get a glass of water to set their intention and prepare to listen to crystal clear. 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All came around here again. That was crystal clear. It's by my guest today for Spirit in Action. Her name is Brenda McIntyre, and her spirit name is Medicine Song Woman. She does healing work with music. How do you do this specifically? Is it always from the stage? Do you deal with individual clients? Is it on the phone in person? How do you do this? - I do, the healing work in a couple of different ways. If there is the workshops where I'll do group found healing, and a little bit of energy healing, depending on how long it is. So sometimes I'll do a day long workshop, and sometimes it's just a couple of hours. But when I have a client, I do individual clients. I am probably gonna start doing in-person healing, but mostly it's been distance up to now. So I don't care where you are in the world. It doesn't matter, I'll do it. And you can just go to healing-singer.com, and the information is there. You can book me from there, and then I send you instructions and stuff. There's two different ways that I'll do it. Some people like to have the phone connection. They like to hear my voice right at the same time. So I do phone sessions. They're a little shorter, because with the phone, it kind of limits me as far as the energy work goes, because I'll channel the song for the person, and that sort of brings the information, and it flows through the person. And then what happens after that is I'll get a little bit of information. I might see visions while I'm singing, and then I'll share that with the person. And so it takes a little bit of time, and I'll talk a little bit on the phone after with them. It takes about 30 minutes, it says on the website, 30 minutes, but I never stop until it's truly done. So it's usually 30 to 40 minutes. The other way I do it, which is really my favorite way to do it, is without the phone, because then I'm completely hands-free. I have my healing room here set up with basically the crystals of stones, all the medicines that I work with, I'll know which ones to pick. It says if they sort of talk to me, they'll let me know which ones I'm supposed to work with. I also work with water, actually, during the sessions. And then what happens is, all you do is relax for like an hour, and I'm on my end, I'm doing the song, I channel the song, and then after that, I do energy work with my hands and with these medicines. And to me, it says if you're right in front of me, because I can sense your whole energy feels, not just your energy feel, but everything inside there too, like if there's something going on with your heart energy, I can feel that. If there's something happening with your shoulder, I can feel that, and work with it. So I'll start clearing things that I see. And at the same time, while I'm doing the energy work, that's when I really get the strongest, clearest vision. That's when a lot of times ancestors or my spirit helpers or your spirit helpers will talk to me and tell me what they want you to know. And then I'll just say it out, and I record it all. I record the song, I also record the whole reading, whatever comes out, while I'm doing the energy work. And then I send that to the person at the end of the session. So they're getting almost like, well, it's more than even two healings. 'Cause what usually happens for my clients is they'll experience healing while it's happening, while I'm doing the session. It's really cool. I really, like I said, I knew that emotional healing would happen, but things like people's body parts are moving, like your arms might be moving, and for one woman, her arms moved, and then she felt pain where she usually does feel pain. And then all of a sudden, the pain was gone. And then the next time when she actually listened to the recording, like this was the first time that happened was just when I was doing it. So she wasn't listening to me. She was just relaxing in her home. When she listened to the recording, it got rid of more of the pain that she had been experiencing. So it was like it cleared it on two different levels, and then she continued to listen to it. Now, which is what I always advise. You can listen to it till you get bored with it, because that's when you're done. So often, one session is all they need. And you don't even need to tell me. It's funny because I used to think that I would have to know what the issues that they're coming to me with. But what happens is you could tell me your shoulder's hurting, but I might be concentrating completely in another area because really the root is somewhere else. So it's really interesting, and the song will does most of the work, and then I just come in. And when I'm doing the energy work, it's not even really me doing it. It's like I'm being guided, and I'm just, that word channel, it's really true. It's like the elders would say, you're a hollow bone. You have to be a hollow bone to be able to make this happen. So it's like I have to just allow the energy to flow through me. And when I do that, then I'm able to connect on a really deep level. And the song is how that happens for me. And then as soon as the song happens, everything comes after, and it's easy. Well, I want to hear some more about the background of how you think about this. But first, I would like to have some more music to give people an idea of what kind of thing you're doing. Can you suggest another cut from your medicine song CD that might be helpful for people to get an idea of what you do? Sure. I love medicine song, the title track. And it has turned out to be one of the two favorites on this disc. Well, what it's about, it's a multi-level. It is about the journey, literally a journey that I took back home. I went for a two and a half month tour back home. And it was a road trip. I learned so much about myself. Didn't realize how much I still had to deal with on a personal level. A lot of it actually, I don't know if you're familiar with the Abraham teachings with