My eyes are closed and my other senses engulf me in a deep wave of feeling. The music delights my ears, the night breeze caresses me, and the scent of nature indulges me. My eyes flutter open, and I look at the circle of women around me. Most sit with their eyes closed, their lips moving. Attire is simple and comfortable – this is a women’s retreat for relaxing, after all. The song ends, the room turns suddenly quiet – and we all turn our heads to Tziona Achishena, who sits at the front with her guitar. She opens her eyes, breathes deeply, and smiles. She looks around at the group with the affection of an old friend. She has connected with us, indeed, in a profound way.
I didn’t know Tziona before coming to this retreat, but I already feel comfortable and free enough to sing and dance along with her. Her eyes are warm and accepting on a face of delicate, gentle features. A simple kerchief laces her head and her dress is a somber navy blue. There is simplicity in her appearance, but complexity in her voice and emotion.
Tziona clutches her guitar closer, closes her eyes, and begins to strum the next tune to the words “Mi Hu Zeh Melech HaKavod.” She sings with the gentleness of breath, the softness of a bell. It is Tziona’s own song, and it flows naturally, without restraint, without effort. A woman in the group grabs the tambourine at Tziona’s feet and creates background rhythm to this repetitive, comforting tune that emerges from the soul. Tziona’s eyes open, she smiles in appreciation, then closes them and continues her song.
The emotion in the room is subtle but strong; gentle but powerful. Two women rise and begin to dance. They wave their arms and swing their legs gracefully, still with closed eyes. Here dance and song are a function of the heart, and the voice, arms, and legs only express it. Their dance is free, inviting, and more women join them. Each woman dances alone, her motions emerging from her depths, but, somehow, there is intense togetherness in the room. When the soul is illuminated, all women are one.
As I watch the women dancing and hum along with Tziona, I find myself dabbing wet eyes. No matter what each of us left behind at home, no matter where we are at in life, here we are whole, truly living and being ourselves. Here we discover what is inside, the beautiful part of us that is sometimes muffled or ignored in everyday living. Here, in the mystical north of Israel, in our picturesque corner of foliage, flowers, and a whispering breeze, the gaze upward is straight, simple, delightful. I join the women dancing and feel my heart expand.
Tziona’s creative energy inspires me, and I ask her where it came from. She tells me about her background. She grew up in Potomac, Maryland in an ultra-creative home: her mother is an artist and her father a journalist and wordsmith. It had always seemed normal to her that people would create art and play with words for a living. Her sister also has a beautiful voice, and their home was filled with books and records. Tziona says she is naturally introverted, so when she blasted music and sang along loudly, it was a way of emerging from her inner world and interacting with the world around her. “I always felt like my voice was a kind of beacon from within that connected me with something beyond myself,” she says. This, indeed, was her medium of expression from an early age until today, and hers is a life of continuous singing, dancing, and performing.
Tziona plays a variety of instruments: the piano, which is “pure and raw emotion,” like water; the guitar, her “oldest friend”; the cello, which “creates a big resonant sound that vibrates to my core”; the flute, which allows her to express her voice with a different rhythmic approach; drums, which she calls the “heart beat”; the harmonium, which is “like earth, from which the voice sprouts and grows,” and the ukele that “just makes me so happy.”
She studied the art of song and dance intensively – classical western vocal technique for a few years as a teenager and always dance, which she says gave her a body-centered rhythmic sensibility. She learned to play the cello and tambourine from teachers and taught herself to play the harmonium and various drums. She studied Persian singing privately with an Iranian expat in California for two years, as well as Yerushalmi cantillation and Buchari dance and drumming.
It was through the creative expression of song and dance that she discovered her heritage and embraced Jewish observance. At one point she hurt her wrists and couldn’t play music for a while. As a way to deal with her intense creative energies and her frustration at not being able to play, she turned to dance and simple singing prayer to access that inner space in her. She’d improvise stories as she sang, and most often her stories featured a character who had a physical lack along with a rare creative gift and was searching for G-d. Her Tai Chi teacher told her that these stories reminded him of stories told of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov and lent her a book of his stories. This was a turning point in her life: for the first time she felt a sense of belonging vis-a-vis Jewish tradition. It also made her realize that she “really needed Shabbat,” a time to break from intense creative work and allow herself to just be. Slowly, she learned more and with the inspiration of many teachers and Chabad of San Francisco began observing religious Judaism. Her journey eventually took her to Tzfat, where she lives today with her three young children.
