The Sacred Self: Connection through Music

What is one word to explain “sacred” according to Juliana Marin? Connection.

In the first installment of our July Speaker Series, The Sacred Self, I talked with Juliana Marin about how music helps her connect with the sacred in her everyday life. 

Juliana is a soprano based in Baltimore, MD. Like most professional musicians (myself included), teaching is a big part of her income. Juliana has always felt compelled to share what she learns with others and has always resonated with a mentor relationship, so moving into teaching right out of grad school was a natural step. What she wasn’t expecting was how teaching would reconnect her with her spark for performing when she felt it fade away.

Juliana found herself absorbed in her day job - something that asked little related to her art, but was in itself emotional and physically draining. After months of this, finding that she had fewer performance opportunities than she’d like and almost no joy when she did perform, she felt drawn to an Alexander Technique for Musicians event. There, she had to confront the fact that she “pretends she doesn’t have a body,” and had been doing that for most of her life. She learned that by disconnecting herself from her body, and her body from her singing, she was not protecting her enjoyment, but instead was being robbed of it. By understanding the ineffability of the connection between body and self, despite how terrifying it was to consider, she found herself freed to sing with joy once more.

She has since joined a prestigious chorus as a soloist and fellow, performed a European tour, and is seeking high-level certification in Alexander Technique so that she can bring this understanding of connection to all of her students.

Around that time, she sang at her church a familiar passage of scripture. “Be not afraid,” she sang, “for I have redeemed you…I have called you by name…you are precious in my sight.” Though this text had been read in church hundreds of times, she was only able to absorb the profound, sacred connection within herself after admitting she has a body and deserves to be free to enjoy and share her gift of music.

Juliana used this text from Parker J Palmer’s, “The Courage to Teach” as a reference for our conversation:

“Fear is everywhere and it cuts us off from everything. Fear is so fundamental to the human condition that all the great spiritual traditions originate in an effort to overcome its effects on our lives. "Be Not Afraid" does not say that we should not have fears and if it did, we could dismiss it as an impossible counsel of perfection. Instead, it says that we do not need to *be* our fears, quite a different proposition. No matter where we are or what condition we are in or how many obstacles are before us, we can always come back home through a simple inward turning. In this home, we know ourselves not as isolated atoms threatened by otherness but as integral parts of the great web of life. And that knowing we are taking beyond fear toward wholeness.”

I had the honor to join her in performing “Be Not Afraid” by Craig Courtney. It was a beautiful full-circle moment, as Juliana and I went to graduate school together (I forced her to be friends with me on our first day and we’ve been sharing every detail of life ever since) and I have joined her at her Baltimore church numerous times. It was a joy to have her in mine, and attendees were so moved by our conversation.

Join us for other installments of The Sacred Self, Sundays in July at 11 AM.

- Cari Meffle, member/church scribe/professional flutist (Cari Shipp, flutist)