Grant Waldman: Music and Nature

Ross Tayler: Today I'm with Grant Waldman, an eco-psychologist, counselor, and artist specializing in trauma, addictions, wellness, and Indigenous healing. Over two decades, he's guided individuals and communities through circles, rites of passage, and nature-based approaches to personal transformation. Rooted in mindfulness and compassion, Grant brings a holistic, trauma-informed perspective that helps people reconnect with themselves, their relationships, and the natural world. He is also an accomplished singer, songwriter, and poet, integrating creativity and expression into his work. I'm so excited to have Grant here today, because we have a personal relationship. I've known Grant, I think now, for about 13 years. I always love retelling the story of how I met Grant. I was living in Duncan at the time and driving down the road, and I looked up at the side of a building and saw a sign that said support for men. I was quite shocked to see that, because I didn't even know that was a thing, and certainly I needed some support at that time. That was my introduction to men's work and men's circles. The beautiful thing is that Grant and I have crossed paths in a funny way. We both lived on Vancouver Island at that time, and then four and a half years ago I moved to the interior, to Vernon, and Grant was already there and had started a men's group, so I was able to join the men's group that Grant was running. That has resulted in a connection between us and his partner, and I'm just really grateful for that, and grateful to have Grant with us today.

Grant Waldman: Thanks, Ross. It's a pleasure to be here with you, and I'm really grateful to have this opportunity to connect and talk and share about the sacred. I think it's such a vital and timely topic in these days that we're living on Mother Earth and all that is transpiring. I think it's so important for people to tune into the sacred and be aware that it's such an important aspect of our experience to delve into.

Ross Tayler: Absolutely agree. Thank you for that. I'm so glad you're here. Grant is going to start by sharing the Gayatri Mantra, and he'll be playing his guitar along with it.

Grant Waldman: Thanks, Ross. I will be sharing this special mantra with you, the Gayatri Mantra, which in its essence is about honoring the sacred, honoring source, God, creator, higher power. The version that I'm about to share was created by Miten and Deva Premal, if you have heard of them. And here we go.

[Grant Waldman shares the Gayatri Mantra, sung with guitar.]

Ross Tayler: Beautiful. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That was awesome. So grateful to hear your voice and your guitar.

Grant Waldman: It's always a pleasure to share music, that's for sure.

Ross Tayler: Maybe that's a great place to start. Maybe you could speak about your connection to music and how it informs the landscape of the sacred for you.

Grant Waldman: Yeah. Music has been part of my life, I mean, probably part of my existence from the get-go, because my parents always enjoyed listening to music. I remember my father would listen to everything from opera to Burt Bacharach, and I remember watching musical shows growing up as a kid, everything from John Denver to Olivia Newton-John to Sonny and Cher. There was always some form of music in the home. It surrounded me growing up, and then I started taking guitar lessons when I was probably nine or ten years old and really never looked back. I had a teacher in both grade five and grade eight who became my music and guitar teacher, and she got me motivated and into the flow of learning new chords and songs. We produced a recording for our choir in my public school. I think I was in grade eight at the time, and myself and one other guy accompanied the choir on the song Up with People. I just remember the joy of that experience. It's been part of my world since then, always sharing music, bringing it sometimes to gatherings and sharing it with loved ones. When my parents celebrated their 50th anniversary, I wrote a song for them. I wrote a song for a friend who invited me to be his best man at his wedding, and for my older brother's wedding, where I was also his best man. It's always been part of my reality.

Even through the times we've been through these last five years, I have definitely shared music at some gatherings. Before these last five years, I was volunteering at the local hospice house for a couple of years, and then the pandemic hit and that shut everything down. Literally in the last few weeks I received an email out of the blue from the volunteer coordinator at the hospice house here saying, I came across your contact information, would you be interested in coming for volunteer training? It was like, here we go, an opportunity. I went to the training, and I went last Friday and shared my music again, and we'll be going again this afternoon. It's a very powerful place to share music, very rewarding, to be able to bring some gentle songs to people who are in their last days and experiences of human form.

