Call Off The Thought And Sing
Call off the Thought and Sing is an online discussion show that integrates singing, music and movement on Zoom, hosted by Briony Greenhill.
WE NEED TEMPLES · CALL OFF THE THOUGHT AND SING
How is the return of the feminine shaping spirituality? Sacred Body, Sacred Earth....
In the UK, we've been culturally required to be Christian for about 2000 years, until my parents' generation mostly just said, "actually, no."
Folks then seemed to generally prefer rationalist atheism, and many of my generation grew up without religion forced on us. We looked around and said, wow! Everything is alive and... interconnected and... awe-some!
So. What's happening? Let's talk. Authentically as always.
How it works
We gather on zoom and settle in together (please try to be on time). We'll listen to some music, the speakers will speak for about 5 mins each, then we'll open the conversation to everyone. At various points we'll Call off the Thought and Sing, using voice to digest the emotions raised by the conversation; we'll mostly be on mute, but hopefully some of you will come off mute sometimes. From time to time we have a guest musician. We'll practice plurality (holding space for divergent view points), communicate respectfully, and make sense of our world together in a held space.
With...
Tess Howell's ministry is powerful. She connects people to body, nature and what we might call a bigger aliveness, in my experience very directly, through leading dance outdoors.
Connie Batten is my American Hunka Mama. Raised in the Episcopal Church, they practiced Zen Buddhism for several decades before profoundly exploring Native American spirituality. They live simply, in deep relationship with a particular ridge top in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Northern California, close to the changes, small and vast, in storm and sunlight, moon and starlight, madrones and redwoods, crickets and quail, wild cats and coyotes, snakes and lizards.
Diahann Holder is a Life Design Mentor, & Conscious Entrepreneur supporting new wave female leaders, creatives and entrepreneurs to embody and leverage their unique, personal essence for quantum prosperity in life, business and love.
“Kate Joyner is a modern day temple priestess and activist of the ancient ways. You’ll most likely find her dancing in flames while toasting menstrual blood to the Moon. A thunderbolt to the heart, she is a contemporary embodiment of the unspoken and suppressed voices of the wild and divine feminine. Her witchy work is revolutionary — and taboo in just the ways we need in this precarious time of radical change." - Bill Plotkin
Hosted by Briony Greenhill, a folk-soul improvisational artist and international teacher of CVI (collaborative vocal improvisation). She's a qualified SomaSource leader - a psycho-spiritual educator, artist, activist and healer who has an integrated understanding of how to creatively work in developmentally attuned ways with diverse people throughout life’s cycles. She also has a 1st class degree in Political Science and worked in think tanks and social change organisations through her 20s. Her work is intimate and political, in service to regenerative culture and paradigm shift, and healing what is torn in the world.
Problems figuring out how to pay? Once you’ve selected your ticket type and quantity, navigate to your shopping basket in the top right hand corner of the website.
QUIET FEARS · CALL OFF THE THOUGHT AND SING No. 8
CVI (collaborative vocal improvisation) is a new artform. Many have stumbled upon how transformative it can be, and how it can help to heal personal, and perhaps even intergenerational or collective wounding and trauma.
On 18th September I’m honoured to be joined by Nessi Gomes, Anita Lewis, Marcia Willis, Melissa James and Conor O’Brien to discuss, from their direct experience and from their perspectives of therapeutic expertise, how it might be that singing, and particularly improvised singing, can support healing perhaps in some different ways to other therapeutic modalities.
Nessi Gomes is a musician and group facilitator with a BA (Hons) in Creative Expressive Therapies in Music and a certified Holistic Voice Therapist with The British Academy of Sound Therapy (BAST) in Group Voice Therapy. She teaches Vocal Odyssey courses which are transformational, and her first album, Diamonds and Demons won her Best of British Unsigned Female Artists in that year.
Marcia Willis is a vocal improviser and psychiatrist, with professional and personal experience of these different paradigms of healing.
Conor O'Brien is a Music Therapist who did his graduate dissertation on the therapeutic aspects of CVI (Collaborative Vocal Improvisation). His literature review revealed that there was no literature at all on the subject, and his dissertation may be the first.
Anita Lewis is a Cranial Sacral practitioner who guides body focused trauma-informed practices that restore connection and resilience for personal and collective deep system health. She's also a cracking vocal improviser and has witnessed, participated in and supported deep healing work using CVI.
