FREE YOUR VOICE
PRAYER INTENSIVE ON DEMAND
"The Vibration of Prayer" by Lori Sweet
What is the Free Your Voice prayer intensive?
Free Your Voice is a unique prayer intensive with the sacred intention to honor our long-silenced voices and free them to speak the truth that is waiting to be heard—the truth that can and will heal us both as individuals and as a society. In the Theatre of the Miraculous, where deep freedom is always possible, we will dance in the mystical convergence of radical prayer, the loving presence and encouragement of the ancestors, the painful residue of three thousand years of suppression of the feminine, and the healing power of awakening our own creative voices so we can contribute our sacred medicine to the healing of our world. There is nothing more important or more freeing right now than to know your truth, speak your truth, and live your truth.
“[D]eeply embedded in Western culture are the mechanisms that silence women.”
Women and Power: A Manifesto
Mary Beard, Professor of Classics, University of Cambridge
The essential question, the first question, the question that must be answered is: what has silenced you?
We will examine these insidious mechanisms and the seemingly benign forms they take in society that zaps our energy and creativity. “Oh, that’s just the way things are.” These forces are everywhere. They were seeded initially in patriarchal religion but quickly became the cultural norms. They taint our relationships, our work, and even the value we place on ourselves. We will explore some of the ways and conditions under which we have succumbed to, and even colluded with, these forces, allowing them to reshape or repress our voices, leaving the truth that lies within us unheard and unspoken.
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you,
what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
Gospel of Thomas: verse 70
What do we have inside us that could be of such significance and calamitous strength that it contains the potential to either save us or destroy us? And in turn, save or destroy the world? How we answer these questions, will be unique to each of us.
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action,
and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”
Martha Graham
If everyone has a voice, if everyone has sacred medicine that they alone can contribute to the healing of our world, what is yours to contribute? And how and where and when can you activate your creative voice and bring it alive? And what magic will happen when you do?
What will we explore together?
Week 1 Physical Voice—strengthen your physical muscles
We will begin by exploring the mystery and magic of your physical voice, how it is structured, and the mechanics of how the voice works.
- What is really going on when you open your mouth and shape air to make sound?
- We will learn vocal exercises from Sharla Nafziger, a professional voice teacher and classical singer in New York, along with rich Qigong breathing and Vagus Nerve practices with Cameron Altaras.
- Once you have a sense for your beautiful instrument, we will explore how to use it, strengthen it, and fall in love with it.
Physical Voice prayer: Vagus Nerve Tapping Chant
Week 2 Truth Voice—awaken your metaphysical muscles
We will explore the chasm between the truth that wants to be spoken and the forces that have kept us silent.
- Following a trail of brilliant feminist theory, we will take a deep breath and open Pandora’s box to discover the insidious systemic structures of religious, social, cultural, and philosophical frameworks that have historically silenced us and continue unabated.
- In sharp contrast, we will explore what wants to be heard and wants to be said, because keeping silent in the face of your truth “will destroy you.”
- Together, we will discover that as we build our truth-telling muscles, even in the smallest of ways, the energy of our lives begins to shift and we discover the reality of the perennial saying, “the truth will set you free.”
Truth Voice prayer: Freedom Anointing
Special Hana I Ka Pono prayer gathering: Kahu Lāhela Johnson will help us energetically free our voices in a special Saturday session
Week 3 Ancestral Voice—remember your mystical muscles
We are now strong enough to invite our ancestral voices to come and reveal to us the long story of our soul.
- We will explore the epigenetic residue of the horrific silencing sanctioned by religions, cultures, and governments, culminating in atrocities such as the witch hunts, honor killings, slavery, femicide, and genocide.
- We will invoke the silenced ancestral voices we carry within us to be freed and heard and spoken at last.
- We will discover that when we speak for those who could not, we set their voices free and in so doing, free our own.
Ancestral Voice prayer: Mystic Family Call
Week 4 Creative Voice—flexing your artistic muscles
Finally, we open to the most radical voice in the world, the voice that refuses to succumb or submit, the voice that will not stay quiet: your beautiful, holy, creative voice. We will do this in three rather exciting steps: recognize what is, undo it, create an alternative.
- You will begin by identifying in deep soul writing something that has kept you silenced or repressed.
- Then you will experiment with undoing it, unraveling it, laying it open to be seen for what it really is and the harm it has done.
- Then you will play with redoing it in ways that empower your voice. That might look like rewriting a prayer or remaking a symbol or image. It might be a dance (Martha would be proud!) or take a form you can’t right now even imagine.
Creative Voice prayer: Chant of the Artist (a simple but powerful two-line prayer)
Closing Celebration
We will complete our delicious exploration of freedom in the Theatre of the Miraculous by gathering to celebrate our new voices and declaring that each of our voices matters. Then, in Her holy hands, we will watch as our voices ripple into the world in waves of hope and possibility.
What will you receive?
