The problem is not the shape of the soul but the shape of the self.
To create a speaking, we have to bring the whale beneath the boat. In order to do so, we’ll need a catalyst. There are many types, but seed words are the catalysts we’ll use first. Right now, what is more important is the shape of the boat. It must be a hull shape that fits the rising whale perfectly. Thus, it should be concave, not convex. This would be an odd-shaped boat by conventional standards, but we have to remember what this boat is for: speaking. After all, we have a very troublesome self that we’re asking to partner with the soul. The problem is not the shape of the soul but the shape of the self. Or more correctly, the shape of our much too busy consciousness, which at this moment is trying to figure out what’s going on, how it can stay on top. This is why I suggest you listen to the First Speakings track on the CD before reading this chapter. I want you to forget your current shape and become concave, a receiver, not a resister. This is for a number of reasons. First, since SOULSPEAK is an oral art, I want your body to begin to reawaken to the sound of the soul speaking by listening to it and then imitating it. Mimesis, remember.
Second, I want to wean you from the world of writing and the self-consciousness it helps maintain. The act of writing produces a thing, a string of characters that can be examined, second-guessed, manipulated, allowing our much-too-busy self-consciousness the opportunity of feeding on itself. Just what we don’t want. I want to deprive your consciousness of that opportunity so you can create a spontaneous, unpremeditated speaking. This is absolutely essential to success. To do that you stop hiding. In every way. Then begin listening to the First Speakings tracks on the CD again. As you do, begin leaning with them. Open yourself to the fact that your body knows what to do. Allow yourself to get out of the way and let your body tell a story. Open your mouth and celebrate your luminosity by telling a story you know absolutely nothing about.
Just before you open your mouth, however, there are a few things you must do. First, remember that you’re going to tell a story, and you’re going to tell it exactly as you would to a friend. This means you must forget everything you know about poetry and poetic diction: rhyme, inversions, lines, meter, stanzas, everything. Remember, this is a poetry you already know, and it has completely different rules. Play the SOULSPEAK Music track on the CD. Put it on repeat, so it will keep playing. Relax, listen to the music playing, and as it does, lean over the side of the boat and chum the waters a bit. With seed words. Whale bait, if you like. Your partner, with eyes closed, will act as an echo and repeat everything you say, just like what you heard on the First Speakings track on the CD. It may help if you and your partner also listen to the Introduction to Responding track on the CD before proceeding.
Here are the seed words we’ll use as catalysts:
Mother mountain love arms window cold green
You chum by looking at the seed words. Let your eyes wander over them until you notice yourself looking at one of them more often than the others. Don’t be self conscious about it, just do it. If one of them isn’t sticking out slightly, look away quickly, then look back. Do it several times. The word your eyes keep going back to is the one with the most mojo. Forget about the others. And don’t get serious on me. Remember, this is a celebration. You should be light-hearted, happy-go-lucky. Like a dare-devil. Just keep your eyes on the mojo word, because you’re going to have a good time with it. The time of your life, if you want to know the truth.
Start out exactly as you’ve heard on the First Speaking track: Sometimes in my dreams, I . . . and then connect “I” to the mojo word. Don’t worry how, or what words you’re going to use. Your body will take care of all that. And don’t think. Just allow your body to say what it wants and to visualize what’s taking place, exactly as it visualizes what’s taking place when you gossip. Let your body go as far as it wants with the mojo word. That may be one phrase, or two, or three. Then, when your body pauses (because it doesn’t know where to go), let your eyes jump immediately to another seed word in the list. Let your body use that new word to advance the story. When your body pauses again, let your eyes jump to another word and keep going until you’ve used up all the words or the story simply stops. Either way, you’ll know when the speaking is finished, because your body will know. It will simply stop. Welcome to SOULSPEAK.
In the event you became confused and didn’t quite enter the world of SOULSPEAK as we had both expected, it may have been because you didn’t quite understand what I meant by looking at a seed word and letting your body advance the story with that word until it can’t go any further. Let me illustrate by creating a simulated speaking in written form. I’ll indicate where my body stopped speaking by an (*). The next phrase will be the result of my scanning the seed word list until my eyes select another word (which I’ll italicize so you can follow my progress). The mojo word I’m using for this speaking will be “window,” as this is the one my eyes kept going back to. Don’t force this operation of selection—don’t go crazy with your eyes. Let your body select the word. The correct word is simply the one you’re drawn to, the one that’s leaning with you. As always, I’ll start out with the incantation: “Sometimes in my dreams, I . . .”