Valentina Levchenko is a singer, improviser, composer, and community leader from Eastern Ukraine. She built a successful business career in Ukraine that she left to follow her dream of being a musician. She studied under Rhiannon's and Bobby McFerrin's patronage and explored different music techniques in the U.S. Canada, and Brazil. In 2019, her music journey brought her to Brazil where she released her first album Berehy which became one of the top 10 Indie albums of the year in Ukraine. Valentina created Kyiv Community Choir and became a TEDx Kyiv Speaker. She put her spin into organizing music camps in the Ukraine to help non-professional singers learn to overcome the fear of singing and accept their own culture.
We ask for £5 - £15 sliding scale to support the production team and the speakers.
How it works
We gather on zoom and settle in together (please try to be on time). We'll listen to some music, the speakers will speak for about 5 mins each, then we'll open the conversation to everyone. At various points we'll Call off the Thought and Sing, using voice to digest the emotions raised by the conversation. We'll mostly be on mute, but hopefully some of you will come off mute sometimes. From time to time we have a guest musician. We'll practice plurality (hold space for divergent view points), communicate respectfully, and make sense of our world together in a held space.
Hosted by Briony Greenhill, a folk-soul improvisational artist and international teacher of CVI (collaborative vocal improvisation). She's a qualified SomaSource leader - a psycho-spiritual educator, artist, activist and healer who has an integrated understanding of how to creatively work in developmentally attuned ways with diverse people throughout life’s cycles. She also has a 1st class degree in Political Science and worked in think tanks and social change organisations through her 20s. Her work is intimate and political, and in service to regenerative culture and paradigm shift, and healing what is torn in the world.
Problems figuring out how to pay? Once you’ve selected your ticket type and quantity, navigate to your shopping basket in the top right hand corner of the website.
BLESS THE GIRL · CALL OFF THE THOUGHT AND SING No.6
How can we support adolescents in order to cultivate a healthy, non-toxic sex culture? With Melissa Michaels, Frederick Marx, Leigh Senna and Dawn Cherie. In partnership with Golden Girls Global.
Bringing together the rites of passage community, the sexual healing community, educators, mentors, parents and leaders to bridge our worlds and discuss how we move beyond sexual violence and distress and show up in a skilled way to help adolescents develop a healthy relationship with sexuality from the get go.
With:
Melissa Michaels, Ed. D., is the Founder / Director of SomaSource Educational Programs, Golden Girls Global, and Golden Bridge, a not-for-profit dedicated to improving and empowering the lives of people through body-centered initiatory processes, mentoring, and community action.
Frederick Marx is an internationally acclaimed, Oscar and Emmy nominated film director/writer with 40 years in the film business. He has made a short film about Rites of Passage, and is very involved in the Mankind Project.
Dawn Cherie is a lead facilitator at the International School of Temple Arts (ISTA), and works extensively to help adult women to heal their shame around their sexuality and menstruation. A piece of her work is retrospective initiatory rites with the maiden in each woman. What if we had those rites at that actual time?
Leigh Senna is a multidisciplinary sexuality and pleasure coach, right of passage guide, and mama practiced in creating deep healing and transformative space.
Hosted by Briony Greenhill, a folk-soul improvisational artist and international teacher of CVI (collaborative vocal improvisation), who has a 1st class degree in Political Science and worked in think tanks and social change organisations through her 20s. Her work is intimate and political, and in service to regenerative culture and paradigm shift.
Problems figuring out how to pay? Once you’ve selected your ticket type and quantity, navigate to your shopping basket in the top right hand corner of the website.
(HOW) IS LOVE EVOLVING? · CALL OFF THE THOUGHT AND SING No. 4
Call off the Thought and Sing is a monthly event that integrates singing, music and movement with discussion on Zoom, 6-7.30pm UK time Sundays (10-11.30am Pacific), hosted by Briony Greenhill.
Are old social norms eroding? What is emerging in their place?
Briony says:
“My parents met at 22, married at 24, and are still together. Judeo-Christianity, the dominant moral framework in the West for about 2000 years until... recently... said ‘ideally, don't have sex at all, but if you must, do it with one person within marriage’. My intimate life, and those of many, many people I know, looks nothing like that.”
Is love evolving? If so, how? From shifts in gender templates and power balances, to communication styles, attachment styles, wounds and healing; from monogamy to non- monogamy and a plethora of new terms for gender, orientation and relationship structures; from the nuclear family (is it radioactive?) to community. Lots to talk about, and feel, and sing into. Let's come together.
