Tami Simon: Transforming Through Sound

The first time I saw Tami Simon in person, she was working a soundboard behind the glass of a recording studio in Chicago. Simon (the subject of the May/June 2022 issue of Unity Magazine's “Listening in with …”) was about to tape medical intuitive Caroline Myss for an audio program Simon’s company Sounds True was producing. I was among 50 or so people lucky enough to have snagged a spot in the audience, and I was thrilled to hear Myss teach—but also fascinated to watch Simon at work.

So that’s the woman behind the voice, I remember thinking. I’d heard that soothing, wise tone at the start of the company’s audio programs many times. Simon always sounded as though she was about to share exactly the spiritual wisdom she somehow knew I needed at exactly the right moment I needed to hear it.

She certainly came by that voice honestly. First, Simon has the recording chops. She hosted late-night radio in college at Swarthmore, and later, in the mid-’80s, did interviews with spiritual teachers for public radio station KGNU in Boulder, Colorado. She also started a bit of a cottage industry, selling a few cassette recordings of her show each week at $10 a pop. Soon she was also taping spiritual speakers as they gave talks and workshops at conferences so she could then sell the cassettes on-site.

Second, Simon is no stranger to embodying spiritual wisdom. She started meditating in college and was soon studying with a high-level Indian guru—in India. Once she returned to the United States, she continued learning from those teachers she interviewed on her radio show and whose workshops she recorded. Now that Sounds True has expanded from its humble genesis into a leading multimedia publishing company, Simon’s continuing spiritual exploration has become perhaps the most extensive independent study program ever undertaken. In short, she knows her stuff.

When I next saw Simon in person, she was hosting the 2019 Sounds True Gathering at 1440 Multiversity near Santa Cruz, California, to benefit the Sounds True Foundation. The foundation is her nonprofit initiative to make transformational education available to communities in need, as well as to teachers, veterans, law enforcement professionals, and leaders of social justice and environmental organizations.

During the four-day event, she introduced an impressive slate of speakers, including Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.; Snatam Kaur; Adyashanti; Jack Kornfield, Ph.D.; Mark Nepo; Ruth King; Seane Corn; and others. Each time she’d take the stage to introduce another speaker and share some of her own stories, I was reminded of my first impression of that soothing, wise voice. Simon was genuinely delighted to be treating us to exactly the spiritual wisdom she somehow knew each of us needed, at exactly the right moment in our lives that we needed to hear it—and it all sounded pretty true to me.

This article appeared in Unity Magazine®.

This column was a 2022 Folio: Eddie cowinner for best column/blog in a consumer magazine.