Sharon Stewart
Deep Listening Certificate
2008-2010
First Quarterly Report
August, September, October 2008
Developing a Practice
As I sit to write this first report, I am struck by the overlap of the areas of growth in my life, the interconnected organic growing of new processes, and the desire to organize my thoughts in some way in order to cover the last three months in some coherent fashion. (Perhaps next time I can try a more incoherent form, but as this is my first ‘report’, it is perhaps best to attempt coherent…)
I have, since the beginning of August, been keeping two journals, which has now turned into three. In one journal I record my dreams and movement experiences. In the other journal I record my meditation experiences, also tied into journaling exercises related to a 2-year training in Core-Energetic work (http://www.coreenergetics.org/ ), which I have begun, parallel to this certificate in Deep Listening. Interwoven with my dreams are dialogues with my Inner Guide which have also served as inspiration for my video project. Within the movement journal are notes from Tantric exercises and a Voice and Movement workshop I attended. My listening meditations have also given rise to regular recorded moments behind the piano, which I hope to place on my website. Texts started popping up in places, and I therefore recently started a third journal for texts which are already beginning to be set to music, with room to make musical notes and reminders in the margins.
I like to think of my three journals as a braid, strong through interconnection, or a pool of snakes, crawling over and along each other, in constant fecund intertwining.
Dreaming
Recordings of my ‘waking dreams’ or contact with my Inner Guide can be found in the description of my Video Project. Below are some selected nighttime dreams relating specifically to sounds as well as others that I feel are somehow related to my own growth/self-image and Deep Listening:
14 aug 2008
Flamenco Dancer and Danger
We are in a car travelling through a dangerous area. The threat comes that the car will be stopped by thugs. A woman courageously steps out of the car with the message “I will dance for them”. She is wearing a white dress with flowers. She carries herself like a flamenco dancer and singer. She is confident that with her presence and dancing skills that she will be left alone. I am afraid for her and impressed by her.
19 aug 2008
Choir and Carpet Samples
The choir conductor is a large and present man. I am supposed to be playing magnificent chords to accompany the choir. What I am looking at is a bunch of carpet samples. I look at the carpet samples and try to get the right sound out of the color and texture of the samples.
20 aug 2008
Beautiful Water and Meeting Place
I am in a boat or something floating on the water with someone I feel very comfortable with. There is water, glistening gray water, ripples and sunlight on the surface, all oround us. Ahead, (to the south??) is an old stone ruin with squared openings for windows and doors where there are people inside who we want to meet. All around are rocky cliffs with strongly striated black lines through the brown/beige limestone – it is absolutely beautiful, breathtaking, and I comment to my friend “this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in my life”. We need to swim to the building. The water is delightful, cool but not cold. There is a large rock submerged ahead. I see people standing on it so know we will have a place to rest. When setting out to the rocky building, I am a bit nervous, because it is quite windy and the water choppy. But then I notice that the wind is blowing toward the building, so I know we will be ok.
5 sept 2008
Guidance and Images (summary)
A long, extensive dream with my sister and parents, a dream with my parents rising upward toward ever-growing isolation, a winding, exploratory escape of my sister and me out of the collapse of an ancient church/house, giving me the child/woman nightgown of my own sexuality, showing me the machinery of controlled/controlling murder [with male and female Gestapo images of my inner murderers] that also so fascinates and attracts me, revealing the toy shark-like image of my overwhelming angst, and finally letting me see the glass wall that opens to a beautiful but unknown land, available but not accessed by me due to my own fears.
8 sept 2008
Sky Diving
It’s like a movie scene. A woman is diving without a parachute. She’s sailing with her arms open, heading down. She catches up with a guy under her, and he hands her a parachute in passing. She takes it and puts it on, hooking it around her arms, under her armpits. I am relieved, but see that she is going to have a difficult landing. They have to make a retake of the scene and I think “it went so well that time”.
11 sept 2008
Barthold (who is dead) on the Phone!
