Barbara McAfee: Voice as Vocation

A master voice coach, author, and singer/songwriter, Barbara McAfee has worked 25+ years midwiving voices across thresholds. Whether it is an individual seeking to express deep truth, or a group looking to embrace its power, she guides them on an intimate journey to find their unique voice, sound by primal sound. Your voice is how you get the gift inside of you out. Nothing much happens in the world until someone gives it voice. That's why the words voice and vocation share a common Latin root, she says. Her work merges lessons from organization development with the transformative power of sound, aiming to foster awareness of unconscious vocal habits that interfere with us doing our best work. Barbara believes that the gifts uniquely expressed through our voices are part of a shared destiny. So when individual voices are more fully expressed, communities become stronger as well. 

More in this in-depth interview with Barbara.

  

The following is the transcript of the Awakin Call with Barbara McAfee, hosted by Aryae Coopersmith, and moderated by Mia Tagano

Aryae: Welcome, everyone. My name is Aryae, and I'll be hosting today's Awakin Call. Thanks for joining us from wherever you are in the world. The intention behind these calls is to plant seeds of awareness and transformation within ourselves and our communities through conversations with individuals whose journeys and work inspire us. Awakin Call is an initiative of ServiceSpace — a distributed, global, all volunteer community committed to the principle that, by changing ourselves, we change the world. Behind each of these calls is an entire ServiceSpace team, whose invisible work allows us to hold this space.

In a few minutes, our moderator Mia will begin by engaging in an initial dialogue with our speaker Barbara McAfee. And by the top of the hour, we'll open into a circle of sharing where we'll draw upon reflections and questions from our listeners. At any time during the call, you can submit your comments or questions via the webcast form on our livestream page. Or you can email us. Whether you're tuning in live or listening to the recording later, we're grateful for your presence in co-creating and deepening the collective energy of this conversation. And a friendly reminder: if there's a tech glitch or any other issue for our speakers, please hang in there while our team works quickly to bring the speakers back on.

Let's start with a moment of silence to anchor ourselves into this space.

[pause]

Thank you, and welcome again. Our moderator for the conversation today with Barbara McAfee is Mia Tagano. Mia is a ServiceSpace volunteer who enjoys connections she has made online and offline. She's also an actor, teacher, and coach, as well as a spirit runner and community member. Mia has been a professional actor for over 20 years, including 200 performances at Lincoln Center in New York, touring with the Royal Shakespeare Company, acting with Frances McDormand in Berkeley Rep's production of Macbeth, and much, much more. She's also been an acting coach with the American Conservatory Theater, a speaker coach for the Entrepreneurs' Organization, and a teaching artist, working with youth and young adults in schools, community centers, art centers, and theaters. And she's been an active volunteer in many capacities in the ServiceSpace community. She'll now introduce our guest and begin the conversation.

Mia, over to you.

Mia: Thank you, Aryae. It is a joy to introduce our wonderful guest, Barbara McAfee. Barbara is a master voice coach for over 25 years, supporting people from all walks of life to find their voice, whatever that means to them. She is a trainer for others learning to carry that work as trainers and coaches. She is the author of Full Voice: The Art and Practice of Vocal Presence. She is a singer-songwriter with eight CDs of mostly original music. Barbara is a speaker, workshop facilitator, and retreat leader. She is a former organization development consultant, and the founder and director of the Morning Star Singers Comfort Choir, a volunteer choir that brings song to people experiencing health challenges. A native Minnesotan, she is currently living on the wild and scenic St. Croix River in west Wisconsin.

Welcome, Barbara. Thank you for being with us today.

Barbara: It's such an honor, Mia. I thank you for having me.

Mia: I love getting to see you again. I enjoyed our conversation a few days ago, and I'm so excited to see you today. I just want to start with: Can you tell us more about where you live, your home?

Barbara: It's a good story. The St. Croix River is just down the hill from where I am right now. And it is the river of my childhood. I grew up a few towns south of here, and I lived in Minneapolis for 40 years and was so happy being there. I hung out a lot with the Mississippi River there, and in Covid time, I would come back to this river again and again, just to fill up my soul. And one thing led to another, and I found a house out here. A year ago I moved here, and I now spend hours — it's called the "City of Trails," my little town — and I spend hours walking the trails, morning, middle of the day, and at night. But especially in the morning, I hike an hour down through town, into a park along the river and greet the same deer and eagles and beavers. And, as long as I can, I will be jumping in that very cold water. There's a little ice along it now, so I think the days are numbered. And then I walk straight uphill and get nice and warm again.

But I sing prayers for the water in Ojibwe, which is the language of the tribal people who we stole this land from. And I've been asked to carry a song of blessing for the water by Ojibwe Elders. So I walk down there every morning and sing prayers, and this morning I was accompanied by the song of a bald eagle sitting right up on the cliff, a billion-year-old stones. I was singing and the eagle was singing right back to me [imitates eagle singing]. So that is how I start my days. And I am so fed and blessed to be learning from this place and bringing my love and blessings back to this river of my youth.

Mia: Thank you. Wow, to be blessed by an eagle this morning. I think the Ojibwe people would be speaking about that.

Barbara: Yeah. Yes. And I came face to face with a deer, but that happens almost every day. So I've been learning the names in Ojibwe of the most common encounters I have. I've learned the name for "deer" and "beaver" "eagle", "pine", "fish", "squirrel" so when I see them, I can greet them in a language maybe they knew a long time ago.

Mia: I knew someone who works with animals. He would say that you must have a very accessible energy, approachable, to feel safe to come to you like that.

Barbara: Uh hum. I sing to them a lot. I have certain songs that I sing for the deer and they all look at me. I don't know if they are thinking, "What on earth is she doing?" Like, "what is that?" But I like to sing to them and let them know it's me, so they don't have to be afraid of me.

Mia: Oh, what a gift, what a gift. I just wanted to ask you about your home. It's not just you found any home, right? There's something special ....

