Onyx Rose: Shine Your Light

Ross Tayler (00:00)

Hello, I'm Ross Tayler, your host and guide for Sacred Sundays, a space to slow down, tune in, and return to what's sacred within and around you. I'm also a life coach for empaths and sensitive souls, walking alongside those who are ready to come home to who they actually are. These conversations are part of fulfilling that purpose, a collective exploration of what it means to live in connection with the sacred. Some weeks you'll hear a sound-based offering to open the space. Other times we'll simply begin in conversation. However it unfolds, this is an invitation into presence, connection, and the beauty of the unseen. If these conversations find you, please subscribe, rate, and share so others can find their way here. Pour a cup of tea, settle in, and let's begin.

Ross Tayler (00:48)

Today on Sacred Sundays, our guest is Onyx Rose. Onyx is a performing artist of mixed Irish and Native heritage. She channels her passion for music and movement to express her true nature. Through embodiment, she invites you to dance and connect with your own magic. She combines live vocals, evocative lyrics, and free-flowing, expressive dance moves with soulful, sexy dance music to ignite your inner fire, inviting connection and freedom. Onyx writes about the real, raw human experience from an elevated perspective, and she brings medicine songs into the influential sphere of pop culture. Welcome, Onyx, so good to have you on the podcast.

Onyx Rose (01:31)

Thank you! I'm so enjoying connecting and having this opportunity to share about my music. So thank you for having me.

Ross Tayler (01:39)

You're welcome. We're actually going to begin by listening to some of your music, a song called Shine Bright. Is there anything you want to say about this song before we listen to it together?

Onyx Rose (01:53)

Sure. This is a reimagining, I guess, of the first song I wrote, which was an empowering song about freedom during COVID, when I felt like there was so much disharmony and chaotic energy. It was really a community song, but it also had some themes of trust and lies. And when I was getting ready to record, because I have a whole bunch of songs, I wasn't sure at first which one I was going to share first. So I asked myself how this song wanted to come forward, and I ended up rewriting it, because it just seemed like the right thing to do. It's a revision with the intention of creating a starting point for sharing my music, really about finding inner light and inner power and unity.

And it woke me up several times. I set the intention, I want to rewrite the song as my first offering, and I just kind of waited. And then one night the first verse just popped into my head, and I recorded it, and I was like, that was good. Then I went back to sleep, and the next verse came, and then the same thing happened a third time. So it was fun, because my self was just ready to share these simple but beautiful lyrics.

Ross Tayler (03:21)

Beautiful. All right, let's give it a listen, and then we'll have a chat afterwards.

[Onyx Rose's song Shine Bright plays, about three and a half minutes]

Ross Tayler (06:57)

That was great, thank you for sharing that. It made me reflect on my own journey of growth, of stepping into my light and stepping into my power, all those words we're told on our spiritual journey, and on all the struggles that happen along the way, because it's not always a straight line to that destination. So on that note, I'm curious, what was part of your experience leading up to writing this song? Sometimes I feel like the thing we're putting out into the world, we have to live it and experience it. So I'm wondering how that showed up for you.

Onyx Rose (07:32)

I have been really intentionally manifesting my desires. The first song I wrote was really about bringing community together and trying to unify energy. At first I was trying to get people to pray together during COVID, and it was really challenging, because I have a lot of different friends with very different spiritual beliefs. My Catholic friends and my atheist friends and my pagan friends and everything in between, they all wanted to do their own practices. And I really wanted people to come together, to unify. Maybe I should have just invited them to come breathe together.

Ross Tayler (08:14)

[laughs]

Onyx Rose (08:16)

Because the word prayer is kind of a loaded word for people, or a sacred word. It can be either way, but it can be triggering, and so can the idea of doing something sacred with people you maybe don't relate to, or who have a different belief structure. So around the same time I was trying to get people to pray together, I wrote a song about truth and lies, and the willingness to see the truth, with shine your light as a centre part of the song. And in the third part of the song, I say, we've got the power to live our lives, we've got the power to make it right. That was really the strongest theme I wrote the original song with: really wanting people to be in their power and make choices for themselves, for goodness, even though the world was in chaos. It was post-lockdown, but it was still very tense. And I feel like we forgot how to live a little bit during that time. People got so consumed by fear. But eventually, I think a lot of us woke up and said, I don't want to just suffer through my life and be afraid the whole time. So there was this re-choosing and re-empowering ourselves to live the life we want, within our realm of possibilities.

