| Voice of the Beloved The EDGE Interview with Charlottémarie by Tim Miejan One cannot reproduce a sound more ancient than the human voice. With attention to sacred music traditions, and her heart, vocalist Charlottémarie is a Renaissance woman who chants, sings, reads, composes, records and performs. She integrates the healing and sacred arts with the performing arts, inspired by ancient teachings and practices of music, chant and sound in the Vedic, Tibetan, Chinese and Mid-East traditions. She chants and sings in Sanskrit, Arabic, Aramaic, Latin, Farsi, Spanish and English. For more than 20 years she has scripted, composed and performed six world-beat operas and has created and performed solo and ensemble events. Her latest creations can be experienced this spring, live and in concert: • "Voice of the Beloved," a one-woman show and also title of her first book of poetry and her newest CD recording, is offered May 17-18, and again June 14-15, at Seven Bridges World Center, 400 1st Ave. NE, Minneapolis. Tickets are $10 at the door. • "Communion D'Esprit," a cross-cultural and multi-dimensional synthesis of chants, music, rhythm and spirit, is free to the public at 7:30 p.m. April 27, at Ted Mann Concert Hall, 2128 4th St. S., Minneapolis. That event is performed in concert with the 65-piece University Women's Chorus, indigenous instruments and drums, cello, bass, violin, synthesizer and Tibetan singing bowl orchestra. The EDGE spoke with Charlottémarie, a native of St. Paul, Minn., about her wondrous journey with sound, and about living and dying. When in your life did you first begin to appreciate sound? Charlottémarie: I think since the day I was born. I have many brothers and sisters. I'm the oldest of 11 children, so when we were young I used to use sound when my brother had a stomachache or my sister had cramps, and I would just make funny sounds. We grew up over by the Mount Zion Temple in St. Paul and I used to sneak down to the synagogue and listen to the cantors. I just loved it. And chanting -- I loved the chants in church and loved the chants in the synagogue. Then in high school I met a swami at the University of Minnesota and he started teaching me the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit. I loved the pacing and the rhythm of Sanskrit, and I loved how I sounded, and the state of consciousness it evoked. And then later, I had a very bad car accident where I had brain damage and my motor control was out and it affected my endocrine system and hormonal balance and everything. At that point I moved to Hawaii and I met a Chinese acupuncturist, who taught me an ancient Chinese system of sound -- and it healed everything. So, one part of my journey with sound was dealing with very diverse backgrounds in sacred environments (churches and synagogues) and then I was given many opportunities to dig much deeper with chant and sound. It became my own healing process. Later on, I realized I did lot of things as a child intuitively. It just evolved from there even more so into a completely different dimension. I'm doing a residency at the University of Minnesota called "Communion D'Esprit" (Communion of the Spirit). I'm working with the University Women's Chorus and we are going to be doing chants from all different cultural origins. Underlying all of this is the principle of sound. I'm toning with them, and the chants I'm selecting have a certain resonance, not only in the meaning. There will be Sanskrit, and I also sing in Persian. I'll also be integrating Native American and African traditions. And I'll be sharing a language of sound called Sonessic. It's a language and music with a much deeper foundation. But that's, bottom line, what we're going to be doing. Sonessic? Charlottémarie: Sonessic is a combination of essence and sound -- sonic essence. Tell me about your new recording, Voice of the Beloved. Charlottémarie: I'm very excited about it, because it's very different. I went into a studio and just sang the chants and the vocals and recited some of the poetry. I thought it would just be voice, but then I felt it did need music, so I contacted Boyd Sibley in Sedona, Ariz., and he put the music on top of it. The recording is like the sky and the Earth and how they seem to come together, but they're still autonomous and have their own essence. It's very different. It includes one 32-minute piece called "Rhapsody Under the Lavender Moon," and the second piece is all toning, straight sound, called "Before Time." I'm calling this work vibrational medicine. In the toning, I decided not to use any mantras or syllables. I work with the Vedic, Chinese and Tibetan systems of sound. Doing something like this in a recording of this nature is perhaps a little bit more than what people ask for. I really, totally, embrace the concept of sound and the profound effect it has on a person -- on all phases of existence: mental, physical, emotionally, spiritually... I mean, it's just vast. Reflecting all of our being. Charlottémarie: