Harpist, singer and healing artist Christine Tulis is a visionary who creates transformational combinations of music, healing arts and sacred performance. She composes music intended to deepen the awareness of our Divine Essence.
Her songs feature spiritually uplifting lyrics originating from her inner experiences or inspired by the poetry of Rumi and other mystic saints. She is a premier sacred musician, finely attuned to the subtle realms, who has developed her gifts in service to the heart of humanity.
She has a deep love for the spiritual and healing qualities of the harp and its archetypal role as an awakener of the sacred - a link between heaven and earth, the inner and outer worlds. Christine began playing the harp after a life changing spiritual experience upon encountering the instrument live for the first time in 1987.
The harp has been used throughout the centuries to facilitate healing, access spiritual vision and travel inwardly to celestial realms. Christine is one of the finest contemporary artists continuing this ancient, sacred lineage.
Christine has performed for two United Nations events and during Labyrinth pilgrimage at Chartres Cathedral, France and Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. She has also played at the International Symposium on Spirituality and Business, Babson College, Harvard University, Lesley University, Naropa University, and the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.
She has forged a musical partnership with multi-percussionist Kem Stralka based on a mutual love of sacred music. Kem is a composer, recording artist and musical yogi who creates soundscapes for the soul using a variety of exotic world instruments.
Christine's debut CD, PORTAL, created with Kem and released on her record label Sound Temple Music in 2007, won the Moondance International Film Festival Gaia Award for Spiritual Music. This award is presented to those who seek to elucidate and improve the spiritual quality of all life on the planet and contribute to the betterment of the world spirit.
Christine loves to collaborate with fellow leaders in the fields of spirituality, sacred music and human potential. She has played for the Evenings with Extraordinary People series featuring Caroline Myss, collaborated with yogini Shiva Rea, toured with Kirtan artist Dave Stringer, created music for Labyrinth walks with Lauren Artress, founder of Veriditas, and opened for author, religious scholar and teacher Andrew Harvey. She has also played with sacred musicians Snatam Kaur and Guru Ganesha Singh.
Christine performed with the stellar cast and musical team of the ground breaking rock opera "Magdalene, Woman of Light," which premiered in Denver, CO in 2008. She has been a guest artist on numerous radio shows, Toronto morning television, the popular New England TV news program Chronicle and her music is played in healing centers across the nation.
She is also a Veriditas trained Labyrinth facilitator. Walking the Labyrinth is a contemplative practice held sacred by numerous cultures east and west. A walking meditation, it is an opportunity to let go, listen deeply and traverse your inner landscape.
In addition to her musical pursuits, Christine is an extraordinary healing arts practitioner who combines massage therapy, energy and sound healing, harp and very special essential oils. She has created three healing offerings, Anointing with Holy Oils, Sound Temple Bodywork and Harmonic Touch out of her over 20 years in practice as a healing artist and sacred musician. To learn more about this aspect of her work please see the Healing Sessions page.
A Massachusetts native, she maintains homes in the San Francisco Bay Area and Boulder, CO. She delights in sharing her unique gifts to promote the well-being of others and assist them in cultivating inner peace and spiritual connection.
She is the founder and director of Sound Temple Music and Healing Arts,
her multi-faceted music business, healing arts practice and record label.
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Offerings from Sound Temple Music and Healing Arts:
Sound Temple:
The purpose of the Sound Temple is to open gateways of spiritual connection and affirm our universal, Divine nature. They create a musical doorway to the inner worlds by blending mystical poetry with composed and improvised music.
Sound Temples feature the music of Christine Tulis and Kem Stralka in a seamless flow that expresses a wide emotional spectrum ranging from a delicate, shimmering heart space to joyful exuberance.
Christine and Kem created the Sound Temple format out of a desire to offer a musical experience that was spiritually focused and combines the performing arts, contemplative states of being, the power of rhythm and awareness of the healing qualities of music.
Christine and Kem are often joined by outstanding guest musicians to create these profoundly beautiful events.
Labyrinth Walks:
The Labyrinth is an ancient symbol that relates to wholeness. It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. The Labyrinth represents a journey to our own center and back again out into the world. Labyrinths have long been used as tools for prayer, meditation and healing.
A labyrinth is an archetype with which we can have a direct experience. It's spiraling, winding path is a metaphor for our journey through life. It is a symbol that creates a sacred space and connects us to our inner landscape. Accompanied by Christine's contemplative harp music these walks are meditative opportunities to commune with the sacred Presence within. Some walks include Kem Stralka playing keyboard and percussion.
Please see Calendar for all upcoming events.