Invitation to all 6 live gatherings
Access to a password-protected resource page with recordings of all sessions in both video and audio formats plus bonus videos from Sharla Nafziger to help you strengthen your physical voice. You will also receive a Welcome Handbook with introductions from all the guides and our extensive bibliography and a Prayer Handbook with our four Free Your Voice prayer practices. You will also receive a handbook PDF each week with information, critical quotes, and deep soul writing prompts to explore and strengthen that week’s voice. In addition, you will receive PDFs or videos of several of Janet and Cameron’s prayers and poems.
Membership in a private Facebook discussion group (optional).
Registration
$ 88 - on-demand version
Your Voice Guides
Janet Conner
I am a prayer artist, mystic witch, creator in the Theatre of the Miraculous, and mistress of the Threshold—the mystical theta brain wave state. But first and always, a devoted daughter of the Sacred Feminine. My first book, Writing Down Your Soul, was a surprising success and led to The Lotus and The Lily, Soul Vows, and more. All that was only the warmup. In the dark one morning in 2018, my beloved voice whispered prayer artist in my left ear. I knew prayer artist would change everything, but I said yes anyway. I began writing a new genre of prayer, redefining prayer, and offering radical prayer intensives. Two years later, witch arrived in a stunning endorsement from Rabbi Tirzah Firestone. I was ecstatic; my agent was not. I ended that relationship to follow witch where she wanted me to go. She knew exactly what she wanted: transmute witch from a word that strikes terror back into an honorific that awakens a bone-deep memory of being revered for our spiritual gifts.
I trust witch. I trusted her when she asked me to create The Return of the Witches Jeanne d’Arc Listening Pilgrimage. I trusted her when she asked for a year-long mystery school Re-membering the Songlines of the Witches. I trusted her when she insisted I gather a team to create The A.R.T. of Becoming a Witch: How to Awaken, Remember, and Trust Your Body’s Natural Intuitive Senses. As that intensive was ending, witch guided me to see that ART wasn’t one intensive; it was the first of 7 in The Witch Sequence—an 7-circuit labyrinth walk to awaken all 7 of our original sacramental gifts. As my collaborators and I listened intently to what wanted to be created, we began to see a sacred purpose far beyond anything we could imagine. We are here to walk this path, embody these 7 sacred gifts, and become a truly whole and holy witch because this is the way we heal the wasteland. It may be the only way we can heal the wasteland.
To do this profound witch work, I need massive amounts of time in silence and mystical theta. I think that’s why witch is holding me in Ozona, a tiny village on the Gulf of Mexico, where I am surrounded by screeching ospreys, swooping woodstorks, and one very precious redtail hawk.
Cameron Altaras
Cameron Altaras (PhD, University of Toronto) passionately explores truth in the intersections of art, philosophy, and religion. She has acted, directed, and produced live theatre and video, and co-edited with Carol Penner, PhD, Resistance: Confronting Violence, Abuse and Power in Peace Churches, (Institute of Mennonite Studies, Elkhart, IN, forthcoming in 2022). Under the dark shadow of the patriarchal world, Cameron swallowed her voice and complied with the thought pattern that there are more important things in life than following the passion of one’s heart and living one’s deep life. She spent many years in the academic and corporate worlds, neglecting her own words and laying aside her own voice. That voice can now be heard and seen in full glory on her website Vocem Redisuum—Latin for by returning to the voice. Author and poet, Mary Ann Woodruff, describes Cameron’s work as: “Haunting cries of life awakened to generational subjugation of women, the loss of breath and voice. …Powerful work!” Cameron lives in Bellevue, WA with her husband, Jeff Altaras, her son, Adrien, and the family Corgi, Moshe.
Sharla Nafziger
Sharla Nafziger (Masters in Music, Manhattan School of Music) has performed a wide variety of oratorio and concert repertoire. She has appeared with opera companies, symphony orchestras, choral societies, and festivals across North America and in Germany, including with New York City Opera, the symphony orchestras of Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Colorado, The Florida West Coast Symphony, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and Elora Festival in Canada. She made her New York recital debut at Merkin Hall as the winner of Joy in Singing. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Oratorio Society of New York. In addition to maintaining her private vocal studio, Sharla teaches voice at AMDA College (The American Musical and Dramatic Academy) in New York. Sharla’s understanding of vocal function and its physiology has aided in the restoration of damaged voices and opens the door to the unique authentic voice we each possess. Sharla lives in Westchester County, NY with her husband Anthony Meloni, and their two children, three goldfish, one hamster, and dog, Rocco.
Kahu Lāhela Johnson
I am a native Hawaiian spiritual healing guide from Hawaiʻi, on the island of Oʻahu. I lead a practice of healing through forgiveness that I co-created with my guides called Hana I Ka Pono. This practice helps you cleanse, clear, and release connections to past hurt, pain, trauma, old beliefs, and patterns that block you from stepping into your power, speaking your truth, and owning your sovereignty and your gifts. This practice also releases you from multi-generational pain and suffering. Profound change, healing, clarity, balance, harmony, inner peace, and a sense of lightness and connectedness result from daily practice, reminding you that you are not separate from Source, but that you are an integral cell within the body of the whole.
Have questions? Contact Janet at janetconner@tampabay.rr.com or 727-772-1118 between 1pm and 5pm Eastern