Exactly. And, not everybody's ready for it. Not everybody can handle it. I learned this when I worked with Kahunas in Hawaii. You don't do certain chants and you don't do certain things in public. And then when I talked to a teacher with whom I travel in India, where I go to chant and learn Sanskrit, he just says, "You know, it's a good idea. They do have recordings of them, but if you want to do something outside of that, something that's a little bit different, that would be good rather than sticking just to the Vedic system." So I found that there were specific sounds that are much more universal and that would perhaps be much more beneficial for people. When you perform chants and toning, do you feel like you have a direct connection with the Divine? Charlottémarie: Oh, yes. I do. I could do my one-woman shows five days a week and feel that and be able to create that kind of environment. It just comes through. It's incredible. I recently was the featured soloist for a Woman's Voice concert involving 500 voices from different colleges. It was so uplifting and just gave me so much hope. I was talking to the girls -- I have about 70 girls in this choir -- and I said, "You know, about 25 years ago I decided I was not going to sing any more R&B, Rock, Pop, what have you, because I feel that my voice is something that belongs to me as a gift -- and I have to use it to be able to give back. There's this Divine reciprocity that has to happen that as a result of that, so everybody else benefits. I just have to keep focused. So, I'm not going to sing that kind of music." And I explained to them about how sound works through the body, the effect it has on the nervous system, the brain and the energetic fields, the magnetic fields and DNA. And they were like "Woah!" And then one gal says, "What about feelings or emotions?" And I said, "There's a completely different vibration to feeling that your heart is opening up compared to worrying over 'My man did this to me and I'm goin' to get that, and that man lookin' at a woman and my girl she done this.' What is out there now in the public airwaves keeps us in a very dense emotional consciousness. Music comes from the ethers, and it does have a profound effect on the non-tangible, energetic world around us. It is so incredibly subtle and we are so directly influenced. We can just be around it and it affects us. I then told the girls, "I'm not going to keep myself small. We all have the capability to bring Divinity into our lives through sound and music." And these girls stood up and applauded. These are kids, and they get it. They said they are sick and tired of the music offered to them to listen to. There's nothing that inspires that part of their existence, that part of their Spirit. What do you recommend that the audience do while listening to your concert, or your recording? Charlottémarie: Well, close your eyes and experience yourself. Listen to what's going on, and experience that. Experience yourself with the journey. That's what I would suggest the audience does. A lot of people don't want to get that deep. They can just come here and listen to beautiful music and beautiful voices. I mean, these girls sound incredible. They're musicians. I'll work on myself enough to where I deliver a good product, too. I'm there to entertain, and also there to create. Speak to me a little bit more about what your intent is with your voice. What it is you want to give back? Charlottémarie: It's more than voice. It's consciousness. So you're sharing your soul. Charlottémarie: That's what it is. When you listen to a voice, you can hear everything about that energy that's coming through. I had one accident with the brain damage and I had another accident when I was living in a monastery. I was hit by a car and my legs were.... It was a tough route. The monks took me out of the hospital and we did two practices in which they were all chanting from early morning until late night. I was there with a cast from hip to ankle on one leg and bandages on the other. That was another profound healing experience. With all the series of things that happened as a result of trauma, like depression, I have been able to better understand myself in that process and use sound and be aware of the subtle sounds of thought. From there, it just evolved and expanded to many different levels. My intent has only been to work on myself. And as a result of that, the true work comes out. So it's like this: Sound is a tool and self-discovery is the process. And then, I'm do it and it affects others energetically. They get it just by listening to it, or experiencing a vibration. Musically, the whole thing is to take the healing arts, the sacred arts and the performing arts and make them one. But, getting into the depth of the cultures and cultural sacred folk music and chant is the vehicle for me, the foundational vehicle. Although I'm involved in the esoteric aspects of these cultural, sacred teachings, my journey goes a lot deeper