Barbara: Yes, this banister back here ... this house was built in 1915, a couple of years after the house where I was born and raised, just south of here. And so when I walk up ... the banister, I put my hand on it to go to bed, and it's the same shape as the banister in my childhood home.

And I was enabled to buy the house because my mother left me a little bit of money when she died three years ago. And I think it makes her so happy that I'm in the valley again, and that I am living in this sweet little house that feels very much like the house where I lived with her. So it's quite magical.

And it came through ... I did not see that coming. I was a happy renter and didn't want to own a house. "Oh, a hassle." And a friend told me about this house, and I called the guy, and I walked in, and I said, "I'll take it." Just looked at one house, and he's become a dear friend now, and I have great neighbors. And the whole thing has just been quite a lavish gift that if I ever doubt that I'm held in the hands of Spirit, I just have to let that story go: because this miracle is so huge in my life.

Mia: Your life does feel magical, miraculous, connected to the Creator, connected to something beyond you, and also it feels like there's an intentionality. Just wondering how you came to do what you do and how you were led to where you are now?

Barbara: Well, I will start that story with my mission song, which I wrote many, many years ago as a kind of way to say, “Okay, now, where am I? What am I doing here on this planet?” So this is my little mission song.

(Song)

"I sing with the sweet breath of God. And I dance on the living planet. My body is holy water and I dream a world made new."

So that's kind of the biggest story. I sing with the sweet breath of God. I dance on the living planet. My body is holy water and I dream a world made new.

So if I was going to write the story of how I came to be here, it would be something like: Voice lost and found and found and found and lost and found and found and found and found and lost. My voice has been the kind of thread through my whole life, and like many of us, the gifts and the wounds live really close together. And so my gifts and wounds have all kind of focused here.

I was very shy and awkward and bullied as a kid, and I also had a lot of illness here. I had chronic throat infections growing up. And my story about that is that all the truth that I couldn't say had to go somewhere. So it went into my tonsils. So I was sick a lot. And in my twenties, they took them out. And about 10 minutes later, I started singing solo for the first time in my life. So I think they just took them out of the way and (makes sound) all these songs came out. And then I also started therapy around the same time. So all the things I couldn't say, I was uncovering and unpacking some of what shut this down in the first place.

Then I stopped singing because I got scared. And, then all of the things that were rising up got stuck in my thyroid and fortunately, it wasn't cancer. But they cut my throat -- see the scar -- and took out half my thyroid. And I made vows that I wasn't ever going to stop singing again because I want no more knives near this part of me. So I haven't stopped since then. So the wound and the gift have been very close.

I think I wrote in the little questionnaire about one of the big turning points in uncovering my voice came when I worked with teachers from the Roy Hart Center. They came to Minneapolis to do a workshop from where they're based in France and that changed. Like there are times when your life is going along and then it goes like that, that's what happened.

One of the teachers, Saule Ryan, who is now my dear friend and colleague, like 30 years later, took me on a vocal adventure. Their work is about opening the voice past speaking, past singing into sound. And I thought my voice ended [here] when I walked into that workshop and he took me all over the place. I went lower than I had ever gone, and I went from where I thought my voice completely ended way up here almost to the top of the piano. And that was like, I mean, vocally, it was fascinating to make wild sounds, and I was being a big bird, like the eagle I heard this morning and that helped me get out of my own way. And he was a wonderful teacher, and I didn't have to make it nice or pretty. Almost everything we hear about our voices is about, “okay, could you take it down a notch? Could you be quiet and nice, or could you blend?” And this was the opposite. And I loved that fierce, powerful energy. And the amazing thing was when it was over, when I was done making this sound, I couldn't go back into the same story about who I was anymore. It was that fierceness, that power, all that I opened, was now residing in me. So that got me fascinated.

I continued studying with the Roy Hart teachers in the US, Canada, and at their center in France. And then I started connecting what I was learning from them with the Chakra system from the yoga tradition and Jungian psychology, archetypes, the collective unconscious. Then it all kind of coalesced into this five elements framework, which is my approach to how to work with the voice. And that has been going on now for several decades.

I have been working with lots and lots of different kinds of people about how to find their voice, whatever that means to them. And like you mentioned, I am training people now. I am about to graduate my fourth cohort of full voice coaches. That's the main trajectory, and then underneath there, there was all this singing and songwriting. And that really opened when my dad died in my arms when I was 31. Something opened and it was a beautiful death. And I started writing. I like to make songs that are useful and helpful to the human spirit and life in general. So it's been a great ride.

Mia: Wow, it is amazing and so fascinating. So you talk about midwifing the voice across thresholds, and at the same time, now you are telling me about these openings, openings, these losses. Opening a voice and then not being able to go back. Is that connected to the thresholds, can you speak to that?

Barbara: Yes. There are so many ways to heal, first of all. There's talk therapy, which helped me immensely. There's somatic work like yoga. There are just so many ways to heal. And what I love about healing through the voice is, it's undeniable. If I think something, I can talk myself right back out of that, like in a moment, but when you inhabit a sound and to me, that's where a lot of the Jungian stuff comes in with the archetypes. If an archetype comes up through me, I can go back to that place. I may not remember as Barbara and my little identity box where that sound was, but that bird remembers it. And my body remembers what being that bird, you know this as an actor. You have these devices that take you into a different space. And I love it, it's undeniable. You can't go back. I could not talk myself out of that kind of power and fierceness. It took a long time to integrate that into how I live my life.

I think it also can take us across the thresholds of some shadow places, which we all know it's going to come out one way or the other, through a fight or an illness or an addiction or how we drive our cars – aargh!

So I loved that in this voice work that I could cross the threshold into my shadow in a way that was wholesome and helpful.

