Ann Mortifee, born on a sugar cane farm in South Africa, is known by many to be a truly Renaissance woman: a unique and passionate performing artist, composer and librettist, a narrator, workshop facilitator, author, and keynote speaker. Her albums, books, one woman shows, musicals, ballets and her deep work with people have won her, among many awards, the prestigious Order of Canada and YMCA Woman of Distinction Award. She has been Chair of the BC Arts Council, travelled the world, worked with the dying, dined with the Queen, spent time with the head Sangoma of the Zulu Nation, worked in Calcutta with Mother Teresa, and co-founded The Trust for Sustainable Forestry and The Somerset Foundation.
Ann Mortifee is a singer with a four-octave register. She is spiritual and gifted with a knowing that I find refreshing and amazing. Her passion for life and for giving speaks loudly in her life and work.
We will discuss her journey from South Africa to North America; her Broadway gig - Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris;; the creation of "In Love With the Mystery," a most wonderful book published in 2010.
This will be a rich and beautiful collaboration that will delight our listeners.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Mortifee
www.annmortifee.com
#OrderofCanada #WomenofDistinctionAward #RenaissanceWoman
Tune in for this empowering conversation at TalkRadio.nyc
Music: https://meditationmusiclibrary.com/ The tune is "My Relaxing Piano."
Linda Marsanico welcomes Ann Mortifee a renowned artist and spiritual guide, whose life journey—from a South African sugarcane farm to working with Mother Teresa and Zulu healers—has been shaped by cultural duality, dreams, and nature. Ann shares formative memories of spiritual awakening, early illness, and deep connections to nature and service, which inspired a lifelong exploration of faith beyond borders. She speaks of a transcendent force manifesting through all traditions, emphasizing that even life’s darkest trials can become blessings when seen through a lens of growth and interconnectedness.
Linda reads powerful excerpts from Ann Mortifee's book In Love with the Mystery, exploring themes of perfection, cosmic timing, and conscious self-authorship. Ann reflects on the role of stillness and inner listening in her writing process and shares a moving story about late-in-life love and the importance of honoring one's personal evolution before joining paths with another. She also offers a vulnerable and transformative account of reclaiming her presence through mindful awareness—learning to "locate" herself in the now and rewriting the painful stories the mind creates, ultimately transforming suffering into spiritual growth.
Ann Mortifee shares the remarkable story of how her artistic career unfolded not through ambition, but through surrender, intuition, and spiritual guidance. From a serendipitous camp performance to starring in influential theater, composing for ballet, and turning down Broadway fame, she repeatedly chose authenticity and soul alignment over external validation. Her path reveals a powerful truth: when we follow our heart’s deeper knowing and resist the world’s pressure to conform, we open ourselves to a life of meaning, service, and true creative fulfillment.
Ann Mortifee returns in the final segment to share her current projects, including a memoir that weaves together decades of spiritual experiences, global travels, and artistic work guided by intuition and synchronicity. She recounts profound encounters—from dreams that revealed ancestral connections to collaborations shaped by divine timing—and reflects on the importance of showing up fully and honoring inner guidance. Living simply by the sea, Ann now focuses on documenting her journey and creative body of work, trusting that support will arrive as needed.
00:00:31.040 --> 00:00:32.450 Linda Marsanico: Hello, everyone!
00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:35.899 Linda Marsanico: Welcome to the A. Train to Sedona broadcast.
00:00:36.020 --> 00:00:37.599 Linda Marsanico: I'm Linda Marcannico.
00:00:38.430 --> 00:00:53.209 Linda Marsanico: The A. Train to Sedona is also the name of a memoir. I wrote about my journey to love and compassion. I share my failings, my successes in the hope that my journey will inspire yours.
00:00:53.970 --> 00:01:04.709 Linda Marsanico: You can buy a signed copy of my book on the website@lindamarsenico.com on, buy the book page, also at retail and bookstores.
00:01:05.720 --> 00:01:09.300 Linda Marsanico: I also have a free gift for you. I call it
00:01:09.630 --> 00:01:18.919 Linda Marsanico: the cheat sheet for high vibration, living 7 exercises designed to help you stay in the present moment with a high vibration.
00:01:19.230 --> 00:01:22.690 Linda Marsanico: One of them is a violet light
00:01:22.930 --> 00:01:29.699 Linda Marsanico: sort of a meditation. Where you bring the violet light, you intend it to come and cover your body, to protect and heal you.
00:01:30.350 --> 00:01:35.679 Linda Marsanico: You can download a free copy on my website@lindamarsenico.com.
00:01:37.700 --> 00:01:44.499 Linda Marsanico: I have 2 disclaimers, one, that this broadcast does not establish a professional relationship.
00:01:44.860 --> 00:01:53.239 Linda Marsanico: and 2, that the opinions expressed on this broadcast do not necessarily represent talk radio. New York City.
00:01:54.350 --> 00:01:58.180 Linda Marsanico: Today my guest is Anne Morthy
00:01:59.820 --> 00:02:05.319 Linda Marsanico: Anne Mordafi, born on a sugarcane farm in South Africa.
00:02:05.830 --> 00:02:09.979 Linda Marsanico: is known by many to be a truly Renaissance woman.
00:02:10.949 --> 00:02:14.230 Linda Marsanico: a unique and passionate performing artist.
00:02:14.500 --> 00:02:22.119 Linda Marsanico: composer, and librettist, a narrator, workshop, facilitator, author, and keynote speaker.