With...
Rachel Rickards is the co-founder of Embodied Intimacy and an adventurous spirit in the realms of love, sex and relationship. She has great enthusiasm for the spiritual journey of finding your own relationship in relating with others and to yourself.
Ohad Pele is a lead faculty in the International School of Temple Arts (ISTA) and has been teaching Kabbalah, Sacred Sexuality and Conscious Relating for more than 30 years. Originally a traditional Rabbi in Jerusalem, as well as an academic scholar and a community leader, Ohad is well known as one of the most influencing and radical spiritual teachers in Israel.
Sola Story brings an African perspective and a deep familiarity with Western culture. He is an international storyteller, facilitator and rites of passage leader, whose work draws on African Martial Arts, Nature engagement, Drumming, Storytelling, Creative Arts, Mindfulness and Visualisation. He just got married :)
Sasha Damjanovski is a filmmaker, a trainer and an intimacy coach with specialism in conscious kink, tantra, and open relationship.
Your host, Briony Greenhill, is a folk-soul improvisational artist and international teacher of CVI (collaborative vocal improvisation). She also has a 1st class degree in Political Science and worked in think tanks and social change organisations through her 20s. Her work is intimate and political, and in service to regenerative culture and paradigm shift.
How it works
We gather on zoom and settle in together. Please try to be on time. We'll listen to some music, the speakers will speak for about 5 mins each, then we'll all have an open conversation, facilitated by Briony. At various points we'll call off the thought and sing, using voice to digest the emotions raised by the conversation; we'll mostly be on mute, but hopefully some of you will come off mute somehow. From time to time we have a guest musician. Practicing plurality (holding space for divergent view points), communicating respectfully, making sense of our world together in a whole person way, in a held space.
Problems figuring out how to pay? Once you’ve selected your ticket type and quantity, navigate to your shopping basket in the top right hand corner of the website.
‘Crossing the Ocean’ - Album listening party!
‘Crossing the Ocean’ the album I’ve been slowly making for the past 2 years through a pandemic, is finished!
The debut studio album from Briony Greenhill fuses jazz/folk/soul genres: we could call this Pagan Gospel. An acoustic record with soulful lead vocals from improviser / producer Briony Greenhill, singers improvising lush harmonies, solid drum and double bass, nylon-string guitar, grand piano, and exquisite horn and string arrangements, laced with a touch of wooden flute. Each song originally arrived whole as an improvisation.
You’re warmly invited to a FREE launch listening party on Zoom, Feb 27th 6 - 7.30pm UK, 10-11.30am Pacific, 7-8.30pm France.
Call off the Thought and Sing no. 3 - Broken World
How f****d are we, in terms of climate change and ecological crisis, and what might be some good ways to respond?
Join Dr Jem Bendel, XR co-founder Skeena Rathor and Tamera Ecovillage leader Martin Winiecki to discuss our global ecological and systemic moment and what the ??? to do???
Call off the Thought and Sing is a monthly discussion show that integrates singing, music and movement on Zoom, 6-7.30pm UK time Sundays, hosted by Briony Greenhill.
With:
Dr Jem Bendell is a Professor of Sustainability Leadership and Founder of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria (UK) as well as Founder and former coordinator of the Deep Adaptation Forum.
Skeena Rathor is a co-leader of Extinction Rebellion and District Councillor for Stroud.
Martin Winiecki is the Director of the Institute for Global Peacework at Tamera, an 'aspiring healing biotope' - an ecovillage in Portugal that views the roots of our crises in a 5000-year-old 'trauma matrix,' and sees hope in healing ourselves and all our relations, and the emergence of a 'sacred matrix'.
Your host, Briony Greenhill, is a folk-soul improvisational artist and international teacher of CVI (collaborative vocal improvisation). She also has a 1st class degree in Political Science and worked in think tanks and social change organisations through her 20s. Her work is intimate and political, and in service to regenerative culture and paradigm shift.
How it works
We gather on zoom and settle in together. Please try to be on time. We'll listen to some music, the speakers will speak for about 5 mins each, then we'll all have an open conversation, facilitated by Briony. At various points we'll call off the thought and sing, using voice to digest the emotions raised by the conversation; we'll mostly be on mute, but hopefully some of you will come off mute somehow. From time to time we have a guest musician. Practicing plurality (holding space for divergent view points), communicating respectfully, making sense of our world together in a whole person way, in a held space.