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
Janet Conner is a prayer artist, mystic witch, producer and director in the Theatre of the Miraculous, and mistress of the threshold between worlds—the mystical theta brain wave state. But first and always, Janet is a devoted daughter of the Sacred Feminine and Original Prayer. Janet’s first book, Writing Down Your Soul, became a bestseller, which opened the path for The Lotus and The Lily and 5 more. When Prayer Artist arrived in 2018, Janet found herself writing a whole new genre of prayer as love songs, redefining prayer altogether, and leading radical prayer intensives with fellow female mystics. In 2020, thanks to an endorsement from Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, Janet was called to acknowledge that she is—and always has been—a mystic witch. So along with redefining prayer, Janet enthusiastically embraces the call to transmute witch from a word that strikes terror into a title that awakens a bone-deep memory of walking in wonder in a world that is sacred, beautiful, and alive. Although she can hear a tree in the Hudson River Valley whispering her name, for now Janet lives with silence, solitude, and joy in the tiny town of Ozona, Florida on the Gulf of Mexico.
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.
Lahela Johnson
Kahu Lāhela, a native Hawaiian spiritual healing guide, lives on the island of Oʻahu in the Sacred valley of Hakipu'u. Her kuleana (duty & responsibility) as a Kahu is to assist people in restoring themselves and their relationships in pono (balance, rightness) and in haʻahaʻa (humility). Following the guidance of her elders and spirit guides, Kahu Lāhela developed a unique practice of Hana I Ka Pono, a compilation of the energy work of Pule (prayer), Lomilomi, Language of Light, and Mana Iho, healing practices that open the channels to create flow and balance between the body, mind, and spirit.
Last year she also co-created an eight-module inner exploration process called Ho'i Mai Iho Nō - The Journey Inward (A Personal Practice for Healing, Resiliency, & Sovereignty). Through these programs and practices, she facilitates in strengthening the connection to your inner guidance so you can regain self-trust and self-empowerment, embrace your sovereignty, and be better equipped to navigate the challenging times ahead with clarity and resilience.
Have questions? Contact Janet at janetconner@tampabay.rr.com or 727-772-1118 between 1pm and 5pm Eastern