the Abraham Hicks. I'm not. I was wondering about that because I read in the book that you distribute with the CD about that. And I was wondering what it was. Yeah, the Abraham teachings really got me through a lot. And I'll talk about that a little bit after, but listen to the song. And I think you'll see. The song is Medicine Song. It's by Medicine Song Woman. That's her spirit name, her name that she was raised with is Brenda McIntyre. [MUSIC PLAYING] So many years, living in fear, had to say goodbye to many times. But I'm still here, found my way, had to be strong. Only one thing could help me move on. Medicine Song Medicine Song way up, way up, way up, way up. Way up, way up, way up, way up, way up, way up. Medicine Song. I'm alive, feeling free, no matter what happened to me. I'm feeling joy, coming round, touching sky. I'm feeling right, way up, way up, way up, way up, way up, way up, way up. Medicine Song. [MUSIC PLAYING] Way up, way up, way up, way up, way up, way up, way up, way up, way up. Way up, way up, way up, way up, way up, way up, way up. [MUSIC PLAYING] So many years, medicine song, I'm still here. That was Medicine Song. It's by Brenda McIntyre, who's here with us today for Spirit in Action. This is Spirit in Action. And I'm Mark Helpsmeet, your host for this Northern Spirit Radio production. Check us out at northernspiritradio.org. Listen to a lot more of our programs. Drop us a comment. Find more info on our guests, like today's active spirit, Brenda McIntyre. She lives up in Ontario and does healing work, as she can do it from a distance as well. You were going to tell us, Brenda, about the Abraham teachings. What is that? The Abraham teachings, it's funny to back in the early '90s when I was really still searching out who I was. A friend of mine brought another one of her friends over, and we were doing these sort of spiritual women gatherings, which were just-- we would get together and read spiritual books, and I don't know, we would have a circle, sometimes we'd drum, sometimes we'd sing, and sometimes we would do activities. And this one time that when she came over, she was talking about, well, you've had the Abraham tapes. And you've checked out blah blah, and she's talking about these Abraham tapes. And I was like, what are you talking about? And she said, well, they're channeled beings from this woman, Esther Hicks, and here you should borrow them. And I thought, whoa, that's really way out for me, so I never did anything about it. I never checked it out. And then pretty soon we were hearing about, well, what the bleep was first? And then pretty soon after that, the movie The Secret came out. The original version of The Secret had Esther Hicks in it during some speaking. And she was talking about the Law of Attraction through these-- what my friend was referring to as the Abraham tapes, which because it was audio cassette back then, it was a series of audio cassettes that were about the Law of Attraction. The way that she does it is just very simple. It's like conversational and easy to understand. It's a book that anyone can get through. They're just really helpful books. The one that I was reading when I was on the tour to back home to DC was the astonishing power of emotions. Inside the book, they have all these activities and sort of journaling suggestions. And I was doing them, boy, because I never knew-- this was my first road trip. And I had my daughter and myself and my friend who was driving. And we were at each other's throat. We were learning things about ourselves and each other that maybe could be best left alone. But at the same time, because it was about growing, and the CD was sort of just begun at the time of that tour, songs were coming to me like during the tour. I was getting songs-- this was one of them that started coming, I think, during the tour. What happened because of those books-- because of that one book, actually, the Abraham book that I had, I was able to get through the really, really hard stuff that I was dealing with and part of it was because I was going back home to where my parents had both passed away. And I had never really been able to do any kind of healing around that when I was there in DC. And I'd only maybe gone back to DC a couple of times, really, before this. So when I went back, it was a really emotional time for me, and I probably-- I don't think I realized how much healing I was going to deal on that journey. When I got back, I just continued with that book, and working with their teachings. And I've since been able to see Abraham live. And when I say Abraham-- so they say that they're a group of entities. It's not that she's channeling this one being, one person or spirit or whatever, it's like she's channeling several beings that are kind of like a collective, and they call themselves Abraham. But when you see her live, it's totally clear that this is absolutely real. And also from my perspective now, knowing that-- I mean, I don't know-- I wouldn't begin to say that I channeled these songs, and this is the name of the person that I got it from or whatever. It's not like that with me. I just channeled these songs. I know they're coming to me. I hear them before I sing them. It's like the line is just given to me just before it has to roll off my tongue, and then I can sing it. So I understand, and I know that channeling is real. I also know there are some prods out there, but these guys are absolutely real. Seeing Esther Hicks channeling Abraham in Toronto, just not even-- I think it was like two months ago in Toronto here. It was amazing. It was an amazing experience. Everybody in there just was joyful. Like you could feel the energy in there after everyone left, and conversations afterward. I met some wonderful people, and the way that I got there was through the law of attraction even. I mean, I didn't even have the money to go. I ended up getting serendipitously everything, just bam, bam, bam. Everything happened for me. As soon as I said, I wanted to go, that this is part of the work I do with my