I am on the telephone with Oma and Opa (Barthold and Joy) talking to them, sometimes the one, sometimes the other. Something is telling me that I can’t talk to long to Barthold because he is dead. I say goodbye and hang up to call someone else. I have called Oma and Opa again by accident. I say “oops, sorry Opa, I meant to call someone else.” Hij vind het helemaal niet erg. I really get the feeling he is slightly amused and enjoys the mistake. When I hang up, I realize how amazing it was that I could call and get his voice on the line. I feel stupid for hanging up the phone so fast. I tell David that he should try calling Opa because he will also get to talk to Barthold. [Barthold died four years ago next week.]
23 oct 2008
My Mother Reading to Me
My mother is on the bed, reading. It is not something specifically for children, or even specifically for me, but I enjoy hearing her voice, which is very special, unlike what I remembered, equal, warm and comforting. I listen and am comforted, even though the reading doesn’t seem specifically directed to me. I hope she keeps reading. Then I become sad and wonder how she can sit there so ‘normally’ while we haven’t seen each other for 7 years. I feel sad and tell her “two months ago I couldn’t even remember the sound of your voice”. Then I start crying and sobbing uncontrollably. I feel so sad.
Moving
As I have been exploring the hills and forests of Arnhem more, I have found some delightful spots where I could practice moving outside. Slow walking with big gulps, free dancing (also to the four directions), feeling the Chi as well as the Dragon Tail or Flying like a Water Bird, breathing and singing meditations, also trying to find my bike again with my eyes shut (!) have all been important parts of my movement practice. Below I list some selected movement journal entries, mostly related to practices that combine movement and voice which I would like to develop further:
1 aug 2008
Bouncing the Chi
 sink through your knees, starting a bouncing movement straight down – toward and from the earth
 shoulders and neck and knees relax and go with the bouncing movement
 feet become relaxed and feel the weight firmly, forming a strong supple connection between body and earth
 give voice to the out-breath, a releasing sound “Ah, ah, ah”
 hold hands in front, palms parallel, around your middle Dan T’ien (T’an T’ien, Dantian). feel the energy between your hands, in combination with the bouncing of your body
 move the Chi up and down, between the balls of your hands, like bouncing a big, soft ball gently back and forth. movement is light, expansive and a bit giggly. voice can imitate movement on out-breath
 slowly still your movements and bring the energy back to your lower Dan T’ien
 calm your breathing and release your neck
21 aug 2008
 stopping on the path to the church after dropping off the kids.
 slow walk on the moss, beautiful pressed, felt-like moss
 kneeling under the trees
 pranayama breathing
 circling through the vocals on different tones
 standing and singing my way back to my bike
28 sept 2008
 breathing into each of the Chakras, awakening them
 sounding each Chakra (lowest to highest, as done at Core Weekend)
o njing
o m/n
o i
o e
o a
o oe
o o
9 oct 2008
Observing a class by Ime Essien-Hassel at the Dance Academy in Arnhem (excerpts from my notes, speaking with Ime, watching a class warm up and perform two different exercises, duos and some self-made choreography in duos)
 awareness more important than instruction
 Energy-reading: where do you see the energy change in the body
 Duet material: using learned material in contact with another body, and actively listening to the body
 Bridging: what did you catch? How can you apply this?
 breath is your guide, but break out of comfort zones
 do less, feel more
 surrender into ‘it’
 your solutions are part of the expressions and so are the problems
23 oct 2008
 slow walk with big gulps on the path leading to the church
 sitting quietly, listening, with eyes shut, under the trees
 meditational free singing (having visions of Monica and me free singing while touching fingertips under the trees in the park)
 trying to find my bike again with eyes shut, orienting on the path. (Had to try 4 times from only several feet away…)
28 oct 2008
While listening to the CD Will and Testament by Diamanda Galas
 Listening and breathing
 Spontaneous joining in with vocalizations to release diaphragmatic tension
 Breathing in deeply and release air with “groan”, convulse the diaphragm rapidly to create sobbing effect, releasing through a creation of sadness affect
 moving to release tension in the back, stretching across folded legs
 standing and doing Tibetaanse movement in each of the four directions
Listening
Listening has become closely related to a meditational practice. However, my listening meditational practices have the tendency to turn into emotional cleansing, often accompanied by breathing or movement. This also due to certain meditational assignments related to Core work. Although I don’t ‘judge’ this, I have decided to take more time to delve into the meditational guides offered in ‘Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice’.
