Rosemary Phelan

"I am, by vocation and profession, a nurse whose life is suffused with music and a musician whose days are rich with the privilege of caring for others."

These are the words of Rosemary Phelan, a gifted and award-winning singer, songwriter, musician, and Registered nurse who has chosen to use her considerable talent to bring comfort to the sick and help ease the passage of those who have come to the end of this life's journey. "For me," she says, "life itself has ever been felt, measured, and understood in music, inside and out; in darkness and in light." Even as a child, Rosemary recognized passing ticks, hums, clicks, and whirrs as not just noise, but as sounds that offered a meaningful opportunity for connecting to life in a whole new way.

Growing up in a multi-cultural, musical family laid a foundation for Rosemary's lifelong appreciation of worldwide musical cultures and traditions, and allowed her to polish her vocal skills while learning to play a variety of musical instruments. She attended schools in both the US and Europe, and eventually landed in rural Vermont, where she spent her early adulthood living in the woodlands, listening to and learning the wisdom of nature, while receiving training as a massage therapist and becoming a part of the local folk music scene.

After emigrating to Canada, Rosemary's dual path of music and healing began to blossom and she embraced it fully. Graduating with honors as a Registered nurse, she enhanced her training with studies in traditional herbalism, and music as a means for therapy, healing, and transition; at the same time, she was also a student at the Royal Conservatory of Music, studying voice and classical piano.

Rosemary continues to work as a nurse in community care and is studying the clinical applications of music for illness and at the end of life. Her CDs have been described as "richly evocative journals of a life deeply lived," and they reward the listener with "subtle beauty from start to finish." A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each CD goes to support The Healing Coop, a non-profit resource center and healing environment for women living with cancer, and their families.

"I've lived and worked in the pristine wilderness of nature and the human lost-and-found of the grittiest urban core. There is still so much to learn, but what I have noticed is this: the longer I walk this two-fold path that calls me, the more real my music becomes, and the more certain my hands in their healing work." —Rosemary Phelan

© dwij
2005 
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