The Voice, The Body and The Brain
In 2010 Yvonne finished her book called: The Voice, The Body and The Brain – the art of resonance. In it she describes the development of Pansori Living Sound and the research that she has done over the past 16 years. She is currently discussing various possibilities to make the book available for readers and offers a PDF-file of a chapter of the book that describes the first scientific tests that were done in 2008. Below you will find the preface of the book.
Preface
Some stories begin in the darkness of dreams, others in the light of the future. This story begins in both realms. It is the fulfillment of an ancient dream and it shows a way towards the future.
In the past 12 years the potential of the human voice has been my passion and the focus of my attention. This book takes you on a journey of discovery and it shares my fascination for the human voice with you. It is a story of the development of new sounds in the human voice and the remarkable healing powers the voice can awaken. In those 12 years I have witnessed miracles of healing that I never could have guessed. The book also talks about the incredible influence of the human singing voice on the emerging new consciousness.
Part One talks about the early beginnings and ancient roots of my work with the voice.
The first years of my journey have been guided by my careful study of the body and its unending potential to teach me. Our body is like a temple with many entrances. It is an intricate building like the Taj Mahal in India, the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy or the Mosque built of adobe in Djenné. It has the delicacy of the synagogue in Toledo and the colorfulness of the famous Dutch stained glass windows in the Saint John in Gouda. It houses the resonance of the great roman cathedrals in France and it can sing like those. The body carries the soul, the sacred aspect of human life. As long as we live on this earth our body will accompany and guide us. It takes us wherever we go and is involved in everything we do, experience, think or make. It is our personal temple and yet it is the place we seldom visit.
The journey into the body also has a mythical aspect. It gives us access to profound images and archetypes. These images connect us to the history of our ancestors, the way they lived and existed in the world and how they coded their wisdom in images, dance and song. It is a creative process of discovery to work with these images that reside deep inside our bodies and minds. These images and their myths represent the richness that the exploration of the body can bring.
In Part Two I describe what I learned when I entered through the different doors of our body temple and the treasures I found there. Do not expect full and detailed descriptions of functional anatomy, but a rainbow of somatic and vocal experiences accessing different body systems, like skeleton, organs, glands, nervous system. What I describe here provided the necessary base for the discoveries with the voice later on.
From 2000 onwards the journey has been guided by the sounds of my voice and that has been even more astonishing. The developments in these years were closely linked to unexpected events in my life. These events have profoundly changed me, my presence in the world and my perceptions. It is a description of deep and intense inner processes that have guided the development of my voice and opened me for its extraordinary powers. Some of these experiences were shocking. All of them were unexpected. Part Three describes the beginning of those events.
Part Four is devoted to what the voice itself taught me. It describes the search for new sounds and the power of vocal presence. In this part I also describe some of the remarkable healings that have taken place and the crucial impact of the singing voice.
In Part Five I explore the scientific meaning of these discoveries and some of the tests that I have done with scientists to understand the changes that the human singing voice can induce in the physical tissue of the body and in the interconnectedness of the brain-networks.
The journey of the voice is not finished. I still enter and discover unknown territories. What I offer you here is a view on a landscape that is wide and unlimited. I have a sense of being allowed to enter a realm that will support our search for healing in new ways. I have taken the first steps in that vast landscape. I invite you to travel with me and to share what I have found.
It has taken me a long time before I was able to put my experiences into words. Language differs from sound and it can never completely reveal what has been found and experienced, so I choose my words carefully and hope that their meaning will reverberate to you. My voice has been my ultimate teacher; it has never betrayed me and opened up cathedrals of sound that have shaped my life.
Le Boulard, September 2010. Yvonne de Bruijn
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