We are not welcome in polite society (makes sound) the beast and the bitch and even the innocent child that everybody had to grow up too fast. So a lot of us take that child and to say, “no, you have to go away now.” So I loved being able to express all of that in a way that was joyful, even terrifying too. And then I could walk in the world feeling more whole, and I love watching that with the people I work with also, that if they can welcome those lost aspects, the parts of us that are in exile, if they can come home, then we can walk in the world more whole.  And more expressed.

Mia: Wow. I feel like I get chills when I listen to you and moved. It feels like you're doing soul retrieval work, bringing all the parts together. Wow.

Barbara: Yes. Everybody gets to come home, and I haven't found the end. That's where I love the Jungian idea of the collective unconscious because yes, there's all the aspects of the me, but honestly, what is the me?  It's just a construct. It's a made-up thing. And then to be able to host these beautiful energies. I remember once with a group I did just free vocal improvisation with, there was a time that this old man, an old Japanese man from the fish market came up through me and I was making these sounds and I could sort of tune into who he was. And that happens again and again, to me, that just feels like there's all of these possibilities just floating around underneath us. And if we open up, we can host those characters, those energies through our voice. And then, I don't know what's left to me from that old Japanese guy in the fish market. It was an honor. But maybe he left some present behind for me, I don't know. Very mysterious.

Mia: I love that. It feels so liberating. And in your speech, you never talk about what you should do or how you should be. And I hear that a lot from, especially some students I work with, you know, I love that.  It's like you keep growing.

Barbara: Yes. And most training in voice is like this: you're looking for perfect technique. And I love that. I mean, when I need help with perfect technique, I hire my friend Judy, and she helps me with that. But it's never going to be perfect, let's say that. But, from practically the moment we arrive, the whole world is narrowing our possibilities down.

It’s so rare to say, open those possibilities. What are those sounds? What are those expressions you have? And I feel like in the whole practice of yoga, we do the full range of motion with awareness. And why would we not do that vocally as well? If we can make a sound, that's not an accident.  We should make all the sounds we can while we're here.

Mia: Yeah. Feels more alive. Feels more interesting, to be here.

Barbara: It is. And I do think that is at the heart and, you know, people come to me for all reasons. They say I have terrible stage fright, or I sing horribly, or there's something stuck, from trauma or habit, or I just need help with my speech, from very practical to very transformational things.

And I think that the thing that cuts across all of those different desires is that when people open up more of their voice, they do feel more alive. Aliveness feels like, if my work was a little factory, what would come out the other end would be aliveness and connection.  Because we connect with other people through our voices.  And we give our blessings. We give our curses. We both were caregivers, you for your grandma and me for my mom, and their voices are still echoing in our memories. And so there's a way that how we express ourselves while we're here will live on in the memories of the people we leave behind as a legacy.

Mia: I love feeling like my grandma's still here in my heart and in my voice. And your mother is with you in your heart and your voice.

Barbara: Yes. Yes. I say things that she said every day. And when she was really, she had a great death also. She was 94. But she would say when she was struggling or whatever, in her hospice time, she'd say, oh mama, oh mama, oh mama. And now I find myself saying, “oh mama.” You know, like when I drop something on the floor, or have a hitch in my back or something, it's like, oh mama, oh mama, oh mama.

Mia: I love that. Mama to me is also home.

Barbara: Yes.

Mia: You know, and you speak about coming home and here you are in this home that feels like it was gifted from your mother somehow, in many ways, and coming home to self.

Barbara: Yes.

Mia: Can you speak more to that, vocally?

Barbara: Yeah. I think there are a lot of ways that coming home is a struggle. And my goodness, I certainly have had those. I can't tell you how many buckets of tears I've cried because there's so much that lives here.  When I was first working with my voice teacher, a local voice teacher, I would walk in and start to sing and just cry for an hour.

And I thought that was so strange. And now that I've been a voice coach, you probably see this too, all these years, people open up and you can talk from your head, but you can't sing or make sound from your head. And so a lot of the truth just comes out. But that's why it's so beautiful. Because there's a lot of grief and trauma that gets released, but also it's possible to do healing with pleasure. It feels good to make these sounds. And that still is a shock to me that, oh, you can heal in a way that is joyful and embodied and playful and silly even, and feels really good, while it's being terrifying sometimes. So that is part of the return, the coming home, that is surprising and lovely.  And good sound feels good.  Good speaking, good singing, and that pleasure is transmitted directly from my system to yours, even though Zoom. So if I'm talking from a place of tension and anger, that is changing your cortisol levels, that's changing your system.

Mia: I felt that.

Barbara: Yeah. Right?  And if I'm coming from a place of joy and blessing and embodiment and pleasure, that gets transmitted as well.

So in our conversations, just with people on the phone, our family members, our colleagues, how we are speaking can be a blessing just by the intention of pleasure.

Mia: Hmm. Wow. Thank you. You spoke to the five elements framework. That is something that you've created. Would you like to speak to that? I'd love to hear more about it.

Barbara: Yes. I love to talk about it.  I've been talking about it for a long time, but I never get tired of it. So it is a tool that I made up, to help people open up more possibilities in their voices, in their lives. And the five elements are earth, fire, water, metal, and air. And the idea is to start with sound, exaggerated sound, and to sort of divide up the voice into these different elements. Kind of like when you shoot light through a prism and it breaks apart into a rainbow, same idea, and then to correlate each of those five elements with a part of the body and certain human qualities that you can use that voice to express. So, you were kind enough to agree to be my little partner in exploring all the five and I would invite anybody who's listening to do so also, which is great because you're all off camera and you're in your house or wherever you happen to be, so feel free to join us in exploring the five elements.

So we start with a big exaggerated sound and then I will show you what it sounds like in my everyday speech and tell you what it's good for. Okay? Are you ready?

Mia:  Okay, I'm ready.

Barbara:  Thank you. Thank you for being willing. [Laughs} And acting foolish is really helpful. So each one will have a character that we'll use to open it up. So the earth voice is sourced in your body, in your feet, legs, hips, and the bowl of your pelvis. And the character we'll have for that one is a sleepy caveman. So imagine that you're heavy and hairy and, we'll do a little call and response.

