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Raising My Voice for International Day of Peace

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Happy International Day of  Peace!  
¡Feliz Día Internacional de la Paz!

Established in 1981 by the United Nations, www.internationaldayofpeace.org states that “International Day of Peace (‘Peace Day’) is observed around the world each year on the 21st of September as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples.”

I’ve decided to celebrate the International Day of Peace today through this blog post highlighting some extraordinary peacemakers. Perhaps you’ll be inspired to join me, no matter where you are, by taking a moment to honor the day in your own way, whether it’s sitting in silent meditation, lighting a candle or doing a good deed for a stranger.

MY BIG DREAM: GIVING VOICE TO MY VALUES

As a solopreneur, independent voice actor and singer, one of the things I most value about my life’s work is the freedom to use my voice to communicate my beliefs and intentions. Whether singing with my husband and our Latin band, Sol y Canto, or recording voiceover projects in our studio, I cherish and seek out alignment between my work and my deepest beliefs whenever I can. Today I want to take the opportunity to recognize a few people and organizations that I believe are making a valuable contribution to world peace.

PEACEMAKERS BRIAN AND I DEEPLY ADMIRE

Pope FrancisScreenshot 2015-09-20 18.33.10

This is a Pope who has made the centerpiece of his papacy to speak for the poor and victims of oppression. Brian and I are really happy to see the Catholic church get involved in trying to make the world a more just and peaceful place. ¡Qué viva el Papa Francis!

The Upstander Project & Coexist

Upstander

Ever since I met her, I have deeply admired my longtime friend Mishy Lesser, who has dedicated her life to building peace. Her latest endeavor is the Upstander Project (UP). The story of the first truth and reconciliation commission to investigate Native American issues, it prepares teachers and their students to make “othering” socially unacceptable and to interrupt aggressive behavior in schools before it leads to violence. She played an instrumental role in Coexist, an extraordinary award-winning documentary about post-genocide Rwanda that fosters important conversations about how to promote forgiveness, compassion, and understanding.  www.upstanderproject.org. I highly recommend it!

Mina’s List

Screenshot 2015-09-20 18.30.18

Screenshot 2015-09-20 18.30.29
Aloisea Inyumba, Former Member Parliament, Rwanda

EMPOWERING WOMEN’S POLITICAL LEADERS GLOBALLY

Our remarkable friend Tanya Henderson recently founded Mina’s List, which seeks to realize women’s equal and substantive representation in national governments around the world. Check out this amazing article from the Huffington Post, and you’ll be blown away. Or visit www.minaslist.org

Screenshot 2015-09-20 18.32.43 World Fellowship

Where Social Justice Meets Nature

Whitton Pond
Whitton Pond, Conway, NH

A gorgeous retreat center near Conway, New Hampshire, World Fellowship is a place to rest, play and learn from inspiring activists who are committed to opening up dialog about things that really matter. A magical spot on beautiful Whitton Pond, World Fellowship is near and dear to our hearts – Brian and I have been singing there one weekend nearly every summer since the late 80’s! Our daughter Alisa took her first steps on the lawn outside the main lodge, and this past August she took the step of doing her own concert there. www.worldfellowship.org

OUR GIFT FOR YOU! ~ UN REGALITO

¡Feliz Día Internacional de la Paz! Brian and I wish for peace globally and peace for you and yours! Here’s a gift of a song we recorded with our band, Sol y Canto in 2007 on our bilingual children’s CD, “El Doble de Amigos/Twice as Many Friends,”  with a children’s chorus from our adopted city of Cambridge’s English-Spanish bilingual school, AMIGOS, by beloved folk singer Tom Paxton. We hope you enjoy it! Feel free to share it if so.

Bilingual Voice Actor Trapped in the Internet

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B in bowlHelp! I’ve fallen into the Internet and I can’t get out!

My wife and business partner Rosi will tell you I’m addicted to my devices. And much as I recoil from that accusation, I have to admit there’s a grain of truth to it. Maybe a big grain. Maybe that’s why I’ve resisted every new step into “connectedness”. I resisted getting a cell phone. I resisted getting a smart phone. I resisted texting. I resisted social media.

Until I didn’t.

It’s so easy for me to fall right through whatever screen I’m looking at, just like Alice into the looking glass, into a magical world where anything is possible, where mutually-exclusive absolutes can both be true, where you can “like” someone without liking them, and where people feel joyfully free to say disgusting, hateful things to each other that they would never say in person. It’s all so interesting!

Especially during our interminable election season, when we have around 54 people competing for America’s Biggest Demagogue. And because the outcome matters to me, because I care what happens to my country and to the world, I get sucked in, whirling around in a vortex of procrastination, and to what end? No matter how much I learn about politicians ignoring real problems, devising solutions to make-believe problems, and creating altogether new problems, there’s precious little I can do about it!

The problem for me is that all that temptation exists in a medium that we need to use to do business. The Internet is like a huge, open-air market. As a voice actor, I have to go to that market to connect to potential and actual clients, to contract jobs, and to deliver the goods. But hanging around all the entrances to the market are a bunch of ne’er-do-wells, sniffing glue, talking too loudly, making rude comments, and insisting I look at pictures of their pets. I’m not saying I suffer from ADD, but…Hey, look! a big truck just drove by!

I get distracted.

More than distracted. I get dismayed. I see the vitriol being spewed at immigrants, especially Hispanics, as has happened so many times before, and I can’t help but feel deeply disappointed that people are still falling for that stuff. Especially given that the people most vilified are often those who work the hardest.