songs. If I'm singing a song that's already in existence, not channeling when, when I'm singing when, and it's already in existence, then I do a performance, then I'm going to tell the people in the audience what that song is about first so that they can put their intentions into listening to it. If I have that water song on there, for example, then they can listen to it and go put their intentions into clearing the water inside them. For a medicine song, you'll hear the English lyrics. That's really nice. Some of the songs on here have the English lyrics, right? As you heard, it's about that journey that I was on, and it's also about the journey of my whole life, really, just coming out of the abuse, breaking the patterns that are no longer useful for me, allowing myself to grow and be happy, and coming to the point where truly my tears, every time that tears come to my eyes, it's because of something good. It's amazing what I've learned through my own journey and also through the Abraham teachings, and the thing is, a lot of those teachings that come through Abraham, through Esther Hicks, are the same teachings that I've heard from the elders in my community. Those teachings are very old, and they're real, and they do work. Some things have been left out in different places, and one of them is self-esteem, which is why I'm really big on increasing self-esteem in women and helping them with that. If you don't feel like you deserve to have what you want, then how can you possibly feel good about having what you want? The whole purpose of a lot of attraction, the whole premise of it is, all you have to do is think positive and, you know, intend that you want whatever that is, your car, or whatever it is that you want, your better life, and then all of a sudden poof, it will be there kind of thing. If you don't feel good about yourself, it's not going to happen for you so quickly or so easily. And that's what I really appreciate about Abraham is they talk about that, they talk about the most important thing being feeling good. So I understand that it's important for people to feel good, to feel good about themselves and to get upbeat. How do you do that? How do you help people do that? I help people do that by getting them drumming and singing sometimes, and one of the songs on my CD is called Back in the River, and it actually has kind of the premise of the law of attraction and kind of the way that Esther Hicks teaches it. They do talk about getting back in the river and just going with the flow and allowing things to happen for you. I want to ask you some more about that in just a little bit, but in the meantime, let's listen to Back in the River. It's by my guest here today for Spirit and Action. Her spirit name is Medicine Song Woman. The name she was raised with is Brenda McIntyre, and her website is HealingSinger.com. This is Back in the River. Let the current come on. Get back in the river, let it flow. Let the current take you where you want to go. Get back in the river, let it flow. Let the current take you where you want to go. I was looking out for myself, trying to change my life, working so hard at everything. I couldn't get it right. I was so frustrated, life was so hard, that I finally gave up my fight, listened to my heart. I fell back in the river of life, let the current take me in the river. I felt my spirit wake me in the river, and get back in the river. I fell back in the river of life, let the current take me in the river. I felt my spirit wake me in the river, and get back in the river. I fell back in the river of life, river of life, river of life. You should have been beside me when I couldn't find my way. I was just a young girl, when you were taking away, I didn't know what hit me. It's taking me all this time to lift myself up just enough, to live the life I love. I fell back in the river of life, let the current take me in the river. I felt my spirit wake me in the river, and get back in the river. I fell back in the river of life, let the current take me in the river. I felt my spirit wake me in the river, and get back in the river of life, river of life. I've seen things nobody should have to see, but that's no reason to give up on me. I got back in the river of life, let my troubles go out of here. I'm back in the river of life, let the current take me in, I feel my spirit wake me, and get back in the river, I fell back in the river of life, I fell back in the river, the current take me in the river, I feel my spirit wake me in the river, I'm back in the river of life. I fell back in the river of life, river of life, river of life, river of life. I fell back in the river, let it flow, let the current take you where you want to go. I fell back in the river, let it flow, let the current take you where you want to go. I fell back in the river, let it flow, let the current take you where you want to go. I fell back in the river, let it flow, let the current take you where you want to go. I fell back in the river, that was fun. I hope that everybody out there in the audience is standing up and clapping and echoing back the song. It's a beautiful, fun song there, Brenda. So you use that in a concert, for example. What is the mix? How many concerts do you do? Is this your full-time job? Do you have a day job to supply your healing work? I do not have a day job, I'm very, very persistent and stubborn about being self-employed completely. So this is why I have multiple things that I do with the healing work that I do. This singing performance is, and it depends on the time of year, in June it's Aboriginal History Month in Canada. So I have a lot of gigs then, I'm usually performing all over the place, but it's kind of a balance of the healing work, the singing and also the workshops that I do. The workshops are a big part of it. I also go into schools, I'll go into universities and that is how I make my money, that's how I support myself and my daughter. I wanted to pursue a little bit. Some of what you've learned and what you're teaching has come to you from Aboriginal