So all this was going on, and then I got really sick. I'm a very creative person, and I always have a million ideas and a million passions, and kids to raise and gardens to grow and all these things. And when I got really sick, I decided I was going to prioritize music as a form of prayer, as a form of influencing culture, as a form of bringing people together to unify the field. I wanted to carry the sentiments of the first song I wrote, but with a more simple, uplifting, joyful delivery in the lyrics.

And for me, the shine your light thing is very multifaceted. I've studied Feng Shui and Chinese astrology for 15 years, and in that structure my day master, which is kind of like your sun sign in Western astrology, is the sun. So I really relate to and feel at home with the idea of light shining, and radiance. Those are really big things for me. I feel like I felt that way even before I knew that. And I'm constantly working on this idea of being radiant, doing what I love, doing what fulfills me, in a way where everybody wins, you know? But not dulling myself, or not shining, or hiding. I want to live authentically. I think if everyone did what they love to some degree, or at least started investing in that and had inner passion, the world would be a better place. And then you add the context of win-win, because sometimes I check in: can I do this and not be in some sort of power dynamic?

Ross Tayler (11:38)

What I like about your answer is that it really paints a picture of the journey we're all going through on some level, because we're being conditioned to live a certain way, be a certain way, and meet certain standards and expectations. And what you're saying in the song is to rise above all of that, let the parts of us shine that the world really wants to see, and at the same time release our conditioning. That really is the hero's journey of being a human being on this planet: trying to find ourselves, trying to find our purpose and our passions, and to express those things, pushing through like a flower pushing through the earth to come out and be the flower. It's the same thing we're doing. And you articulated that in your story.

When I think about COVID, I think about the amount of fear being expressed at that time, and the uncertainty. It's really hard to create from those energies and feel good about things at the same time. It was an interesting journey we went through. And I think a lot of people reinvented themselves during that time, because they had no choice but to look in the mirror at everything that was going on, and maybe to slow down enough to see the inconsistencies. A lot of people probably paused and went, no, I want this to be different. Maybe I don't want to go back to the job I had. Or, wow, this person I've been married to for 20 years, I don't even like them anymore. Something's got to change. It was like a crucible for all of that. So I really appreciate what you highlighted, which lines up with all those things.

I got the sense that the song is very much an energetic transmission as much as it is a piece of music. I wonder what you would say about that.

Onyx Rose (13:29)

Yeah. When I was going into the studio, I was very flustered. I'd never done that. I'd played around with someone doing some very rough demo recording, so I had a little bit of experience, but this was a producer I'd never met before, and I didn't really know who they were or what they were about. I'd listened to a couple of their songs. But I was in a state of, I want to move forward, and I'm going to trust that I can make it awesome. I'm going to trust that I can follow the path of creating something beautiful if I just keep aligning to that. So every time I started to go, ah, who is this person, how am I going to sound, and freak out a little bit, and even in the studio, in the session, when I was really sweaty, I just kept anchoring myself in the energy of the intention of the song. It was a very trippy thing to do, and I loved it, and it really pushed me in a lot of ways.

Ross Tayler (14:41)

So are you saying that the byproduct of that experience was that you were continually bringing yourself back to that inner alignment, and once you were in that state, that energetic transmission came through?

Onyx Rose (14:59)

I didn't give myself a choice. I just kept reminding myself that I could do it, that if I got into alignment, it would work. It would do the job.

Ross Tayler (15:18)

And to that extent, do you feel that you opened yourself up to that channel, and were able to connect to that energy when you brought yourself back to that centred place?

Onyx Rose (15:33)

Yeah. I'm a bit cautious with the word channeling, because I don't take in information from any other source. It's more like a resonance, or a radiance. I think it could be described as a channel, but it's really an embodiment of knowing and choosing and finding. Not letting monkey mind or distraction come in, but just continually realigning to the mission, which is to deliver a message that holds the energy of the message.

