Here is a piece that I wrote in spring of 2003. I read it on my radio talk show last week along with playing the concert, "Earth Chant" by Aurora Chorus, which I sang with for a year or so. Preparing for and singing in this concert was a marvelous and healing experience. Enjoy.
Dress Rehearsal for Earth Chant
By Susan Fullmer
I find myself standing on
risers on a stage of a large, darkened, empty auditorium, surrounded by 100
beautiful women ages 15 to 70 something.
I am at the onset of what promises to be a panic attack. I am breathing and thinking, “How did I get
here and why, oh why did I tell anyone about this concert?”.
I know how I got here. It’s because of The List. My, “Things I want to do before I die”
list. Now, it does not say parachute
jumping from a plane as one might suspect.
But it does include, “Sing in a choir”.
I haven’t sung in an
organized choir since college, fall semester 1979. It’s been a few years, OK, 23. But who’s counting?
I joined Aurora Chorus,
conducted by Joan Szymko, three months ago.
They themselves have been in existence 11 years and their motto is, “Women
in Harmony for Peace”. I’m not feeling
very peaceful at the moment. Perhaps I
should have written parachute jumping instead.
We are in the midst of dress
rehearsal for our upcoming concert in two days called, “Earth Chant”. Eighteen memorized songs in seven languages –
all celebrating the earth. The timing is
such to honor Earth Day, spring, Easter, Passover, and the joy of being alive
on this wondrous planet.
There is no mistake about the
timing of this event in my personal life.
For me, it’s about healing. I
have been slowly emerging from a dark and numb place where I can’t remember how
to feel or what exactly it is that I care about. This experience is changing me.
I keep crying. No long sustained wailing with a flood of
tears, but rather a catch in my throat and suddenly my eyes are moist. Throughout rehearsals and without warning, it
happens during any given song. The
meaning of certain words and phrases wash over me and through me with
penetrating force aided by the vibrational sound that surrounds me. The intensity of feeling takes my breath away
and I cannot sing. My prayer for this
concert is, “Let me not cry. Please, let
me not cry”.
I laugh too. The deeper feelings of emotions seem to be
the noticeable change in me these days.
Last week we all laughed when someone down the row made a list of the
difficult Hebrew words from the song, “Adama” and taped it to the back of the
singer in front of her. We thought it
was a great idea and wondered if we could all get away with it during the
actual concert. Well, everyone except
the front row of course.
While I am singing during
today’s dress rehearsal I imagine the empty seats filled with real people. Of all those coming to see and support me,
the one I anticipate the most is the presence of my 16-year-old son. It occurs to me at this moment that he has
never known me as a singer. I’ve never
really stopped thinking of myself as such, yet the outward piece I only now
reclaim. He will see this on Saturday
for the first time. It sobers me to
think he may have never known this important part of me.
I told him funny parts to
watch for during the concert. I knew he
would like that. I remember telling him
the words to the song, “Why am I Painting the Living room?” It is a humorous women’s lament. She years to get out and enjoy the beauty of
the day. She also feels chagrined for
not putting more time and effort into safe guarding that very beauty of the
earth she loves.
The words of the song are, “Holes
in the ozone the size of Brazil,
Barges of trash in the
chewable breeze,
Pools of industrial wasteland
pate’
Sulfur dioxide dissolving the
trees,
Pretty soon, it will all end
with a boom,
And here I am, painting my living
room.”
I can still see my son and
myself sitting in the car talking about this song. We laughed together as I read the words to
the last verse.
“Oh yes, I can see how my
tombstone will read,
Here lies someone of
exceptional worth,
Though she did not do a lot
for her kind,
Or help hold together this
crumbling earth,
Here lies a woman they’re
saying of whom,
Sure had a good looking
living room.
As we rehearse these words, I
smile. I think of him sitting in the
audience. He will be smiling and
remembering too.
“Indian Singing” is the
multi-song piece we all dreaded from the very beginning. It was, by far, the most difficult music I
have ever attempted. But slowly, over
time, we mastered it and ultimately it became our favorite.
The poet, Gail Trimble,
rehearses, “Indian Singing” with us, reading her own words. The composer, Ron Jeffers, will be in
attendance on Saturday.
We sing, she speaks, the drum
plays. We weave in and out creating a
tapestry of textures in sound. I marvel
at her voice. I can feel the vibration
of it. It seems to emanate from a
knowing place deep within her. For me,
her voice sounds like forest. A mixture
of rock, tumbling water, and moss covered tree.
I am moved to hear a poet’s words in her own voice.
The dissonant sounds of the
foreign harmonies, of this piece, were disturbing to me at first. In one section, the music dictates that I
constantly sing one note off from the soprano standing next to me. It is repelling at first, pressing me to turn
away to better hear my own kind, the comfort of sameness from the altos to my
right. But I forced myself not to turn,
rather to listen and blend the unblendable.
With time, what was dissonant became natural, a perfect back drop to
Gail’s words. My words. My life.
In Mohawk, Se hia’ rak means “dark nights”. Se hia’
rak, Dho’ nun gwa, Iun sa se we’, Ts, Ni se wa we ien no’ den, which means,
“On dark nights, the women whisper how they love, whisper how they gave and
give until they have no more. The guilt
of being empty breaks their hearts.”
The song continues, “Together
women struggle to remember how to live, nurture one another, to know that
breath is a sacred gift before the rising sun and love can change the world as
sure as the magic in any steady song.”
I take a deep breath. I hadn’t noticed it at first, but the panic
is subsiding. What seems to be replacing
it is the feeling of familiarity. It’s
as if I have been immersed in the nurturing energy of Mother Earth
herself. I especially feel it as we sing
the song, “The Earth is Singing My Name”.
“She spoke to me till I heard
her,
Gentle like the stream,
Firm like the rock,
She sang to me a song of myself,
Rolling my name round in her
mouth like a jewel,
Presenting it to me as a gift
saying,
Look at yourself bright star,
Earth bound, you are my child.
And she whispered my name,
Like wine,
Sweet bitter berries touching
my lips,
Filling my heart.”