Mother mountain love arms window cold green
Sometimes in my dreams, I am a window.*
Love cannot come through.*
I am cold to the touch.*
I am green in the morning light.*
My mother is outside, Trying to look through me.*
She sees the mountain of my impatience.*
No arms can reach me.*
Love cannot break through.*
Here is another one. This time, the mojo word is MOUNTAIN:
Mother mountain love arms window cold green
Sometimes in my dreams, I am a mountain.*
I am far above the earth*
My mother is somewhere in the valley.*
She is sitting by a window*
It is cold in the valley.*
Everything green has vanished.*
There is nothing but snow. She is holding her arms out to me, But there is too much distance between us.*
Too much distance for love to cross.*
Too much distance to come down from the mountain.*
Here’s another one, using GREEN as the mojo word:
Mother mountain love arms window cold green
Sometimes in my dreams I am in a green place.*
It is peaceful, with only the sound of birds.*
My arms are at my sides. I am unable to lift them.*
Love is calling me from the mountain.*
It is my mother.* She is holding her arms out to me*
I can feel a cold wind blowing.*
Something in me says, “shut the window,” And I do.*
Now the wind is outside, like my mother, waiting to come in.*
Waiting for me to open the window.*
Waiting for me to say I love you.*
These speakings were all created exactly as you see them. There was no editing, no going back, no thinking. I just let them happen. Although not exceptional speakings, that’s not the important thing. The important thing is to let yourself speak. How high you soar is up to the gods. The only modifications I made to what you see were some spelling corrections (as I try to write as quickly as the words come to me) and the creation of line breaks at the place where a natural pause had occurred, so that you could get a sense of my rhythm.
Although these speakings were created by writing them, the oral form is the true form, the one that invokes all the buried power present in your body. It will provide the true channel for the soul to speak. When you create a speaking by writing it, you must simulate the act of speaking, and like all simulations it is never quite the real thing. The true, original channel to the soul will not be opened, only partially opened. This is because you will unconsciously invoke a whole series of attitudes associated with the act of writing, and possibly, if you are a poet, a whole series of attitudes associated with the act of writing poetry.
If you wish to simulate a speaking by writing it, this problem can be easily solved if you first create a series of speakings orally, because oral composition invokes a completely different set of attitudes in creating a poem. Oral creation bypasses all you know about writing and writing a poem. Thus once you’ve orally created a poem, you’ll really know in your bones that the creation of a poem can exist completely outside of the act of writing. Once you’ve experienced that feeling, it’s much easier to temporarily let go of all the attitudes associated with writing and writing poetry. This is what you have to do if you want to write a speaking that accurately simulates the act of oral creation. The only reason you would ever create a speaking in written form is for the convenience of giving it to someone. The simulation of a speaking is but a shadow of the real thing. It’s like kissing someone through a sheet of paper.
Remember, this is a poetry of many voices.
My best advice at this point is don’t go on to the next chapter until you’ve created an oral speaking with a partner. Unless you do, the remainder of this section will be just words. When you create your first true speaking, you’ll go through a change. You’ll recover a lost part of yourself. It will be worth it, so relax, and keep at it until you’ve finally achieved a speaking. You’ll know when you have your body will feel like it’s breaking into blossom.
If You’re Still Having Problems Orally Creating . . .
• Try Writing One First
If you’re still having difficulty creating a speaking orally after several tries and would like to try writing one first, use “stream of consciousness.” You’ll have to do without the support of a partner when you write. but that may be the only way to get you over the hump.
Note: It is best to abandon the written mode as soon as you have succeeded. If you don’t, you’ll miss the boat.
To create a simulated speaking through writing, forget everything you know about poetry: no inversions, no elaborate diction, no rhymes, no line breaks, no stanza breaks. Just let it happen as if you are talking to your best friend, the one who always understands you. No hiding. No thinking. Just let it go. It will help if you are in as dark a room as possible.
• Read it Out Loud
When you’ve finally experienced a speaking in this manner, read it out loud. Record it if possible. If it doesn’t slip trippingly off the tongue, like speech, lighten up and try again.
When you think you have it, ask a friend to “echo respond” to your reading of the poem. If you have simulated the patterns of speech, the responder should be able to respond without stepping on your feet, as there are natural pauses in speech that signal when to respond. After all, that’s what makes conversation possible. If you’re still using the matrix of writing, however, to create your speaking, the phrases will be much too long, the pauses non-existent or artificial, and the responses won’t work. That means you haven’t surrendered to the immediacy of speech, even simulated speech.
