Bookends Society for Poets and Writers hosts its Inaugural Meeting

Monday, April 2, 2012 - 7:30pm

Cygnus Studio
214 Old Orchard Rd.
Sandhurst Shores
Bath, ON
K0H 1G0

On April 2nd 2012 we will hold our first official Bookends session in the Kingston/Bath/Napanee/Picton area, at Cygnus Studio beginning at 7:30 pm.

Cygnus Studio is located at 214 Old Orchard Rd., Sandhurst Shores, Bath, Ontario. Please call and leave a message at 613-352-6-7544 or email to book your place. Our second session will be on April 30th. We recommend car pooling for those who are travelling from the Kingston or Picton areas. We can keep in touch about that and help each other to make travel plans.

All prospective participants are asked to contact Jane Yaeger by phone or email if they wish to attend.

If you wish to have a Bookends Society Meeting or Heart Centred Voice session in your area or book private sessions, please contact Jane directly.

Bookends Society was formed to serve those interested in improving their performance/vocalizing skills. Often as artists and people we are adept at what we usually ‘do’ and we falter when attempting to communicate or share/promote our work. We may also be practised performers who now seek to deepen that skill…taking it to another level. And we may simply be moved by some inner voice to get to ‘know’ ourselves more intimately through the heart centred practise and creative expression.

Please bring a short work to share. Not everyone will be called upon. Each session’s agenda depends on what wants to happen, naturally. In any case we can all learn from what others offer. You don’t need to be a poet or writer to attend or to participate. Typically, during the first session, we share a bit of our personal history; then heart centring is introduced. The effect of our state of consciousness on vocal and body energy is demonstrated; then we dive into artistic sharing.

In the second session we have fun watching/listening to videos of vocal mistresses and masters at work. Their example offers inductive power and inspiration to the early stages of heart centred vocal/performing development. There is more direct facilitation (for those who want it) with respect to each person’s delivery of their work, through voice. As time permits, we also enjoy exploring the symbolic, metaphorical and feeling meaning behind each work.
Heart Centring

Heart Centring is fundamental to Bookends explorations. To begin, please be aware that heart centring calls for a shift of consciousness from the personal into the transpersonal awareness. With practise, one gradually becomes a well modulated font for the waters creative and expressive. Offering our art to one-another through an unconditional acceptance of their messages and audible frequencies brings a non-judgemental and compassionate attitude to the service of each artistic work. The state of heart centred acceptance frees the performing power from self-consciousness, from loose, overly ‘familiar’, chatty style and from overtly ‘technical’ acting. Stepping out from the bounds of fear, the body becomes a vehicle for artistic magic’s dynamism. The audience intuitively feels the integrity of the piece and relaxes; drinking in the whole gift. Often it takes only a few moments of practise to make a huge difference in how the work is performed.

Heart centred performance invites the body to explore deeper and richer ways of being of playing in the fields of vocal and performing arts. However, the practise does not require that each individual taste the psychological, metaphorical, mystical, mytho-poetic or archetypal depth mysteries living in and through their works. It merely invites one to the play. Heart centred awareness is not an intellectual process…not a ‘doing’. It is an instinctual surrendering to the voice of each creative role through the auspices of the discerning, modulated, feeling heart which then informs the vocal chords and the body’s language what wants to happen. It moves the body and voice to take on the ‘role’ fully. Flirtation with word power and the projection of one’s well staged art, even in mighty brilliance, offers just a hint of what is available to the centred, creatively expressive being.

To simple self, this is nothing more than gobbledy-gook. To the intuitive…the widely perceiving and sensing self, heart centring is like coming home into the full ‘sound’ that lives behind words, music and movement. There may be uncertainty - perhaps discomfort - and certainly vulnerability, in stepping into new vocal and performing territory. What is offered is a flexible and resourced stage upon which to play more authentically, one’s creative gifts.

Anything ‘unknown’ will seem to be foreign and threatening. Coming in contact with the unknown, within or without, may cause our ‘habitual’ selves to distrust, denigrate or deny the chance of a new experience. Nonetheless, we are invited to welcome the opportunity to experience the gift of heart centred voice. It may not change a person’s life and it will enrich their appreciation for life and art.

We practice heart centring to allow more of what we are to enter into the play of our creative and expressive arts (as well as our every day lives). It is not a format or system. It is simply a practise…one of many…and eventually it becomes something uniquely fitted to each person. The key is to make it more conscious…to feel the reins of heart centred awareness more by ‘ownership’ rather than by accident.

During the first session we begin to explore gently, the play of energy through our vocal chords and bodies. We take time to appreciate the hidden meaning of the work we share. What and who we are in each moment affects all that is around us and how other energies affect us. It is good to have a way to centre amid sometimes overwhelming forces as they affect our lives and the world just as it is good to be more consciously aware of our own thoughts and feelings as they affect our voices, art, lives and the lives of others. Centring brings us into the ‘voice’ that speaks from a wider perspective. Practicing five minutes a day, welcoming in our deeper voice is all it takes to make a difference.

The key is to allow defences to soften, fielding the greater capacity of our artistic and expressive wisdom through more adept filters and prompts. One can become ‘the piece’ and then step away from it, attending to the simple layers of life with all the regular, personal attention and play.

With each session we may make ourselves more available (and in new ways) to the voice of our full speech as it is ‘tuned’ to each poem, lyric or work of prose. We will pitch the feeling voice through a beautifully and newly balanced performing capacity. We will learn more about how performer and audience intermingle and support or undermine each other’s experience of the work on offer. We will lean toward becoming self supporting in our work and performance while gaining access to more exciting and focussed performing resources.

New exercises in stretching the dynamic ranges of sound and feeling will be offered at each session. There will also be a piece shared on embodying the voice, through intuition and instinctual prompts.

The Centred Voice senses and expresses from an extended, compassionate perspective; one that has nothing to prove and everything to offer. That's why it can remain within its integrity and respond in relationship to what is happening. It performs/offers from a deeper well, no matter what bombards the ground upon which it stands. What some might call 'confidence' is actually a mask of technique which positions the mind to 'conquer' fear. Heart centring allows one to receive and field a deeper and more dynamic authenticity and integrity; one that flexibly adjusts to the moment's need and softly showers its attention upon the ground of being exactly and wholly who one is.

Whether one seeks to improve marketing skills and performance capacities or needs to stand ‘more easily’ in the communicative skin at home and in the workplace, heart centred voice will allow the inspiration of the moment to flow more vitally through the body. Join us and experience, Voice from the Heart’s Centre.