than that in so far as there is a resonance. I have this term that I use that every atom has a frequency -- and there is a resonance within everyone who responds to sound. So there is a point where, within the culture, within the sacred texts, within the sacred chants, there is an essence that transcends even the words, the culture, everything that has form around it. And so that's what Sonessic is all about. And that's where I want to go with the music. Which is why I can go in and pick up an Indian CD and respond to it on a level without knowing what they're saying or what the intention is. Charlottémarie: Exactly. I've done stuff with people from different cultures (West Africa, South Africa) and I've had audiences from Hawaii, Korea, Japan, Africa and India. There is an element that goes beyond culture and is non-definable. But Americans like to understand and know things, so when I do Vedic chants, I will explain what that's all about and educate people step-by-step. Sound works on many levels. I think it's sound that hits the nervous system faster than other sensory applications. I had another accident where someone ran over my foot. I was getting out of the back seat of a car. What was interesting was that I could feel the pulsing, the nerve endings, and I realized that if I resisted the feeling, I would only make it worse. I had to let it pulse through. My friends who were with me were healers, massage therapists, and they went "AAGGHH!" because it was rather gross and bleeding. And I said, "Stop it! What we need to do is see my foot healed. Because something happened energetically here. Something happened in consciousness that manifested a certain way. So, we need to see this healed." When I had the accident when I went through the windshield of the car, which caused the brain damage, I had a death experience where I saw myself and I saw blue light coming out of a car. I saw my ex-husband, and I saw myself and I saw these guys -- and part of me knew I was dead and they were trying to bring me back to life. And I'm telling them, "I'm just fine." I was asked if I wanted to go back or if I wanted to stay, and I said, "My business is not finished, I have work to do yet." And I came back into my body. What I experienced I can't really explain, but, it's like if I would use the metaphor for snow. The higher up you go, the further apart the flakes are and the lighter the flakes are to the point where there's nothing. And then the snow gets more and more dense as it comes down to Earth. That's exactly how I saw consciousness in that experience. I realized that on very subtle levels we create things, but that we have to come to a place where we understand where it's all created, how it's all created. I came to an understanding how the elements are associated and the absolute tapestry of creation. It was really cool. In terms of the evolution of our consciousness, do you think we've only begun to tap into the power of sound in our experience -- to understand the true meaning of sound? Charlottémarie: I don't think we're at a beginning point. I think we're beginning to have a consciousness about it, the awareness of the effect of it. I do think that sound has been around for quite some time and it has not been used as a tool, let's say, as a source for healing or as a source of energetic transformation and things of that nature. However, the American culture has used other means for our development in social and civil situations. Right now, I feel that with the use of the computer our emphasis is more visual and about information. Different parts of our brains are being used and activated. Sound is still pushed by the wayside. Whereas going to India, sound is all over the place, I mean, in the temples, on the streets, in the home. Sound is happening in the music. Africa, the same principle. Sound and singing is part of everyday life. A lot of drum patterns and chants are evolved from people doing everyday things -- even funerals, where people sing and make sound. In our culture, we're into the Information Age -- and that process of integration is very different. And yet, I do feel there are growing numbers of people who are evolving energetically and coming to understand that sound is really incredible and does create forms of energy. I also feel there is an energetic, magnetic shift, and as that happens, awareness of the more subtle energies and sensory perceptions will become more predominant in our everyday lives. For now, it's computers and information. Have you done much study on the role of sound in the death process? Charlottémarie: Some lines from one of the poems I used in a recent performance yesterday were, "Take me to your heart with eyes inside. Make me a fool in the world. Cherishing this death called love, so I may never lose sight of you again." There's a whole thing I find really fascinating about death, in that we have to die to live on a certain level. It's part of the transformation process. But also, in observing