On a bright but overcast day this spring, cycling over recently fallen tree limbs and past fleeing squirrels, I arrived at my destination - a cozy, gingerbread trimmed house here in Stratford. This is the home of Pam Gerrand, her husband Stephen Degenstein, their two children Carly and Jarad and their ‘singing dogs’.

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I felt I was at a slight disadvantage as I knocked on the door. Pam’s name is familiar to just about everyone, it seems, but me. Posters for Pam’s upcoming cabaret appear around town. Her previous performances and workshops are well documented. A website called ‘The Yummy Mummy Club’ mentioned her singing dogs (I had to find out more about this) and a photo of Pam being warmly greeted by Deepak Chopra, the internationally known alternative medicine practitioner and speaker. Her own website  overflows with endorsements and praise for her original cd’s, poems and sound healing workshops.

 

  As we sat down with a cup of tea, I discovered that in spite of my lack of familiarity, our children have known each other for years. Coincidences like that were something that we both have gotten used to, as we soon discovered. Pam had just come back from Collingwood’s Jazzmania Festival the day before. I asked how it went.

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“That was fun,” she began. “We did most of the tunes that we’ll be doing in Stratford.” By this Pam was referring to the Springworks Cabaret. “Some Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Barbara Streisand…I was a big Barbara Streisand fan in my teen years.”  Pam’s cabaret musical memoir is titled Songs I Sang at Seventeen - Torch, Twang and Tearjerkers. “(I’ve been) dipping into this bag of songs I haven’t sung in years and it’s been…in the past year…seeing that life is not a straight path. It’s a spiral and we come to contact points on that spiral as we go.”

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Revisiting the covers and standards was an idea born from an association with the percussionist named Bambalamb and pianist Avril Dell. A concert in February, fraught with problems including a snowstorm and illness among the musicians and even worse,  Pam losing her voice almost entirely, had a surprisingly happy ending. With a bit of ‘prayer and negotiating’ the night before and a husky voiced explanation to the audience before the performance, what unfolded was a warm reception and questions like ‘what is the name of your trio?’ “Being in that place of vulnerability and just being true, people related to that in a really deep way.” ‘Pam Gerrand and the Silver Linings’ seemed like the right name and they were asked to do the Jazzmania Festival in Collingwood as well as weddings and gigs in Toronto.

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As we talked, my attention was drawn to what looked like a small briefcase on the table between us. “It’s called a Shruti box,” Pam explained. But before demonstrating the instrument, Pam wanted to say what brought her to Stratford. “I came here to be in the acting company. I did the Gilbert and Sullivans with Brian MacDonald. I played Kate, a virginal daughter of Major Stanley. A few weeks into it, I wasn’t feeling well and found out I was actually pregnant. I stayed on and was doing the Charleston when I was 20 weeks along. I did that show (Pirates of Penzance) with my little pirate on board for 30 weeks.”

 

After taking a few years off and raising her children, Pam discovered the writer in her and in 2001, recorded her first album of original music. She followed this up with a cd of healing and chants from the Rig Veda, a 4000 year old Indian ‘bible’.  “I started merging this world between writing original music and entering into a time of deep study of Yoga, meditation and chanting.” Pam studied Nada Yoga, an ancient metaphysical system based on the premise that the cosmos and everything in it consists of sound vibrations called Nada. After studying at Gary Diggins’ Toronto Sound Source to become a sound practitioner, Pam helped found the Canadian Association of Sound Practitioners. “From there I started giving workshops, keynotes and developing a platform as a speaker,” she continued.

I asked Pam how she accounted for the inspiration and move to spiritual writing and practicing. “You know…it was having children. It was the ‘beginner’s mind’ that a child gives you. They bring you back down to what is true and real,” she explained after some reflecting. She then took up the Shruti box and explained how mantras are codes created thousands of years ago by Yogis. “They are sonic codes used for healing,” she informed me. “They have a profound affect on the person chanting in the form of lowered heart rate, elevated serotonin and so on, even after fifteen minutes of chanting.” Slow methodic movements of the bellows on the box in Pam’s hands began to produce a soft droning sound. She started to chant what in English would be called ‘I Celebrate the Dance of Life’.  I listened as she found her voice. Very soon it began to rise in power with shamanic like tones and force. The chanting repeated and she continued to operate the little box  she called her ‘sonic perfume‘. It had a calming, affirmative effect and produced a kind of spell before long. The spell was broken by something I had completely forgotten to ask about. Singing dogs! At this point we had to laugh and I have to say the dogs, who were upstairs, were actually in key.

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  Pam’s journey - her experiences - stretch far beyond the limitations of the space provided here. Moments of strange synchronicity, meeting Deepak Chopra who states ‘Pam Gerrand is a radiant voice for peace in our world today’, a recent visit to the location of the shootings in Colorado, encounters with like minded people in Sweden, England and Peru could fill volumes. Singer, songwriter, healer, poet and proponent of peace. Pamela Jane Gerrand, I now understand, is many things.

 

The soft light of the late afternoon took hold of my bicycle and I decided, for the moment at least, not to choose a direction and go with the flow.

For concert or workshop bookings, and to book a private sound healing session, you can contact Pam at pamgerrand@sympatico.ca or by phone at (519)271-1438