our signature voice...
The late poet, activist, priest, John O’Donohue, whose voice itself was liquid poetry spoke of finding our ‘signature voice.’ What a lovely thought…that within the cacophony of the outside world...a world that wants us to think it knows best...there exists within us something that is uniquely ours...our voice.
We may even have two signature voices, the one that wants to be heard in the world and the one that comes to us each night in our dreams.
So many of our voices have been silenced, shamed or seduced into believing that we had to speak a certain way in order to be heard, to find belonging. Our dreams show us that this isn’t true. To learn to speak again from our truth, our vulnerability, to even rediscover what that is for each of us, becomes the beautiful work of a lifetime.
I’ve often quoted Miriam Therese MacGillis, O.P., a colleague of Thomas Berry, both social justice activists and ecologists. The following quote is referring to the earth and how we are destroying it. It struck me that it also speak to our signature voice. Sister Miriam says, “To think we can worship while extinguishing the revelation of the divine in the earth is illusion. Each interiority carries an aspect of the divine another doesn’t. Humans have the capacity to recognize it.” The world needs our unique voice...our signature voice...will be diminished without it. That may seem hard to believe when we can often feel so invisible and unheard. So how do we find our unique voice and when we do... how do we learn to speak again?
Here’s where I believe our other signature voice can be of help...our inner voice, the one that comes to us through our dreams. Each night there is another voice that has not been shamed into silence, that is still connected to our true self….that is “the revelation of the divine” in each of us. We only have to be willing to let our dreams speak to us...and let them be heard.
Mary Jo Heyen
Archetypal Dreamwork Practitioner
Dream sessions in person, via Skype or on the phone