Meet The Voices Of The Audiobook
Nichelle Owens and Ben Umstead share their experiences narrating Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity and how it relates to their own Healing & Growth work with Martin
Guest Post written by Ben Umstead, featuring a conversation with Nichelle Owens
If you were to ask me what Healing & Growth is, I would tell you it is the cracking open of one’s heart, again and again. I would tell you it is an adventure. The adventure of life itself, unfolding on a spectrum of infinite wonder. Emanating from that pulse of wonder is creative wisdom. I experience creative wisdom as a gentle and knowing voice from deep within, beckoning my egoic mind to integrate with the rhythms of my soul. When I’m growing in this way, there is a lack of tension in my body that reflects the healing that is occurring within that ease of rhythm.
I have spent the last year and a half collaborating with my life-long friend Martin Perkins on bringing his book, Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity, to life. In taking this project from a loosely connected set of essays, poems and ideas on the ways in which we can integrate Healing & Growth into our lives, to a fully fleshed-out book of practices and teaching stories on our inner language, I have learned to better listen to that creative voice that resides deep within my soul.
Last month, I traveled from my home in Virginia to Martin’s healing center, Simplicity Farm, in Maryland, to begin a new chapter on my journey of Healing & Growth. Having published the book in trade paperback, it was now time to step into Martin’s DIY recording studio and become one of the voices who would narrate the audiobook. The other person lending their voice to the project was Nichelle Owens, Martin’s long-time acupuncture client and friend. This past week, Nichelle and I got on the phone to look back on our time recording Language of the Soul and how the experience informed our own Healing & Growth journeys. She tells me the moment she first heard about the audiobook and how her own creative wisdom lit a spark she could not ignore. “One day, after an acupuncture session, Martin told me his next step with his book was recording the audiobook. I said to him ‘Oh I’d like to narrate it!’ He looked at me and asked ‘You would?’ And then he really didn’t respond after that. The next day he reached out and asked, ‘were you really serious about that?’ And I said ‘Yeah!’ There was that little voice inside of me that said ‘hey take advantage of this creative opportunity.’ I think that little voice has wisdom.” Nichelle’s speaking voice emanates a warmth and curiosity that is infectious for anyone who is listening. Her cadence is gentle and tenacious at the same time. It is something that has served her well in her experience as an educator. “When I was in the classroom teaching, one of my favorite activities would be to read a story to my students. Even though they were primarily 3rd through 6th graders my preference was to really calm things down at the end of the day and engage in a read aloud. More recently in administrative meetings, colleagues have said ‘Nichelle, you just take my blood pressure down when I talk to you.’ I have another colleague who had said to me ‘when you retire from this place, you need to go record books.’”
Feeling the rhythm of one’s creative wisdom is a powerful aspect in the adventure that is Healing & Growth. Coming to embody that rhythm can take time. Or as Martin relays in both the book and the course that inspired it: ‘practicing in real-time. Practicing in presence.’ Nichelle has been receiving acupuncture from Martin for nearly ten years. “I began after a pretty serious illness,” she tells me. “The acupuncture experience has really helped me become more in tune with my body, with my thought process, and my overall well-being. I’ve been integrating my body, mind and heart, rather than just approaching things from what’s going on with my body and not connecting it to what’s going on in my thoughts and in my heart. It’s created a more embodied experience for me to know my overall wellness and the connections between all of my systems.”
When considering my own adventure in Healing & Growth, I am aware of how fear has affected sharing this journey with others. In practicing with stillness, I have learned how to exist from within a vulnerable place, finding the courage to share without reservation. If I were to tell you about my life as a globe-trotting, award-winning filmmaker, film critic, and film festival programmer, you may assume I have experienced success from a monetary standpoint. In truth, while I have always followed my heart, I have struggled financially. This chosen struggle stemmed from the constant worry and anxiety around the narrative that I was not worthy; that I wasn’t good enough to earn a proper income. It was a narrative I held onto simply out of familiarity, and the blind reach for something beyond myself: a title, a skill, a trait. Something I could sell. I was reaching beyond the beauty that already resided within me; a beauty that everyone in my life sees in me. The beauty of simply being myself, unfolding on a spectrum of infinite wonder.
