The Song in Your Bones

A Community Song Challenge | Little Door x The Music Directory

A Creative Invitation

Welcome to something special—a month-long creative collaboration between myself and the wonderful

Shanté

from {The Music Directory}. When we connected recently to swap interviews and talk music, we discovered we both share a deep love for mysticism, meditation, and embodiment in our creative practices.

This got us thinking: what would happen if we invited the entire {Music Directory} community—all of us Substack musicians, writers, producers, curators, composers, DJs, Radio hosts, educators, researchers, historians, journalists, collectors and audiophiles of all stripes—into a collective creative experience?

So here's our October invitation: Let's get creative together. No prizes, no competition—just pure creative communion and the joy of making music.

The Portal Opens Here

Today we're going on a journey—not just into creativity, but into the wisdom your body. This isn't about forcing a song into existence, or technique even. It's about becoming clear enough to receive what's already there, waiting in your cells, your tissues, your very DNA, the imagery that is already swirling in your space.

Your body is an archive. Each memory carries its own texture, rhythm, and emotional signature. And here's the beautiful truth: those sensations want to become songs.

Music allows us complete any emotional movement that was stunted or incomplete — we can go back and inject it with boogie or melody and free up the pain, confusion, lust, paranoia, sorrow, grief, agitation, rage, or love that longed to be heard.

Here’s how it all will work:

Part 1: Meditation 🎧

Before we dive into creating, we need to prepare our inner landscape. I created an optional meditation to get you relaxed and embodied.

The meditation does not walk you through the actual song prompt exercise so it is entirely optional (but pretty rad!). If you have your own tried and true relaxation practice that is nourishing for you — feel free to do that instead. You know, light a candle, pick a scent, a quiet space…

If you choose to use the guided meditation, give yourself about 25 minutes — and let yourself be blasted off into a trippy alternative timeline. After you meditate, you might have some insights that you’ll want to download — what you saw, felt, heard and received — so consider having a journal handy. This is not the song prompt per se, but might feed it 🎶

INNER TRIUNE GUIDED MEDITATION 🫧

Part 2: The Prompt - Body Memory Songwriting

Now that you're connected to your body and relaxed, it's time to excavate the gold that's been living in your body all along.

Step 1: Find Your Sensation (3 minutes)

Close your eyes and slowly scan your body from the crown of your head down to your toes. Don't judge what you find—just notice.

What sensation calls out to you? Maybe it's:

• Tension in your shoulders

• Warmth in your chest

• A fluttering in your stomach

• Heaviness in your limbs

• Tingling in your hands

• Constriction in your throat

Pick the one that feels most alive, most present.

Step 2: Time-Travel Freewrite (5 minutes)

Set your timer and let your pen move without stopping. Begin with this prompt:

"When was the first time (or most intense) I ever felt this sensation?"

Don't think—just write. Let memory and imagination blend. Go as far back as your mind will take you. Capture:

• Where were you?

• How old were you?

• What was happening around you?

• What did you see, hear, smell, taste? Bring all your senses in.

• Who was there?

• What does your body want to do, what movement is it craving? Maybe even try acting out those movements to completion.

The goal isn't accuracy— it’s free association, let it rip.

Step 3: Sound It Out (10-15 minutes)

Now pick up any instrument (guitar, piano, even just your voice). Don't think about chord progressions or song structure. This is sort of like a musical “freewrite” — there is not intended outcome, per se. But DO record yourself on your phone— something might fly out that you want to come back to.

• Let your hands or voice find sounds that match that memory's texture

• What does that original moment sound like?

• Is it staccato or flowing? Bright or dark? Dense or spacious? High or low?

• Let the sensation move through your instrument or voice

• Are words coming? They might… or it could be gibberish, but maybe the gibberish has a tone, an inflection… capture all that.

You're not looking for perfection, you're looking for truth. Weird is totally ok.

It can help to relax your brain by acknowledging you’re not creating these songs—you're remembering them. Your body has been composing your whole life.

Step 4: Let It Flow Forward (Your Way)

Now you have the kernel—that raw, fragment of sound and story that emerged from your body's memory. What you do next is entirely yours to discover. This is where your unique creative process takes over.

Some songs might emerge fully formed in one session. Others might simmer for weeks or months, revealing themselves in layers. There's no right timeline, no correct process. Only your process.

Join Our Creative Communion

We want to witness your process — if you create:

• A full song

• A lyric fragment

• A voice memo of your meditation insights

• A rough demo capturing that body memory

• Even just a few words about what sensation you explored

Share it! Tag us both in your posts, drop links in the comments, or send us your creations directly in our DMs.

I will host a Live with anyone stoked on this process in late October — we’ll chat about mixing somatics with songwriting and how creativity feels when we do it in community.

At the end of October,

Shanté

and I will feature everyone who wants their work to be included in a community roundup—celebrating all the songs that emerged from our collective dive into embodied creativity.

We’re not aiming for competition — more like communion. It's about honoring the raw, real, creative impulses that arise when we trust our body's wisdom, and especially what might happen when we do that type of work collectively.

---

Calling All Music Directory Friends

If you're part of {The Music Directory} community, consider this your personal invitation to play. And if you're not familiar with

Shanté

’s incredible work curating and celebrating music on Substack—go explore! {The Music Directory} is a treasure trove of music writers, creators, and sonic explorers.

If you are not yet a member of the directory, head on over and Submit.

Shanté

updates the categories on a rolling basis — it’s the most comprehensive collection of music Substacks and has a very active community of folks 💜 Becoming a paid subscriber of The Music Directory helps fund her labor for keeping the project up to date.

---

P.S.

Shanté

and I talked about how we both love easter eggs and it inspired me to create something for email readers — each week look in the header for a new feminine archetype — because duuuuuuude, we could use some of their energy right now. This week it’s Eve. The original bad-girl, rule breaker, seeker of knowledge. I love this poem by Julie Barton. And this track by Nina Simone.

I’ll Be Seeing You Through The Portal 🌀