From the moment you wake up until you go back to sleep you make choices that will impact tomorrow. What if we can make those decisions more consciously to provide a positive impact? That is a question Esther Gramsma and Michelle de Bruijn ask themselves running their projects.
Esther and Michelle take it as their responsibility to inspire people to make more conscious choices on a daily basis. Therefore, they started ‘Silent State’, a visualization meditation in the midst of a festival giving you a moment of reflection and now in their project ‘Journey to Freedom’. We’ve had the pleasure of speaking with them to share their insights with you today.
Esther and Michelle, before we dive into your exciting new project, tell us: What do you do in daily life and how do you live that life to match your hopes and dreams?
Esther: I have my own company ‘IT’S HER’ where I’m freelancing as a stage manager, tour manager, artist liaison and production manager within the beautiful world called the music industry. What drives me every day is the power of music. The power to connect us all over the world, no matter what. That moment that everything comes together..I can still cry on stage when that happens. It moves me. I can feel it running through my system. Being able to help in creating that magic, is truly the best thing in the world. The dream, for now, is to use that power for a better cause. For example, to let the music speak for people who don’t have the ability to live the life we have. And yes of course host Silent State’s all over the world.
Michelle: I am a social entrepreneur, speaker, conscious influencer and trainer with a Buddhist psychology background. In addition to facilitating retreats and training’s, I devise creative projects where spirituality, conscious living, and the modern world come together. From live events to online content, Silent State being one of them. By bringing music and meditation together, a different (inner) world is created for the ones undergoing Silent State. Introducing a way of self-discovery to a new and brighter audience warms my heart. The online platform conscious culture.me will be launched in August.
Gosse Bouma
Silent State is a project that had her release this year at DGTL with support and music from Âme, RY X, and Howling with the recent addition of Call Super. How did the project come together and what does it entail?
Michelle was in a retreat in the Himalayan Mountains in Mcload Ganj India when the idea of Silent State came to mind. It entails a visualization meditation of approx 15 minutes taking place at music festivals, a place where you’d least expect it. Silent State is an invitation to stillness by merging visualization meditation and (electronic) music. In the midst of the crowd, there’s a field of beds. When people enter the area they receive a wireless headphone, take off their shoes, and crawl under the blanket in one of the beds. Guided by a voice and the music, one will be taken on a visual journey within one’s own mind. There is room for imagination, relaxation, and space to experience all the new things that arise. During the journey, you will listen to music in a way you never experienced before. Frequencies flow through the body from head to toe all the way to an experience of liberation.
Silent State operates on multiple levels. First of all, it invites the bypassers to think outside of the box. And we’ve noticed that people are drawn to this area of peace in the midst of the heat. It reflects back to a calmness that is already within them but often described as difficult to reach. On a deeper level, Silent State raises awareness through the merge of visualizing meditation and the liberating power of music. It helps you discover your own inner world and therefore, become more conscious of your self-being. In time this inner journey will reflect on your outer journey. You will see, do, feel, hear, think and experience things differently and more conscious, which has an effect on the way you treat yourself and the world around you.
We’re happy to share that our dream to raise awareness around the globe is slowly coming together! Next week, we will host a Silent State at Atlas Electronic in Marrakech.
Before you are hosting a Silent State in Marrakech, you are now both traveling through Morocco and paying visits to all kinds of interesting people for your newest project ‘Journey to Freedom’. Who did you choose to visit and what is the ultimate goal of this journey?
The ultimate goal of our “Journey to Freedom” is to inspire people to make more conscious choices. In the first episode, you will meet Mustafa Faik, the owner of the ecological place Le Douar Berber. We stayed with him for the first night, when he brought us to a small Berber village, where they were celebrating the end of “Eid” with traditional Berber music. We talked with him about this music, the ecological travels and way of living and that so many of us choose to live a life full of stress far away from our biological clock.
Check out the first out of 3 episodes of ‘Journey to Freedom’ in collaboration with Bunq below.