Ross Tayler: I love that, and I love your story, because music is such a powerful modality that when it exists in our life, it has such a great impact. Hearing you talk about your family's relationship to music and how that impacted you reminded me that there was a lot of music in my family as well. Nothing in terms of playing instruments, but my dad used to build his own tube amplifiers, and they would definitely play a lot of the music that you described. My dad had dementia in the end, and music was one of the things that we would connect over. He would just love listening to different songs of the past. It is such a powerful medium, and I love that you are sharing that again at hospice. What a great thing to be doing.

Grant Waldman: Thanks. It definitely soothes the soul. I know, through different research, how powerful an impact it has on those suffering various ailments, whether it's dementia, Alzheimer's, or even autism. For people who are struggling, it's definitely a powerful medium of healing. I've had the privilege, when I worked in an Indigenous treatment centre, of playing the Native drum sometimes, as well as sharing my Lakota flute, so being able to integrate that into the healing practices there was a real gift as well.

Ross Tayler: I've really enjoyed listening to you play the flute, either at men's groups or at gatherings. It's such a gift to hear that.

Grant Waldman: I'm really grateful that I came across a woman when I was living in the Duncan area whose husband is a luthier. They live in Lake Cowichan, and he taught her how to carve these flutes. I remember her showing up at the Duncan farmers market with some flutes on the table, and I approached her and said, I would love to have one of these. I had just gone through a men's initiation and would love to bring it in as one of my tools in the work. She asked me if I had an animal totem, and I shared that my animal totem was gentle bear, so a bear would be very appropriate. I also told her about my heritage, that my background was of the Jewish faith. She combined that into this flute. The bird, which is the piece that controls the airflow in the flute, became the bear, and she put paw claw marks on the flute as well as a Star of David. It combined my totem along with some of my heritage. It's made out of red cedar, which is very connected with the island and my experience there, so I always connect with that energy when I play it.

Ross Tayler: I love that, and that's the first time I've heard you share that. Maybe I've never been around when you shared that story. That's great.

Grant Waldman: It's definitely synchronicities unfolding, and it's about paying attention to them and asking, what am I supposed to be doing in this moment when I see that? It was the same thing with my first Native drum. I was walking through a mall in Duncan and there was a woman painting a Native drum. I approached her and asked, do you make these by specific order? If someone has a desire for a certain image on a drum, will you do that? She said yes, absolutely. She turned out to be the arts teacher at the Shawnigan Lake school. I told her about my totem again, and she offered to make the drum, and it was extremely reasonable. I think it was Christmas of 2006, a short time after my Rites of Passage weekend, and I was able to bring that to future weekends and to my men's circles. It's been part of my life ever since.

Ross Tayler: That's so great. I love the piece that you're pointing to, which I think is an element of experiencing the sacred: these synchronicities, running into the right people at the right time who have something to share with you. What would you like to say about synchronicity and how that shows up in your journey?

Grant Waldman: When I think of synchronicity, I think of trusting the process, trusting my intuition, and paying attention. Synchronicities have certainly shown up throughout my life, and having the right mentors at the right times. Sometimes it's not the right mentors at the right times that caused me to shift into something different. I think being tuned in to the messages, to those whispers in the ear, are vital parts of the sacred, of recognizing that we aren't alone, that we are being guided, that we have ancestors and guides there to support us on our journey as humans. It's very powerful and very supportive. It's magical, really. It's amazing to consider, in hindsight, how many times on my path I've had these connections and gone, wow, it's a head shaker.

Ross Tayler: How do you think that relates to your connection to nature? I know that you're an eco-psychologist and you have this deep connection to nature. How do you see those two threading together? How does that inform the synchronicities?