[Barbara voices a low, drawn-out yawn and Mia reciprocates].

Barbara:  Great! And now we'll have a little pity party. [Using the same low, drawn-out, comic voice] Ohhhh, nooooo!

Mia:  Oooooh, noooooo!

Barbara:  And now we'll get a little happier.

[Barbara -- using the same low, drawn-out, comic voice, -- laughs and Mia reciprocates. They both continue practicing laughter in the earth voice until lighter, genuine laughter bubbles up]

Barbara:  I get to do this for a living! So there's the earth voice. We often make that voice when we yawn. That's a good cut to the earth voice. But if I bring that ridiculous kind of version of that voice into how I talk every day, this is how my earth voice sounds. And it has a kind of gravitas. Right? It's good for projecting authority. It's good for getting grounded. This is the Om. [Barbara chants "Om"]. It can just calm your whole system. And it's also good for connecting you to your gut instinct, that animal part of us that gets pushed away. And now science knows what grandma always knew, which is we have another brain in our guts. And if we're spinning out in our neocortex all the time, we may miss the message from our animal intelligence. So there's the earth voice.

Okay, now we're going to move up to fire. And fire is sourced in your belly and solar plexus area. And the character we'll do for this one will be... Oh, let's be an Italian tenor. And we'll have a little pasta opera. Okay. So thinking big eyebrows, big ego, big, hairy chest, eh? Very masculine, right? Alright. [with great gusto] Mostaccioli!

Mia:  Mostaccioli!

Barbara:  Rigatoni! (Mia responds)

Barbara:  Lasagna! (Mia responds)

Barbara:  Yeah! So that does that fire voice! It's very big and dramatic. And if I bring that voice more back into how I talk, this is one of my home voices, especially when I'm teaching or presenting. Cause it works! It's good for expressing passion, for being seen and heard, like if you are teaching or speaking to a larger group. And it's also really good for getting your voice and your body connected, using your voice to get your physical vitality going. So it's that "Kiai!" in martial arts, right? So that is fire! And it's so great. And like all of them, these are all wonderful until they're not. This is not a good voice for saying you're sorry. [demonstrates in fire voice] I'm sorry! [both laugh] Right? We've all gotten that apology and we know what we think of that.

So the one that's good for the apology is water which is sourced in the heart and throat area. And again, we'll exaggerate that. Let's be British ladies, older ladies with blue hair and, you know... And we'll say, "Hello!"

Mia:  Hello!

Barbara:  Hello?

Mia:  Hello?

Barbara: Ohhhh, lovely to see you!

Mia:  Ohhhh, lovely to see you!

Barbara: [both laughing] It's such a joy to do this with you, Mia. I guess this has never happened on an Awakin Call. Just a hunch.

Mia:  I don't think so.

Barbara:  So the water voice is... If I bring that down more into how I would normally talk, this is how my water voice sounds. It's flowing. It's more intimate. And it's good for saying anything your heart has to say, like, I am so sorry. Or that sounds hard. Or I have bad news. Or welcome. I am so happy to see you.

So it's the voice of the therapist. A lot of yoga teachers use this voice, people who are in intimate settings with people who are suffering. And lullabies are often sung here. So it's just the voice of the heart and the healer.

Okay. Earth. Fire. Water. And we're going to go to metal which is sourced right here. And for this we're going to be cranky, unhappy Siamese cats. Okay. So, it's all right here. (call and response with sharp, nasally meows) Yeah, the ugly face helps. Doesn't it?  I always have to massage my face.

Mia: Hope it doesn't stick like that.

Barbara: You don't want it to stay there. If I take that sound, bring in a little bit of extra resonance right up here. I don't know if you can hear that. Mostly it’s good for amplifying your voice. So when I was taking care of my dear, sweet mom, sometimes she would lose a hearing aid. Then I would spend time with her, and I could just talk like this and she could hear me just fine.

It's also great if you're in a crowded place. If we are ever in crowded places again, thank you, Covid. It's a really great way to cut through the background noise and I called it metal because it's sharp and bright and it cuts through. And I have noticed that geography -- like the landscape -- can help bring this sound out in people.

So people from mountainous regions often have this in their voices, like in the Southeastern United States, there's the bluegrass tradition. Dolly Parton and (singing in a nasal voice) Then the Balkan Mountains. There's the Balkans singing. It’s all very nasally and there's yodeling in Switzerland. (yodeling) So it's so interesting that this comes into the human story when we need to cross the great distance. Isn’t that cool?

Mia: That is so cool. And you took us all over the world just now.

Barbara: I know. And as people learn these, they start listening differently to the music they listen to. Most people talk and sing in a mix of two or sometimes three. But it’s an interesting thing to listen to what's underneath the words when someone's speaking. What are the elements that I'm hearing in these voices and what might they mean?

Okay, we have one more to go. Air -- which is sourced in the crown and above. And for this one, let's say hi to the babies or pets. This is how people talk to their babies and pets. All. The. Time.  Okay. So we'll go. Hi. Hi. Hi.

(Call and response with a series of “Hi” vocalizations)

Barbara: I love what this does to the face. It makes us all so all twinkly and sweet. So if I bring that airy fairy voice down into how I would normally talk, this is how my air voice sounds. And this is a really hard thing to offer to people in the world of work, especially women. We have to talk in our earth and fire voice to be taken seriously, to be credible.  And men cannot be this light. Thank you, homophobia. Right? So to be able to talk like this, even in the most serious setting, it's good for storytelling. (Barbara uses a soft storytelling voice) "Let me tell you a story about that." Whew, we've just gone to the past. And also for traveling to the future. "I have an idea." There's a sense of wonder. "I have an exciting idea."

I also think like the earth force connects us to our gut -- to our animal intelligence. This voice connects us to this, the realm of Spirit, the angelic realm, the solar winds, the beginning of time, the Nebula, the stars, all of that, it feels like that's out here.

