Maya Lumen‘s sound is characterised by her creativity and desire to speak to the collective consciousness. With ‘Maynard’s Song’ she pays homage to the ability of our animal companions to provide healing and companionship in our darkest hours. We recently spoke to Maya Lumen.
Creativity has always been part of your life, but when did music start to feel like the place where everything clicked?
I moved to Ventura in late 2017, early 2018. I didn’t know anybody, I was walking again, and I was looking to start a fresh life. I grew up in the greater Los Angeles area and spent almost 13 years in San Francisco. I was looking for something new. I started going to open mics around town to share my songs and meet people. And I did just that! In fact, I met the most incredible array of creative, fun, eclectic souls who offered support, and affirmation, and friendship, and were interested in collaboration. Suddenly, I went from knowing no one to having a band, a record label, and a thriving community around me in a matter of months. The more I played, the more people responded to the music. The greater the depth of the response and reflection people would share, the more I knew something was clicking, that I was on the right track (pun intended) and that music was indeed something I was meant to be offering. Nothing else in my life has been so deeply received or created such a fast community as music.
You had a lot going for you already, yet something still felt unfinished; what do you think was missing before you fully stepped into music?
I’m not sure that it was ever that something was missing but rather that something I know I am was unfulfilled. I am an artist before anything else. My parents met and fell in love playing music; I always grew up around music. Having an international family meant that I got to travel as a young child, and my parents always took us to museums, so I’ve learned a deep affinity for the arts. I’ve been drawing since before anything else. I’ve been writing since I was in middle school, and music and photography most seriously entered my life in high school. I’m a deeply emotional and spiritual being, always have been since I was little, and the arts are the place that I always felt most authentic and most open to express whatever this abstract existential experience is that we’re having. I remember doing a painting project in preschool and having an out-of-body experience, witnessing the cosmos spin. My undergraduate degree is a Bachelor’s in Fine Art Painting from an art school because I was intimidated by the auditions for music school. Somewhere along the way, I learned the hard way that making a sustainable career in the arts is extremely difficult, and my artistic process was always so spiritual to me that relying on my art for money didn’t feel right. This meant I had to find another career route. Psychotherapy is something that has helped me be my best, most healthy self since I was a teenager, so it felt right to pay the service forward. I am so honored to witness people in their raw authenticity, be an ally on the psycho-spiritual path, and teach students other perspectives on healing the soul. However, as beautiful as these offerings are, they don’t fulfill the artist in me. Being a therapist and a graduate school professor also means I’m receiving a lot of projection, vicariously moving through lots of emotion and trauma, and working long, late hours, so I need an outlet. I need to anchor back into my true self and move through the world in an authentic way. There is a lot of overlap in the role of the healer and the role of the artist. I believe that by centralizing in my true Self, and fulfilling my true artist nature, I can most responsively and holistically show up for others in the world.
While recovering from your hip injury, picking up the guitar changed everything — what did that moment open up for you creatively or emotionally?
I don’t know how else I could have moved through disability without a guitar. I was watching way too many novellas, probably consumed most of Netflix, and could only read so much in a day. In those two years of disability, I read through the first few years of the Pacifica Graduate School syllabus in addition to all the fiction literature I could get. I was literally (next intended pun) working down the list of Nobel Prize winners in Literature. Having a guitar gave me a way to express the chronic physical and emotional pain of disability without verbally complaining. I wanted to have as little negative effect on the people around me as possible since I needed so much care and support. Not being able to walk much meant my social life dwindled down to be an incredibly small world, and playing guitar made me feel not so alone. I never set out to write songs, but somehow they started moving through me. Playing guitar and composing songs gave me purpose, offered me catharsis, and brought me into a relationship with my inner artist in a whole new way. I had mainly been painting and writing up to this point. Music became another voice.
You call your sound “progressive desperado”; how did that style come together, and what makes it feel like home for you?
The percussionist who tracked on my first EP, Tory Elena, said it well, “We produce what we consume”. I consume a wide array of genres so in a way, naming the outcome of influences isn’t going to fit a preexisting label. I was classically trained as a trumpet player in a wind ensemble, marching band, and jazz band in high school. I am inspired by a wide range of music from Henry Mancini to Miles Davis to Tool. In retrospect, I can hear the symphonic influence unconsciously emerge in the production of my songs. I’m not writing in standard Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus form and I’m not using standard chords or progressions. Thus, the “Progressive” aspect. I can also hear how Latin music, Southwestern living and ancestry, and desert rock wind together. I grew up in a desert landscape and am an avid backpacker, climbing my way across national parks into the backcountry, into solitude, into communion with Spirit. Nature has a certain cadence and energy to it. The only way I can sum that up is “Desperado”. Bringing it together, then, “Progressive Desperado” feels right.
“Maynard’s Song” is rooted in companionship during a hard time — what did writing that song help you work through?
I’ve had some really hard years and experienced some things I regret that anyone else will ever have to live through—even before my hip rupture. Animals are powerful creatures and they model that intuition far surpasses the limits of the mind. Maynard brought me so much love and affection and companionship when I most needed it. He brought me back to the love in my own heart, my worth, and the value in life and relationships. Trusting Maynard helped me trust people and the world again in a big way. Writing “Maynard’s Song” allowed me to express how the duality of trauma and connection can coexist, how Eros and Thanatos are inextricably interwoven, and illness can show us the fullness in life. Let’s be real, if we can’t get groovy when shit hurts, there isn’t much hope…
The track feels moody but comforting without over-explaining itself; was it important for you to let the feeling speak for itself?
