Sparkly Solstice Card & Special Song for Children

Wishing you a
Marvellous Magical Magnificent
Midwinter Season

Thank You
so much for being part of my musical adventures this year
and for all the magic, wonder, love and laughter
you bring to the world.

* Special Song for Children *

As many of you know I like to release a new song at Solstice.
This year I composed a special song for children
Take Care
which I performed at the
UnTangled FM Christmas Party
Hosted by visionary leader Harun Rabbani

In support of three special children's charities:
The Panti Asuhan Orphanage
Borobudar, Indonesia which cares for 180 children from birth to 18.
Wonder Years Centre of Excellence 
A UK based charity supporting children in 4 villages in the Gambia
The North Staffs Special Adventure Playground
Providing play activities for children with SEN in Newcastle-under-Lyne

You can help make a difference to children across the globe
click here to download 'Take Care' for only 99p

Thank you for helping these charities to Take Care of vulnerable children

Wishing love, care, tenderness and compassionate connection
for all our children - inner and outer - this midwinter season

Love and Blessings

The Voice of Purpose

The Voice of Purpose

How do we make plans and goals for the New Year, without them falling by the wayside? Connecting goals with our broader sense of purpose in life ensures that they are authentically aligned with what we truly want to do and share in the world. 

I was recently invited to teach a Marketing Module to the wonderful therapists at the Holistic Healing College.  This was at first a little surprising for me, but as I researched and delivered the module it became clear that it was about empowering the therapists to feel confident to voice their purpose in the world.  

Purpose Communicates Worth
I’ve never felt comfortable blowing my own trumpet and when I first started out on the self employment road some 14 years ago, the idea of marketing was completely alien to me.  What I did however have was a innate, compelling sense of the immeasurable worth that transformational sounding brings to individuals, communities and the whole world. Trumpeting happily about that has brought me immense joy and continually brings me into connection with so many amazing people.  When we communicate about our purpose with enthusiasm, we naturally start connecting, collaborating and sharing worth with others.

Purpose Listens
Staying aligned to purpose requires a creative form of listening for hunches, prompts, connections, ideas, insights and guidance.  Whether it’s a piece of advice from a friend, a musical phrase floating on the breeze or a crucial disclosure from a client, I am always listening for the purpose within what comes towards me and discerning what I need to take from it.

Purpose Serves Up
Purpose is like a huge, generous host at a massive banquet - it sets up a space for things to happen and brings us into service to one another - and also self-service! :) Whether we are serving up tea and sympathy for a friend, planning a workshop or throwing a party, purpose is present in all the details.  As much as I love modern technology, I find it helpful to regularly remind myself of value of the old-fashioned sense of ‘good service’ - which for me means helping clients/colleagues/friends/family with grace and good manners.

Purpose Has Power
Purpose gives us the courage to go out and make our contribution in the world.  Whether its singing with teens with SEN around a fire, giving concert performances or mass soundbaths in festival fields, purpose gets me out on the road.  Staying tuned to my raison d’etre gives me strength me to communicate, navigate and negotiate at whatever comes up along the way.

Purpose Pays The Bills
Purpose stirs us into taking action in all areas of our life, including our financial awareness.  Many therapists and artists have a discomfort around creating business/financial processes around the manifestation of their purpose.  There can be a sense that a beautiful, heartfelt, creative, spiritual vision may be sullied by becoming commercial.  Whereas in truth, the process of grounding purpose is what gives it roots, reality, embodiment, authenticity, expansion and abundant possibility.

Wishing you the glorious voicing of your purpose in the world


Tips for Voicing Your Purpose
* Listen - take quiet time with yourself and listen for what your sense of purpose has to say
* Worth - list 10 things about following your purpose that bring benefits to others
* Service - list 3 words about your own unique style of service
* Power - list 3 things you are challenged about and brainstorm ways to resolve them
* Bills - take at least 3 positive purposeful actions around your finances - ie make a charity donation, finish your tax return, reorganise your accounting system.

