Our vision
Mountain to Mountain was founded by visionary artist and depth psychologist, Dr. Denise McMorrow, and sound healing practitioner and grammy award-winning musician, Erik Lawrence. Together, Denise and Erik envision Mountain to Mountain as an alchemical container of deep companioning for the Soul’s embodied expression.
The inner work and journey of psychic dismemberments, transitions, and life’s challenges cannot be hurried, fixed nor solved. But, they can be honored as the sacred spiritual passages that they are, and tended by the poetic, imaginal, sonic, and embodied languages proper to the Soul.
The Sacred Feminine principles—of contemplatively moving awareness down and in, of deep listening and holding an ethic of hospitality to all aspects of Self including that which has been put into the shadow, disowned, or unmourned, of rooting into right relationship with our Mother Earth and Her dreaming, of holding the inherent paradoxes of Being Here within the great weave of all of Life, and deep respect for the cycles of birth, expression, and death—all inform the vision for this container to re-member your own awakened sacredness.
Denise mcmorrow
To me, being an artist, psychotherapist, and mother means participating in an ongoing spiritual conversation between the Visible and Invisible, inherent in the pathways of making, healing, and holding space for the gateways of birth, death and transformation. I have been making art all of my life, and began studying contemplative spiritual practices in my teens. I was in my early 20s working on a masters in fine art in Brooklyn when September 11th occurred, and living in this shared experience of collective grief and trauma in New York oriented me towards wanting to be of service in tending the psyche through other pathways.
I began to study the processes of psychotherapy—the Greek roots of which mean care for the soul—and while I was completing a PhD in clinical psychology, I began working with combat veterans and was introduced to shamanic practices of healing and and caring for the Soul that are particular to the archetypal warrior experience. Over the past 15 years, I have continued working with shamanic teachers as a student/apprentice, co-facilitating retreats for returning veterans across the U.S., and holding space for contemplative communal rituals of grief and honoring.
In addition to seeing individuals in private practice with a depth psychology orientation, Mountain to Mountain arose out of a felt call to offer the medicine of the interwoven practices of healing, art and poetic making, intuitive prayer, sacred listening and ritual tending, and mothering. See more of my art portfolio beyond the art on this site.
erik lawrence
I attune to the Soul through music.
Erik Lawrence has toured the world as a saxophonist, flutist and composer, sometimes with his own original groups and often in support of a wide variety of legendary artists, including The Band, Levon Helm, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Chico Hamilton, Sonny Sharrock, Yungchen Lamo, Nawhang Khechog, David Amram, The Spin Doctors , My Morning Jacket, Roger Waters , Joan Osborne, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, Aaron Neville, Hubert Sumlin, Buddy Miles, Henry Butler, Big Chief Russell Moore, poet Robert Pinsky, and countless others. He’s currently a member of the legendary band Little Feat and Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra. He has worked with dance legends Jose Limon Dance Company, Twyla Tharpe, and Gabrielle Roth. He has appeared on two Grammy winning Albums and two Platinum records among hundreds of recordings and soundtracks he’s participated in.
At the root of Erik’s work is his attention to the soul of the music and how it reaches people, and how it has reached him since he began playing music at the age of 5. Much of his work centers around tone of the many wind instruments he plays. The core of that sound, what can be expressed and how people respond and can be moved by it has led him to studying the science and practice of sound and vibration and how it affects the body and mind. In addition to the master musicians he’s played with in his career, he has sought the instruction of several master sound and vibrational healers and continues to learn about both ancient and modern musical healing modalities.
In addition to a busy concert and recording schedule, Erik performs Musically Guided Meditations, which he calls Sound Sanctuaries. Often performed solo or with other musicians, these are intended to calm, uplift and respond to the listener and help them to attain a higher sense of peace and confidence. His calling is to create meditations for specific people and situations to aid in the journeys of life. Private sessions are also available, and in both of these settings Erik engages the listener/participant to release stress, trauma, grief, conflict and anger. Erik has worked with physical trauma, illness, migraines, end of life care, grief, and with ailing or troubled pets as well.
Erik has given lectures and demonstrations at Music Therapy pain symposiums (recertification program), nursing continuing education, the New Jersey Piano Tuner’s Guild, Arts centers, yoga and healing centers, at private and public universities and high schools, and in other formal and informal settings.
Erik has played music of many styles and cultures and often collaborates with poets and authors, visual artists, dancers, tea masters and a variety of ethereal arts. He’s performed in 27 countries and 41 states. He began teaching music in colleges at the age of 18, including 9 years at Williams College and Artist-in-Residencies at Dartmouth and other universities.