A Soul Conversation with Ilene Evans

 

“It has been a dark time”, the reverberations from Ilene Evan’s rich voice traveled through my telephone receiver and bounced around the four corners of my room to begin a one hour spoken word and song performance—a soul conversation.

Under the light of the silvery moon, Ilene led a group of us through endless miles of telephone wires and cellular towers into a collective. A night collective, raw and spent from the stresses of the day, waiting to be led into the dreaming hours, to the healers of sleep that come in our dreams, to be given back the night that is often stolen from us; to dream the future into being.

Our time with Ilene began in different time zones for each of us, but had actually begun months earlier.  A post-election phone call. A conversation that began with a walk in the wood between two friends, their bond forged throughout the life journey of 40 years, held together by strands and chords of poetry, stories, and music.

“How do we cope? How do we cope when the dark times seem so relentless?”

For those of you who have not experienced the soul conversations with Ilene Evans, to merely describe her approach to story and spoken word would be an injustice, it must be experienced. Ilene tells stories that favor alternative ways of bringing peace into our homes. Using her voice to tell long-loved folk tales, woven together with rich spoken word, and the music to heal the soul, Ilene brought us through stories of the hard times, the resilience of the women and of the people, and the strength of us all in numbers. As Ilene will pose the question, “is it a disservice to call ourselves a melting pot? Are we not more like a bouquet? We as a people make a lovely bouquet. The great colors. It takes all colors…it takes all colors to fill my heart.”

To lead us into the land of dreaming and to mend the wounds of the soul, Ilene lead us to our purpose and mission even in the times of great danger to serve the greatest need.

And as we ended our call with a blended voice and song, knowing that as we head to sleep, there are others who are just now waking up and the work is far from over.

“Sweet dreams, know you are loved, and you are not alone”.

Please join SEHN, Ilene, and an extraordinary panel for the Women's Congress November 3-5th.