Adventurous Advent

Adventurous Advent

 

The word adventure comes from the word advenire - meaning to arrive/ reach and has meanings of a happening, miracle, wonder, danger, risk, chance event which.   So as we arrive at another December, we may reflect on what adventures we’ve had during the closing year and what lies ahead on the horizon.

Singing is an adventure where we discover and celebrate our inner and outer diversity.
At my Forest Hill Singing Group last night, one of the participants commented how singing gives voice to many different aspects of self.  This was after an evening where we had sung a Ghanian work song, a Zulu spiritual and I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles complete with real bubbles, music hall style around the joanna (!?)  I deliberately work with an eclectic range of music because I’m aware that singing different styles activates the immense diversity of expression available within us. 

We have so many places within us which are longing to be heard and singing can touch, soothe, empower and give voice to them all.
I’m aware that singing Gospel connects me with a deep reservoir of spiritual strength during times of adversity whilst singing English folk songs brings out the Storyteller in me.  Hollering an Emile Sande chorus with teens soothes my inner rebel whilst singing Jazz standards nourishes my eternal romantic. Watching the massive Sing for Water West choir sing an epic version of Tears for Fears Shout  earlier this year energised my activist. 

Respecting Diversity of Expression
It’s so important to respect and validate each others expression as we journey on this path, even when it’s challenging. I once lived beneath an alcoholic who used to play Meatloaf at window shaking levels, which was incredibly invasive.  My sister, a Police Sergeant, encouraged me to use one of her strategies for dealing with difficult people - ‘kill them with kindness.’ So I began to befriend what turned out to be a rough diamond of a man whose way of dealing with traumatic events was to get smashed and play music at earsplitting levels.  It was his medicine - whilst I would happily leave Meatloaf back in the 80s along with shoulder pads and pixie boots (shudder) -  for him it activated the emotions he needed to access. Once I understood that he just needed some time to be noisy, we were able to reach a friendly understanding that he would turn the music down after an agreed time period and he began to act kindly towards me.

Claiming the full rainbow of our expression
We are not monochrome, nor are our experiences and emotions tidy or compartmentalisable.  We need to be able to safely give vent to our rage and dismay at injustices, to our loves and losses, our victories and our trials and tribulations.  I really believe that it’s life saving when we do, because the energy of trapped emotions and unprocessed stories sits about in our bodies.  As well as preventing illness, healthy expression prevents violence - City University have launched the Changing Behaviours — Changing Futures programme of speech lessons for teens to because a research has shown a link between violent crime and communication issues.   Singing and sounding gives full, healthy, radiant expression to the vibrant spectrum of our mental, spiritual, physical and emotional colours.

I warmly you invite me to join me at this months festive events 

I also have a new menu of individual sessions for those of you wishing to take a personalised adventure of sound and expression.
As a special Seasonal Gift I’m offering a gift copy of your choice of one of my albums for any session booked before 21st December.

Do let me know how your adventures are proceeding - I’d love to hear from you.
Wishing you an Adventurous Festive Season


 

Adventurous Voice Tips for December








1.  Experiment with singing and listening to music from different genres especially those out of your normal repertoire or comfort zone
2. Listen with curiosity and empathy to people who express themselves in ways that are challenging for you.
3. Find music that helps you express different aspects of yourself - which songs does your inner rebel/ teen/ lover/ warrior/ witch/ wizard want to sing?

The Moving Voice

The Moving Voice
Dancing Your Song and Singing Your Dance

I am delighted to be collaborating on a special Dance & Voice event with wonderful Beverley Drumm, founder of Nectar of Life this month.  Our discussions have got me thinking about the relationship of movement and voice and how both support the liberation of joyous, authentic self-expression.
Dancer in the Dark - Ramtin Zanjani

Liberating You
If theater is ritual, then dance is too... It's as if the threads connecting us to the rest of the world were washed clean of preconceptions and fears. When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you.
- Paulo Coelho
Movement liberates us from the constrictions of habitual postures and grooves we have got caught up in.  In shaking out our bodies, our voices are also liberated.  My first singing teacher, the wonderful Jana Dugal, used to get me to run round the room when I was nervously about singing.  It instantly loosened me up and took my self-consciousness away.

