Astra Kelly, Lady Brain Collective member, musician/songwriter, and founder of soulsong.life, is embarking on a new virtual adventure called Monday Meditations. The monthlong series will take place on Zoom and feature special guests Tori Roze (also a Lady Brain Collective member), Kelly Samuels, and Katy Bray. ​Participants can enjoy this guided meditation series from the comfort of their own homes every Monday in June at 6pm PDT. Whether you're new to meditation or an experienced practitioner, this is a powerful time to nurture the self and connect with others in a supported space of healing to find grounding, clarity, and inspiration for the coming season. 

Schedule
Monday, June 1 - Breath Work and Chakra Centered Body Scan with Astra Kelly
Beginning with the breath, we'll get into the space, and settle in. It's a new month, a new day, a new dawn. We'll bring our focus to each body center for head to toe clearing and healing.

Monday, June 8 - Throat Chakra Freedom with Tori Roze
A focused throat chakra meditation and sound healing to help you find/speak/live in your own PERSONAL truth and self expression.

Monday, June 15 - Sound Vibration Meditation with Kelly Samuels
Change your vibration-change your manifestation. “A person hears sound through every pour of the body. The energy of sound charges the physical body with new life." - Hazrat Khan

Monday, June 22 - Expanded You with Katy Bray
Take a journey to your expanded self. Have you been experiencing the call of new energy? New aspects of yourself that are looking for expression? Or maybe you are feeling confused about what your next steps are. Either way, your expanded self, the next version of yourself is an energy that is available to you. Let's tap into it together so you can receive direct guidance and wisdom for the questions you have right now.

Monday, June 29 - Meet Your Spirit Guide Meditation and Reiki Attunement with Astra Kelly
A higher power can show up in many shapes and forms, this meditation will open the way to receive this type of insight or message. Reiki is taught by a series of “attunements" passed from master to student. It can be a powerful spiritual experience, as your energetic pathways are opened to allow chi/energy to flow more freely throughout the body.

Katy Bray: www.katybray.com 
Katy Bray is a life-long clairvoyant, energy worker, and gifted empath whose direct and loving approach has been transformational for her clients — by guiding them to achieve the next level of success with greater confidence and authenticity. Katy is a Vedic Master, herbalist, student of Tantra, and dancer. Her body of work is called, “Energy Architecture” which is based on her work with thousands of people who started to reveal to her common energy patterns that people confront on their spiritual journey. She’s led more than 100 groups, teaching participants how to become more energy literate. Katy is an author, speaker, faculty at The Shift Network, a masterclass teacher at Wisdom From North, and a catalyst for all who seek her counsel.

Welcome to Boss Ladies, the review column written by members for members! In this edition, Lizabeth Yandel reviews Melanie Medina's new single, “Millennial Love Dance," available today on streaming platforms.

If you’re feeling like you could use a little comic relief in this possibly-apocalyptic, so-dramatic-it-would-be-funny-except-that-it’s-real time of coronavirus and quarantine, Melanie Medina’s new single “Millennial Love Dance” may be just the witty kind of medicine you need. It’s a track that so many of us can relate to in our current virtually-charged dating world. The playfulness of the music, combined with the hilarity of cringingly relevant lyrics like “baby, I’m consenting affirmatively,” give millennials of all stripes the chance to laugh at our ridiculous selves while also singing along (and not crying, you’re crying). 

The lyrics stand on their own. Medina had been “pretty fed up with overly sentimental love songs full of imagery cliches.” The response that came from her frustration is a string of super specific, well-drawn images that vividly paint an everyday coffee-shop scene that might just be love. “I stop for coffee on my latest walk of shame, and there I find you standing so astute, in vegan leather boots,” she sings, with such a sweetness in her voice that one could easily miss the cynicism and comedy of the actual words. But Medina assures us that she wasn’t trying to paint the current dating world in an “entirely cynical” light.

“I wanted to write something really topical and flippant as a middle finger to, well, romanticizing romance,” she said. ​

​The track was first written in a basement practice room at San Diego State University, where Medina completed her degree in music. Since that first rendition, the song has gone through a few revamps.

“I had to update the references a few times,” she explained. “It originally contained lines about vegan lattes and a beard that was ‘on fleek’. Yikes”.

Medina cut the final track, with references so current it’s almost embarrassing for all of us, with her producer Shandon Campbell in Campbell’s home studio. The track features Sean Hicke on bass, Abran Gurrola on drums, and Melanie Medina’s own killer guitar chops and wonderfully mellow vocals.

Medina’s hope for “Millennial Love Dance” is that, “we can all just have a good laugh about being basically living in a Black Mirror episode.”

Although the theme of the tune might speak to a general disappointment we all feel in the dating world right now, this fresh, clever song with its sprinkles of jazz harmonies and “liberal propaganda” (as Medina puts it) will absolutely not disappoint!

“I've been writing a LOT during the quarantine,” Medina says, adding that she has more singles scheduled to drop in the coming months. Be sure to stream or download “Millennial Love Dance” and keep your eyes wide for more singles from this rad emerging artist soon!

As for our Recording Home Vocals workshop, our special guest Amelia Sarkisian talked to the group about various microphones, set up, signal flow, gain structure, and more. Given the circumstances of sheltering in place, it was beneficial to discuss ways to become more proficient in our home recording set-ups. There's so much to learn - we'll definitely be revisiting this topic in the future!

Carissa Schroeder (Lady Brain Collective member and founder of The Bold Vocal, has just launched her new online coaching course called Living Room Rockstar. The four week bootcamp is designed for singers who want an easy system for confidently performing live online, and a way to create cash flow from the comfort of home. According to the course description, Living Room Rockstar is an easy, repeatable, system that anyone can do, from anywhere in the world, to get cash in the bank and ears on their music.

Thanks so much to everyone who tuned in to our Mother's Day brunch on Instagram Live yesterday! It was our first time live streaming from that platform, and we had a great time celebrating mothers/motherhood. Special thanks to our performers Thea! The Band, Mary Bee, Karina Frost, Gretchen DeVault and Lindsay White for putting on a great show!

Don't forget to circle back to the blog next month for our June virtual community gathering called Creative Process. This collaborative journaling project will showcase the written work on several Lady Brain Members, serving as a time capsule of sorts to mark this moment and movement in time.