Hello, and welcome to Postures of Grace. I'd like to share a bit about my background and how I arrived here with you today.
I will start with Poetry and end with Dignity.
It feels true to say that my first conscious language was Spoken Word Poetry. This is important for me to share for two reasons. The first is that I was a very repressed and suppressed child and young adult. I struggled with depression, anxiety, anemia, and chronic physical pain. When I discovered the freedom that poetry gave me, something began to wake up in me that had been sleeping. I could feel into my pain/confusion and speak to what I felt. It was clarifying, a breath of fresh air. It changed everything. The second is that inside of the spoken word community you are witnessed and celebrated for your ability to creatively speak your truth. There are no rules. There was space for me to explore, in my own way, who I had been, who I was, and who I was becoming. There was something incredibly healing about being witnessed in the places that for so long were invisible even to myself. And there was power in the love of the community, that I was a part of, that ushered in trust and vulnerability.
This discovery around the profound and transformational experience of my own voice, being felt and witnessed, led me into a great curiosity and deep love affair with sound. In particular, a love for the "pure tone", a long singular tone that I could make with my own voice. The spoken word/tone carries a vibrational pattern. Vibration is the fundamental expression of the universe. When I am speaking or sounding/singing I am actively in collaboration with the worlds in me and around me. This discovery around vibration led me into the world of sound healing, a vast, empty, and colorful world. I say empty because being present to sound means to be full with listening. I am only listening, empty of everything else, including judgement. Inside of that, the whole universe begins to reveal itself to me, and I can then meet it with resonance. Resonance says, "I see you, I feel you, I am here with you, you exist, you are not alone”. A dear friend of mine said "If you want to change something you have to love it first". Resonance is like love.
When we meet parts of ourselves that are experiencing levels of dis-ease with resonance, something magical happens. It is all relational! Healing lives in the relationships we have to ourselves and the worlds around us. When we bring in resonance, something called entrainment is possible (a phenomenon of sound in which the powerful rhythmic vibrations of one object/organism will cause the vibrations of another object/organism to join its vibration). We can bring harmony/health to that which has been in dissonance/dis-ease. This relationship with sound led me to a deeper study into the worlds of subtle energy and energy medicine. Energy is a silent sound, everything is energy. Learning to track silent patterns in the body, in mental/subconscious and emotional fields, in myself and others, has deepened my ability to listen and meet life in the sweet spot of transformation.
I will end here with Dignity, the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed. Dignity is our true nature, it is our birthright: to know and to feel our worth (I want to add that feelings like shame and guilt are not outside of the arms of dignity...they are pathways towards it). To be met in a world that perceives and reflects back to us our own inner Dignity is healing. It is my honor and my joy to meet you in resonance, in truth, and in dignity. Healing lives in the space between us. It is a beautiful and precious place.
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I thank these following communities for the homes that they have provided for my growth, healing, and development. The Los Angeles Spoken Word Community, Reverence Project, The Transformational Art Therapy Center, CIIS, Luminous Awareness Institute, Mission Be, Yes You Can Speak.
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