Multi-instrumentalist Jay Hoad is back in town for his final performances in NSW for 2018 before he hits the road for Europe, Fiji, India and Australia. At the Rails on Thursday he presents the Cacao Sound Journey at Taste of Love Festival on Saturday.
After finishing my diploma and degrees I was asked to compose for various yoga teachers. I literally composed it on the spot as it was constructed around the yoga teachers’ words and movements in that exact moment in time. That led to me inviting a yoga class into the recording studio and recording my album Earth Music for Yoga, Massage and Healing, which was endorsed by Australian Yoga Journal. That led me to studying more about yoga, and eventually Kundalini Energy and Tantra.
What is it do you think that is unique about the way you approach your music and the way you approach your healing practice?
I guess knowledge is the key. Musically I have always had a passion for this and was always intrigued in the unusual instruments and musicians I would see on tour. My team and I have toured my show through 37 countries and we have around 15 new countries on this year’s tour alone. I have constantly been exposed to unusual instruments and their players I have connected with. So rolling this over to my yoga and tantra studies and practices, it’s really the same thing.
Can you tell me what White Tantra is?
The term White Tantra is a non-physical contact oriented tantra, but more knowledge- and energy-based work. There are tens of thousands of definitions of what tantra actually is and I see it constantly evolving through my travels and with the various teachers and people I am working with. But my opinion, expanding on everything, choosing consciousness in each and every moment to the best of our ability, choosing love and not fear to the best of our ability, learning how to move energy and own all aspects of self without projecting low-vibrational emotions such as anger, jealousy etc on to another being, understanding inner union, sacred union and the basis of masculine and feminine energy.
What is the intention of the Shamanic Cacao Ceremony Sound Journey?
My intention with my sound healing (combined with the cacao) is opening the root and heart chakras to assist the individual to move whatever may or may not come up as freely as possible. Each key in music matches with its own chakras specifically. Each interval between two notes played at the same time triggers a specific emotion. And each frequency and vibration matches certain physical body parts and emotions, so all my music for these sessions will be composed under these guidelines, depending on the individuals who attend on that night.
You do a lot of work on inner union and balancing masculine and feminine energy. What does an imbalance look like in a person? Are concepts of masculine and feminine just based on our rather narrow gender assumptions anyway?
I do energy work with many incredible clients. Seeing the way these people move forward and modify their energies and life’s purpose or, as they often say, ‘coming in to full power’, is consistent and remarkable. Whether a person is imbalanced or balanced in your opinion, it is certain that they are exactly as they are meant to be in that very moment for them to learn and grow to then possibly choose to be the exact representation of self that they truly desire to be.
And with the definitions of masculine and feminine, yes I would say most people’s concepts of these definitions are quite narrow minded. However with tantra, not at all. The principal is that beneath one’s physical being, the energy within is possibly a fifty per cent balance of these two energies. You could just as easily call them positive and negative instead of masculine and feminine, but one will possibly not flow to their highest potential if their polarities are fighting each other.
Tell me about Harmonic Earth Holistic and how this can take intimacy to the next level?
Harmony Earth Holistic is my partner’s and my new business in which all the various modalities of work we have been doing around the world over the past years will fall under. We offer sound healings, cacao ceremonies, yoga grooves (yoga plus sound therapy), energy workshops covering everything from highest-purpose discovery, trauma release, intimacy and energy work with individuals and couples.
My partner and I work with our clients diving deep on all aspects of mind, heart and animal connections within oneself and with their beloved in a very safe and trustable space where one can possibly choose to be vulnerable enough with oneself to possibly connect with the heart beyond the mind’s stories of who they ‘think’ they should or shouldn’t be, or should or shouldn’t say. To possibly speak their truth, far beyond the words, but connecting to the heart. People who do not know much about this work often feel fear around the unknown. There is nothing fearful about love, and that is all that tantra is about, choosing love over fear is at the core of every decision or emotion one may feel throughout life’s journey.
Catch Jay at the Rails on Thursday and at The Taste of Love Festival on Saturday. For more info about Taste of Love program and ticketing go to tasteoflove.com.au.