My favorite story above all used to be Ronja Rövardotter (Ronia the Robber's Daughter) written by Astrid Lindgren. As a kid I was deeply impressed by the brave little girl who was torn between two families, loved forests and had the most amazing spring scream.
Early on screaming turned into loudness and noise and was not fun anymore, it became angry and violent instead. And since I loved tranquility and balance I stopped screaming altogether and even the anger shrinked into crying. The only place where I felt loudness was allowed was on stage and it is no wonder that I turned into singing heavy metal and was crowned the Rock Queen of Helsinki in 1994 - I had Ronja Rövardotter in my soul.
Moving on to jazz studies I went back to studying voice and music from the scratch. I met a teacher I adored who told me she prefers quiet voices and "hate when singers yell". I carried these words with me and it wasn't until few years later, when another teacher put me against the wall and had me singing using my "full" sound again, that I at least partly let go of my soft voice ideal. However the body connection was still missing and I experienced my voice more through listening than feeling.
— Shusterman, 2006, Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 40, No. 1.
It wasn't until much later in NYC when I was asked to join a project where my role was to improvise with recorded animal sounds that I truly discovered my embodied voice. I had to dig deep into my body and mind to be able to respond and reflect to the sounds.
We often perceive our voice and body as something that we have rather than are. In improving our thinking through the body, rather than perceiving our bodies as if from outside, we can get back to contact with our inner perceptions and not only enhance the material means of human culture but also our capacities as subjects to enjoy it (Shusterman).
Which leads me back to Ronja Rövardotter. I did find my way back to my own nature home at a river bank in Lapland where I will belt out my spring scream again this year. The circle closes and the sound keeps lingering over the backwoods.