Take a walk and a warble on the wild side
There is a need to find and sing our own song, to stretch our limbs and shake them in a dance so wild that nothing can roost there, that stirs the yearning for solitary voyage. ― Barbara Lazear Ascher
When we reclaim our voices and our bodies, we gain access to an enormous amount of primal, wild energy. The internal intelligence within us (call it what you will Higher Self, Intuition, Psychic Sat Nav, spider sense) becomes more clear and apparent.  In that moment of knowing ‘yes this is what I want to sound, this is how I want to move’ we become more available and empowered to make new choices.  This liberates our wildness, creativity and the positive power of the inner rebel to chart our own course in life.

Play
Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music ― William Edgar Stafford
Singing and dancing liberates the playful child within us and moves us from analysis to curiousity, from fear to adventure.  We drop the judgements that inhibit our engagement with life and become participants instead of observers.  We jump in, get muddy, mucky, messy and allow ourselves to enjoy, laugh, wail, whoop, scream, boogie-woogie, wobble, fall over, jump, hop, cartwheel, foxtrot.

Courage
To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. - Agnes De Mille
I do not own a TV so I notice what programmes seem to be captivating people on Social Media - and right up there at the top are Strictly Come Dancing and Gareth Malone’s The Choir.  There is a fascination with the process of learning to dance and sing that has millions tuning in to watch the current heroes and heroines being put through their paces.  It is instinctively understood that to express ourselves creatively involves courage, discipline and the willingness to change and go beyond our everyday concepts of who we are.

Rhythm
Our biological rhythms are the symphony of the cosmos, music embedded deep within us to which we dance, even when we can't name the tune.
- Deepak Chopra
We are innately tuned to natural rhythms - from our heart beat, to the cycle of the moon - everything has a innate moving music to it.  You only have to look around a tube carriage of commuters plugged into their ipods to see that we instinctively respond to music by moving and sounding - foot tapping, head nodding, finger twitching, humming, whistling - even in the most constrained of spaces, we are singing and dancing. 

Connection
On many an occasion when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. - Michael Jackson
Paradoxically, it is when we feel most ourselves, express our uniqueness that we are most able to feel connected to everything around us.  As we dance our own dance and sing our own song, we remember that everything is dancing and singing with us.

I invite you to come and connect and discover your singing dance and dancing song with us at The Art of Dance - Dance and Voice on Wednesday 20th November at the Skylight Centre.

Wishing you the joyous liberation of your unique dance and song


Moving Your Voice Tips
1. Shaking - liberate your expression by standing with knees soft, feet planted then shaking the body, gently then with increasing strength.  Relax your jaw, open your mouth and allow sounds of all shapes and sizes to emerge. 
2. Moving Sound, Sounding Movement - allow yourself to move and stretch, sounding as you do so - what is this sound of my elbow bending? how do my knees sing as they bend?
3. Freestyle - put on your favourite track of the moment and sing and dance it to your hearts content.

You May - For Tibet

You May…  – For Tibet

“I am giving away my body as an offering of light to chase away the darkness, to free all beings from suffering, and to lead them.. to the Amitabha, the Buddha of infinite light.  My offering of light is for all living beings, even as insignificant as lice and nits, to dispel their pain and to guide them to the state of enlightenment.”

Lama Sobha’s Last Message

It may have been

In the assembly hall of your monastery,

By a temple, a golden statue or a white stupa,

In the market place

Or on the main street of your town,

By the military base or in front of the government buildings,

That you drank or doused yourself in kerosene

And set yourself ablaze.

Your last words may have been illegible,

Wrapped in prayer flags and flames as you took your final steps -

Or distinct slogans of protest against the Chinese Government,

Calls to Free Tibet

Pleas for the return of the Dalai Lama, the Kamapa and the Panchen Lama

May have been heard

As you held your hands in prayer.

You may have died immediately

Or police may have doused you in water,

Kicked you as you burned,

And taken you away -

Issued news of your death

- Or none at all.

Hundreds of people may have attended your last rites,

Surrounded by swarms of armed police,

Or you may still be hospitalized now

With little hope of survival.