Tziona studied clinical pastoral education and works today as a chaplain in hospitals and old age homes. She appreciates the incredible healing power of music and witnesses it first-hand. She is currently involved in a project (an Israeli offshoot of a North American project called “Music and Memory”) which provides iPods with personalized playlists to nursing home residents. It has been scientifically proven that beloved, familiar music can encourage increased cognitive and verbal abilities in patients, especially those suffering from dementia. Tziona contacted an organization called “In Their Shoes,” which provided a large donation of iPods to the facility she works in, and “the results have been amazing.”
She shares the story of an elderly woman who would dance on her bed when she sang and played the guitar for her, and familiar songs like “Shalom Aleichem” sparked her memory, allowing her to relive happy recollections of Shabbos spent with her family. She accompanied this woman until her deathbed, at which she played the Carlebach songs that she loved until she was too sick to enjoy them. Tziona works with another woman who was injured in a suicide bombing, and through music they find meaning and hope in her suffering.
The healing power of music occurs on all levels. Women respond to her music with tears, dancing, joy, and awakening. Sometimes there are immediate healing reactions, like when a woman’s migraine disappeared after she heard Tziona sing. Tziona finds it healing that through singing we can “express conflicting emotions and find harmony in that.” The creative process is also healing in that it allows a person to reprocess her life, reframing and finding the poetry in memories that are hard to integrate. Song also provides direct physical benefits: when you sing you are breathing and bringing oxygen into your body, creating good hormones, affecting your pulse patterns through the joy that music brings. Music can instantly alter our mood or physical state and expands consciousness.
Tziona began to perform for women in Israel about fifteen years ago. Good news has a way of traveling, and invitations to perform began to arrive. Soon she was asked to perform for Atara’s yearly gathering in New York, for which her friend and colleague Sheva Chaya created slide shows of her artwork as a backdrop to the performances. Today, Tziona is a sought-after singer in Israel, North America, Russia, and Ukraine. Just last spring, Tziona performed for a large group of women in Uman on a trip that featured Rebbetzin Tzipporah Heller, among others.
I reflect on what makes Tziona’s performances so popular. Hearing her sing and speaking with her, I realize that it must be the combination of visceral emotion and professional technique that create its deep and awesome impact.
Tziona’s songs are largely original. “When a new song is born, I feel I’m part of the birth of the renewal of creation,” Tziona says. It’s at those times that she knows what she’s here on earth for, and feels that she is doing and being it. “I create for the transcendental soul connection experience of joy, catharsis, release, and expansion of heart and mind, and as a way to connect with others,” Tziona says.
Tziona has recorded ten CDs, with more in the works. Her latest disc is a double album called “The Water Castle.” It retells a portion of story told by Rebbe Nachman called “The Seven Beggars,” from the point of view of a princess who flees from an evil king and finds refuge in the water castle. The story represents the power of song to heal. The music is very personal and reflects Tziona’s journey, but it is also universal in expressing all souls’ search for meaning in suffering.
Tziona’s best selling CD is “Miriam’s Drum,” a “kind of roots, Jewish/world chanting CD with instruments from around the world,” which she produced in collaboration with an Israeli/Russian artist, Shani Ben Canar.
Tziona’s life is one never-ending song, but the best part is that she doesn’t keep it to herself. She believes we need a lot more music, singing, dancing, and drumming so we can “move out of our heads.” If you ever heard Tziona sing, you know what she means.
Her magical visit at our retreat is winding to a close. “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li” – Tziona’s gentle tune pierces and envelops me at once. She stops in middle of her song and looks around with a smile. It’s almost Rosh Hashanah and the mood is definitely there. “It’s almost a new year, a new chance. Let’s empty out all of the love we have to give for this year – a new one’s coming!” Tziona hugs her guitar again and strums lightly, singing, humming. It’s not hard to feel love here; it is heavy and thick in this room.
And I hope to take it back with me, with Tziona’s tunes as inspiration.
Postscript: The music and memory program currently serves about 30 out of 130 residents in the Tzfat nursing home. Support is needed to provide another 100 elderly and isolated residents with iPods, and to continue to make this important therapeutic musical project available to those who need it. Donations can be made [email protected] via PayPal.