Ross Tayler (16:17)

Okay. And that makes me think of all the people out there who have a spark of wanting to share their light, or to share something with the world, and hold themselves back and struggle with the process. What would you say to them? What have you learned that would help listeners who might be in that space?

Onyx Rose (16:41)

It's always a good time to start investing in your own inner desires, your inner light, your inner nourishment, even if you don't know what that is yet. Pay attention to what brings you joy. Trust yourself and believe in yourself, because that makes the world a better place.

And within that, I was going to use the analogy that you have to take care of yourself first before you can take care of others. But I actually don't really believe that. I think that ultimately you always have to seek balance. When you're in a meditative state, or you're looking for clarity, that's when you go into self. That can happen in the shower, or on a walk, or on a drive. Any time you're really alone, I think, is an opportunity to really check in with the self. But in regular life, it's always a balance. It's reciprocity. I'm here, but right next to me are my kids and everybody else. They're not really separate. I feel like when you're creating joy or following a passion, it is of service. They're not separate. But to get to that place, I had to do a lot of soul searching about what I wanted. I also want to raise my kids, and I also want to see the world become a better place, and I also want to eat healthy food. There's no separation. But there is an investigation: knowing that what I want is of service, but also saying no to all the things that are really others-first, or outside of self. Because then I feel like you're kind of leaning out, and that's when you might not be right on your compass, in real alignment with yourself.

Ross Tayler (18:55)

So it sounds like you're saying the biggest piece of the journey is to be aligned with that inner compass, to find the way of coming back to it and turning off all the noise. And when you're in that place, it flows much more easily. It's making me think about the lower three chakras, and the energies of fear, guilt and shame that come from them, right? And you spoke of joy. The opposite of fear is groundedness. And when we look at the other two chakras, there's the expression of creativity, and the expression of power and light. So there's this duality we're having to work with. And you said this song is very nuanced, and there's a shadow aspect to it as well. I believe that shadow work is actually about the light. We need to transcend those lower vibrational energies in order to express it, but it's all part of the same thing. Being fearful about something is also the catalyst that pushes us into the opposite side of it, which is being grounded and rooted in our strength and knowing ourselves. So I think we're always playing that dance between all of these things. And when we're going to put ourselves out in the world, we have to work through all the things that have happened to us that made us not shine our light.

Onyx Rose (20:21)

Yeah, totally. And I love that you brought up the lower three chakras, because I feel like a lot of my spiritual work is in the lower three chakras. Not to transcend them, but to transcend the negative aspects that can arise there.

Ross Tayler (20:39)

Yeah. For me, I think the majority of my growth and healing has been focused on those chakras that were not really activated and not really in balance. And of course, that's the journey toward the heart, right? Which is the ultimate. And then, for me, there's also the element of being in my head and feeling safe there. So that journey from the head back to the heart as well.

Onyx Rose (21:06)

Yes, they unite in the heart. So I actually wrote a three-part guide recently. It's a free guide called Shine Your Light, and it's exactly what we're talking about. I wrote it in three stages. The first part is, what is your passion, or how do you find your passion? There are a bunch of journal prompts and things I use to bring me to centre. The second part is permission and deserving, and how, when we share our gifts, it is a service. Be generous with yourself, be generous with your gifts. See your offering as an act of generosity. And again, journaling prompts and whatnot, to feel like it's okay to have a passion, and we're allowed to enjoy our lives. And then the third part is, how do you stay committed? How do you stay on the path? How do I keep realigning, when distractions are always there? And so it's, why? It's because I want to. I want to keep coming back.

Ross Tayler (22:10)

You're making me think of all the experiences we can have in our lives. Recently, where I live, there was a men's weekend, a warrior weekend, which I've been a part of, and I had friends who went. We have these experiences where we open our hearts, we're with other people who are opening their hearts, and they're these big, big experiences. And then we have to go back into our everyday lives. Going back into everyday life is hard, because it's hard to sustain what woke up within us during these experiences. It also makes me think of the psilocybin journeys I've done, where you have all these deep awarenesses, and then you have to go back to reality. But that's the journey as well. How do I take these things and integrate them, and blend these experiences into my everyday life? What would you say about that?