A sense of wonder and amazement. So there are the five.

Mia: I love that. Did they mix? It sounded like that.

Barbara: Yeah. The people who do the purest sounds are sometimes kind of caricatures like Leonard Cohen, the great Canadian singer. As he got older and older, his voice just got lower and lower and lower. And I think he's still singing. We just can't hear him anymore. He just got, he just stopped being loud enough for us to hear.

But most of us mix all the time and the idea of having access to all five in an exaggerated way, then you kind of have a paint box to work with. You can think about, okay, I have something to say, how might I say that? So that it gets across to the person I'm speaking with. So if you have something that (Barbara speaks in fire voice) you're passionate about and you were enthusiastic, fire might be just the thing, but if somebody is going like this, when you're talking with your fire voice, you could shift more into your water and see if that connection is there.

Most of us, when we're losing that connection, we persist in what's not working. And most of us live in a tiny little part of our voice and use it for everything. And it might work for a few things, but there's a whole lot of other things, you know, that person with a water voice who makes you feel so safe and comfortable and welcome. If you are in a loud place, you're not going to hear them. Or if they are giving a speech to a group, everyone is going to have a lovely nap. So all of the voices are wonderful until they're not. Having more choice and flexibility and pleasure in how you express yourself. That's the point.

Mia: It brings more color.

Barbara: It makes you more effective in the world, but it also makes you a more whole person to welcome all these sounds and characters back home.

Mia: Yeah. It also feels like you really have to be connected to what's outside of you. It's not just about you.

Barbara: Right. So many things about self-development sometimes feel a little self-indulgent like, “what else you got?” It isn’t all about just me. This changes the way we listen. So when I listen to somebody who's talking like this" (in a deep, slow voice) my initial assessment might be to find the person (yawns) a little boring. But sometimes I'll ask a question of that person and say, "so tell me, are you the person in any room who is calm when everyone else is freaking out?" and they go, "Yes. Yes, I am."

So a lot of times we listen to other people, their voices, most of the time are revealing their gifts and it makes you listen with more accuracy and ask better questions.

Mia: Barbara, you've spoken about speaking, as well as touching on singing. Can you speak to the singing?

Barbara: Yes, I will. I think singing is a human right. There's a reason why singing has been a part of every culture that we've ever found. And for so long singing is how we survived, how we honored the seasons, how we grieved, how we celebrated, and honored each other. Just recently we've stopped and that dominant cultures, there are still places where people sing throughout their day, but most of us haven't been part of that.

So many people have deep wounds about singing. Like they stopped when they were six because one person said you can't sing. And then they show up many decades later. And I say, "yeah, you sing fine." (sigh) Such grief, such yearning to sing. So I love to invite people to sing just because it is a human right. But also as part of the Five Elements Framework, people discover all their sound out here and how they bring it into more of their everyday expression is through singing. Singing is halfway between sound and speech. Therefore I love to get people singing little songs that they love. That they can integrate into a part of their life to help sort of normalize a bigger range of sound and expression.

I also love getting groups of people to sing. I'm a third-generation song leader. My grandfather, my mother, and my brother were all choir directors. I love getting groups of people to sing without any music to read, without any particular skill. All ages, all abilities. For many years before Covid, I would convene these gatherings of people and we would just sing in the oral tradition. Call and response - sing this, now sing this, now sing this. Then making different parts so people can experience harmony without needing to know anything about that. It was so moving to me how quickly that kind of singing could make a "WE" out of a group of "ME(s)". To transform a group of individuals into a collective.

That was my little ServiceSpace work for many years. It will be again where we would just gather and sing and take up a collection and think about the people for whom we were singing. We would dedicate the money and our blessing to local groups, national groups, and international groups, and give a little money to help the world.

And in fact, I got so excited about what was happening in those groups that I did a TEDTalk. I did one about the Five Elements Full Voice. And then I did one about the power of oral tradition, community singing. I felt a thousand people decide together when a song was over. I talked a little and then I taught them a simple song. And then I said, "okay, you all decide when it's over." And I had done it with groups of 50, 70, 100 and 300, but never a thousand. And I thought, "well, let's try it." And I could feel them decide when that song was done. And they ended all together.

Now, what does that tell us about our capacity as human beings to tune in to each other so quickly? So singing is lovely. I love getting people to sing together. Someday again.

Mia: Yeah. This is experiencing harmony, coming home. Ah, you can't be the same person after such an experience, I imagine. 

Barbara: You cannot. We are all so lonely, Mia. I mean all of us are just locked in our own little heads anyway. But then the culture, so many of the cultures we're living in are isolating and telling us we're all by ourselves. And (snaps fingers) in an instant, there’s a sense of connection and belonging that again is undeniable. You can know you belong to each other when a thousand people decide or 20 people decide when a song's over. It's in the body.

Mia: Yes. With the Covid coming, we are so disconnected now. There is some coming back, but it is a little bit tentative. How do I really engage?

Barbara: What has been really interesting is to watch my growing community of people who sing in this way. Before Covid, there were choirs popping up who use this as their main way of singing and camps where people would go sing for a week out on the land. And it's been interesting, because you can't sing together on Zoom without a lot of technical stuff. And my little comfort choir, The Morning Star Singers, is meeting on Zoom and one person is singing and everyone else was on mute. We have a couple of couples in the choir and we always love it when they sing, because they can do two different parts and then the third person can come in with a harmony. So, we have been learning a lot about everything, through this time. And I've been doing little concerts, from my living room here on Zoom. And I have loved that too. Just bring people into my house and sing for an hour, with them, for them.

Mia:  Well, it feels like even during this time of disconnection, you're finding ways to connect and not just with human beings, but with the animals, with yourself, with your ancestors.