Grant Waldman: I think they certainly align, because for me, nature has been a fundamental part of my journey with the sacred over my life. I've always found peace in nature. I've always found nature to be such a healing place for me, a soothing calm in the storm of life and of the world. I think they've gone hand in hand as far as supporting my path into this realm of nature and eco-psychology. I think that's all connected with my connection to the Indigenous world, the Indigenous people, and that occurred, again, synchronistically. I volunteered to support the Indigenous games that took place in the Cowichan Valley in 2008, and that was my first big exposure to Indigenous people and their culture and their stories and the huge impact of colonization. That opened my eyes, my heart and my spirit to their experience over the past 500 years. I think their teachings have really supported my understanding of the power of nature to heal, and my connection with Mother Earth and Father Sky. All these different connections go hand in hand, once again, with synchronicity and how that all plays together, and with sitting in ceremony, whether it's sweat lodge or even simple smudge ceremonies, beginning a day with smudge, and how that creates alignment with spirit and creates connection and opens doorways and portals to the much larger world of spirit. Really all of this interlaces, that concept of the web of life and how everything is connected and everyone is connected. The idea of unity and oneness is huge.

Ross Tayler: So true. I went on a walk in the forest two days ago. It's pretty consistent that I go every day somewhere in the forest or the ocean, and this particular walk had a lot of signs, a lot of animals getting my attention. I saw about three toadlets along the way, and every single one caused me to stop and be present and get down on the ground and have a look at it. There were squirrels getting my attention, and woodpeckers and dragonflies. It was one of those particularly loud days in nature that was so nurturing. I really needed that. I needed to be reminded of what I'm connected to. Nature is such a powerful reflection of those things that are so important and that I can easily forget when I'm moving too quickly through this everyday life that we are a part of.

Grant Waldman: Yes. That's the whole thing. My eco-psychology doctoral dissertation is all about reconnecting with nature and recognizing how our world, especially the urban world, has created so much disconnection from nature through rampant development and urban sprawl. So many people forget that we come from nature and how soothing and nurturing nature is to our souls. That's what my thesis is about, inviting people to re-remember where they come from. It's basically a narrative about my connection over my life with nature and how I brought my spouse into that connection. Before we were engaged, we went on an excursion to Killarney Provincial Park [?] near Sudbury, Ontario, and rented a canoe and did some portaging and stayed out on this overlook over the water, and she became more confident and comfortable in nature and trusting the sounds that we hear in the darkness. It was powerful. Then when our son was born and came into our lives, the same thing, introducing him to the beauty and mystery of nature, and how he got more and more comfortable with nature, running on trails and feeling so comfortable and at home with it. As he's matured and grown up, it's always a place he turns to soothe his spirit when in need. I'm really grateful for that.

Ross Tayler: That's so great. I love those experiences and those stories. I would love to circle back to men's work. I have a lot of gratitude for you, because you were essentially the doorway to my connection to men's work and how that's unfolded over the last 10-plus years. What would you share with anyone in terms of the importance of men's work and why you stay connected with it? Maybe speaking to someone out there who is looking for that type of connection but doesn't really know how to access it.

Grant Waldman: It's powerful. I originally reached out for men's work to support my path in the fall before we were expecting our son. It would have been the fall of 1996, and my wife nudged me to go and do some inner work, because I come from what I call intergenerational anger. I did some research and found an anger management group, and went to the group and discovered that the majority of the men in it were there because they were mandated to be. The stories they shared were shocking. I walked out of the group that evening just vibrating with fear and told my wife, this is not going to work for me. I have to find something that's more nurturing and uplifting. So I kept looking, and I found a classified ad in the paper where we were living at that time, which happened to be Indianapolis, Indiana, where our son was born. I was down there for two years with a big US company, transferred from Toronto. The ad said, circle of men. I thought, that sounds interesting, and called the number in the ad, and I was invited to join in the basement of a local church, and I have never looked back from that day. I walked into this group and was totally welcomed, with hugs and the warmth of the eyes, and the nurturing and grounding experience of the rituals in the group. They had Indigenous traditions that they used to ground and to remove the energy from the outside world and create a sacred container, through the use of sage and sweetgrass and calling in the cardinal directions. It's something that has followed me from that moment on.

