Tonight a witchy friend came over to show me exercises to claim the voice.
There’s so much to this. There’s hearing the voice in the first place, which is hearing the animal.
There’s honoring what you hear, and not letting the little tricks of patriarchy silence it: false deadlines. What will people think? And of course, the knowledge of all the dead women who did speak up/ look/ know before and how their bodies are dismembered in that room downstairs, the room whose key I am not supposed to have.
My friend showed her anger at work and lost her job. She still has her voice. A job can be replaced, but a practice of silencing becomes habit.
But I’ve been the young woman who saw what happened to the older woman who spoke.
I’ve been the young woman who listened to the warning, and wandered the cage that I bought with my silence.
I am now the older woman who keeps speaking and risking….But still, in the kitchen tonight, as I spread my feet and practiced letting my voice drop into the low registers, as I practiced “speaking from my butt” as my friend put it, it took focus. I felt the difference when my ass was engaged.
Another friend, who is an opera singer, said the same thing to me last week. I was asking her about vocal warm-ups. She said “Well, I know lots of those. But the main thing is, am I singing from my feet?”
Feet… Butt… Same diff.
Speaking from the ground, which you own, which you claim with your voice.
Try it. Order your latte from your feet. Say no from there. Say yes! Let your animal have your voice.