I just rediscovered this song that I wrote a couple of years ago.
My friend, Will Softmore, and I improvised with it one day back in 2014 and here is what emerged.
I had forgotten I had even written it!! I felt both sad and touched when I heard it. It reminded me that I have not been singing as much as I usually do in the last year and a half. Something occurred in my life about that long ago that knocked me into a kind of a silence and creative shut down and I am still, slowly, emerging from it. I didn’t even really notice it happening at the time. It was only after time that my heart began to lament a forgotten voice that loves to sing from the core of my heart. It was as if I had forgotten how.
Being pregnant has been a blessing in this way. I have been reminded of the healing power of expressing my voice and of music. I have felt called to sing to the growing baby in my womb and this has awoken this love in me once more.
I still feel trepidatious when I come to sing now. It touches me so deeply that, when I do, there is nowhere to hide. My heart literally breaks open and I am born naked to the world, seen in all my vulnerability. It scares me. I avoid it, still.
And yet, when I do allow myself to sing, to touch into those places in myself, I am moved into a different kind of silence. Not the kind of silence where I am keeping a lid on a wild array of emotion, grief as well as joy, within myself. Rather, one in which I become so deeply touched by the sense of connection to all living things, seen and unseen, so connected to myself.
I am moved into wonder, awe and spaciousness. Even my grief can transform. First it is my own, then it becomes the grief of all things, then it can soften into a love which beholds space for all that is within me. The only thing I have to ‘do’ is turn towards it, allow it. There is great creative potential and beauty inside all emotion.
So, here I am. Remembering now. Remembering this resource that lives within me, beginning to feel the space again to go to this place that touches me so deeply. Honouring my near silence over the last while – a necessary protective wisdom that understands the art of timing. A renewed curiosity to explore this voice, this music once more.
I thought I would share it. It’s a live, improvised recording. It’s not meant to be perfect, just playful. Enjoy.