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The Magic of Sleeping At Last

My favorite artist, Sleeping At Last, recently finished their latest album, Atlas: II. It is his second album in a series of at least three albums that are focused on the universe and the life within it. Atlas: I focused on the origin of the universe, Atlas: II focused on involuntary human development, and Atlas: III will focus on voluntary human development. I could go on about the 55 songs already released for pages, but I want to focus here on the last nine songs of Atlas: II.



The last nine songs in Atlas: II focus on the Enneagram. The Enneagram is the nine core personality types of every human. Within each type is a childhood wound that shapes the shared thought processes, ascension and descension characteristics and reasonings, core desires and basic thought processes.


A very simplified rundown of the nine types:

· Type One: ‘The Reformer’ – sees the world as black and white, and has very strong perfectionist characteristics

· Type Two: ‘The Giver’ – people-pleasers, they are the type of friend that would drop anything and everything to help out

· Type Three: ‘The Achiever’ – charming workaholics, very ambitious and self-assured

· Type Four: ‘The Individualist’ – want to be unique, very emotionally honest and can be dramatic

· Type Five: ‘The Observer’ – very intelligent, have a very strong need to know how the world works

· Type Six: ‘The Loyalist’ – cautious, prepared, would be the ones you would want to be with during a zombie apocalypse

· Type Seven: ‘The Enthusiast’ – flighty, fun, energetic, the type of friend you call up one day and suddenly they’re in Sweden

· Type Eight: ‘The Protector’ – protective (of themselves and their close circle), mama bears or the dragons protecting the princess

· Type Nine: ‘The Peacemaker’ – optimistic and want peace at all cost, very diplomatic


For a deeper understanding of the nine types: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/



Sleeping At Last attempted, and succeeded, in writing nine songs that encapsulate each type. As he released each song, he also released a podcast episode explaining the details and reasonings behind every decision he made for each song. Each song has ‘fingerprints’ (sounds he gathered from friends who were that specific type) and in the podcast he explains why each are important.


This specific project took over a year to write the nine songs because Sleeping At Last put so much effort into trying to understand and honor each type. He says in every podcast his goal is respect and create a song for each type to be able to listen to and feel heard.


The songs are masterpieces, not only because Sleeping At Last had a reason behind every intricate detail, and not only because the lyrics are complete poetry, but because musically it creates works of art only comparable to Van Gogh.



In addition to beautiful songs, Sleeping At Last also worked with Elicia Edijanto to create cover art for each of the nine types with artwork inspired by the type and the animal associated with each type,




Sleeping At Last’s website to learn more: http://www.sleepingatlast.com/atlas

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