If you are still hitting roadblocks at this point, you may find yourself saying you simply can’t give up how you write. Nonsense. The real problem is that you’re afraid to give up conscious control. You are still hiding. And thinking. Trying to stay on top. You are at a crisis point consisting of danger and opportunity more afraid of life than hungry for it. Keep trying until you create a good simulation, in writing, of a speaking. You’ll know when you do it. Now let’s get on with producing a true, oral speaking.
If You’re Ready to Orally Create . . .
• Study the Texts of the Speakings in Chapter 11
Before you attempt to create that first true, oral speaking, look at the texts of the speakings printed in Chapter 11. Notice that the first speaking consists of one phrase per seed word (except for the seed word “mother”). This will most likely be the type of speaking you will create your first few times. Most of the speakings on the First Speakings track are like this.
Later on, as you loosen up, you may find yourself creating two or three phrases per seed word (see the second and third speaking examples). It will happen all by itself, so don’t try to force it. Generally, the speaking will close when you use the last seed word. It just happens. Sometimes, however, it will close on the sixth or fifth seed word. You’ll know it. The speaking will just stop and you’ll feel a sense of completion. If the speaking hasn’t closed by the time you use up all the seed words, and it’s not headed toward a closing all by itself, go back to the seed words and use them until the speaking closes. When it closes, your body will simply stop and there will be an emotional sense of completion.
• Visualization Helps
If you let your body visualize what you are saying (much as you do when you create a piece of gossip), that visualization helps to move the speaking forward. If you visualize your mother at a window, you may next see her doing something: waving, or screaming. That’s your next phrase. When your visualization stops, search for a new seed word to move the story forward. Continue the process until the speaking closes.
• Listen to First Speakings
Listen to the First Speakings track to get your body in the groove. Then turn on the SOULSPEAK Music track and create an oral speaking with your partner.
Well, if the gods were with you, you flew. If you didn’t, go back and try again. Relax. It may be uncomfortable for you to relinquish control, but that’s the idea. If you already know what you’re going to say, it isn’t poetry. If you want to make poetry, you have to let go.
If when you create your first true speaking you don’t feel something like a tiny, wild orgasm rising up inside you⎯if you don’t feel you’ve given birth to something beautiful and true⎯some part of you was still thinking. Don’t think. Feel. Imagine.
• Let Your Body do the Talking
Your soul knows what it wants to say and your body knows how to say it. Remember, a speaking is a celebration. Now go back, relax, and start again. If you still feel self-conscious, you may have to create complete privacy for yourself. Go to a room where no one can hear you. Dim the lights as low as you can and still see the seed words.
• Find a Partner
If you still don’t have a partner, look for one, even one who knows nothing of SOULSPEAK other than the few things you’ve told them. Ask them to respond with simple echoes, like those you’ve heard on the CD. Responding creates a bond. You’ll be less alone⎯stronger. Remember,
this is a poetry of many voices. It’s natural to be a little nervous, by the way. Remember that the Chinese character for “crisis” is made up of “danger and opportunity.” Take advantage of it.
• SOULSPEAK, a Communal Art
This predicament of finding a partner at the right time, by the way, is one of the reasons I resisted writing a book on SOULSPEAK for a long time. It is best introduced orally, in a communal setting. In that environment, it’s easy to bring people together and demonstrate how to create a multi-voiced speaking. This is very important because working with a partner is the most powerful form of SOULSPEAK. It is also the most natural form and the easiest to learn. Speaking is by its very nature a communal art. You listen, then imitate with a partner. You really don’t need any didactic teaching. You simply have to experience it to learn it.
The realities of contemporary life being what they are, however, a book will most probably be the way most people will be introduced to SOULSPEAK. Because of this your first oral speaking will most probably be solitary. But there are ways to compensate for that. After you have created your first speaking, you can partially experience what it’s like to work with a partner by simply finding someone you’re at ease with. Sit down with your partner (who may know absolutely nothing about SOULSPEAK) and tell them you want them to respond every time you say something. Tell them you’re going to create an oral poem that requires a responder, and it will be fun (which is what art is by the way—divine fun). Then play Introduction to Responding on the CD. As you’ll see, the very first responses are simply echoes (or partial echoes) of the main speaker. As the CD indicates, something will eventually come up which is not a direct echo. The responder’s body will know how to do it. No thinking, please. When you’re both ready to go, play the SOULSPEAK Music track on the CD.