We left Indianapolis and went back to Toronto, and I right away sought out a group and could not find what I had there, so I had to create my own in Toronto, and did that for the time we were there before we chose to head out on an adventure to BC. Once again, we landed on the Sunshine Coast originally, and I sought out a group, couldn't find one, and created one. Then we went to the North Shore for a short time and didn't really find anything there. I actually checked out a different type of group there called Sterling Men [?] and found that extremely warrior energy and thought, whoa, that's quite intense, so I'll take a step back from that. Ultimately I landed on Vancouver Island and was in a cafe one day and came across an ad for a circle of men, which was the first time I'd seen an ad for a circle of men since Indianapolis, pretty much ten years earlier. I answered the ad and went to the circle, and it was pretty much the same type of energy that original circle in Indianapolis had. I realized that the gentleman who was running the circle in Indianapolis had gone through a warrior weekend, but he never really shared that because he wanted to create his own type of space, his own unique energy rather than hardcore warrior.

A short time after, I went through a Rites of Passage weekend called the New Warrior Training Adventure. It's all about opening up to the journey and trusting the process. It was all about touching my shadow. Shadow work is sourced from Carl Jung. It's about looking at the part of myself that I hide, repress, or deny, the part of myself that I've buried because it was harmful to me, whether it was childhood messaging around shame or different experiences that I just didn't really want to look at. It opened that doorway to start looking at these things, and that's what these circles are about. They're about doing that inner work, looking at issues like accountability and taking responsibility, and trusting other men to be there and witness my healing work. That's what I've sought out ever since that first circle in the fall of 1996. I constantly seek that, because that's my self care, that's my nurturing. It's been there for me, and that's why I created a group when I came to Vernon, because it's so vital for me and for community. I'm grateful to be able to call men into these sacred spaces to connect, to share and to heal together. I always put the word out that this is available to men. Men are raised with the old messaging of suck it up, don't be a sissy, don't be a wimp, all these types of messages. The reality is men have every right to feel, every right to be vulnerable, because we do suffer, we do feel isolated at times, and feel lost at times. We need to be able to ask for help. We need to reach out for support. In my counseling work, every time a man shows up, I show him gratitude, because I know what a stretch it is for a man to ask for help. It's something that's so important in our society.

Ross Tayler: I would echo so much of what you said, and I love that you've been committed to this work for 29 years. That's amazing. Next year will be 30 years. I'm so grateful for all the experiences I've had, from my initiation weekend, which was in 2014, and everything that has unfolded since then. Like you, where I lived there was no circle, so I had to start one. I started one in Squamish that ran for seven years. When I arrived in Nanaimo in March, similarly, I started another group, and that's been really great. Last week I actually went back and attended the circle in Duncan, and that was an amazing full circle moment, because that was where I first experienced a men's group. To come back around and feel how much I've grown, there's something about those touch points, when you go back to them, you recognize how much you've grown. That was a great experience. A man who lives on the island, who was from Squamish, joined me at that circle too, so that was really great as well.

Grant Waldman: Wow, excellent.

Ross Tayler: So we're at that part that's always hard, which is wrapping up our conversation. I think there are so many other avenues that we could have gone down. I think the essence of what we talked about was so great, and it's a great place to wrap up. I always like to wrap up by asking a simple question, or maybe it's not that simple. What is one simple way that someone could connect with the sacred today?

Grant Waldman: A simple way is to tune into your breath, to tune into that deep, nurturing breath and recognize how powerful our breath is. It's something we take for granted. It's so automatic, and yet a deep cleansing breath is so powerful, so healing, so grounding, and so necessary to support our nervous system and settling and calming. That would be my invitation to anyone listening: remember your deep breath, and how powerful that is.

Ross Tayler: Thank you for that. I totally agree, and what I love about our breath is that it's always with us, it's always accessible. That's really great. For people who want to stay connected or explore more of your work, where's the best place for them to find you?

Grant Waldman: Probably on my website. They can certainly connect with me through that. I'd love to hear from people. I love hearing people's stories and sharing and connecting, so that would be awesome.

Ross Tayler: Amazing, and we'll share the website in the show notes.

Grant Waldman: Excellent. Well, thanks so very much, Ross, for the opportunity to connect and share today. It's been wonderful.

Ross Tayler: Thank you so much, Grant. It's been so nice to have you share your gifts with us and have this conversation with you. And to everyone listening, thank you for tuning in. Until next time, take good care.