Your body may have been covered in prayer shawls,

Taken by monks for rituals,

Or cremated swiftly on orders of the authorities.

You may have been returned to your family

Or placed in a bag by officials and never seen again.

You may have been a highly regarded scholar or teacher

A devoted monk or nun,

A father, a mother

A sister, a brother

A husband, a wife

To those who may have been arrested, detained, beaten or killed after your death

Or who may live still to see your burning image every night before sleep.

Katie Rose 8.5.2013

About The Poem

The text of this poem uses phrases taken from the reports of the Self-Immolations by Tibetans which can be found on the International Campaign for Tibet Website –

http://www.savetibet.org/resource-center/maps-data-fact-sheets/self-immolation-fact-sheet

Since 2009 there have been 116 self-immolations within Tibet and 5 in exile, most of which have taken place in the last two years. As there has been an increased attempt by Chinese authorities to suppress coverage of these graphic protests prompted by the violations of Human Rights faced by Tibetans, it is possible that there have been others.

You may.. reflects the uncertainty and missing information about many of the cases.

Stand with Tibet - Ways You Can Help

Sign the AVAAZ Petition

The Tibet Society  - Lobby Parliament

Singing Through Sticky

Singing Through Sticky

Here in South London the arrival of winter was announced by a wild wind that shook many trees from their roots.  Streets were strewn with splintered tree branches as the clocks were turned back, moving us into the darker part of the year.
So on Samhain, I find myself asking - what can singing bring to the splintered parts of ourselves and the sticky, tricky dark times?

Listening
When there is less light in any situation - whether materially or metaphorically - we cannot rely on appearances alone.  We are called on to listen and intuit more deeply, to feel into the still place within every storm and navigate our way through the night.  Singing sharpens our listening and our connection to our imagination and intuition.

Closing the Gap
Have you ever found there’s a gap between your thoughts, intentions and desired communications and the actual expression of them?  A daily singing practice, like any form of meditation not only keeps us calm, centred, happy and well but also enables us to clarify our communications.  By taking time alone to reflect and understand ourselves we are more able to be expressed clearly around others.  Our best intentions become embodied and we act from a more integrated place.

Primal Sounding
Some things cannot be spoken, there just aren’t words for them. This is why we need access to the whole spectrum of expression including howling, weeping, wailing, lamenting, keening, screaming, shouting, yodelling, giggling, chuckling, gurgling, grunting, groaning, moaning, murmuring, humming, whooping, yelling.  The safe use of abstract sounding allows us to get raw and real with ourselves and release our inner gremlins.

Finding the treat in tricky
When things get tough communication can break down.  Staying in connection can involve being willing to say tricky things, discuss taboo topics and uncomfortable truths. The consequences we fear are often surprisingly less scary and have far less repercussions than the consequences of keeping them hidden in the shadows. The tricky when faced can often become a treat.

Creative conflict
A wise friend said to me this week that ‘two rights can conflict.’  We are all people with truths and unique perspectives. It is necessary that we discover, debate and dialogue with our difference.  When used consciously, creative conflict moves us forward, helping us distinguish and develop our unique contributions. Whole fields of knowledge are enriched by conflict - psychotherapy grew as a field because Jung diverged in opinion from Freud.

Community
In many of our ancestral communities singing was a way to keep warm and weather the storms of life - to fire up the spirit on dark nights and pass on stories, lessons, warnings and advice.  Singing enables to celebrate our ancestries and lineages and to be enriched by being immersed in the diverse rhythms and melodies of our global community.

May all your tricks transform to sweet treats this Halloween :)

Do join me at this months special events.

Please do feel free to comment - I’d love to hear about your singing journey. 

Voice Remedies for Winter Times

1. Drink Sage Tea
2. Boil raw ginger, lemon and, if brave, garlic in a pan for 20 mins then add honey.
3. Gargle with warm salt water
4. Steam - put a few drops of olbas or eucalyptus oil in a bowl of boiling water, lean over the bowl with your head under a towel and inhale deeply.
5. Adorn yourself with scarves.