tradition, from Ajibwa and I think in Upper Wisconsin we call it Anishinaabe. Some of it's coming from that community, some of it's coming from, as you said, the Abraham teachings, things that are channeled, stuff that I guess you're channeling yourself. And you said earlier that sometimes you're finding that what's being channeled is exactly what you're getting from the native teachers. What is the mix, how intent, how pure I guess is your native or your Aboriginal approach. You say in the notes in your CD book that it's important to follow the guidelines and do it in the authentic way. I think there's probably a danger of deviating from the traditional way because there's attraction of other things and how do you deal with that or how do you think about that? I don't know, I put some guidelines in the e-book that comes with the CD and for those who are listening, there's a free e-book that comes with all my CDs. It's because I want the information to be there. Part of the tradition with women's hand drumming, which is quote relatively new, really it's relatively old, but it's coming back. One of the things that's really important that we do, at least here, and most of the women's drum groups that run in to do the same thing is we like to share the meaning of the song, who it came from, whatever we know about the song before we all sing it. So if I'm in a drum group, because I wasn't a drum group before, and we would sing lots of other people's songs, most of the drum groups, that's what they sing, is other people's songs, to honor the songs and we're told that we're supposed to tell the story of the song and honor the person who the song came from if we know who that is. So that's kind of part of the Aboriginal singing and drumming tradition for women. As far as the healing work that I do, that's completely spirit-led. I do what I was told to do, basically at Spring Equinox, just before Spring Equinox 2008, was when I started doing the healing work, and it's because I was being overwhelmed with songs. That was when I was told to do the healing work, but I was told to be spirit, and I did a ceremony for myself, and I was told, and in words, and in sort of pictures too, I don't know how to describe it, it's kind of multidimensional when I see visions and stuff. But I knew exactly what I was supposed to do. There's Aboriginal traditions here, but I totally don't buy into a lot of it. I just don't. It's not for me. It might be for many other people, but I feel it, it's not for me. Just like I feel that Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism, those are just not for me either. But when I feel right about something and compelled to do it, then that's when I do it. It's great that you have the clarity and the guidance to do your work without any of the concerns about the categories and the limitations of other systems and beliefs. One of the things about your work that's especially inspirational is that it comes out of a life of a lot of hard knocks, a lot of doors slammed in your face. Not everyone chooses the higher ground or the healing path when they feel left out in the cold like I think you were. Yeah, when that happens, this is one of my biggest gifts that I think I've had for many years actually is I like to inspire people and I'll inspire myself if I'm feeling down. Really one of the ways to look at things is whenever one door closes, another one opens. So I have that song called When Door Opens on my CD and my daughter inspired that one and I love it. We haven't got much time left, but maybe we can take the time to listen to that one. The song is by Brenda McIntyre, who's here with us today for Spirit in Action. Her spirit name is Medicine Song Woman and this song is When Door Opens. One door opens, a path appears, set through the doorway. One door opens, let myself do everything, trying to make things right, I didn't see you were using me. Took me a little time to leave it all behind, now I'm here, a path is clear. One door opens, a path appears, step through the doorway. One door opens, one door opens, a path appears, step through the doorway. One door opens, I go where my heart takes me, so many possibilities. I know shine, my choice is always mine. Stepping through the doorway, walking through the fear, I am here, the path is clear. One door opens, a path appears, step through the doorway. One door opens, one door opens, a path appears, step through the doorway. One door opens, one door opens, show me what I'm here for, one door opens. One door opens, watch me let it all go, one door opens, one door opens. One door opens, one door opens. One door opens, a path appears, step through the doorway. One door opens, one door opens, a path appears, step through the doorway. One door opens, step through the doorway. That was One Door Opens by Brenda McIntyre, also known as Medicine Song Woman. She's been talking to us today about her healing, and I would urge you to take a look at her website, which is HealingSinger.com. You can find out a little bit about her and you can contact her and participate perhaps in workshops, perhaps in some work directly with her. Brenda, it's been so enlightening to get to know you and hear of your journey. It's amazing mixture of the dark things that led you to light. It's really been a blessing to talk with you today. Thanks so much for joining me for Spirit in Action, Brenda. Thank you for having me on your show, Mark. I just want to mention for listeners, too, if you go to HealingSinger.com and go to the Blessings page and sign up for my newsletter, you'll also get seven free MP3s, and actually one of them is free, even if you don't want to sign up. So I encourage you to go and have a listen. Thanks again, Brenda. Today's Spirit in Action guest was Brenda McIntyre, also known as Medicine Song Woman, and you can find her on the web at HealingSinger.com. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, NorthernSpiritRadio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. And our lives will feel the echo of our healing. [MUSIC PLAYING]