When Martin asked me if I would work with him on the book, he emphasized he wasn’t asking because of some experience or role or title I had held in the past. He was asking because he wanted to work with me. By simply showing up to Martin’s project as the creative and playful being I inherently am, I cracked my heart. This important aspect of my Healing & Growth became more embodied when I joined Martin and a cohort of students in the Language of the Soul course a few months into the editing process of the book. Becoming a dedicated student of the stillness practices detailed in the book brought about a stunning synergy to our work. Our roles as teacher and student blended in a dance of friendship and collaboration that made my heart sing.
As Nichelle and I continue our conversation, she hones in on the nature of how vulnerability showed up in the recording process, and in turn, how that expanded her own Healing & Growth. “The leap into recording was a test of me being vulnerable in unfamiliar territory,” she tells me. “If someone asked me to write a grant proposal or work with a group of teachers I could do that hands down, but in this case, I really had to expand within myself. I had to be mindful. I had to make sure that I gave voice to what Martin was thinking while also being true to myself. I think for me this was really a matter of the personal growth and healing that is captured so well in the book.”
Nichelle’s experience takes me back to the many months of rewrites and how I first lent my own voice to the book. As Martin and I found our footing, we discovered it was very helpful to read and reread aloud the many chapters and vignettes taking shape. Soon enough, this became foundational in our work, and as Martin focused his energy on the writing itself, much of the reading fell to me. As I simply loved reading aloud, anytime, anywhere, for an audience, or by myself, it was an experience I luxuriated in. When it came time to plan for the audiobook, Martin turned to me and simply stated “You’re going to narrate.” While I had never directly considered narrating the book for listeners, it made complete sense to me. That flame had been glowing in me all along. And here was an opportunity to let it shine. Through the sustained process of reading aloud, first in drafting the book, and then in the recording, my practice in how I embodied my creative wisdom blossomed. I reveled in the playfulness of narration; the silences between words, the tonal shifts, emphasization; how I used my diaphragm, my muscles. Through the simple act of practicing, I discovered using my voice in this way felt totally and wonderfully innate. Something Nichelle echoes in our conversation. “Reading aloud feels really natural to me. And there’s just something very real in being able to practice reading and applying this voice that people say that I have.”
Due to the sensitivity of the recording equipment and Martin’s steadfast canine companion, Bear, making enough noise to interrupt the process, my time giving voice to the chapters and poems throughout the book was largely solitary. Nichelle’s task of reading the vignettes - short companion pieces interspersed throughout the text - saw her sitting down with Martin, while I kept Bear company on walks in the forest. “You know I’m a black woman sitting in a room with a white man, in a situation where I am totally comfortable engaging and reading this book because it’s so true. That is the grounding point and the connecting point.” Nichelle’s experience recording with Martin is a reflection of his wholistic approach to life, or, what he calls his mission in life: to Heal & Grow. A mission he believes we can all experience when we access what is the core tenant of the book: our own unique and soulful language. This approach to a wholistic and natural life is a practice where we don’t compartmentalize ourselves. For instance, no matter the setting or context you may meet Martin - whether as a consciousness teacher, father, acupuncturist, lover of nature or friend - there is a natural quality present. Healing & Growth in practice creates this soulful inner language that expresses the natural qualities of a human being. “Oftentimes in our society you don’t get to engage across gender and race with such deep conversations,” Nichelle affirms of her experience working with Martin before turning back to her own inner journey. “Again, recording the vignettes felt like I was growing in a way I hadn’t before. It was that opportunity to feel vulnerable. The opportunity to hear feedback. The opportunity to give voice to really good writing… It just felt like that’s where I needed to be at this stage in my life. Ten years ago it would have been a thought but not an action. At this point in time, I had the courage and the creative wisdom to say to Martin ‘Hey I’d like to do it!’. The biggest challenge was internal. It was me growing. It was me healing by doing something that just comes natural to me.”
And so it goes, the adventure of life itself, unfolding on a spectrum of infinite wonder.