Let Your Heart Sing!!

On the promise of tomorrow

Let truth save the day

And you’ll never lose your way

It seems like yesterday I was moving to NYC to chase my dream of being a professional opera singer. It was the summer of 2001, and I was feeling anxious. I had finished graduate school in 1999 and had been staying around Pittsburgh working with my voice teacher at the time but feeling less than satisfied. A friend called me out of the blue to tell me someone he knew had to go away for a few months, and he was looking for someone to apartment sit and take care of his cat. He lived in Little Italy in lower Manhattan. And….I didn’t have to pay rent. If that wasn’t divine intervention telling me to move, then I don’t know what is. So I worked as much as I could to save about $7000 and then at the end of July, my friend Ann from work graciously offered to drive me there to start a new life. I had no job but I trusted it would all work out somehow. I was 29, in the midst of my Saturn return(for those familiar with astrology) so it was full steam ahead.

So there I was, in one of the greatest cities in the world ready to meet everything head on. I was feeling confident and sure of myself. Then it all changed in an instant. Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center and things were very different all at once. Suddenly my dream seemed so far away, and I wanted to head back to Pittsburgh. Any place but where I was. Yet something deep inside me told me to stay. And so I did…for 8 years. I meet amazing people and feel in love and lived on Central Park West in the same building as Twyla Tharp and Frank Langella. I thought it was perfect, but it wasn’t Then feel out of love and lived my remaining years in Brooklyn. All the while chasing after something…usually transitory. Yet I sang. I sang my heart out. I studied with some great teachers, some not so great teachers. In the midst of it all singing was my center, my life boat.

So here we are in a pandemic that no one alive has ever seen. It is serious and one doesn’t know how this will turn out. Today when I was teaching a student, he turned to me and said,” Have you ever experienced something like this in your life?” It was obvious he is scared and concerned. So I told him about moving to NYC right before Sept 11, I told him of my struggle after my heart surgery. I told him of how much music got me thru it.

So maybe now we turn to music, I mean REALLY turn to it. Singing not for an award or accolade or someone to justify our existence on this planet by saying,” OMG..you were so great.” Maybe now we sing from our hearts, for our hearts. For the hearts of others. Maybe now we see that we are all equal in the world and all that is truly important is love. So…Let Your Heart Sing. Sing with gentleness and sing with abandon. Sing and watch what happens to your heart.

Let your heart sing.

How Can I Keep From Singing?

“No storm can shake my inmost calm

While to this rock I’m clinging

Since love is Lord of Heaven and Earth

How can I keep from singing?”

As long as I can remember, singing has been a part of my life. There isn't one childhood memory that doesn't contain some facet of me singing. Whether at home alone in my bedroom humming some song or my mom accompanying me on piano for an audition for a show. Inevitably, singing was a part of my being. 

On my journey of singing, it has lead me to places I never expected. From the Midwest, to Italy, to NYC, to teaching, and to the feet of a meditation master. From great highs to great loss, singing has always been that friend I could count on until even that was taken from me for a time. It has revealed the strongest parts of my being as well as shown me the facets of myself that kept me from truly seeing the greatest parts of my Self. It has been my greatest teacher.

I have never considered myself a writer creatively by any means. Yet here I am, expressing parts of myself I didn't think I would ever share in a public forum. I am a pretty introverted person, keeping my friend group on the smaller side of things. Yet, I went thru some difficult times in over one short year(which seemed like an eternity at time), that compelled me to share my journey in life thru singing with the hopes of inspiring others no matter what walk of life they came from or whatever profession they do. 

For me, singing has always been something I felt was so much a part of my nature. It wasn't something I had to do, it was something I NEEDED. As we need food and water to maintain and sustain life, singing for me was food. It was a necessity I couldn't live without. Yet, as my accolades grew as I got older, so did my ego. I started to think it was all about me, and it was just that thinking that lead me to a meditation group over 22 years ago. I still remember walking in and someone asking me why I was there. I replied, "Oh, I think it will make me a better singer." By this time I had been struggling a little technically and had been curious about meditation. Yet, this night proved to be something much more than I expected and started me on a journey I never even thought was possible.

Many times I have asked myself these questions, "Why do I sing?"  Do I sing because it gives me a way to give back to others? Do I sing because I want to hear from others how great I am? Have you ever stopped and asked yourself these questions? To my students I often pose these questions to them after they have been with me for a little while. Some look at me as if I asked them to prove some mathematical theorem, to others a spark is lit and a new exploration unfolds. Those students seem to be able to get what I have to give.

As I start on this new journey, these posts will talk about my own personal discoveries in my life that have been revealed by singing as well as deep lessons thru my experiences of teaching. Not only lessons and realizations for me, but my students as well. I firmly believe that there is always something to learn. No one knows everything there is to know about a subject.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing-Socrates

In our darkest times things reveal themselves, if we are open, that can propel and change us in ways we never imagined. The evolution of the spirit is endless, and that same spirit is unbreakable. Sometimes to find that which is constant, the walls of unnecessary things have to be taken down. And once that happens, a whole new life can begin.