If your new partner enjoys the act of responding, you should be able to continue for as long as you want. “But,” you might ask, “How can I do that? Don’t I need some new seed words?” No. Just pick a different starting word—a different mojo word. Once you do, you’re ready to create another speaking. As you’ll see, if you don’t think, you’ll create a completely new speaking. You can repeat this process for as long as the words interest you. In fact, you may find that when you go back after a while, and use the exact same starting word, the speaking will be completely different. After all, time has passed. You’re no longer who you were thirty minutes ago.
We are the prisoners of time.
Take advantage of it
.
What you will hear is the sound of the soul speaking.
You’ve now progressed to where you can create speakings orally and with a responding partner, at least in echo mode. Perhaps you’re also recording some of your speakings. What you want to do now is more fully engage your responding partner. This is because the responder must also speak to create a true communal speaking. Asking your partner to respond by echoing is a start, but at some point you want the responder to begin to reply spontaneously—to say whatever comes into their heads (without thinking). The best way to do this is to listen to the Introduction to Responding tracks and the First Speakings tracks on the CD. Don’t try to figure out the responses (there is no figuring them out in the conventional sense). Just catch the spirit. You will quickly sense that the antiphonal part of a speaking is only as powerful as the spontaneous empathy of the responder. You will also find that you and your responding partner are creating something beautiful without really knowing how you are doing it. What’s more, it will become clear to you that the joint speaking is a fugue, and that there is no main melody, there are just simultaneous melodies that support and feed each other.
This feeding is not done in a conventional sense by listening and then responding as we do in our everyday conversation (although there is always that element at work in SOULSPEAK), because both partners are speaking to an imaginary listener, not each other. I have come to the conclusion that there are various levels of responding we are capable of, just as there are many levels of listening. Many of them can’t take place in normal conversation, they can only take place in art. And after all, SOULSPEAK is an art form, not everyday conversation. Thus what takes place in SOULSPEAK is not speaking and responding in the conventional sense. Rather, both parties are jointly addressing a third, imagined party and if you give it free rein, you will create what amounts to simultaneous speakings, like a second story that is being formed by the responding speaker in a way that is almost inexplicable. You will hear examples of that on the CD track called ManyVoices.
When you reach that level of responding, the speakings somehow fit together like the light and dark side of the moon, and in so doing they display the full world of the soul. This normally takes place with two people, but I have done it with three, and, like operatic groups, this could probably be pushed to four or five.
All you need are compatible spirits. At some point the person you have asked to be a responder will become a speaker, because there is no difference once you get down to it. Not only are the roles interchangeable, they may even change within a particular speaking. Switching roles between main speaker and responding speaker is one of the joys of SOULSPEAK. In my experience, whoever feels stronger at the moment generally starts out as main speaker, with the responding speaker being more passive. But as in sex, this power relationship can change quite often. It just happens. And the result is a speaking of extraordinary tones and shadings. One last thing should be said about partners. They should be players—generous and courageous, willing to take risks. Look for people who want to partner—who instinctively understand the rules of partnering. They should be people who had friends when they were kids. Not a lot necessarily, but enough. This is not to say your partners can’t be idiosyncratic or have strong opinions about their art. After all, the worst thing is a wishy-washy partner. What is required is someone who understands that communal art is not the same as solitary art—you have to skinny down to accommodate the others. They have to be people who like to play in the same sense that children like to play. We don’t want those kids who wanted it all their way in the sandbox. They never change their ways, believe me. I think this is important to understand when you approach a communal art like SOULSPEAK, because in the right atmosphere of trust and play, a simultaneous multi-voiced speaking will happen. Just like that.
There is really no end to the shapes SOULSPEAK can take.
If the gods were with you, your first speaking allowed you to enter a world in which you briefly became aware of the genius within you—of who you really are. As simple as SOULSPEAK is, however, there are a number of things you should know for a more complete understanding of its potential. One of the things you should be aware of is the kind of catalysts that can help you achieve your speakings. Seed words are the most common, but visual and musical stimulation are also quite powerful. These catalysts stimulate the right brain, the hemisphere of synthesis. Jaynes believes that preliterate poets created poetry in their right brain, not only because it was chanted in a musical way, but also because that was the way preliterate man heard the gods: “ Speak Muse, and through me tell the story of that man. . . .” Today, that hemisphere, while it still has the potential of creating words, has become dormant in that capacity, with the left-brain usually controlling all word formation. Nevertheless, I have found that the more right-brain stimulation you can achieve, the greater your chances of success with SOULSPEAK. After a while, though, you may not require catalysts at all. Once you’ve listened to some speakings on the CD and created a few yourself using seed words, you may just take off. Don’t be surprised. It happens.
