“Melissa is wise, vulnerable, powerful and funny. She uses personal experience to let us know we all do the same crazy things, and we can all be transformed.” Rev. Karyl Huntley, Golden Gate Center for Spiritual Living, Corte Madera, CA Melissa’s passion for her life’s work – helping people transform their thinking and their lives – makes her a sought-after speaker, performing artist and teacher. Her mission is to support people in awakening to the awareness of their own Divinity. “My deepest joy is supporting you in making your dreams come true!” Melissa says. Hope and healing are the common threads running through her work. She creates inspiring words for her audiences, transformational coaching clients and students – spoken and sung. Her authentic, down-to-earth style with its power and playfulness allows audiences to access deep levels within themselves. Awarded an honorary doctorate in music degree in 2010, Melissa is a licensed Minister with the United Centers for Spiritual Living. She is also a Mentor of the Toltec Path personally trained by don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements. Melissa’s history of trauma and drug addiction still inspires her spiritual journey. Her 25+ years of sobriety have provided a deep wellspring of self-awareness, healing and compassion she uses in all of her work. A professional singer-songwriter-performer who has opened for the likes of Jerry Garcia and Kenny Loggins, Melissa started singing and playing music at 8. One admirer has called her music “Bonnie Raitt meets God.” Her professionally-produced recordings are powerful tools for transformation. She currently has 6 albums of original songs, chants and meditations in release. Melissa and her wife Z perform music and deliver inspirational talks, workshops and retreats throughout the world – from California to Ukraine. BOOKINGS AND INFORMATION: OhMyGod Productions www.OhMyGodLife.com E-mail: Meli@OhMyGodLife.com MEET MELISSA PHILLIPPE On a nearly perfect California afternoon, Melissa Phillippe studies the menu. It's the kind of restaurant where you might expect to find a musician whose work is informed by her spiritual awareness. The fare is varied, but mainly vegetarian. The design is "earthy" -- a perfect fit in Sonoma County, where the air seems just a little cleaner, if not actually lighter. Melissa's pure and compelling blue eyes gaze out from behind long, tawny bangs. Her brown ribbed cardigan features a fake fur collar. She wears matching slacks, a bit of gold jewelry and a shiny wedding ring. She orders a salad. But giggles to admit she's occasionally come to this "health food" restaurant and had only the "air baked french fries". It's partly this whimsy that sets this speaker/entertainer, who has performed all over the world, apart from most. She's a seeker of truth in a fake fur collar, eating her greens, but spicing it up with fries. So too her music -- often deeply felt and moving ballads, even haunting chants but doused liberally with R&B and rock hooks. She has released five albums on OhMyGod Productions: Infinite Possibilities and Heal It! both offer an exciting mix of original material, beautifully arranged and voiced. Chants of a Lifetime, Second Chants and Chants to Love feature Melissa's hypnotic message meditations (both vocal and instrumental versions). "There is only one of us. In your eyes it's me I see. There is only one of us. You are my reflection. There is only one." ("There Is Only One of Us" from Second Chants.) She is also the featured vocalist on the Steven Halpern release, Deja Blues. As a singer, songwriter and keyboardist, Melissa, who grew up in the Bay area, began her musical life at age 8 studying classical piano. Her parents were professional people who provided a comfortable lifestyle for their three children (Melissa is the youngest), but Melissa was a rebel from the start, destined to be less than comfortable in the world. "Music" she recalls, "was my angel. I escaped with it through all those years." An accomplished songwriter by her mid-teens, Melissa assisted at her mother's contemporary clothing boutiques while attending high school. At 19, she was managing a shop and deciding what to do about college. "I hated the idea of college. I didn't see the point. But as much as I was into rebelling, I was also into appeasing. I knew my parents really wanted me to go." She settled on CSU Chico, majoring in both Music and Psychology. Within days of enrolling, she was singing with a band. And she was partying. Mentored by advisor Dr. Robert Bowman, she was also meditating, and so her life in the Spirit began. Bowman suggested meditation as a tool for improving performance. He shared his own spiritual path with his protégé. "What he was teaching was basic metaphysics," she asserts. "I learned that changing my thinking could change my life." She did change her life. After Chico, she went on to a brief early marriage and then to one of Jan Tangen's legendary music camps. There, she was awarded studio time and recognized as a serious talent. Jan was an important influence on her life from that time until his untimely death in 1997. Melissa and Jan formed a musical partnership and they ran music camps and classes together, which Melissa describes as "some of the most fun times of my life." It was Jan who suggested that Melissa join him at jazz gigs, adding yet another genre to her wide repertoire, and that she try teaching. Reluctantly at first, she did – singing, music theory and performance – student after student, for some 20 years. But there was much more to this union and to this unique talent. "He taught me so much," she exclaims with her characteristic humility. "I was completely unconscious and didn't understand the concept of being responsible. He helped wake me up." And now it is this awakening that she shares through her music and her messages. As she sings in "Tomorrow Never Comes" (Heal It!), "Don't put your passions on layaway or stop yourself because of yesterday. Right now is where dreams are made. Tomorrow never comes." While working with Tangen, Melissa also performed with The Teddies, an all girl a cappella group often chosen to open for visiting superstars: Jerry Garcia, Taj Mahal, Donovan and Jesse Colin Young are just a few. And she did a five-nights-a-week solo lounge act in the South Bay, in Santa Clara. She spent two years exploring her spirituality with the Alive Tribe, but when they headed for Colorado, she briefly headed back into her partying past. Until she ran into an old friend, Shakti Gawain, who suggested Melissa spend some time with her in Hawaii. There she wrote "The Healing Storm" (Heal It!), and gave up partying for good. Since then, her enlightenment has been enriched by the Centers for Spiritual Living. Now a licensed CSL minister, she has sung her songs and delivered her messages of hope and transformation throughout the world. Already extremely well known and highly regarded in the Western United States, she tours nationwide with her wife Z, also a CSL minister and musician. Melissa sips the last of her coffee. The sun heads out over the Pacific. She is still: "I see that all is as it should be. I am safe -- so are you, doing all the things God wants us to. In this place, I know -- I do have everything. God is good and dwells within. With each new breath, I begin again." ("Sitting in the Presence of God" -- Infinite Possibilities.) She'd probably be writing that now, if she hadn't written it already.