Lille - France, Winter 2008

I feel a little like a teenager when it comes to singing. Although... it used to be lot worse, and it is getting better... I will never forget the time around 2004 with my singer-friend Gareth, with whom I had first decided to challenge the phobia, how I hysterically screamed and cried and the voice just would not come out. I was petrified.

When I was a teenager, I regularly shamefully sang over my CDs in my bedroom, closed-door, when absolutely NO-ONE else was in the house. Oh, how I loved it, the high notes flowing out of myself. I used to think I was quite good, but then would feel like a stupid teenager and never did it again until... the urge returned. No-one at all knew; in myself I coudn't even phrase the existence of my love for singing. And I would never have sang if someone could have heard me. With a friend I joined the university choir the year I was living in Canada, in 1996-97. Oh, how I loved it, and it was great: my voice would hide amongst the numerous other voices, so no-one could hear me. It was the only possible way that I could sing without feeling ashamed of myself. When I left Canada I left the choir.

Some seven years later, I started realising that I was gradually challenging my other phobia through yoga: the phobia of going upside-down - and the unsettling sensations caused by reversing gravity in my own body. It took me four years to go in shoulderstand; five to go in headstand. After over seven years and I am still working towards handstand, but I am getting there... slowly, non-violently... I had been so madly phobic of going upside-down as a child; the acrobaties all fearless children can do easily, I could never do them. If I could now, well certainly I could also work towards singing... At first; just talking about it was difficult and made me feel all awkward and shameful. There was the aforementioned petrifying episode with Gareth. A little later I managed to sing to him hiding behind a curtain... End of 2006 I decided to join a choir again to at least start working my voice again, and found Voicehouse. Well, it turned out to be a good way to work through the phobia, and I would never be where I am now without Voicehouse's director Yvonne Burgess' workshops, and her heartbreaking encouragements...

And then I met B'eirth (In Gowan Ring/ Birch Book) whose music I loved so much that the love to sing outgrew the fear... It started slowly... but today I have accompanied him in concert in Belgium and in India. Upon his return from India he released a CD, Webs Among The Din Vol.II, limited to 50 copies and now sold-out. But below are two extracts from the CD which I sang with him in January 2008 in Pondicherry, India.

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Zephyr through the Willows
The Carnival is Empty

Photo by Niko; taken on 4 December 2008 at Het Depot, Leuven (Belgium)