I took my Expressive Arts Women’s Group on a field trip to Charlene Penner’s Cistern Chapel in Ramona; awe inspiring! This is basically a dark (really dark at night) round, metal sound chamber. Charlene was inspired to build this ‘chapel’ after her neighborhood began construction on a huge water tank just up her mountain road. She found herself being drawn to the powerful resonance that echoed from inside. One night Charlene stepped through its giant portal; beginning her pilgrimage of sounding and singing within its chamber, until, one day it was sealed and filled with water. Charlene took friends to experience its phenomenon and be immersed in the sound together. I was one of the lucky ones. I felt that this water tank was being prepared and blessed with sound before being filled. And so blessed was the water that was eventually released to the homes below.
I woke up the morning after our chapel visit to journal. Our group’s ‘experimental sounding’ was still ringing in my ears. Then I began to noticing the particular soundsthat surrounded me in that moment; the duck’s quack and dove’s coo, coffee brewing, early morning sprinkler’s spray,dogs doing thier morning patrol. I began to think of ways to identify my personal soundscape of summer by echoing sounds back, writing sounds down phonetically, drawing the silent sounds (bunnies hopping), putting color on paper that expressed my soundscape. There is such a cacophony of sound in which we swim! Let’s explore our personal soundscape of the remaining days of summer together. Any thoughts?