about Trina

I'm a mother, an artist, a singer/songwriter. My love for my kids and for the earth as a whole feeds my muse and that's what I write and sing songs about.

My early music roots were fed by many -- my mother who loved to sing, my father who loves music, my second eldest sister who taught my siblings and me to sing in four part harmony, a wonderful high school choir director, an eccentric but brilliant piano teacher who believed in me.

Later influences came in the form of Peter Deunov's Paneurhythmy and classical voice training. And I'm always learning from my music friends and peers.

My deepest influence, however, is Life itself -- Living Nature, Reiki, and seen and unseen friends and guides whose contact ignites something in me that finds its most joyful and powerful expression in singing and making new songs, and sharing them.

I also support the emergence and expression of others' gifts through graphic and web design.

Beginnings

I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s singing with my big family in rural Missouri. Friends sometimes joked that visiting the Brunks was like finding yourself in the middle of a Broadway musical, with someone bursting into song with only the slightest provocation.

Our home was set at the edge of a large meadow ringed by wooded hills. I remember hanging out laundry in the back yard, singing at the top of my heart into the immense space, hearing my voice echo back. Sometimes I was Maria from the Sound of Music; sometimes I was Orphan Annie singing about her hard knock life (this was if the laundry was excessive, which it could be in a family with nine children); always in the back of my mind I was imagining Someone Important overhearing me and saying, "wow, that girl has talent!" And then of course they would swoop me up out of my mundane existence, for what great future I didn't even bother to imagine — whatever it was would be a fun adventure.

Years later, I had had plenty of fun adventures. Still no one had "discovered" me, and it was no surprise because in all my busy-ness I had put music as a last priority. It sat there, a kind of smothered longing, waiting for someone to notice and give it the importance necessary to come into the light again. I could mostly tell by the way I was jealous when other people sang in public that there was anything alive there for me at all.

Then one night I had a dream. I was sitting in the bleachers in a huge stadium with many other people. The space in the middle was a big blank nothingness. We were all just silently waiting. For what? A song came to mind — my friend Jeremy Roske's song based on Donovan's soundtrack to Brother Sun, Sister Moon: "If you want to live life free, take your time, go slowly. Do few things but do them well; heartfelt words grow purely." I felt a little awkward because everyone else was so silent but the urge to just sing was so strong, and I decided to let it out. Me, nobody special, started singing into the silence because I liked to . . . I enjoyed feeling the sound come out, enjoyed the beauty and the meaning of the words, enjoyed the gift of the song from my friend. And then, when I was done, I got up, got my things and started to walk out of the stadium. Everything was still silent with all the people waiting . . . and then, as I walked up past one of the last rows of bleachers, someone else started singing. I felt gladness.

I could hear the whisper well up inside me: We are the ones we've been waiting for.

Now I live with my wonderful family as we weave art and love and prayer into the fabric of our daily lives. I write songs while making dinner, playing with children, going for long walks and yes, even doing laundry. I record in my home recording studio and can be found singing at concerts, gatherings, sacred services and retreats. It is a dream come true to share this music with you.

Blessed Be!

Family photo and portrait of Trina by Anastasia Pottinger Photography.