in the universe

for those of you who have watched the videos - i have been working on the opening section, the attempts at finding the voice... anyway. you can watch. when i started working on this section - last summer - i was working on finding movement based on the sounds of the word, annunciation, which came out to me as:
ah
none
see
A
shun.
I then let the sounding inform the movement and the movement inform the sound. I played with the sounds, as well as the "meaning" of those words - until the phrase began to emerge. Chip and I, with Nicole's direction broke down the getting to that section to include: a forced first breath, a coughing as words get caught trying to get out, finally into the first "ahhh" sound.
Then just this morning, this came in from Kobutsu. The universe - ahhhh. (I will try and post the MP4 as well. hope it works)

Dear Celeste,

The vocalization-literation (I don't know how else to put it) -- the dramatic sounding-out of the emphasized syllables that you begin your sequence on the rehearsal video -- very much reminds me of a technique I have been using for years in chanting instruction. Your instructive vocalization is a brilliant segway into the story.

I'm not sure I can properly convey this in text. I will consider this and perhaps make a little MP4 on it later today. What is most familiar is the initial sounding of the Aaah sound.... It is the first syllable found in the oft' mis-chanted OM mantra (particularly in the Hindu tradition) It does not contain the "hard" "O" sound, and it does not contain two syllables; rather, three. It begins with the Aaah sound (the first sound we make as infants) coming from the deep far back of the throat, goes into a soft "auh" or "ooo" sound and ends with a more forceful (sort of "capping") sound: humm or huum.

Writing this in text is clumsy for me, I do not know the proper diacritical marks to place over the vowels to convey the sound.

OK, I just dug out the iPod and microphone. (Amazing what gadgetry we 21st century monks work with! I was amused in South East Asia to find that every monk and his brother has a cell phone. Not only that, but these days, monk's robes are now all made with cell-phone pockets sewn into them. Thankfully, I do not own a cell phone. )
Kobutsu