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: Sometime in my early twenties, 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. I was invited by a tribal elder, 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, a native mother-tongue which has become increasingly endangered within the last years (along with many other essential components of Native culture).
That night, high up a mountain pass, during his grandson's first pipe ceremony, I received a special songlike chant from this medicine man, given to me and exlusively for me, and I'd earlier admitted to feeling a bit under-the-weather and he, evidently, could sense my malaise. The elder's Lakota words were melodious in their essence; sounded like leaves falling, turning with mud; the sun evoking seed, the snow freezing in altitude, the breath of the elements; the soliloquy of the seasons. 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. 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; at first, one tear slowly following another and then dozens at a time, a kind of ablution. In fact, in my magical-realism kind of memory, that night I formed rivers from my tear ducts, out of which a gush of saline, according to the elder, flushed something out from my heart and system.
I share this story because the Lakota elder, through his utterance, exhibited what I believe to be the essence and raw power of language. Language can heal, can captivate and evoke, can be spoken directly from the source of life itself. As a voice-coach, I glean the possibility of expression, I pontificated regularly how still-untapped this voice resource is in each of us! I surmise that our voices possess the 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, providing first-draft edits, sourcing additional editors, layout, publishing and publicity teams. I am able to work alongside traditional publishers or support the path of self-publishing. Part of my love of language is to offer people the step-by-step map to bring their masterpieces to light, and I'd love to help you craft and deliver yours, whether in the form of a 400-page book, a brief company value statement, product branding 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: Sometime in my early twenties, 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. I was invited by a tribal elder, 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, a native mother-tongue which has become increasingly endangered within the last years (along with many other essential components of Native culture).
That night, high up a mountain pass, during his grandson's first pipe ceremony, I received a special songlike chant from this medicine man, given to me and exlusively for me, and I'd earlier admitted to feeling a bit under-the-weather and he, evidently, could sense my malaise. The elder's Lakota words were melodious in their essence; sounded like leaves falling, turning with mud; the sun evoking seed, the snow freezing in altitude, the breath of the elements; the soliloquy of the seasons. 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. 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; at first, one tear slowly following another and then dozens at a time, a kind of ablution. In fact, in my magical-realism kind of memory, that night I formed rivers from my tear ducts, out of which a gush of saline, according to the elder, flushed something out from my heart and system.
I share this story because the Lakota elder, through his utterance, exhibited what I believe to be the essence and raw power of language. Language can heal, can captivate and evoke, can be spoken directly from the source of life itself. As a voice-coach, I glean the possibility of expression, I pontificated regularly how still-untapped this voice resource is in each of us! I surmise that our voices possess the 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, providing first-draft edits, sourcing additional editors, layout, publishing and publicity teams. I am able to work alongside traditional publishers or support the path of self-publishing. Part of my love of language is to offer people the step-by-step map to bring their masterpieces to light, and I'd love to help you craft and deliver yours, whether in the form of a 400-page book, a brief company value statement, product branding or a stunning anthropologically-rich TED talk.
Contact me at lesliehelpert@gmail.com for more information, excerpts and client referrals.