by Donna Quesada: I always saw my recordings of guided meditations as an extension of my work as a teacher and healer.

I especially love when I hear from listeners who share that a particular track has helped them through a challenging time. But my recordings stopped nearly six years ago, when I had to trudge through a turbulent transition in my own life.

I had become the one who needed guided meditations to sleep at night… My 22 year marriage came to an end; next, my spiritual community fractured, and then the whole world went crazy and came to a stop… then went crazy again.

Through these challenges, I came to see where the roots to healing really begin. I knew, from intense personal experience, how to ease the inner angst. And I began to feel whole again. That’s what healing means in a most literal sense… to make whole. It begins in that still, sacred place we create within ourselves when we come home. And this sanctuary and repose is found in the heart.

The desire to make a new collection of guided meditations came like a calling. I looked around and saw that we were now all in the trenches together and I felt the need to give back.

As if by divine serendipity, as if the universe knew how to orchestrate this project and make it happen, it all but hand delivered into my life, the person who would provide the musical accompaniment to make it truly special… to inspirit the meditations in a way that was nothing short of magical… It felt meant-to-be.

This angel arrived in the form of one who also spent many years on a healing journey of his own. Thierry Mader Schollhammer, known simply as “Mader” in the film industry, where he worked as a film composer for many years, found himself embroiled in challenges, both personally and professionally, which ultimately led him to India, where he would find respite and inner peace.

So, when destiny brought us together, it was at a point in time where we were at a similar junction within our healing journeys… Neither of us is getting any younger, so whatever we do from this point on is not for the sake of our own ambitions, but because it really matters. It has to matter.

Mader began his life in France as a musician with a love for Ravel and Debussy. But he refined and honed his craft by churning out dozens of scores in myriad genres for distinctive directors, such as Ang Lee and Alexandre Rockwell.

On these tracks of guided meditations, he creates sonic textures that engender the conditions for inner peace and healing. While deconstructing traditional templates, he brings a subtlety and warmth to these recordings that are harmonically rich and luscious.

I have a pet theory, that despite the constant psychological and physical changes we go through in life… like continuous reincarnations of our persona, we will always carry with us an essence of our origins. On that account, I see this project as a birthing, in which certain abiding elements of our lives and influences blend together to create something unique and beautiful.

Mader’s first musical loves, merged together with my love of Zen and prayer, brought forth a kind of watercolor…with flow and change and varying shades and textures.

Infused with that extra something special, these two recordings evoke a sense of the ephemeral… the timeless…and are vibrationally healing just by having them play. They are meditations for the in between… For loving the emptiness. For being at a crossroads. And finding peace there. For finding peace anywhere. They are our offering to an overwhelmed and broken world, in need of deep healing and solace. May they serve you well.