Shadow Work is a collection of songs that documents my journey back to self. It initially looks to my past, some pretty dark times and moves through these of reflection, acceptance, healing and transformation. I am releasing these songs in 2020 in order to let go of a lot of past pain and to set my intentions for the present and the future. I am making space for new blessings. Looking back and allowing myself to feel so that I can truly heal and move forward. I am changing my life experience by letting this music out into the world. I was very afraid to do so for a long time. The content in the songs is very personal and I was scared about repercussions and judgment but I have moved into my power and with the support of the wonderful people around me I feel it's an important step to take. I refuse to reside in shame any longer. Shadow Work is the difficult task we must undertake in order to be able to change our life experience... dealing with the hidden parts of ourselves that cause us issues, working through the darkness, the pain and the stored negative thought patters, the intergenerational trauma and all that no longer serves us. There is no light without the dark and this is my collection of songs that moved between these phases and beyond.
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Trust is speaking to our higher selves, it's a call not to rush, not to worry, to acknowledge that everything is one and there isn't really any separation. I sing about learning how to connect to our intuition, our inner compass, our internal guidance system. So many of us doubt ourselves and our instincts and seek external validation. For so many years I could feel the way I was living was wrong but I wasn't connected enough to my own sense of self to be able to determine my own life. I allowed myself to be controlled. The song is speaking to recovering from anxiety and panic attacks... trauma stored in the body and how it is possible to let this go so we can move into a new state of being. Trust calls for us to understand that it's going to be ok, that we can heal, we can trust ourselves. Calling us back to source, back to eternal light. I had suffered many bereavements when I was young, my brother died suddenly of an asthma attack when I was 15, then when I was 17 my first boyfriend was hit by a Royal Mail van on the A12 after his car broke down, then in my early 20s my best friend / flat mate's brother died suddenly and again two years later my new boyfriend's sister died unexpectedly aged just 19. Every two years somebody young was dying, I felt terrified that all my loved ones would pass away and was extremely anxious. When my dad was given 6 months to live back in 2014, my sister and me cared for him at home as he didn't want to go back to hospital. He had spent a lot of time in there since his liver transplant over a decade earlier. He died within the week. I think he just decided that he'd had enough and it was time to go. We shared a tragic but beautiful few days together, listening to the radio, I'd scratch his back for him where he couldn't reach anymore and I'd read to him as he'd read to me so often when I was small. I had the opportunity to tell him I loved him, to hug him and kiss him. It was the first death that made sense to me. It might sound strange but although I miss him terribly every day and wish he could have met his grandson in this lifetime, the experience was incredibly healing for me. The whole family surrounded his bed inside his home studio with his beloved bass guitars in the walls as he took his last breaths. We held him and cried and helped him pass over. I felt this intense sense of calm and serenity afterwards. The world felt like it was shrouded in a veil that was pulled back a little bit so that I could see to the other side. A very thin space where the very fabric of the universe was visible to me. I remember moments after he died, sitting in his music room in the middle of the night with my siblings and this beautiful dark butterfly suddenly fluttering into the air. I gently took it in a glass and set it free out of the conservatory door and it flew up towards a beautiful moon. Everything seemed to make sense in that moment, like it was all ok and it never really felt as though he left me. The only other time I experienced those same sensations, the same access to that very thin space, was when I gave birth the following year. At opposite ends of the spectrum - death and birth, everything made sense in a very magical and spiritual way. It was all ok, the primal and raw rights of passage, leaving and entering this world and allowing what is. That is what trust is about. Surrendering.
credits
from Shadow Work,
released March 6, 2020
Written by Aruba Red & Renell Shaw
Vocals - Aruba Red
Guitar & Keys - Renell Shaw
Percussion - Camilo Tirado
Production - Renell Shaw
Additional production - Gordon Mills Jr., & Marrik Shearer
Mixed & Mastered by Marrik Shearer
Alt-soul artist, mama and women’s wellness circle facilitator inspired by themes of healing and transformation. A mystical
campfire for anyone who needs to feel the warmth. ‘Shadow Work’ EP is out now
“Sensual late-night alt-soul soundtrack of reflection” – Spiral Earth
“Songs that comfort, console and give hope” – At The Barrier
“A new spirit of hope and redemption” – The Morning Star...more
Ayanna WJ's new album Roadrunner is a gorgeous blend of uplifting soul, jazz, rnb and classical. She is so talented and I guarantee her music will make you smile :) Aruba Red
Riz consistently brings intelligent, thought provoking music that makes you want to move! Check out 'Double Lives' which features yours truly. Aruba Red
