Sound, Belly and Luminescence (Maternal Carnatic Chanting)
See all the Details about this new service at Monica Fuquen’s “Sound of the Soul”.
On May 27th, 1990 at 3:50 am, as I was pushing with all my strength, I saw the eyes of life in front of me, my first son was born with his eyes wide open, looking at this world and unstoppably making sounds. As my son, I watched everything in a present and unique silence. Everything was true, I had just become a mother, and that little being that moved within me had already come to be in this reality.
I saw how the placenta that had nourished him for 9 months, was beating, it was alive, and from the bottom of my heart I was grateful for everything that it had given to my son. Then came the enormous joy of my second son’s birth, on October the 14th, 1992. A beautiful child who just wanted to be attached to my being, as if he wanted to keep our bond uninterrupted, and everlong.
What I remember most about my two pregnancies and labors, was the absolute presence of love, and an encounter with existence. I never experienced any pain so unbearable as to prevent me from enjoying every second of this magical experience. I was happy to give birth and went through it with joy.
Today, I recently became a grandmother through my first born child…
I breathe again the memories of my motherhood; with an additional element … The sound … It has been 10 years of soul sounds where the vibration has touched the most intimate strands of my humanity, in relation to the humanity of many beings that I call “Masters”. It’s my son, and his partner, who have shown me through their pregnancy with my granddaugter, an ancestral chant called “Carnatic chant”.
There are no coincidences in life…
Although causalities do exist. 3 years ago I was in India and I fell in love with the Tambura, to this day, my inseparable companion to sing the sounds from the soul. This chant is used by pregnant women, who, starting at the fifth month, sing to their babies’ vowels and the letter m accompanied by the tambura.
The Carnatic Chanting…
This “Maternal Carnatic Chanting” is traditional of South India and was introduced in Europe in the early 60s by the French obstetrician Frédérick Leboyer. Causes the relationship between a mother and her child to grow stronger, and by default, allows the baby to recognize her voice and heartbeat.
This encounter calms the baby down , and at the same time makes the mother understand and recognize the rhythms of the abdominal breathing so she can sing harmoniously, expanding her throat and larynx, also allowing the perineal area to relax and dilate naturally.
The chant enables a less painful labor, as the sound of her own voice facilitates the release of endorphins, which allow the body to produce a natural analgesic. This “carnatic chant” is a source of meditation and intimate connection with the being, the applicability is not only on pregnancy and delivery, but is pertinent to all the moments that make up life, because it evokes the most sacred of them all, the perfect space in which we have experienced the certainty of a mother’s shelter and protection.
One the many benefits of sound, is inducing a state of full presence, stilling the mind, connecting to the paused and deep respiration, relaxing the muscles, focusing on a birth that begins with the mother’s voice, who brings her son into existence and introduces him to the world in a natural, loving and luminous manner.
I was a mother at the age of 19…
And I never had this knowledge within my reach, nonetheless, I always trusted my intuition fully, to make these moments, the most beautiful I have experience as a woman on this planet we call earth.
… We have the eyes of the earth, and our children perceive it in the voice that comes from our heart…