My deepest hope is that all my songs will speak for themselves. Yes, I am technically the composer and performer of these songs, but I don’t believe that this is a production of my ego or limited human self. Carl Jung pointed to the collective unconscious and indeed, we see different symbols show up in art and expression across different cultures in different times that couldn’t have interacted this specifically. I’ve had too many experiences to pretend there aren’t realms of energy beyond my immediate human experience. I consider artists to be the conduit that channels these archetypal energies into human consciousness. I suppose it’s the psychologist in me that is further interested in providing an energy that people can free associate to. I’ve had people tell me after shows that certain songs brought them back to dreams, or reminded them of friends and lovers they hadn’t thought of in years, or that they had a vision come through while listening. I can’t direct that sort of experience for people, but I can provide a foundation forthe psyche to unfold itself into awareness. Whatever comes up for something while listening to Maya Lumen, that is what the song is speaking.
Your first music video came together through community — what did collaborating with friends and local artists bring to the project?
The community completely brought this project to life. I met the director and editor Dustin McLean at a creative meetup that occurs monthly in Ventura County called The One Oh One. One of The One Oh One meet-ups was at a giant multi-studio photography warehouse called Visualize Ventura, owned by Peter Kappen. I had a lovely conversation with Peter’s wife, and she encouraged me to shoot a video at his space due to his avid love of music. I am all about honoring who someone is. It doesn’t matter to me how talented someone is if they aren’t a good person. Good people who express themselves authentically and connect with true charisma will offer a truth that will go farther and shine longer and brighter than anything else. Here’s the psychotherapist in me again, relationship reveals and heal all. So after years of monthly hangs, I knew that Dustin was the genuinely talented soul that I could collaborate with and Peter had a space I could be safe to express myself in. I came to Dustin with two ideas: I wanted the video in black and white, and I wanted silhouettes. We came up with a plan and moved forward. I met Erin Clark, the dancer at a creative writing group I host every week and I woke up from a dream around 3 am a week or two before our shoot date with the realization that I needed her in the video. She graciously said yes and asked to invite her friend, Nanci Anderson, to join her. I tend to be someone who goes with the flow, so of course I said yes. Dustin is also a yes man, and even though including dancers meant a whole new cinematic element he pivoted without hesitation and made it happen—then months after the shoot, I find out that Nanci dances with Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, and the show Palm Royale and so many others and now she’s in my video? Hold up… And the incredible musicians in the video with me? This group was my core performance group for about 2 years and we tracked most of this recent album together. They all have incredible music and artistic endeavors of their own. I don’t direct parts for collaborators. I let each musician have their authentic voice around my compositions, which allows these songs to be theirs too. I believe this lends a more universal relevance to the music since there are so many perspectives of life integrated into a single song’s expression. The relationships I was able to build with these souls because of the shared expression of music make each album a record of relationships and memories and an era of life. So to bring it back around, this incredible group of souls makes this project everything it is.
The video is abstract rather than literal; how do you decide how much to show versus how much to leave open to interpretation?
I am a visual artist before I am a musician so image is really important. We project our own psychic contents onto images, which allows us to face and process aspects of ourselves in a new way. This is the healing capacity of art. It’s important to me to bring visual art and music together in an integral way. I want to initiate bringing music content back into the realm of fine art. Contemporary culture has obscured that. We are in the social media era of influencers where your face and presentation and pitch are your potential celebrity. It’s superficial. Growing up around Los Angeles I definitely absorbed a lot of images and messages around the female body and celebrity that aren’t healthy. I never fit that mold, and my family didn’t subscribe to those values. I think part of me is still the awkward emo teenager that rebels against the idea of ego and celebrity. I don’t want this project to be about me. I want the music to be successful. I want the music to speak for itself in people’s lives. I want the art to reach people’s souls. I want people to be affected. This isn’t about how I look or who I am. I had to dig my heels in because I did NOT want my face to be the opening scene. I wanted equal representation of everyone. Dustin is skillful and sold me on the closing but originally, I wanted even less identity revealed. I suppose it’s the same reason I am committed to instrumental music. With a few literal elements, the mind can orient. With a certain level of abstraction, the soul can associate and the ethereal can reveal.
With your second EP on the way, what do you hope listeners take with them after hearing this next chapter, and is there anything else you’d like to share before we wrap up?
The second EP “De Profundis” is officially released! Give a listen! There is so much I want listeners to have available to them. I want people to know they aren’t alone. I want people to know that what they feel, what they experience, is real and deserving of connection. I want people to feel empowered to express what is real to them and trust themselves enough to share this expression with the world. We need each other. I’m here. The music is here. The art is here. I want listeners to know that this is only the beginning; each moment is only a beginning. We are all going to grow together; we are all going to heal together; we are all going to navigate this era of consciousness together. More art and music are on the way… Stay connected!
Watch the inspiring music video for ‘Maynard’s Song’ below, and find out more about Maya Lumen and her music online on her official website, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