External catalysts are useful but not absolutely necessary. Equally important is the hull shape of the boat. Receptivity is also a catalyst (albeit an internal one) and the most powerful way of increasing your receptivity is to speak with a partner. The mere act of gathering together is a powerful act. The gatherings may be only a speaker and responder, but it’s the start of a tribe. A communal spirit is created in which SOULSPEAK will erupt all by itself. The larger and more receptive the group, the more powerful the spirit. The ideal partnership, once you’ve mastered speaking to recorded music, consists of a singer, musician, speaker, and responder. All of our MANY VOICES albums are created this way. The albums consist of spontaneous, multi-voiced speakings, with each partner improvising a separate thread or voice. This may seem impossible, but remember, just a short time ago you probably thought speaking itself was impossible. There are no rules as to how to create a multi-voiced speaking with a live musician and singer. It may happen the very first time, or it may take a number of tries until everyone is comfortable. Here are some suggestions. Once you and your partner are able to spontaneously create a speaking to recorded music with relatively little effort, you may want to try working with a musician. But only one, please, because there is only so much improvisation that can be easily accommodated. I suggest either guitar or keyboard. The guitar is easier to start with, but today’s multi-functioned keyboards offer a great deal more in the way of sound, and sound is what is going to get your speaking going. I suggest you work with various musicians who like to improvise until you find one who also likes SOULSPEAK. They may not completely understand it, but it is important that they like it as an art form. The best way to start out with a musician is to let them improvise what they like, but in a tempo that is speakable. Don’t ask them to play like so and so. Let them be who they are, just like you want to be you. Whereas you may have pre-adjusted the nature of your speakings to the recorded music you have, that luxury won’t be available to you in live improvisation with a musician. You have to learn to relax and let the music enter you, and then let go. You’re going to have to learn to surf the waves as they come up.
Improvising like this will influence your speaking, so don’t be surprised if something entirely new in the way of a speaking comes out of you. That is what’s supposed to happen. The same thing goes when you incorporate a singer. By a singer I mean someone who likes to improvise wordless melodies. Find a singer who likes to improvise melodies to the music you’re working with. As with the musician, the singer doesn’t have to understand SOULSPEAK, only like it. You don’t need a singer who only sings Barbra Streisand or Nina Simone.
Once you’ve found the right musician and right singer, let them begin to create a layer of sound and then join in—main speaker first, then responding speaker. Don’t wait too long to jump in, after all, this is a collaboration, and it helps to know where the other players are, even if only on an unconscious level. Don’t worry how it’s going to fit together. If everyone is leaning together, you will hear the sound of the soul speaking.
Although we have been talking about incorporating a live singer or musician, most likely, they will happen along much later in your development as a speaker. Because of this, an important element to consider is the recorded music for SOULSPEAK. The music on the enclosed CD, SOULSPEAK Music, is what we use for our own speakings on our Many Voices albums. Each piece of music was created as one of the spontaneous threads for a particular speaking and later brought down through our multi-track recording system. It wasn’t created in a vacuum and is thus extremely conducive to the spirit and rhythms of speaking. You may choose to create your own music for speaking, but work with the music on the CD before you go off on your own. It was our intent from the beginning to try to imitate the essential form of the music used in preliterate times. That ancient music, as best we know, was extremely simple in structure. Most probably it was created with a simple plucked instrument, and was relatively slow in tempo, with just enough musicality to support the chanting of the speakers. Certainly the music used was nothing like the sophisticated forms of music we have today. Most contemporary music, except for some forms of jazz and new age, is very difficult to use—too complete, too fat, too fast to allow speaking to take place.
What we needed was a slow, skinny music that gave the speakers plenty of room. Eventually we gravitated toward creating an eclectic, relatively simple, wave-like music that supported the tempo of our speakings. This may not always be the right music for the speakings of others, but we have found it to be almost universally acceptable. Use it until your body moves you towards something else. Music is a right brain activity and that is the portion of the brain we want to excite as much as possible, but not in a way that is contrary to the formation of a speaking. We have found that the right music will have a profound effect on your speaking. If you’re working with recorded music, you should not begin a speaking until you have found a piece that is leaning with you. To help you in this, we have created several CDs of SOULSPEAK Music (see Appendix) that should give you plenty of variety.
Story-telling Memory
This is why you can tell the same nasty piece of gossip over and over.
As you are well aware, any speakings you have created up to now have simply gone up in smoke. You felt something happening, you