CD's:
Sea of Dreams: The mystic verses of Rumi and St. Teresa of Avila set to music along with songs featuring Christine's original lyrics celebrating the Divine.
Portal: Winner of the 2008 Gaia Award for Spiritual Music from the Moondance International Film Festival. Instrumental music for the healing arts, yoga and contemplation. Features Celtic harp, piano, keyboard, cello, crystal bowls and atmospheric vocals. Co-produced by Kem Stralka.
Please see Music and Buy CD's & Sessions pages for more info about CD's and to hear music clips.
Healing Sessions: Please see Healing Sessions page for more information.
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Biography:
Beginnings:
Raised in the rolling hills of Massachusetts, Christine was greatly influenced by the gentle beauty of its landscape, revolutionary history and the spiritual and artistic cultures she encountered in Western MA, the Berkshire hills, Northampton and the Cambridge area.
Her childhood days spent by the ocean in Gloucester, a coastal town north of Boston, inspired a lifelong connection to the deep, mystical aspects of the sea and its relationship to the inner realms. She feels a kinship with mermaids, mythical beings, saints, spiritual practices and world mythologies which inspire us to create our lives as works of art and beauty grounded in love and service.
She moved to the redwood-forested coast of northern California in 1986 and found there and through her travels, the golden threads her life was destined to be woven from - the harp, the healing arts and the awareness of Soul as our core essence.
She discovered the Celtic harp at a healer's gathering held at Trillium Farm in southern Oregon during the Summer of 1987, over the Harmonic Convergence weekend. She was profoundly moved by seeing and hearing the harp for the first time. The purity of the sound drew her into a deep state of contemplation through which came a recognition of the harp as a major part of her life's work. She had an inner experience of Divine Light and Sound and felt called to play the harp as a means of helping others access the Divine Presence in their own hearts. This one event stands out as the turning point of a lifetime.
A few months later she discovered the ecstatic poetry of Rumi, 13th century mystic, while at a gathering one snowy night in the mountains of Taos, New Mexico, and again felt a deep sense of recognition and purpose. She realized another piece of her life's work was to perform and sing Rumi's sacred text with original music on the harp.
During her time living in California she also discovered massage therapy and energy work and was propelled into a life devoted to the healing and contemplative arts.
More gifts:
In 2000 she was introduced to the Labyrinth and found yet another setting to play music in which facilitated people's cultivation of their connection to the Divine. She developed a beautiful partnership with the Labyrinth Guild of New England in which she played for monthly Labyrinth walks and accompanied them on pilgrimage to France in 2003 to play for walks at Chartres Cathedral.
Delving into collaborative musical co-creation, Christine was the creative director of Bluegate, a healing music ensemble, composed of violist/vocalist/sound healer Michelle Herrera Foster, guitarist/composer Benyamin Sheppard and percussionist/keyboardist/vocalist Kem Stralka from 2002-2004.
In October of 2004 Bluegate was invited to play with an international group of musicians at the United Nations in New York as part of a Concert for Peace. Christine had previously played for the U.N. sponsored "Symposium on the Unity and Diversity of the World's Religions" which took place in Los Angeles in 1995.
Her passion for sharing her music has led her to play all over the United States, Canada and France in churches, temples, cathedrals, chapels, performing arts centers, theatres, yoga studios, healing centers, hospitals, universities, museums, sacred groves and mountaintops.
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Teachers and Influences:
The stars, moon, earth and sun, sound and silence, the delicate beauty of flowers, acts of kindness I've witnessed, received or given. Many people have touched my heart and informed my spirit. The following have been major influences. Kim Robertson (Celtic harpist extraordinaire), Christina Tourin (Harpist and pioneer in the field of harp and healing. Founder of the International Harp Therapy Program - also introduced me to the Labyrinth and the work of Kay Gardner), Loreena McKennitt (Singer, harpist, composer and head of her own internationally renowned record label, Quinlan Road), Kay Gardner (1940-2002, Sound healer, composer, musician, teacher - supported me to start my first sound healing circle in the Boston area in 2001). Sarah Saruah Benson (1935-2007, Pioneering Sound Healer and Musician), Douglas Brady (Psycho-Somatic Counselor, Healer), Andrew Harvey (mystical scholar, Rumi translator, poet, author, spiritual teacher and architect of Sacred Activism), Coleman Barks (Author, poet, translator and champion of the poetry of Rumi). Rumi, Shams, Wah Z, the many saints, mystics and lovers of God throughout the ages and current times who point the way.
Please contact Christine at 303-304-0837 or christine@christinetulis.com for more information about any of her offerings.
~ Celebrating the Sacred through Music and the Healing Arts.