Like tapping into a maple tree, I can help bring your story to language, chronology, composition and illustrative presentation: the whole kit-n-kaboodle.
Words move me, literally.
The short of a long story: Once I was led up many thousands of feet, to a small community in a mountain town in the "Four Corners" region of the United States, an area known to be sacred to Native American people. I was made privy to a traditional tribal ceremony, something I do not take for granted. On this evening in my young 20's, an elder worked with me, considered one of the last Medicine Men from the old world. He'd traveled to Colorado from the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota and fluently spoke the Lakota language, which has become increasingly endangered within the last years along with many other essential components of Native culture. I was only invited to the ceremony because I hadn't been feeling well, and one of my university teachers where I then studied had extended an invitation to the private event of his godson's first pipe ceremony where the elder medicine-man would be leading this important Lakota initiation of manhood.
That night, high up a mountain pass, I interrupted a boy's first pipe ceremony to receive special attention from the medicine man. I remember feeling awkward, hoping I wasn't intruding on their event, aware of my outsider blood, my obvious young white-girl-ness. Still, I was led by the elder to rest on a cushioned platform there in the family's living room while he sang over me, his hand hovering over my heart. He spoke, a chant-song, melodious in its essence; the words of the Lakota. In all of my years studying formal music, from jazz to classical to emo-pop, I'd never heard anything more beautiful than this sing-song sound of his language. Within the words of his Lakota, I could hear the soliloquy of the seasons, the leaves falling, turning with mud; the sun evoking seed, the snow freezing in altitude, the breath of the elements. Something I'd never experienced happened then. Without feeling them coming, without being elicited or triggered from my own awareness, tears poured heavily from my eyes, streaming like charmed snakes, one after another, then dozens at a time. In my memory, I formed rivers from my tear ducts, a gush of saline, flushing something, according to the elder, from my heart and system.
I share this seldom shared story that is so dear to me because the Lakota elder, through his utterance, expressed the essence of language. Language can heal, can captivate and evoke, can be spoken directly from the source of life itself. As a voice-coach, I understand the power of expression, its ability to move mountains, break boundaries, quell inflammation, relieve suffering. In this way of embodied language, I support individuals and companies, from the most scientific to the most fantastical. I help to brand initiatives and collectives, finesse top screen-plays, refine actor's dialogues and relinquish historic novels. I'm able to do 100% of the work, including extracting the story, developing an outline, articulating themes, executing timeframes, channeling your voice to paper, illustrating written work and providing first-draft edits. I can work alongside publishing agents to get your book to the world. Part of my love of language is to offer people support in bringing masterpieces to light, and I'd love to help you craft and deliver yours, whether in the form of a 400-page book, your company value statement or a stunning anthropologically-rich TED talk.
Contact me at lesliehelpert@gmail.com for more information, excerpts and client referrals.
The short of a long story: Once I was led up many thousands of feet, to a small community in a mountain town in the "Four Corners" region of the United States, an area known to be sacred to Native American people. I was made privy to a traditional tribal ceremony, something I do not take for granted. On this evening in my young 20's, an elder worked with me, considered one of the last Medicine Men from the old world. He'd traveled to Colorado from the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota and fluently spoke the Lakota language, which has become increasingly endangered within the last years along with many other essential components of Native culture. I was only invited to the ceremony because I hadn't been feeling well, and one of my university teachers where I then studied had extended an invitation to the private event of his godson's first pipe ceremony where the elder medicine-man would be leading this important Lakota initiation of manhood.
That night, high up a mountain pass, I interrupted a boy's first pipe ceremony to receive special attention from the medicine man. I remember feeling awkward, hoping I wasn't intruding on their event, aware of my outsider blood, my obvious young white-girl-ness. Still, I was led by the elder to rest on a cushioned platform there in the family's living room while he sang over me, his hand hovering over my heart. He spoke, a chant-song, melodious in its essence; the words of the Lakota. In all of my years studying formal music, from jazz to classical to emo-pop, I'd never heard anything more beautiful than this sing-song sound of his language. Within the words of his Lakota, I could hear the soliloquy of the seasons, the leaves falling, turning with mud; the sun evoking seed, the snow freezing in altitude, the breath of the elements. Something I'd never experienced happened then. Without feeling them coming, without being elicited or triggered from my own awareness, tears poured heavily from my eyes, streaming like charmed snakes, one after another, then dozens at a time. In my memory, I formed rivers from my tear ducts, a gush of saline, flushing something, according to the elder, from my heart and system.
I share this seldom shared story that is so dear to me because the Lakota elder, through his utterance, expressed the essence of language. Language can heal, can captivate and evoke, can be spoken directly from the source of life itself. As a voice-coach, I understand the power of expression, its ability to move mountains, break boundaries, quell inflammation, relieve suffering. In this way of embodied language, I support individuals and companies, from the most scientific to the most fantastical. I help to brand initiatives and collectives, finesse top screen-plays, refine actor's dialogues and relinquish historic novels. I'm able to do 100% of the work, including extracting the story, developing an outline, articulating themes, executing timeframes, channeling your voice to paper, illustrating written work and providing first-draft edits. I can work alongside publishing agents to get your book to the world. Part of my love of language is to offer people support in bringing masterpieces to light, and I'd love to help you craft and deliver yours, whether in the form of a 400-page book, your company value statement or a stunning anthropologically-rich TED talk.
Contact me at lesliehelpert@gmail.com for more information, excerpts and client referrals.