The Work That Re-Connects

Everything is connected. If I ever doubted that, the few experiences I have had with Joanna Macy's "Work That Re-Connects", has left no doubt in my mind. You can check out Joanna's work at http://www.joannamacy.net/. She is an amazing teacher, now in her 80th year, who continues to travel and teach intensive workshops.

On Sat. Dec. 19, 2009, I attended a full day workshop based on The Work That Re-Connects, facilitated by Jeannette McCullough (http://www.shamansong.ca/). I was deeply touched and amazed by some of the unexpected gifts and the sense of "knowing" that I received throughout the day. For me, the most remarkable and the most profound exercise that we did involved Jeannette first offering us a prayer of gratitude towards various beings and then we, in partners, each had a chance to speak our own memories, feelings and offer gratitude towards the various beings that were mentioned. First was a prayer and then our offerings of gratitude towards Mother Earth. Then we offered prayers and gratitude towards the trees, and then the animals and the birds and the flowers and the fish. With each sharing with my partner, I found memories of my growing up days just flooding back to me, but I found those memories coming back in a very different way than they ever had before. Instead of seeing the "difficulties" or the challenges of my growing up years, I suddenly began to recognize all of the incredible gifts that I had been given throughout my childhood and teenage years. I was very fortunate to grow up in a little village (Port McNicoll) near the shores of Georgian Bay. I was surrounded by the abundance and beauty of nature. I grew up with clean, fresh air to breathe, water that was ideal for swimming, birds of all kinds. I grew up surrounded by "tree friends" who welcomed me into their arms. How I loved climbing trees. When I wasn't "up a tree" I was swimming. Or riding my bicycle through quiet, safe streets. Or riding horses at my friend's farm. Or I was rescuing stray animals. Or I was feeding the birds. At times our backyard would be a mass of big white fluttering wings as I threw bread (day old from my father's grocery store) out to the seagulls. And of course we had many beautiful birds of every colour enjoying the birdbath and bird feeder that my mother kept well filled for our feathered friends. There were so many gifts in my growing up years, I can't even begin to name them all here. Through that exercise of sharing my memories, I totally re-connected with my past in beautiful, positive, happy way. I felt the beauty and the power and the strength of my foundation, my upbringing, in a way I never had before.

It is amazing how connected everything is. Just a couple of days before that workshop, I had "re-connected"with all of my photographs, from my infancy up to 1994. When I left to live in Mexico in 1994, I had stored my photos in my cousins dark, dusty basement in my hometown. For almost 16 years I had not seen any of these treasures. In "rescuing" these treasured photos from the basement of my cousins house, I felt like I had rescued a part of myself from the dark and dusty basement! After the workshop, I knew that the only thing that I really wanted to do on Christmas Day was to go through all of these photos and to remember and to receive fully, all of the gifts that I was given through each stage of my life. With my Beloved Spirit Guide (Sweet Wisdom) at my side, I explored those photos one by one, remembering the gifts and showering my young self and all of those around me in those precious pictures, with Love.

Just one final thought on the work of re-connecting -- I see now how, even though I haven't experienced very much of Joanna's work (this was only my second exposure to it), re-connecting has been a theme in many of my recent endeavors. In my ongoing work with the Chakras, the whole focus is on re-connecting the various aspects of ourselves as we re-connect with SOURCE. In my current vocal training, the entire focus right now is re-connecting my deep rich chest voice with my head voice and learning to transition smoothly through my full vocal range.

It is very exciting to see and experience many aspects of myself and my life and my voice coming together, re-connecting at the deepest levels.

Thank you Jeannette for this enlightening work that you are offering us. It is a gift.

And thank you to all of the Beings -- Human, Animal, Plant, Rock .... and of course to all of the Beloved Spirits who guide our way.

I wish you all a Wondrous New Year. Thank You for allowing me to share my story.

Barbara

The Power of the Human Voice to Transform

This post is inspired by an amazing event I attended on Dec. 13, 2009 called "Sounding for Wisdom at Copenhagen" facilitated by Wende Bartley, Composer and Sound Healer here in Toronto.

First a little background note: Those of you who know me are likely aware of my growing excitment and passion for anything to do with vocalizing, singing or sounding. After about 57 years of feeling like my voice was trapped deep inside of me, my voice now refuses to remain silent any longer! And with that vocal energy guiding me, I am now finding incredible opportunities to work with and use my voice in ways that are fun, energizing, healing and transformative.

My own vocal journey and wxploration began a little over a year ago when I found myself in a group where people began to spontaneously offer and share songs. I could feel my voice retreat deep inside of me in terror that someone might expect me to sing. I couldn't do it. And that was also the turning point when I knew that i also couldn't live with my voice trapped inside any longer. My search for "vocal help" led me to a remarkable teacher and a remarkable method (see speech level singing link at the left of my blog) of training the voice. While this method is aimed largely at training the voice to sing (which I now really want to do!!) its effects on me have been much more far reaching (but that's another story to come!!). But thanks to my weekly lessons and my dedication to my daily vocal practice, I now have the courage and the vocal strength to begin using my voice in many transformative ways.

I was really excited to receive Wende's invitation to her vocal event "Sounding for Wisdom at Copenhagen". This was based on a Worldwide event called Sounds of 350 (www.350.org) It sounded like a wonderful way to explore my own newly developing vocal power in a way that could also help to support the planet in these crucial times. i can only say -- that sounding event was awesome. We met in the Sanctuary of Trinity St. Paul's Church on Bloor St. so we had a great, huge space with wonderful acoustics. Wende led us through a lovely series of vocal exercises to warm up our voices and spoke to us about connecting with the Earth's song. Because of all the damage that is being done to Mother Earth, Wende explained that her (Mother Earth's) song is being silenced. By connecting with Mother Earth and allowing her song to be sung and sounded through us, we can help to revive the song. Through our voices we can connect with the vibration of the Earth and strengthen it. Wende also referred to this as "subtle activism" (www.gaiafield.net)-- a concept that really resonates with me. Led by Wende and the vocal group HATHORA, we were led into a prolonged time of sounding our own sounds as they wanted to come through us. It was a very large group of people, everybody sounding the songs and the sounds that wanted to come through them. With everyone sounding differently, the result was incredible harmony and connectedness.

As I continued to connect more deeply with the Earth, I found sounds coming through me that I had never sounded before. At one point, I could feel deep, wild animal sounds coming through me and then I realized, from somewhere across the room, another animal had emerged and was sounding back to me. In this midst of all the sounding that everyone was doing, I found myself carrying on a back and forth "animal conversation" with someone -- I have no idea who -- across that huge room. It was an amazing feeling, not only to be channeling that sound from who knows where, but to find someone who was speaking exactly that same language. This was definitely one of the most fascinating and powerful "conversations" I have ever had.

I need to end by saying thank you Wende for offering me this opportunity to experience the newfound power of my own voice and for giving me this opportunity to be of service to the Earth through my Voice.

This was a profound event and I am really excited about the discovery that I can use my voice in this Transformative way.

Thank you to all of those (and there have been a few!) wonderful people who have helped me to unleash the Power in My Voice.

And may we all continue to sing and to sound Ourselves and the Earth back to Vibrant Health!

Peace and Love to all of you.

Barbara