Listening Voices
Be like the bird that, pausing in her flight awhile on a bough too slight, feels them give way beneath her and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.
Victor Hugo
I have always loved to sing all of my life. And the follow experience crystallized my passion for the voice as a tool of magic, connection and communication.
I am at an earth retreat in Minnesota when I am nineteen. One day after a rich cooking pot of morning work in community, I am at my power spot in the woods. I sit on a gentle slope with a view of the woods and lake superior stretched out through the trees beyond me. It is a sunny refreshing day, with the shaking green leaves playing light and shadow on the ground of ferns and my exposed skin. I am letting my body sway as I sit and move into sounding through my voice and body. Through sounding, I am moved into an altered state. I keep singing and sounding tones, letting my awareness be pulled without thought. Then suddenly, I become aware of another sound that is not my voice. It is a harmonizing tone layered in with my own. There was no other human near me, but I still heard the sound. I then shift my tones counter to what my awareness was singing, and it stopped. And then I would sing certain tones and melodies that were coming through my awareness again, and the harmonizing would return. The harmonizing was beautiful, powerful. It opened me to a state of awe and grace. It sounded as if the trees were harmonizing back with me. I had to sing in a way that they would harmonize with. I would explore with my voice until they would harmonize again. We created beautiful songs together. The experience opened my heart to feeling the connection with the earth around, feeling I was not alone, and knowing that if I listening through expressing my voice, the earth would respond and join me. I felt the support, love and magic of the earth in those moments and many to come. After the experience I wrote a poem about the experience titled “listening voices.” It was an exploration in the idea and experience of expressing outwardly in a way that can listen, and the idea that particular outputting can “hear” more than others. And some expressions can hear even more than just being receptive and listening. This retreat was exploring our high dream- the dream we were born to live and express in our lifetime. I always knew voice would be a part of my life path. And that experience solidified that my voice was key to my relationship with my heart and the planet. Since then when I have moved into a state of deep awareness voice has returned, and the earth has reiterating that it is a tool for me to cultivate in my vocation and way of life.