The Power of Voice
by STEWART PEARCE:
Master of Voice & Presentation
My work as a Master of Voice is to tune peoples voices and bodies. This is not just a physical process, it also includes encouraging intention to arise from the heart, full of passion and inspiration. When this is so we say the speaker is true and centered, that they have gravitas
"If words arise from the heart,
They will enter the heart,
If words arise from the tongue alone,
They will not pass beyond the ears"Al Suhrawandi
As I experience life in the west I rarely hear the promise revealed by this verse. Why is this? The technological lives that we lead (often at ravening speed) have disconnected us from the 'signature note' or sound of truth that resonates at the centre of our beings. We live our lives out through a 'literal consciousness' rather than one that is feeling based and therefore 'metaphoric'. Therefore, we unconsciously choose words that reflect this, such as 'soundbyte', 'info-tech highway' and 'CD ROM'. Whereas our forebears living in an age before the scientific advancements of today created words like, 'radiance', 'dwindle' and 'hurry'.
Our voices are a means for revelation, and within their sound lies the blueprint of our humanity; this is the very song of our soul. Our voices are a physical means by which we express thought and feeling in order to gain the responses we desire. Our voices reflect our personal power; we have all heard the voice that resounds with articulate ease, full of personal sovereignty as opposed to that, that is weak with nervousness, anxiety and disempowerment!
Today, as a result of our fixation with the 'doing' aspect of our lives we mostly tend to live in our heads rather than our bodies. Our voices spring from these lofty conduits sounding harsh, glottal and nasal. We unconsciously use 'cerebral resonance', which solely expresses what we think and controls the environment in which we place ourselves. The mechanistic approach of our information culture is stifling the 'being' aspect of our lives.
Inevitably, this creates imbalance within us and consequently we experience 'disenchantment' ~ the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. As we move from our bodies into our heads we risk losing what is 'en-chanting' about our lives, for our voices harmonize life. For example, think of the metallic nasal voice of the cityscape, where folk live their talking lives moving across unremitting concrete. Then, listen to the undulations of melody found in rural contexts. When in connection with Mother Nature people tend to live their lives in a greater continuance with her subtle flow of force. These energies allow us to surrender ourselves to the rhythms and resonance of nature, through which we become essentially more 'present' and therefore more harmonious; when this is so we connect with the song of our soul.
If we persist in avoiding the power within our voices we are in danger of losing a fundamental aspect of our essential humanity. As the images of the info-tech highway take precedence in our lives, young people are disconnecting from the aural traditions that permeated our ancient world. Today, it is unusual for the young to read out loud the great poets of yore, or to connect with the passions lying within the great stories of literature. The sounds of our aural culture are in danger of no longer living in the bodies of our children, a thought I personally find as dreadful!
Thomas Kyd a seventeenth century playwright wrote:
"Where words prevail not, violence prevails
But gold doth more than either of them both"
The ancient peoples of our planet believed that all creation was accomplished by sound and that the earth itself came into being through the power of sound; a sound that moved and still moves through every aspect of creation. They believed this animating principle to be the sound of Gods voice.
Similarly, there was a time in western civilization when a father would listen to a young man who came to woo his daughter. No matter what dress the young man sported, if his voice was rich with certain sounds the lover would be accepted for how well spoken he was. Honesty, wit, self-knowledge, suffering, faithfulness, nobility and soul ~ in short the very integrity of a person can be heard in their voice ~ this was called PERSONA which means "through sound" (PER = through, SONA = sound).
A young romantic in Shakespeare's THE MERCHANT OF VENICE says:
"The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with the concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are as dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted."
The promise created by my life's work THE ALCHEMY OF VOICE is to free the inner potential within all our voices, so that we may live our lives transformed by the 'gravitas' of sound alive in our bodies. This activity moves us back into the locus of our own 'signature note', truly resonating the treasure that is stored within our hearts.
The theory of New Physics tells us that 'morphic resonance' creates fields of magnetic energy; sound is one of the principle components of this resonance. Through our voices we may feel resonance on the form of sound waves streaming through out bodies, cleansing and re-energising our energy field with waves of peaceful light. Thence, our charkas become balanced and charged with the beauty of the one unified field of force ~ sound and light bring the peace that passeth all understanding.
Namaste,
Stewart.
© 2005 Stewart Pearce