From the preface, Breathing Life into Death
“The jig was up,” this much I knew, or sensed, at the first signs that I was losing my voice.
Singing had always at the center of my world. The irony of losing my voice while leading workshops entitled, “In Search of a Voice” was only a small measure of the devastating loss of identity I was to experience as time went on.
What began as an imperceptible interruption in my song was diagnosed early on as spasmodic dysphonia. Gradually, my voice troubles moved from a rocky kind of hoarseness to a choked off and broken speech pattern that could become little more than a helpless squeak. These days, I choose between speaking and breathing.
I was in the prime of my life, not yet 40, and one endowed with vocal gifts. Everything in my life up to then had come from my ability to speak and sing. I was not only losing my currency in the world, I’d lost my “art,” my best friend, my childhood comforter and most constant companion. For generations, music-making had been the glue that held our family life together and it, too, was coming apart.
Up to then, I had no spiritual orientation. So, what does a self-proclaimed “Godless one” do in the face of debilitating loss? In desperation, I prayed, and my silent cry of “Help!" was heard. An immediate shift in consciousness, a profound awakening, like nothing I could contrive or ever imagine, literally turned my life inside out. My mind was blown!
Buy the book: https://singpeacepilgrimage.ning.com/breathing-life-into-death
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