THE VOICE BATHERS: SESSION 1, THE TRAVELER
The voice bather sessions are based on the notion that we can actually provide ourselves with a "sound bath", and reap much benefit of presence, openness, resonance and sense-of-center from opening our voice. Join me in a vocal opening meditation with session 1, named The Traveler.
BELOW: The streaming (and The downloadable .mp3) of The Voice Bathers "The Traveler" session.
BELOW: The streaming (and The downloadable .mp3) of The Voice Bathers supplemental Vocal Awareness Practice session, *recorded on an --phone, on-the-fly for a previous Voice Class (but relevant to The Voice Bather practices!)*
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Welcome to THE VOICE BATHERS series
Voice by L. HELPERT
WHY the voice:
In the rising western cultural awareness of Sound and Frequency as medicine, it makes sense that we begin to explore more deeply the potential implication of the individual human voice. All branches of science, healing modalities and spiritual/theological systems recognize vibration as vital to all existence; the soundtrack to the expanding universe of electrons captured by nuclei in atomic creation, poetically articulated by the laws of physics.
"It's amazing how much we know about sound and waves and yet how we're only on the cusp of understanding how sound vibrations affect us."-- recent post on Instagram I resonated with by "Radiate 528".
As someone who has worked with sound in thousands of clinical setting worldwide (clinical meaning observation/treatment-based settings rather than laboratory/theoretical settings) I can confidently assess that working with the voice is BIGGER than we currently comprehend at-large.
While learning from others is essential to all of life, learning how to LISTEN to our voice, to utilize our own voice as a "light", illuminating where we have stagnation, excess heat, tenderness, longing, need, grief, entanglements, we learn that, in ways, our voice, all along, held the very language we most needed to hear.
On "REFRAMING THE VOICE":
In the VOICE BATHERS series, we step away from considering our voice as solely an outwardly performative tool for communicating to others, from a quality about ourselves, a quality that invites us, if we listen to it, to feel: to supportively invite more feeling.
We are invited to experience our voice with great sincerity, with the same type of respect we'd have if we were before the highest court, our greatest beloved, the deepest mirror, or, as poet T.S. Eliot says "in the middle of the middle way", in the center of the universe, conducting all of existence.
Picture the conductor’s precision, her posture, her needed command, her centrality to the confluence of sound, her ability to transcend herself as she holds that body of work, of music.
Your voice, awakened within your body, offers you this conductive prowess.
This is the austerity we can have for our own voice when we work with this natural tool to find our center, to see our patterns, to nourish our parts, to refine and align our being with our best intentions, our highest potential. When we can connect with our voice like an Olympic skater, and--- whatever the posture, move or style, we are with ourselves every step of the way, we step into what is true, fluid vocal pleasure, real loving-kindness and the kind of sound that fills us, fills our cup.
This full cup then naturally overflows and creates the abundance that draws what is nourished by the very essence of us closer toward us, and gives the world the grace of our presence.
This particular 28-minute long Voice-Bather active-meditation session is called The Traveler, as it was originally designed for the "ones in transit" (though it can literally be listened to and actively practiced in really any condition, sitting, standing, walking, traveling, driving, etc.) My initial thought was to develop it, particularly for those walking through spaces where there is much activity (like Times Square, in NYC, where I live!) or in any space where the nervous system is prone towards producing sensations translated as "anxiety". In this session, we can use the “hum” for locating a type of central stability or calm. The recording can be equally positive, however, during a hike in the woods, in the bathtub, during a walk in a quiet rural area, driving on a super highway, or on a plane (amazingly, people cannot really here us "sounding" under the purrr of the airplane's spatial noise). Eventually, once you have the technique, it can also be nice to do the practice on your own, head-phone-free, so that you can hear the resonance of your voice within the whole cavity of your cranium, with your ears on-board.
*Please note, included additionally in this Voice Bather session is a supplemental “seated” spinal/pelvic floor/”articulators” practice (for a supine or sitting sonic practice/medication) as a downloadable .mp3 file.
Voice by L. HELPERT
WHY the voice:
In the rising western cultural awareness of Sound and Frequency as medicine, it makes sense that we begin to explore more deeply the potential implication of the individual human voice. All branches of science, healing modalities and spiritual/theological systems recognize vibration as vital to all existence; the soundtrack to the expanding universe of electrons captured by nuclei in atomic creation, poetically articulated by the laws of physics.
"It's amazing how much we know about sound and waves and yet how we're only on the cusp of understanding how sound vibrations affect us."-- recent post on Instagram I resonated with by "Radiate 528".
As someone who has worked with sound in thousands of clinical setting worldwide (clinical meaning observation/treatment-based settings rather than laboratory/theoretical settings) I can confidently assess that working with the voice is BIGGER than we currently comprehend at-large.
While learning from others is essential to all of life, learning how to LISTEN to our voice, to utilize our own voice as a "light", illuminating where we have stagnation, excess heat, tenderness, longing, need, grief, entanglements, we learn that, in ways, our voice, all along, held the very language we most needed to hear.
On "REFRAMING THE VOICE":
In the VOICE BATHERS series, we step away from considering our voice as solely an outwardly performative tool for communicating to others, from a quality about ourselves, a quality that invites us, if we listen to it, to feel: to supportively invite more feeling.
We are invited to experience our voice with great sincerity, with the same type of respect we'd have if we were before the highest court, our greatest beloved, the deepest mirror, or, as poet T.S. Eliot says "in the middle of the middle way", in the center of the universe, conducting all of existence.
Picture the conductor’s precision, her posture, her needed command, her centrality to the confluence of sound, her ability to transcend herself as she holds that body of work, of music.
Your voice, awakened within your body, offers you this conductive prowess.
This is the austerity we can have for our own voice when we work with this natural tool to find our center, to see our patterns, to nourish our parts, to refine and align our being with our best intentions, our highest potential. When we can connect with our voice like an Olympic skater, and--- whatever the posture, move or style, we are with ourselves every step of the way, we step into what is true, fluid vocal pleasure, real loving-kindness and the kind of sound that fills us, fills our cup.
This full cup then naturally overflows and creates the abundance that draws what is nourished by the very essence of us closer toward us, and gives the world the grace of our presence.
This particular 28-minute long Voice-Bather active-meditation session is called The Traveler, as it was originally designed for the "ones in transit" (though it can literally be listened to and actively practiced in really any condition, sitting, standing, walking, traveling, driving, etc.) My initial thought was to develop it, particularly for those walking through spaces where there is much activity (like Times Square, in NYC, where I live!) or in any space where the nervous system is prone towards producing sensations translated as "anxiety". In this session, we can use the “hum” for locating a type of central stability or calm. The recording can be equally positive, however, during a hike in the woods, in the bathtub, during a walk in a quiet rural area, driving on a super highway, or on a plane (amazingly, people cannot really here us "sounding" under the purrr of the airplane's spatial noise). Eventually, once you have the technique, it can also be nice to do the practice on your own, head-phone-free, so that you can hear the resonance of your voice within the whole cavity of your cranium, with your ears on-board.
*Please note, included additionally in this Voice Bather session is a supplemental “seated” spinal/pelvic floor/”articulators” practice (for a supine or sitting sonic practice/medication) as a downloadable .mp3 file.