Barbara:  Yes, in some ways we have to get resourceful in these times and it's not going to stop. I think, from now on we are just in a wild ride, and how do we continue to be of service to each other and to this world, and also live in a sense of praise and blessing for the gift of being alive, even when it's hard.

Mia:  That combination of, I think you were speaking about singing or speaking to grief and at the same time, the sense of opening, like they can live in both worlds, the light and dark. Can you speak to that?

Barbara: I have been around a lot of death and dying with the choir. And even before that, and there is this interesting dance between the grief and the joy. I have had some amazingly wonderful, giggling, crazy times at the bedsides of people who are dying. And the minute that grief comes up, it can be so tender and crushing as you know, but then also in the middle of that, I'm just so grateful, I am honoring what I'm grieving at the same time. great spiritual tradition talks about that dance between the light and the dark and joy and the sorrow. And I think our bodies and our voices and our communities are big enough to hold that tension. I know through singing; I have led grief rituals that use singing to metabolize our collective and individual grief.  Hours of singing and drumming and moving and just expressing the grief that we all carry.  And it does feel like that the sound can break it apart and let it metabolize and move.

Mia: Thank you, Barbara. Magic is the word today and miracles for me. Speaking of singing, and moving, we are getting close to our end of this segment, and I was wondering if there might be a song.

Barbara: Yes! You keep asking me for things I like to do. Yes. This is a song I wrote; it's called World of Wonders and it's a kind of manifesto. Kind of this is what I think about pretty much everything.

World of Wonders (piano introduction)

​Here’s a breath to help ease your breathing

A song to set your songs free

Here’s a voice that will just keep on singing

A vision for who we could be.

There is bread for all who hunger

A refuge when trouble draws near

Hate melting to kindness

And justice eclipsing the fear....
 

In a world full of wonders, why couldn’t these things be true?

In this world full of wonders, why wouldn’t one of them be you?
 

Every child is raised up in glory

Every soul knows the sublime

We weave a bright new story

Where we all wake up in time.

The mending of the water

The land restored to green

All the people, plants, and creatures

Taking part in Earth’s great dream....
 

In a world full of wonders, why couldn’t these things be true?

In this world full of wonders, why wouldn’t one of them be you?

As certain as the sunrise

As faithful as the tides

As ingenious as your body

Where the flame of life resides.

As brilliant as the poppy

As solid as the stone

Unnumbered miracles unfolding

On Earth, our beloved home....
 

In a world full of wonders, all of these things are true

In this world full of wonders, I know one of them is you.

Mia:  Oh, my goodness, what a gift. Thank you so much, Barbara. Feel held and opened and thank you. And now I know a lot of people might want to ask some questions, I am going to hand it over to Aryae, who will take that part. Thank you again, Barbara, what a joy it's been.

Aryae:  Wow, what a dynamic duo the two of you are. Just seeing you both on the screen and hearing you both has really been amazing. I don't know if you're aware of it, but we've had this tech issue that has happened, that people have not been able to see the screen and people have had to dial in via the phone, and all this stuff has been happening, but Preeta and Pavi and others have been working, very much behind the scenes. I want to say to all of you, who've been watching and listening and thank you for your patience and this is being recorded. So people will not only be able to hear but also be able to see. So anyway, Mia, I want to invite you to sort of stay with the responses here and follow up and whatever. So, we do have some questions. One came in about voice and vocation -- something that you've talked about Barbara. And this question is, "Can you say more about the connection between voice and vocation?"

Barbara:  I'd love to. I'm a word nerd. The etymology of the word 'vocation' is 'vocare' which means to call, invoke, or name. So I think it's interesting how the language reveals. And that's true for most Western European languages. I'm not sure how it works in other languages around the world. But the connection between the gifts we come with, I think we all arrive with something for this world and most anything that happens, rises up and out of us. Even if we write or when we want to talk about a theater piece or ServiceSpace -- as the result of a conversation. Awakin Calls are the result of many conversations. So if something's rising up and it can't get out, then that gift doesn't happen in the world. And that breaks my heart. That just gets me up in the morning and keeps me busy.

So voice and vocation -- I think our voices are a big part of how our gifts come into this world and how we collaborate with other people in bringing things forth. But it's also at the root of advocacy which is when we use our voice in service to something we care about. And in-vocation, when we use the voice to call Spirit into the world. And I love to think about this when I'm on my hikes in the morning, about all the voices that are happening, like what's happening right now. No matter when you're listening, this world is wrapped in sacred sound. There are uncountable people who are singing, chanting, praying, and calling in Spirit. So I think the connection between voice and vocation and all these other things is powerful and revealed in the language.

Aryae:  Beautiful. As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about in our recent history in this country -- women's voices, the voices of African Americans, the voices of people who need to be present on the public stage -- of how voice is so much a part of that.

Barbara:  It is. My daily prayer is: may the voices that need amplifying find their way to me. And they have been more and more. I've been working with a lot of different kinds of people for a long time, but I really want the voices to the amplified that we need to most be listening to right now. And I think when our voices are suppressed it's not just this generation. We're all standing in a long line of silenced people, especially women, people of color, various other groups. But I think also when I open and free my voice, I feel like that healing travels back through time. I'm changing the morphic field so it's easier for the next person to find their voice. But I also love to think about how my freeing my voice is also helping my grandmothers and great aunts and great grandmothers who lived in a time when the way I live was not available.

Aryae:  Wow, that you're healing back in time. Wow, I can stay with that for a while.

Barbara:  I know, my friend Peter Block has this thing, he says, "I don't know if it's true, but it's useful." And so when I think about that, it's like, I can't prove a thing and I don't really care to but for me it's useful to think about healing back in time and healing more broadly in the world right now, helping my fellow humans find their true voice.

Aryae:  Here's a comment from Megan who apparently was doing the five voices and her dog ran into the room. And Megan says, "If only you could see my dog's reaction to these voices both coming through the screen and me answering in response." (laughter)

Barbara:  Yeah, that's been the thing of teaching. I teach little classes on Zoom called Full Voice FUNdamentals and it's been so interesting working on Zoom individually and in groups to how the animals... There's one woman that I was working with the dog would just come up and lick her face when she was doing her fire voice. Yeah, they have their own comments.

