Amikaeyla Gaston

"I think your purpose is your passion, it's in your life, you're doing it already, you just don't know that. You are it already. It is you already. If you claim it, then you can name it and then you can be it. You are your life's purpose, you are your life mission, the fulfillment of the fullness of you. That's it."

"When you're in community and people hold you in all of your parts, then you have the space and the wherewithal to journey inward, to access more of your life's mission and purpose, and weave it into your daily living, and share it with community and have it activated. You aren't sitting alone in your apartment on a computer searching for a way to feel in connection and in community. That really is the ultimate life purpose, bringing your full self into communal spaces and having the joint resonance around that."

"When the Dalai Lama said, go be free, do that, yes, I formed the International Cultural Arts and Healing Sciences Institute and tried to put programming together. I do this thing called music as medicine programming. It is a divine gift right there at our fingertips. It doesn't require you to be a Taylor Swift or a Beyonce. People can access it and communicate through it everywhere, all the time."

"I remember being in the back of our house. Our houses were surrounded by a nature preserve, like enclaves. In our area there was a creek, and we used to go from preserve to preserve and walk around in nature all day. This was back in the day when your parents were out, you were home, you were a latchkey kid. I remember sitting on this rock, being in nature, and singing to the frogs, the birds, and the trees."

"I go around as a cultural arts ambassador to different places around the world, bringing people together with music and working with people who are frozen in this chrysalis of pain and trauma from war, refugees, and at risk children, youth, and families who are immobilized in pain, fear, and shock. The way to get to them is not to say, let me talk to you, can you fill out this form. It is about, I see you, I feel you, I hear you, I need you to come back. The way back is through song. I sing to them, they start crying, then we process the grief and pain and get to a place of starting to heal. I feel that it really is the balm that heals the soul and the soul of the world."

"I remember sitting on this rock in the nature preserve, being in nature, and singing to the frogs, the birds, and the trees. I started noticing that the birds would respond when I sang. I would sing and the birds were quiet. Then I would be quiet and they would sing back. We started doing this concert. Even in my child mind, I thought, this is not real, am I making this up. After that I started singing with the birds every day. It sparked a curiosity in me. There's a way that we can communicate without words. There's a way that you can have a heart connection through this interplay of sound that doesn't necessarily require a certain level of cerebral intake."

"The only thing that would quell that fear, that anxiousness, outside of a very strong will to live, was music. It was not rock and roll music. It was really about sound. There were lots of harmonies and natural sounds that touched my core and really penetrated on a cellular level. It was what I locked into, what I could focus all my attention and energy on, so I could heal from within while the doctors tried to heal externally. I knew it had such a miraculous effect because every day the doctors would come in and say, we cannot believe how much your bone has grown back. We cannot believe that your blood work is coming back with all of this amazing data. I would demand to see my lab work. I would demand to see my X rays. I would say, this is low, let me focus on this. When I was focusing and meditating, it was this music that I focused on. It really created a sound path for me to bathe in and stay in so I could reach a level of ease and distress while all the stress was happening in my body."

"I survived a hate crime. I was run over with a truck by five young men. Racism. I was just sitting in a field of flowers. I was dragged 86 feet on a gravel dirt road. I had a separated hemothorax, pneumothorax. My ribs punctured my lungs. Every day they would come in and say, well, you might not live today, but if you do, we are going to have to cut your legs off from the hips down. I could only move two fingers, and I would write, not today, maybe tomorrow, not today."

ICAHSI International Cultural Arts & Healing Sciences Institute Bridging ancient wisdom with cutting-edge neuroscience for collective healing and transformation worldwide. […]

"My purpose really does involve a lot of music as medicine. The only thing that would quell that fear, that anxiousness, outside of a very strong will to live, was music. There was one sound healer named Brother Ah, and he would pour water from one glass to another, chant, and use very intentional prayer music. It touched my core and really penetrated on a cellular level. It was what I locked into, what I could focus all my attention and energy on, so I could heal from within while the doctors tried to heal externally. Every day the doctors would come in and say, we cannot believe how much your bone has grown back. When I came out of that, I knew that this is 100 percent what I am doing. I formed the International Cultural Arts and Healing Sciences Institute and tried to put programming together. I do this thing called music as medicine programming, and we use it with UNHCR, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, with the American Psychological Association, with the Department of Health and Human Services, and with the Foreign Services Institute. I go around as a cultural arts ambassador to different places around the world, bringing people together with music and working with people who are frozen in this chrysalis of pain and trauma from war, refugees, and at risk children."