Finally, a solution comes to me. The dog needs a walk, and I can’t walk him online! I put his leash on him and we go out into the real world. My head starts to clear immediately. I look around. No red-faced bloviators. No repuglicans, libtards or Mexican murderers and rapists anywhere to be seen. Just people. When I look at them, I don’t see my most negative prejudices. If we talk, we don’t scream at each other in capital letters.

When we get home, the dog’s happy, I’m relaxed, I’m no longer a voice actor trapped in the Internet, and I can focus on the task at hand. It’s ironic: I always knew the Internet was a great way of escaping from real life. What I didn’t realize is that real life is a great way of escaping from the Internet.

Voice Actors for Congress!

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I’ve often said that one of the most pleasant surprises for Rosi and me when we shifted from full-time music to full-time voiceover was the amazingly supportive community we discovered. Largely as a result of the Faffcon un-conferences we’ve attended almost yearly for several years, we’ve been welcomed into a tribe of professional voice actors who constantly go out of their way to help each other.

We’ve also seen how friendships seem to transcend differences of background and political orientation. In fact, our community of people who work with their voices is one of the only places I’ve seen that kind of comity lately. Of course one of the reasons for this is that we don’t talk politics much! But I can’t help but feel that I could have a vigorous political discussion with any number of my colleagues whose views differ drastically from my own without us screaming, cursing, insulting or yelling at each other, the types of political “communication” that seem to be most common these days on the Internet and in our culture at large. And unlike our government, this community is actually capable of coming together to work toward common goals. We’ve seen the birth and growth of networks such as World Voices, Voxy Ladies, and Faffcon itself, which promote the development of their members and uphold the standards and recognition of the value of professional voice work, while also giving back to their communities in the form of generous support and promotion of the work of charitable organizations.

I know this conviviality is not universal in the voiceover world. I’ve been told that in the world of commercial voiceover, especially at the national level, there’s plenty of backstabbing, and colleagues in other countries have expressed envy of how supportive our community is. Nor do I want to paint too rosy a picture of our slice of the VO world. We have disagreements, sometimes heated ones. There are jealousies and animosities. But we can talk to each other, and that’s a big deal.

Very recently I had the honor of voicing the Spanish version of the introductory video for Boston’s Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate. The Institute’s inauguration early this month featured a “Who’s who” of Democratic politicians: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Elizabeth Warren, to name a few; but John McCain and Trent Lott were also there to pay tribute to their old adversary and friend. And that tribute was heartfelt. When John McCain said “I miss my friend,” it was clear that he meant it. The contrast with today’s Congress could hardly have been more stark. There used to be politicians on both sides of the aisle capable of putting aside deep differences to work toward common goals. Today they don’t seem to be interested in finding any common goals.

Perhaps someday our politics will move away from fear, blame, hatred, resentment, and putting up obstacles to anything that could allow the other side to claim an achievement. In the meantime, I take inspiration from my VO colleagues. Maybe we CAN reach out and try to understand those who disagree with us. And maybe we can lead from the bottom up.

Merry Navidad! or How We Stopped Worrying And Found Our Own Way To Celebrate The Holidays

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2002: Christmas with 6-year-old daughters. Does it get any better?
2002: Christmas with 6-year-old daughters. Does it get any better?

It’s that time of year again! Christmas trees. Bells ringing at shopping malls. Children sitting on Santa’s lap. Non-stop Christmas carols, from the classic to the bombastic. And of course, a relatively new annual tradition: the call to arms in the “WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS!” We’re told that if someone wishes you a “Happy Holiday,” it’s because they’re trying to kill Christmas. I always thought that whether someone wishes me Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, happy holidays or season’s greetings, they’re wishing me well, and I appreciate it. But then again, I don’t have a full-time staff working tirelessly to find things for me to be mad about.

Maybe my laissez-Nöel attitude has to do with the way our family has come to celebrate Christmas; it’s bilingual, bicultural, and so idiosyncratic that we would never expect anyone else to celebrate the same way we do. Rosi is Jewish, and although my parents tried to raise me Christian, it didn’t really take. Still, Rosi’s Jewish-Argentine-Puerto Rican family did have a tree, celebrate Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) and share gifts, and Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays. One of the things I like most about it is how it has always absorbed elements from different religious and secular traditions and synthesized them into a much more universal celebration of peace, hope, giving, and light in the darkness.

Here’s what we do to celebrate Christmas. Tree? Yes. Lights on, and in, the house? Absolutely, though usually not until all the neighbors have theirs up for a few weeks. (I make up for this by leaving mine up until Valentine’s day.) Gifts? Sure, but not to an extreme, and not to the point of stressing about it. Parties? Yes, we try to have one, complete with lots of food (including pozole, a New Mexican stew made with hominy, pork and chile) and everyone singing Spanish and Latin American carols. Religious observance? Not really, but we do have a ritual that means a lot to us. On Christmas Eve, we sit in a circle around a lit candle. Each family member takes a turn holding the candle and saying what has been important to him/her in the year ending, recognizing any friends or relatives to whom s/he would like to send loving or healing thoughts, and sharing hopes for the coming year. When we’ve all had a turn, each person opens one gift, leaving the rest for Christmas day. Why? Who knows? My family always did it when I was a kid, and coincidentally, Rosi’s family did, too. After all this is done, when we should all be snug in our beds, I always seem to be wrapping presents. Christmas day we finish unwrapping presents, drink coffee, eat, see friends, maybe see a movie – it’s kind of like an extra-special Saturday with no chores!

However you celebrate Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/your holiday of choice, may it bring you warmth, joy and relaxation in the company of loved ones. Merry Everything!

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