Aryae:  Here is a comment from Sylvia and she says, "Good morning, ¡buenos días! I have been working with a large scar all around my left ankle and calf. Slowly, I'm regaining sensitivity. Besides intent, how can I help with the sound?

Barbara:  Hmmm, well again, who knows if it's true, but I find it useful. There was a client I worked with many, many years ago who came in and she'd slept wrong. So her neck was like this [demonstrates]. And she said, "I don't think I can work with my voice today because my neck hurts." And I said, "Well, let's experiment." And so I had her move just so that the pain was just there -- not too hard but just on the edge of it -- and then make the sound of what that pain would sound like. Was it like a [vocal effect] or was it like a [vocal effect]?  Because pain is just talking, right? It's just another way of the body communicating. And so we worked with it, and I'd say, "What would you say back to that? What kind of sound would you say back to that? Not words. The sound." And so I have no idea if this would work and maybe you're already doing this, Sylvia, but it would be to tune into that scar and send a sound there, kind of ultrasound, only from your own body. Tune in and what does that scar want? What sounds? You know, you could fool around and see where it kind of goes like [vocal effect] and then just make sound there while you're moving. Moving helps, moving and sounding. Though that's my best guess. I haven't had that direct experience, but I have worked with people who were dealing with some pain -- physical and sometimes emotional pain -- through sound dialogues from the pain itself and from your loving self back.

Aryae:  Interesting. I want to see if I can apply that next time I've got some aches and pains.

Barbara:  Let me know how it goes.

Aryae:  Okay [laughs]. So this is from Jenna and it's also a question I have. The way she says it is, "Have you heard of the Threshold Choir?" We had Kate Munger on here a while ago and I've been curious, what's your relationship with her, with the Threshold Choir, with your choir and the Threshold Choir?

Barbara:  Kate is a dear friend. Actually, we were at Esalen together a couple of times before that Covid time. And when I was first starting the Morning Stars, she was a mentor to us. She said, "Off you go." We are not technically a Threshold Choir because 14 years ago when we formed, the Threshold Choirs had a requirement that it be all women and our group is mixed gender. And that was important to me. We didn't have a big fight about it or anything, but I just said, I'm going to not be official Threshold Choir." And she said, "Okay." I guess that has changed now. So we are loving colleagues, the two of us.

Aryae:  I believe that she told us when she was here that there are groups with men. So it's no longer a requirement. If my voice were ever okay, I could join. I could join anyway, I know.

Barbara:  Yes, you could.

Aryae:  Mia, as you're listening to all, we have a few more questions, but before I go to them, as you're listening to these questions and responses, any further reflections or questions from you?

Mia: Oh, well I loved Sylvia's question around the pain in her ankle, and then it felt like Barbara, you were talking it. Sometimes pain just stops me. But then you're talking about a dialogue with pain, and I never thought about that before. And there was a lot of movement in your sharing, you know, which seemed to, in my mind, it would disperse the pain. And then I started thinking about people with pain, trauma or anxiety, and the work that you do with people who have trauma. I was wanting to know more about that and what that looked like if we had time.

Barbara: Well, trauma is a big bucket. When it hits you, what it is, how long it's been lodged in what part of the body. But I know I just started reading about the vagal nerve and trauma and how it's connected to voice. I know there are people who are a hundred percent smarter about that than I am. But it doesn't surprise me that there is this connection between the voice and the nervous system.

By making sound releasing -- I mean, a lot of times people make the sound and then there's emotional release. They get hot, or they shake, or they cry. And I know when I'm out of my depth, sometimes people work with me in concert with their therapist, which is great, because I am not that. But the therapists often can't do what I do. So, some of the people studying my work are therapists, so they can sort of work with both.

But I’d have to say that going in very, very cold water every morning now has been my recent practice. It's teaching me a lot about that resistance and then stopping, you know, I love going in the water now. And there is that first moment when I just sink in up to my shoulders where there's like, Oh! (gasps) you know, that's involuntary, but then I just settle into breathing. It passes so quickly.

Now I've been using that as a way to manage triggers, like when loud trucks go by my house, or something makes me mad in the news. There's that initial “Oh! and that's just going to happen to me, but then how quickly can I “ah” (sigh of release) sound and soften into relationship with whatever that is, if it's the cold or the pain or something else.

Aryae: Thank you. We have a question from David Matta, who is in Lebanon. And he says, “Hi, do you encourage us to experiment with the five voices depending on the outcome we seek?

Barbara: Yes, yes -- play! Play with them, play with them, play with them on your own. There are ways to do that. There's a lot of resources out there about how they can stay connected, you know, remember what the five elements are, but I suggest playing with them and getting comfortable with as many of them as possible. And then experiment with, if you have to say, no, you might want to say “No” with your earth voice. Also people training their dogs. I can't tell you how many clients I've gotten from people who are trying to train their puppies. It wasn't that you won't listen to me because I'm talking to it, like [in a cute, high pitch voice] “You know, you must get up.” Puppy is like [in a cute, high pitch voice]: “Woo, I'm good.”

So, a lot of people come to me to learn how to be alpha. [in a deep tone: “No. Sit,” because they're not listening to the words, they're listening to your tone. So yes, play, experiment, try them.

Aryae: Is there a particular voice which is alpha?

Barbara: Earth,

Aryae: Earth. 

Barbara: My animal talking to your animal.

Aryae: Wow. David who asked that question further says, “Thank you very much for bringing up the value of singing and group harmony; this is marvelous. In Lebanon we need every bit of wisdom to get people together.”

Barbara: Yes, yes.

Barbara: I have a new friend named Micah Hendler. He'd be a great guest for you all who had a chorus in Jerusalem, made up of Jews and Palestinians singing together.