and being with people who are terminally ill and dying, you can actually see the conscious will hanging onto the body -- and then once the passing happens, the change is so profound. It's just like letting go? Charlottémarie: It's just like letting go. I lived with a lady and her caregiver in Hawaii for a number of months. All she wanted me to do was chant. So all I did were all these wonderful Arabic chants. Eventually, I just moved in and I just did my prayers with her. She responded to it. She was in the latter stages of life. She did not walk. But it was incredible how aware of it all she was. But there was still this willingness to not let go yet. There are two different ways of dealing with the death process, and both of them have the same amount of fear and trepidation. One is if you're living a life, and there's a new life ahead for you. Your spirit just takes you into a new place. The soul and the spirit get together, and in time you become a little bit more in tune to the spirit and start fulfilling your purpose. You start turning into the piece of tapestry that God wants you to be so that you fit into the whole scheme of things. Then things start changing, and that process is really frightening, because you can't function the way you've always functioned. So there's a death in all of that. And then there's the physical death. I've had two death experiences and each of them was absolutely profound, and the awareness has been profound afterward. It's like the whole thing with the snow and understanding how consciousness and energy really works. It's knowing when it's time and when it's not time, because energetically you cannot impose the will of God on your own life, no matter what. You can't. And you can actually see it's a defiance if you do. It's an energetic defiance. What was your second near-death experience like? Charlottémarie: The second one was while I was having an operation, about a month after the first one. I was watching the doctors operate on me and then -- all of a sudden -- everything went very dark and I went. It was like being inside of the Sun. And I was sitting there, and I wasn't even given a choice whether I wanted to come or go. And, the thing is, I heard chanting. I heard sound, people mumbling and talking. I didn't see anything, but I heard things. And the next thing I knew, I was coming out of it on the operating table. What was it like inside of the Sun? Bright? Charlottémarie: It was so bright you couldn't look at it, but you could be in it. When you're in it, you're just looking out and it's just incredible. But if I stood on the outside and looked at it, I couldn't look at it at all. The first death experience of going into the light was just like "Whooooooosh!" It was just gradual, going into this tunnel and then you're absorbed in light. But in the second experience, I was already sitting in it. I was already there, inside of it. And I knew I was inside of it and I heard all these voices. Did you pick up anything about what they were saying? Charlottémarie: Oh, no, but I do feel it was energetic and I do feel it has a lot to do with sound and chanting, because even after that experience a lot of other things changed. The whole concept of death is really fascinating. In India the color for death is white. It's also white in the Chinese culture. Red is the color of life. To understand what letting go and death is all about is a vital part of the living process. And, I feel that we have to prepare ourselves for death in order to have a good life, you know? There's an aspect of fear with death. Charlottémarie: Well, we have this conception that people go away forever. When my baby brother was being potty trained, it was a traumatic experience for him thinking that part of himself was leaving out of him and going down the drain. It was very traumatic, and I remember thinking about this being cellularly ingrained in us. Children don't have this understanding, but all children go through that. He was losing a part of himself. Charlottémarie: Exactly. Whether it's a profound, deep traumatic thing like it was for him or whether it was just a piece of cake, it's still just something that has an effect on them. I have been around a couple of monks who have passed. I saw the graceful beauty of their understanding of what death truly is and how they worked on it all their lives. The Tibetan Book of the Dead talks about it. It's no different than walking from one room into the next. I think about it. I oftentimes have that thing called death going on inside. You do have to experience that death in order to have life. Dying in order to live. For more information on Charlottémarie, her latest book of poetry and recording "Voice of the Beloved," and upcoming performances, call her at (651) 255-6777 or go to www.charlottemarie.com Tim Miejan is editor of The EDGE. Contact him at (651) 578-8969 or e-mail editor@edgenews.com Copyright (c) 2002 Tim Miejan |
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