Onyx Rose (23:05)

Yeah, it's a big part, because there are the aha moments, and then there's our normal lives. How do we start integrating, how do we stay on the path, how do we make time for it, how do we not get discouraged, all these things? Some of my practices are in the guide I wrote. One of my questions is, if money were no object, what would I do? If there was no struggle, if everything was great, what would I do? And it's like, I would still do music. I would still pursue it. I love every aspect of it. So I know.

And then there's finding time, not getting distracted, not getting discouraged, because I have lots of things in my life that can take my attention. But I think it's because I've really established that inner compass that it's easier to come back to. And it took me a long time to get really clear, and to say no to a lot of things that might even be fun, but aren't in alignment with my core goals, which are my kids and my music, really my family, my husband included. And the music serves them, because it's designed to influence culture, even if it's not always exactly in the moment. Not that it's bad for them, but I do go away to record, and I do need quiet time, and I can't be on mom duty when I'm doing that.

I have some journal prompts and questions that I constantly realign to. But also just believing that all the little things add up. Just making the most of my time. The little voice memos, the little notes I make, the little plans I make, it all stacks up. And also letting myself off the hook. I don't always get things done the way I wanted to. But I try, again, to find the joy in it, to look for the joy in it. It's not only about the end goals, it's also about the little things along the way. And I think that helps with anything you're doing, if you can bring it into your everyday life in any capacity, or your weekly or monthly life. It's great if you have a weekly or monthly practice that helps you get into alignment, or into whatever space you find creativity in. But honestly, for me, waiting, or driving in the car, I've always used those as opportunities to look inside and practice whatever it is I'm practicing.

Ross Tayler (25:43)

On your website, I noticed you said, I've studied many things, and there's a whole list of things you've journeyed through and experienced. I'd love to hear how those things informed who you are today, and which ones stand out to you as the most important, because it's a pretty good list.

Onyx Rose (26:02)

Yeah, I don't know, I think they're all important. I use Feng Shui and Chinese astrology a lot. I use them as tools for manifesting. It's part of how I found this beautiful house, and part of how I got to Costa Rica. I find them really effective. They're powerful tools for aligning when you know what you want, and you can use them for clarity as well.

I'm also a birth enthusiast. I think empowering women in birth is really important for society, and I'm always game to talk about birth. It's not something I use as a tool, but it's a reference point: understanding physiology and physiological birth, and knowing how children and mothers and fathers are all impacted by the birth process, how that can really set the nervous system one way or another.

I've been on a healing journey since before I was born. I have some early trauma, even in utero, that I can track. In my Feng Shui chart, it says, your parents aren't helpful. So I feel like I came into this world knowing I had to be self-resourced to some extent. My parents are very loving, and they gave me a lot of gifts, but in some ways, in Chinese astrology terms, helpful parents are there to guide you, and mine weren't so much. They never paid for my college. I was a really free child, but I also didn't really take risks.

But it doesn't need to be about trauma. I've firmly come to a place, because there has been a lot of trauma in my life, in my siblings' lives, in my parents' lives and on and on, especially with my dad being First Nations, it's very close, he was in a residential school, where one of my balms [?] or prayers around that is: may I learn my lessons with ease and grace. Whatever lessons or challenges I need to face, may they come with ease and grace. Because I don't believe we necessarily need trauma to have an evolved perspective. But that is my path, where my evolved perspective came from. And I've sort of closed the door to that. I continue working on staying on my path and not getting distracted, because I feel like trauma is also a distraction. It's a lesson, but I've already had so many lessons. And I say this prayer for all people: may we learn our lessons with ease and grace.

I've done a lot of healing on my lineage, ancestral healing. I've done plant medicine. I've done all sorts of therapies. I've studied essential oils, spiritually and physically. I've studied nutrition. I'm always this growing puzzle. My mind just likes to keep track of things about health and wellness on all levels. So I'd say all of those things are always with me. All the things I listed certainly come up in the span of a week for me. Not that I'm doing plant medicine every week, but the journeys I've been on.