Photo: Man Ray - Lee Miller

The Singing Tardis - Musical Time Travel

The Singing Tardis
Musical Time Travel

One of the things that amazes me about my experience of sounding is how it can bring create connections across time and space.  The creative process of interacting with a song and its story, draws me into the present moment of my own story and creates a transformation whose effects extend into the future.

Every song has a lineage behind it and a context from which it emerged, so singing it connects me to an amazing tapestry of colours and flavours.  Whenever I sing, I become present to myself and become very aware of my sensations, feelings, thoughts, intentions, and the connections I am making with others around me.  Those connections often sow seeds for the future experiences, relationships and collaborations.

Just this week I’ve been learning songs for community music project with babies and recalling nursery rhymes my parents sang to me, having learned them in their own early years.  I’m now singing these songs with babies who will sing way beyond my time on the planet.  Singing becomes a creative form of time travel which enables me to connect with my ancestors, my family, members of my community and the future generation.

The story that goes back and back and back and on and on and on…

On 10th November I’m due to perform a 16 verse song, Lord Allenwater, at a gig with the False Beards (a duo composed of Ian Anderson and Ben Mandelson who perform ‘old time english blues psych folk world twangery’)  The song tells the tale of the final days of Lord Derwentwater, who was beheaded in 1716 for his participation in the Jacobite rebellion.  The transmission of it is also a tall tale, for it was collected by Ralph Vaughn Williams in 1904 from Emily Stears, who happens to be the great grandmother of Ian Anderson, who was actually taught the song by the Shirley Collins before realising he was ancestrally related to it.  

When I first heard Ian sing Lord Allenwater in his kitchen sometime in 2008-ish, a musical light bulb combusted in my head and I had immediate desire to sing it, an inspiration which manifested last year when we recorded it for the False Beards EP Ankle.  Lord Allenwater has a lot to answer for because before I heard his noble tale sung (I’ve always had a soft spot for rebels) I’d never felt any desire to return to the folk songs I heard in my childhood.  That first spark of connection ignited a process that later resulted in an EP (fol-de-rose) an album (Empty Cup) and some very strange experiences along the way, both with and without beards.  What a difference a song makes…!

The fluidity of time

Time becomes very fluid in musical experience, so much so that it is actually impossible to extricate past, present and future into neat parcels.  My experience of sound teaches me that time is cyclic and is constantly echoing, resonating, remembering, returning and recreating itself.  I realise that past, present future are not fixed destinations but actually simultaneously interacting layers of reality.

In his recent speech on receiving the PEN/Pinter Prize, Information is Light, Tom Stoppard quotes Harold Pinter as saying  “If the past can be obscure, why not the present?" explaining that “other people's lives come at us without a backstory most of the time. The present is like that.” 

The present is an immensely rich and amazing moment in time, inextricably interconnected with our backstory and burgeoning with future possibilities.  Paradoxically it’s full potential is often most fully enjoyed when we forget everything and forsee nothing.

Recovering the imagined lands

All artforms invite us to engage in a process of sustained concentration which brings us into a meditative state of self-reflection in the now. In this state it is possible to untangle our backstories, fully enjoy the present and chart a clear pathway ahead.  We are also able to connect with the stories of those who have come, gone and will walk alongside or beyond us. 

Neil Gaiman, describes in his article Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming how reading enables us to develope empathy - a vital ingredient for social cohesion.

“You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed.

Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.”

Singing enables me to time travel to other stories, places, states of mind and realms of reality.  I am daily transformed by the liberating force of the sound current as it flows through me, prompting reflection, remembrance, renewal.

The Communion that Creates Community

In my work supporting others to sing and express themselves, I witness individuals retrieving the power of their expression from places where it was previously locked away in their back story.  Through creative dialogue with our stories, the future becomes full of new possibilities. The vibrant, empathic connections created by people who sing in groups enables them to join together to make a difference in the world.

Ultimately for me sounding continually creates states of communion within individuals which then enables them to create a community which includes all the stories that have gone before, are still being told and are yet to be told.

The Singing Tardis offers us all the chance to play Doctor Who, to take hold of the immense power of all that time has, is and will be and bring our full imagination and creativity to the task of transforming our worlds.

Wishing you creative, imaginative and transformational travels