“I found love on the mountain and I’m trying to bring it down to these streets. Love like a fountain and I want to give it to the people that I meet.”

Chris Berry and Panjea pulse these words through my iPod in the rented Toyota Yaris I’m driving. I’m winding my way up the side of Haleakala Crater on Maui, my windows down. I feel the air beginning to cool as I ascend to higher elevation. It’s August 16, about 11am and I know the full moon is visible in Asia, where a complete lunar eclipse can be seen in their night sky. In this daylight I can’t see the celestial phenomena, but somehow, just knowing it’s happening I’m on the lookout for magic.

Chris Berry’s words are ringing through my ears as the African drums beat through my chest. Tall Eucalyptus trees stand sentry to the hillside leading me and my Yaris up into the clouds. Visible goosebumps (what Hawaiians call “chicken skin”) rise on my arms poised at the steering wheel. I’m washed in a wave of happiness, a smile spreading across my face. The music fills my ears as my heart opens in warm rushes of freedom and joy. Yeah, this is good.

This musical moment of blissful transcendence was not planned. I don’t live on Maui and I’m not supposed to be climbing a crater. This Panjea-inspired-lunar-eclipse-cloud-juice-tour is only my second time on the island in my 11 years living in Hawaii. I safely nestle on Kauai, a more remote garden paradise full of farmers, surfers and hermits. I have come to Maui for 24 hours to meet an old friend who was supposed to fly into the airport at the same time as myself. But he has missed his flight. Instead of waiting around for his belated afternoon arrival, I am traveling to greater heights to touch the heavens and see what awaits me at the top.

“The universe will never give you something that you cannot overcome. Every single one of us, we were born to get our job done. So shine, shine, shine…”

I am a 35 year old single mother of a 4 year old. Just days prior to this Maui trip I have been told that my current job position no longer exists. I’ve been offered unemployment benefits but the monthly stipend is not enough to live on. I am facing a precarious economy on a small island of somewhat limited resources in a time of perceived recession. I am proverbially free falling while I literally climb this peak. In the culmination of the music, these words, this beat- I am inspired.

The lyrics throughout “Dancemakers” lend a sense that Chris Berry has had his own time on the mountain and has been called to do great, big things. Often, his truthful lyrical confessions reveal the fears we all confront when we are guided to step out of our comfort and move into the unknown. He speaks to the knowingness in our hearts of the contribution we each have to offer the world and the challenges we face in doing the work.

In “Break Free”, he sings, ” I gotta get out, break free from this cage I put on me…sabotage, sabotage, self-sabotage. I ran past the water chasing a mirage. But I shall not take another step, bearing this burden of self-doubt…all the answers and the power, now is the hour…”

Continuing my ascent up Haleakala Crater, I feel all of the potential that lies within myself and the humans of this world. The rhythms and intent of Chris Berry and Panjea are breaking it down in vibrational sound for the whole world to hear and be reminded. In this moment, the music has entered my heart and in this space, all challenges are gone. All is well. Such is the power of music.

Panjea harnesses this power and offers the world worksongs it can groove to. In their song, “Are You Ready?” they put it simply: “Music is the medicine. The world is the patient. We are the doctors. Are you ready for this?”

Nearing the peak of the House of the Sun, I am beaming a resounding “yes” to this query. I feel and see the vision of masses of smiling faces celebrating this music together.

Chris Berry found love on the mountain – maybe it was somewhere in Zimbabwe. I found it driving up an ancient Hawaiian volcano with an iPod and a rental car. Love is in this music as a salve for the collective soul. A few songs with these guys and I’m feeling my infinite potential and the possibility of world peace. And that is certainly good medicine.