I have also recorded a number of morning improvisations made directly following listening meditations. I am dealing with the technical problem of switching to a more powerful Mac (where I can update my website much more easily). Hopefully selected recordings will be on my website in the coming month. My goal is to make this a practice, putting up regular improvisations, regardless of what I feel the quality of their content is!
For the video project, I lay naked in fetal position one evening in the forest during the transition from dusk to dark and two mornings during the transition from dark to dawn. Feeling the humus and soft decay of the forest as it slowly merged into my skin, listening to the infinite tiny cracklings and movements of the forest, feeling the slow waves of my breath within the greater pulses of the earth. One of the mornings of filming, David needed to leave me there to pick up something we had forgotten in the house. So, there I was naked lying alone in the dark of the early morning forest with the video camera pointed at me. My hearing became overly acute, a phenomenon I remember as child, lying in the dark. A sudden crack of twigs made my eyes pop open and my heart beat faster. I was determined not to move. Slowly my breathing relaxed and I heard a great, enormous breathing around me. I concentrated on my breathing. Slowing, slowing. Finally I heard David’s bike bell to warn me he was back. Relief and very proud of myself for not even lifting my head!
10 sept 2008
This morning I set up the glass table with candles and incense. I quietly meditated. I felt the presence of Nanny and allowed that to be there… slowly I felt the presence of an inner guide. She was American Indian with soft, worn skin. I observed her doing bead work. She moved around, carrying her children, fixing dinner, sensing the wind and the forest. Her love for the life around her made me cry. Stong and at peace with nature.
Deep Listening and parallel Training in Core-Energetics
Each year for the coming two years 2008-2010 I take part in 8 intensive weekends with body work.
Training in Core work involves (as one part) discovering physical blocks caused by (often very old) patterns of protection. As I experience it, pain is ‘stored’ in certain areas of the body, put away and wrapped up in various bodily armor built of tissues or energy. Through guided physical experiences, these blocks can be release, allowing the energy to stream through the body. In the same way, emotional block can also be accessed and released.
Pathwork (The Undefended Self by Susan Thesenga) is an important accompanying process. A quick summary of the process: creating more and more spiritual space and contact with the eternal goddess-self through the recognition, acceptance and transformation of the ego and lower self. The space for new ways of being becomes manifest and ‘grounded’ in this physical existence. Meditational exercises in the book are related to strengthening your objective self (you watch your thoughts that come and go while remaining on the edge of your thinking spirit) as well as keeping attention focused on breathing, being. Also, following some of the principles in The Journey by Brandon Bays, I have also, through meditation, begun accessing some deep convictions about myself and my life that stifle my life energy and thus also my creativity.
Because I am working with a group of fellow trainees, and we will all get to experiment with each other, I am hoping to develop processes that can be used in Core work, but which also have roots in Deep Listening. See the following for initial ideas which I hope to expand into word that I do as part of my training with the Core group next year.
Deep Listening and Teaching Practices
As I am experimenting more and more with the voice, I hope to develop a series of exercises involving listening to the body, giving voice to bodily impulses, sharing and experiencing contact with sounds from other bodies. Important elements:
 Expanding the borders of habitual listening patterns in order to listen to the body and transfer this into sounding
 Expanding the lungs and breath capacity
 Opening the throat and creating a freer connection between body and head (stream down from the head into the body)
 Using play as an element to connect voice and movement impulses
 Engaging with others, giving and taking sound, and returning to the self in order to listen to internal impulses
In April next year I have a workshop planned with my students to make their own instruments. This means investigating an area that interests me and sharing it with my group of 6-13 year-old piano students. More later!
Deep Listening and Creative Projects
One project which I hope to complete over the coming year(s) is the video project detailed in the accompanying documents (See: Explanation of The Spider Video.doc; Journaling for The Spider Archetypes.doc; and The Spider diagram, cyclical film.bmp).
Further, I am beginning the process of joining my texts with music and recording them.
The above can take place only in combination with setting up and learning to use my own small house studio. I, as of a couple of weeks ago, finally have the software and hardware to begin making good quality recordings! This year will also involve the somewhat painful growth of learning to do what I want to do: translating my dreams into hearable artifacts ;-).
I see the projects that I am now doing as training for myself in basic sound ‘engineering’. Later I hope to do more interactive work.