And I do like these gateways. Yoga nidra is a gateway as well. I find yoga nidra has some similarities to plant medicine. So do the Akashic records. I use Akashic records breathing techniques really regularly. In the last couple of years, I've really been practicing true sovereignty, in that I don't invoke or connect with any kind of deities, angels or spirits of any sort. I've been practicing all my shamanic tools only within the forces of nature. I do have two exceptions. One is that I use the Medicine Buddha mantra, but I may change that. That's the one deity prayer I've used over the last couple of years, while I've been in this curiosity of how much I can manifest, and how much I can be in my own joy and support my family and all these things, without outsourcing, without looking outward to any other beings or energies. And the other is that I still do some kirtan, which does involve a lot of deities. Sometimes I won't sing to the deities. Sometimes I'll just say, I'm singing this in the energy of devotion, but I'm not asking anybody to help me.

Ross Tayler (31:13)

It sounds very much like a big part of your journey has been coming back to your inner truth, your inner compass, your inner anchors and your inner gifts, and really living from that place, as opposed to giving our power to anything, whether it's trauma or anybody outside of us. By clearing all this space in your life, you're coming back to yourself. I'm also curious, you mentioned a connection to movement and embodiment. What would you like to say about that as part of your journey, and the importance of those things?

Onyx Rose (31:48)

Yeah. My dad was a drummer and a singer, and both my parents were dancers, and those are certainly gifts they gave me that I inherited from being around them. Movement has always been an anchor for me. I've always loved dancing. There's passion there. Traditionally, people would always have had a drum and a fire, and would probably sing together, and work together. So I think movement is a great tool for embodiment. It's certainly always been one of mine. It's something I've always been able to do very naturally, to really embody in dance. And from as early as I can remember, as a small child, people have always shown gratitude for my dancing and watched me dance. People have always said, it really inspires me to watch you. So it's part of what I do, just being in my embodied self, and in my own joy of it. I like it when people watch me dance, and I like dancing with people too. Dancing with people is great fun.

Ross Tayler (33:16)

I appreciate that, and I loved what you said about fire, dance, movement and drumming. What came up for me is that those things go across all cultures. We've just lost touch with them. But from a shamanic perspective, if you go back into your lineage, you can find those traditions, or at least the seed of them, in most cultures. It's definitely a part of ourselves that I experience wanting to reconnect to at times, and when I do, it's very powerful. It's in my blood, in my DNA, as much as it's something outside of myself that I'm trying to reach for. What would you say about that?

Onyx Rose (33:58)

It's totally animal. It's totally great. We all have ancestral wisdom and practices, whether we know about them or not. All cultures would have been living under the stars, under the sun, under the moon, living in nature. Our heartbeat is the primordial drum. And being in rhythm is how we work together. If you're digging a ditch with somebody else, you have to be in a rhythm. I think these are beautiful ways to anchor and practice. And I think we can do it even if we don't know where we're from. It's just in us, like you said.

Ross Tayler (34:48)

And currently you're in Costa Rica. Are you there for spiritual reasons? Just for pleasure? Is there anything to say about your time in Costa Rica?

Onyx Rose (35:03)

I came here 20 years ago, and I did want to come back. I had moved off grid in 2021 and homeschooled my kids. And I have a 12-year-old now, and it was clear to me that he needed more than living off grid in the woods on a lake with a beautiful beach nearby, which are all things that satisfy me. I don't need a lot of people. I love a lot of people, but I also love just having a couple of good friends, which I had. But my 12-year-old really needed more. And I was also really feeling that it was a struggle to get any music done.

So everyone's needs aligned, and we were going to move to a town, because we lived on an island, Texada Island, which is really beautiful and magical. But it was a lot when my kids wanted to go to sports. We had to take a ferry. So I was going to move over to Powell River, and the school I wanted to put them in, my son's class was full.

During our time off grid, we started curating a greatest hits playlist of different kinds of spiritual music that my husband and I love. A couple of the songs on that playlist are from a retreat centre here in Costa Rica. And about a year before we decided to come here, I was standing in the kitchen, feeling frustrated with life, with the challenges. I think it was winter, and our pipes would freeze, and the kids were stuck inside more than usual. I was listening to music, and there's a child singing in this one song, and I was like, where do these people live? I think we should just move to wherever these people live, because they've figured something out. Listen to this beautiful music they're making. I looked it up, and it was in Costa Rica. And then the thought passed. I wasn't really ready to move.

