Antonio Alemanno – Speaking your Soul with Music

This episode of Outer Travel, Inner Journey, is a love story– of a dedicated and soulful musician’s love affair with his instruments.

Meet Antonio Alemanno. He is a multi-instrumentalist and composer who has traveled here and there discovering the language that speaks his soul– MUSIC.

His journey started exploring the distinctive, bright, and powerful sound of charango. It’s a small Andean stringed instrument of the lute family that produced the Motorcycle Diaries movie’s popular music. Antonio learned the charango and transcribed more than ten songs from a composer from Buenos Aires, whom he met and heard the stories behind the songs from. It was at this moment that Antonio became acquainted with the nuances of music. The stories and emotions behind it may be very emotional and intense but one could not necessarily hear that from the songs. Stories could drift away from the instrument, like how he didn’t connect with the charango stories.

So Antonio’s journey discovered the respective translation of an instrument’s and music’s tradition into new contexts and its practical use as a language of the soul. He and Alex delved into a productive discussion of contentious narratives around this. To him, art, like a human soul, has an inner journey and an outer story expressed in it. He explains that putting music in a different context does not necessarily remove its sacredness; it depends on what you do with it.

While learning the Oud, an Arabic lute, Antonio finally unraveled the secret to learning and speaking with music. The Oud was a delicate instrument to learn, but he just went on, tried, and took the challenge.

With the help of one of his teachers, Antonio has opened the gate to learning by surrendering to the instrument. Playing and composing came out naturally from him because he was learning from the instrument in much the same way that the instrument is learning and feeling what his soul speaks of. To him, it was the realization of ‘bringing something in a different context with full respect to the tradition’.

Links mention in the podcast

Podcast Highlights

  • The instrument has a life in itself and it can teach you. In one of my classes, my teacher said, I am not letting go– like I am putting too much where it needs very little. It was like a gate opener. It revealed a lot to me. An instrument is on its own, but how you relate to it makes you one with it. If you blend with it, music becomes your language. – Antonio Alemanno
  • Music is vibration. What I learned from Yoga and now reaffirming with you is the art of surrendering. Instead of trying to control something, let the music and the instrument teach you. Hear each other’s language. Each one is teaching each one. – Alexandra Kreis
  • The inner voice may not always be right. But how do you know? Truth can be so relative and individual at times. Observe where truth resonates more and follow those vibrations. – Antonio Alemanno
  • Antonio’s Superpower Wish: Getting the green on the traffic light. Will power. When faced with a challenge, my will power gets shaken too. In yoga and music, it’s about listening. It’s about relating to your inner voice and intuition. At the end of the day, you will have to find a compromise. It’s not easy, but if you have a strong feeling about something, try it. Do it. – Antonio Alemanno
  • Will power can be so easily abused and misperceived. But the beauty of will power, combined with intuition gets you good results. People can say what they want, but you’ll know what is true and you’re going to make it true for you. – Alexandra Kreis

 

Guest BIO

Antonio Alemanno, from Italy, has been traveling here and there; wherever his calling is bringing him.  He is a professionally trained multi-instrumentalist (double bass, cello, oud, charango, frame drums, electronics) and composer, graduated at Sibelius Academy in Global Music (MA) Helsinki, Finland. He has developed a distinctive rhythmical and melodic approach, in which he borrows and blends the different colors and nuances of the instruments he plays. He is also a Hatha yoga teacher and practitioner.

 

Cecilia Mueller Stahl – Manifesting Pleasure and Desires

Today’s episode with Cecilia Mueller Stahl is truly an eye-opener. Cecilia, an artist who is also in the coaching space, breaks myths and takes us to the frequently misunderstood yet critical topic of pleasure and desire.

Her journey to the craft that she shares with people now– soul manifestation, which manifests the things from deep down one’s self– was a brave and empowering one. Her discovery of this space and methods will surely shake up connotations. They will lead us to a full new understanding and appreciation of ourselves, including our desires and the things we take pleasure from.

To Cecilia, pleasure is an integral part of manifestation. It is the energy and vibration that attracts the components of our manifestation. Thus, her platform is about being the pleasure priestess as the core of her work, and being the manifestation queen as the outcome.
Pleasure has many connotations. You have to work hard to achieve it.

It was a long journey for Cecilia. But learning along the way and being able to impart these to people in her work now is a part of what she has always desired. She has been on stage as a successful actress, but somehow. She felt like hiding and that something’s missing. That’s when she went to bodywork and felt more present. She found her presence in ayahuasca, tantra, and quantum healing.

This conversation talks about empowerment and, in itself, is empowering. Cecilia takes us to a clearer sense of trusting and taking responsibility for the healing paths we choose. And this goes along her principle of trusting the desire and allowing the self to go for it. Cecilia reminds us: be it for choosing a healing path or small day-to-day decisions, it should be about ‘interrupting the pattern of “I have to” and enjoying life the right way!

PS: LSD and Ayahuasca were mentions as similar tools of shifting consciousness in this podcast. Although both act as agents to liberate constricted thought patterns they differ immensely in their healing opportunities. Ayahuasca mostly is used to mirror the self and connect to the deeper essence within. While LSD and Mushrooms are agents that help download information.

Links mention in the podcast

Podcast Highlights

  • To me, pleasure may not be 100% the opposite of hard work. Because sometimes even hard work can be pleasurable. It’s about trusting that life has your back and that you have to enjoy being here. It excludes the “I have to” attitude. – Cecilia Muller Stahl
  • People have to get used to two things: (1) sex is not dirty, and (2) Pleasure is not always about sex. Yes, it’s delicate. But it’s a calling. Part of my mission is to empower people to trust that their pleasure can go into any direction, that it’s not dirty and not good when they feel their sexual desires. – Cecilia Muller Stahl
  • Ayahuasca is an herbal shamanic medicine from the Amazon used to open up the consciousness and connect to the greater good of ourselves. In Western societies, it was used to have the same effect of LSD but more wisely as it opens up the brain waves and its connections, opening up the gateway to our microcosm-macrocosm connection – Alexandra Kreis
  • Going for your desires is not about being selfish. It sets us free from toxic codependency, toxic self-doubt and low self-worth. Desire teaches us to love ourselves to get what we desire. – Cecilia Muller Stahl
  • It’s tough if you don’t have that grain of trust into your intuition and methods to distinct which is for me and which is not. We can easily fall into the trap that we feel that there is an abuse of power that can come with these healing methods. People may feel disconnected from the healing paths they went into suddenly. – Alexandra Kreis

 

Guest BIO

Cecilia is a manifestation coach and actress living in Berlin. She’s working on feminine empowerment, calls herself Manifestation Queen on Instagram coming from being a priestess of pleasure. Pleasure through Body Work: Expanding pleasure in the body allows us to let all of what we are incarnate into this being. Body and spirit do this together through pleasure.