Aryae: Wow.

Barbara: He's just done amazing peace-building work through song. So I would love to see that happening everywhere; where people can stop talking, stop arguing, and make some harmony, literally and metaphorically

Aryae:  We're aware of music groups of Israeli Jews and Palestinians who are doing that, just like you say.  Here is a question from Wendy. She says, “As you and Mia were talking, what occurred to me is that when we sing old songs, we are also in a way singing with our ancestors who sang the same songs. It would also improve the interfaith connection and interfaith experience to sing each other's songs together. It would help us all connect in a deeper way. Any comments on that?”

Barbara: Amen. I love that idea of the songs I love.  I had a little Zoom practice with the Morning Star Singers on Thursday. We sang a song that -- we were sharing a lot of stories about our experiences of singing at the bedside. It was just so sweet to remember this thing we missed doing. We sang a song that we -- that they came and sang at my mother's memorial service three years ago at her funeral. Inside those songs are memories of our different times we've sung them for different people. So it feels like, whatever the songs we sing, there are angels hovering round, and it feels like so often when we sing old songs, like the -- I forgot her name, like she said, but also the songs that, when I've gone through deaths in my community, we've just sung our way through that.

Even before I started the Morning Star, we would just sit with our broken hearts and sing. And then when the next death came, we would sing those same songs and the songs would remind us that we got through it before, and we'll get through it again. So they feel like they are medicinal ways of remembering our community, what we mean to each other, but also that we got through it before and our ancestors got through it, and we got through it again.

Aryae: Yeah, let's do more of that. I'm going to go to one or two more questions and then I'm going to ask Mia for a final reflection from you. So this is from Vikrum and he says, “Hi, I am based in Chennai, India. It is lovely listening to Barbara's connect to the voice. My query is: her thoughts on how language contributes to the voice being powerful.”

Barbara: I am so fascinated by how language forms our sound. I worked a lot with people who are living in their second, third, fourth languages, but the music of their first language is still present. Sometimes people call that an accent, but even if they eliminate their accent, there's something in the sound of the words, of the language, that persists.

I've been learning Spanish during Covid and I'm amazed at how it pulls my voice forward -- and French, I have a different voice in French which is more airy and sensuous. So those sounds, I think, are very ancestral. I was working with a group of people from one of the local tribes here. None of them spoke their tribal language but all of them had the same earth and water mix in their voice. And I know enough of the language, that is how it sounds. So even despite genocide, people taking their language, their songs, their spiritual practices, the voice held that sound. We were all in tears when we talked about that. So I think that has a huge impact on how we sound.

Aryae: That is really interesting to think about the relationship between language and sound, and what type of culture, a French culture versus a Spanish culture, to use your examples. That's really very interesting. So Mia, I want to move over to you and say, “What question do you have at this point?”

Mia: Before I do that, I just want to make sure — Aryae, we go back to you for the final-final?

Aryae: We go back to me for the final-final.

Mia: Okay. I just feel like this has been such a prayer, such a gift, and so much joy. It's making me think about my voice differently, but also, I love this sense of all the ancestors coming with me — ancestors I didn't know. And there's, there's this sense that you can't, when you say, I still am struck with —, once you come through the threshold, you can go back. But they're still with us. It's a different kind of connection. Something else is happening in that. You’re more full. I was wondering if you had a prayer for us to, kind of, finish this out. Is that, is this the time, Aryae, for that?

Aryae: This is the time we thought about, yeah.

Barbara: Okay, I do. I have a sending song for you. This is one I wrote, after hearing really some hard news from a friend about her daughter's health. But they all came through, but with my broken heart came this little song and my comfort choir has sung it for lots and lots of people over the years.

[Barbara begins playing piano and singing “Surrounding You.”]

I wish you courage for the next step, and the next.

I wish you peace in the middle of the storm.

I wish you unexpected joy, strength to see you through,

And a heart wide open to all the love surrounding you.

It’s surrounding you.

[repeat]

We are surrounding you.
 

Aryae: Thank you, Barbara. What a beautiful way to bring us to our closing. So, it is now my job to ask you our traditional, final question for these calls, which is, “How can we as a greater ServiceSpace community, support you and your work right now?”

Barbara: Mmm, thank you. It’s a provocative question. One very simple way is to use your voice. Change — keep the field opening, right? Makes sounds, sing, because every vibration travels forever. So that would be great, if you do nothing else. Another way would be to share my work with people and organizations you think could make use of it. That's my daily prayer. And there's a lot of easy ways to do that. I have a TEDTalk about the Five Elements Framework, and I have a book called Full Voice. So if you had that thought, act on that — that’s how people find me. And another way is to share my music. Same thing. I write the songs so they can go out there and do stuff. And I have a lot of music videos on my website, and there's stuff around. There’s a funny song about negative self-talk called “Brain Rats.” There's a tender song I wrote for a friend facing his death. There's some love songs to nature and a really good birthday song. So spread the songs out so they can do their jobs. And the third thing would be to stay in touch. I do these little concerts, I lead little classes from my living room, and if you want to stay connected, you can just jump on my e-list and expect to get poetry and songs and invitations now and then to stay connected, so we can work on each other's lives. So those are a few ways.

Aryae: All right. So maybe, Mia, you and I later on can touch base on making sure we have some links that we can share with everyone.

Mia: For sure, for sure.

Aryae: On the nuggets that I'll be posting. So, thank you so much, Barbara, and thank you, Mia. This was really an awesome conversation that the two of you had. And Barbara, thank you so much for your voice and — for all of us to hear. So we're at the end of this Awakin Call and, as we started, I'd like to invite all of us here — oh, and I want to thank, all of you who've been on the call, listening and watching and sort of staying with us through all of the tech stuff, somehow we're still here. And I want to invite everyone just to be here, to hold the reflection, to hold the echoes of the sounds, and to take a moment of silence for letting those sounds reverberate through all of us.