And then in the summer, when the school was full, I was like, well, there goes my plan. And then I remembered and listened to the songs, and I was like, right, that song, those people. So I looked it up again and contacted them. I really had three priorities: a good school and happy kids, being close to the ocean, and somewhere I could work on music. And everything came into alignment. I contacted the retreat centre. They didn't have a school, so I looked in the surrounding area and found a school. It was August, and I used my knowledge of Feng Shui to get my husband to commit, because his chart is clashed in August, and that makes him more willing to change. And the school said, yes, we have space, can you start in October? And I said yes. So we pretty much packed up and came here about six weeks from that time. It was really a culmination of me being determined to move somewhere my three priorities would be met. And that was here.

Ross Tayler (38:05)

It's such a great example of the things that can happen when we're in alignment and we allow things to line up for us. Six weeks is a pretty quick turnaround to make such a big change, but it seems like it's been really beneficial for everyone.

Onyx Rose (38:19)

It has been so great for my kids. The first few months here were a bit of a struggle for me. I had to shift around some of how I'd set up our lives here, in order to open up and allow, and be able to manifest this beautiful house. Before that, we were in moldy, lizard-infested houses. I definitely had some struggles here, but I had to realign and choose not to waste my energy on being sick, and allow good things to happen. And it has finally all come together. The kids have done great since the beginning, so that's been really awesome.

Ross Tayler (39:03)

That's amazing. And it feels like a good spot to wind down our conversation. Is there anything you'd like to share before we do that? Anything you really want to make sure you get to share?

Onyx Rose (39:15)

Well, the next song I'm going to put out is called Manifest, and it has a bunch of the manifesting tools I use. I use breath, I use intention, I use alignment. A lot of the themes I use are in that song. If you go to my artist profile on any platform and favourite me, or add me to a playlist with Shine Bright, or my other song called Liberated, you should get a notification when Manifest comes out. I think we've covered a lot of the things that feel very important to me and important to share. I'm really grateful for this opportunity.

Ross Tayler (39:56)

Amazing.

Onyx Rose (39:57)

It's been super awesome. If you go to my website, I don't have my guide up yet, but if you send me an email, I can send it to you, and I'll have it up really soon. So that's what I'm working on.

Ross Tayler (40:13)

Perfect, and I'll share all the links you shared with me in the show notes as well. And I always like to close with the same question, which is: what's one simple way that someone could connect with the sacred today?

Onyx Rose (40:28)

Our breath. Our breath, our heartbeats. We are a part of nature. If you want a resource from outside yourself, nature is always a great way to do that. Even water, even showering intentionally. All of these things are very activating tools for coming into presence.

Ross Tayler (40:53)

Great. I love the simplicity of that. They're all things that are right around us, if we stop long enough to notice.

Onyx Rose (41:02)

I often pick up rocks. When I have a thought where I feel like I'm in the moment, I'll always look for a rock or something to put in my pocket to remind me.

Ross Tayler (41:15)

I love that. So Onyx, thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation. It was great to get to know you and your music, and to really understand who you are in the world. I'm sure there are people listening who will really appreciate it and see themselves in your journey. And that's really what this podcast is about.

Onyx Rose (41:39)

Thank you so much. I love your questions and the reflections. It was great for me. I really appreciate it.

Ross Tayler (41:48)

Excellent. So good to have you, and I'll just leave it there and say bye for now.

Ross Tayler (41:52)

Thank you for joining us on Sacred Sundays. I hope something in today's offering spoke to your spirit, stirred something true, or simply gave you a moment to breathe. If this conversation resonated, please subscribe, rate, or share. It truly helps this work reach the people who are meant to find it. If you'd like to step inside my world a little further, I host a free live practice three mornings a week called Start With You. Just 20 minutes on Zoom to return to your own energy. Everything you need can be found at the link in the show notes. Until next time, may your day be slow and sacred.