The Snake Skin Shedding: Conversations about Music, Medicine and Nature with East Forest
Jun 30, 2023
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East Forest is a unique bird in the Wild West aviary of electronic-chamber music, bridging the digital and natural realms. The fundamental mission of his project is to create sonic architecture for listeners to explore their inner space. As a leader in the field of wellness, he offers a spiritual yet secular pathway aimed squarely at the challenges of our contemporary lives.
As a spiritual teacher and facilitator, East Forest has trail-blazed a path in the wellness movement building connections between the digital and natural worlds. His collaborations include Google and John Hopkins neuroaesthetics program, Consciousness Hacking, Science And Nonduality (SAND), in addition to his weekly podcast series that offers discussions with thought leaders alongside musically guided original meditations. As a consistent pillar of his public offerings, East Forest offers in person retreats for deeper immersive experiences both at the Esalen Institute where he is a faculty member as well as in his adopted home of the high desert in Southern Utah. His albums and collaborations have three times charted #1 on iTunes as well as several Billboard top ten releases.
In 2019, East Forest released a soundtrack featuring Ram Dass, which includes guest appearances from Trevor Hall, Grammy nominated artist Krishna Das and more. In that same year, he released his first long-form album, “Music For Mushrooms: A Soundtrack For The Psychedelic Practitioner.” This remarkable 5-hour, fully connected experience is designed to act as a ‘digital shaman’ that can musically guide a psilocybin experience. The album reached #1 on the iTunes charts after it’s release (iTunes May, 2019).
East Forest has a B.A. from Vassar College and an M.F.A. from the IATT at Harvard University/Moscow Art Theater. He teaches regularly both privately and on online.
In this conversation, we talk about his personal journey with music along with the foundational influences of nature and psychedelic experience in everything he does.
What you will learn:
- Why following your bliss creates purpose, impact and good (medicine) music
- What it was like to record with Ram Dass at the end of his life, and the process whereby East Forest created an album with him (that also featured Krishna Das)
- Why making a mess is part of being human, and the importance of leaning in. Learn about the Black Lives Matter vigil that East Forest created music for, and what it meant to him to use his voice as a white man in the name of transformative justice
- How nature and psychedelic experiences have been some of East Forest’s biggest teachers and muses; what it means to live a life of meaning and consciousness, and why inviting depth and exploration to the inner journey is the common thread in everything East Forest creates.
Resources from this Episode:
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