00:02:22.970 --> 00:02:36.149 Linda Marsanico: her albums, books. One woman shows musicals, ballets, and her deep work with people have won her among many awards the prestigious order of Canada
00:02:36.770 --> 00:02:40.470 Linda Marsanico: and Y.M.C.A. Woman of distinction. Award.
00:02:41.800 --> 00:02:57.470 Linda Marsanico: She has been chair of the I think it's the British Columbia. The BC. Arts Council travelled. The world, worked with the dying, dined with the Queen, spent time with the head Sangoma of the Zulu nation.
00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:02.420 Linda Marsanico: worked in Calcutta with Mother Teresa, and co-founded
00:03:02.570 --> 00:03:08.280 Linda Marsanico: the trust for sustainable forestry and the Somerset Foundation.
00:03:10.090 --> 00:03:14.929 Linda Marsanico: Anne Mordafi, I am honored to have you with me on this show.
00:03:15.720 --> 00:03:16.580 Linda Marsanico: Welcome.
00:03:16.990 --> 00:03:21.009 ann: Thank you, Linda. I'm so looking forward to getting to know you better.
00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:27.460 Linda Marsanico: And are you and for our listeners as well? This is the treat in store for them today.
00:03:28.060 --> 00:03:30.609 Linda Marsanico: So the 1st question I want to ask you
00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:36.720 Linda Marsanico: is, what in your youth, adolescence, what influences from, then
00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:41.089 Linda Marsanico: bring you to where you are today, in your work and your life.
00:03:42.280 --> 00:03:50.239 ann: Oh, my goodness! So many number one growing up on a farm in Zululand, where, you know, we were
00:03:51.430 --> 00:03:56.559 ann: about 30 miles from other people, other farmers. And
00:03:56.990 --> 00:04:16.729 ann: so I grew up with the Zulu people, and it it gave me a sense of being. I was sort of straddled between 2 cultures, and I know that's influenced me so profoundly to to always look out into the world and see different ways of being.
00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:22.540 ann: so that in itself, and because apartheid was on the rise. I saw the
00:04:22.740 --> 00:04:32.860 ann: the difficulties as I grew up, and and really became very committed to the end of apartheid, and and therefore, to injustice on a global level.
00:04:33.660 --> 00:04:43.849 ann: The other thing that was huge in terms of our conversation around this our spiritual lives, was that my very very 1st memory
00:04:44.220 --> 00:04:49.320 ann: is of a dream. I had recurringly over 2 or 3 years.
00:04:49.600 --> 00:05:09.339 ann: and it was always exactly the same. I would be standing looking into a room, and I could see someone lying in a bed there, and I would feel a pull pulling me towards that bed, and I would say, Oh, no, no, don't go there, don't go there. You're going to get stuck in the dream again.
00:05:10.060 --> 00:05:21.609 ann: and the pull would get stronger, and I tried to resist, but was not able to resist the pull, and suddenly I found myself sitting up in the dream in a bed
00:05:22.130 --> 00:05:23.070 ann: that
00:05:23.540 --> 00:05:36.549 ann: was not my own, and looking at hands, and saying to myself, These are not my hands, these are her hands. And gradually the person speaking disappeared.
00:05:37.230 --> 00:05:46.430 ann: and I would say to myself, looking at these my little hands at about 4 or 5 years old. Oh, no! Who am I when I'm not dreaming? I, man?
00:05:46.780 --> 00:05:50.088 ann: And that left such a profound
00:05:51.110 --> 00:05:59.409 ann: impression on my consciousness that throughout my life I always had this feeling of Well, who am I when I'm not Anne?
00:05:59.770 --> 00:06:02.250 ann: And a sense of another world.
00:06:02.420 --> 00:06:07.850 ann: and living in South Africa particularly. My Nanny Gosololo
00:06:08.090 --> 00:06:18.120 ann: was an extraordinary woman, so she brought me into contact with our intercommunication with everything
00:06:18.450 --> 00:06:40.830 ann: she told me. You know. Oh, the you know the world would be so sad if we did not have in glove with the elephant to beat out the drum for us on this, on the soil of the earth, and she always had little things. She said, that you made me realize. Yeah, we we everything belongs here. Everything is a part of this. So I would have to say, my
00:06:41.520 --> 00:06:43.239 ann: passion for nature.
00:06:44.160 --> 00:07:00.229 ann: which ultimately led to the trust for sustainable forestry which actually, I just got word. Today we've changed the name of it to Living Forest Trust, and I like that better, anyway. So that led to me forming that. And
00:07:01.100 --> 00:07:08.009 ann: so it's my my need to be close to nature. I think that our world is starved
00:07:08.220 --> 00:07:11.229 ann: for a relationship with nature.
00:07:11.570 --> 00:07:15.129 ann: And the other thing was this feeling that
00:07:15.590 --> 00:07:28.180 ann: I knew I was. I experienced it as I got older, that I was like a split being. There was me who was living my day-to-day life, and then another me that was watching it all.
00:07:29.020 --> 00:07:41.100 ann: So I would have to say, being born in Africa was my my sense of other cultures, my need and love of travel, my desire to know what other people feel and think.
00:07:41.530 --> 00:07:45.910 ann: And yeah, I can't. I can't say how Africa
00:07:46.130 --> 00:07:48.429 ann: was so central in my life. Yeah.
00:07:49.640 --> 00:08:02.490 Linda Marsanico: And nature has been so central in your life. You're living off the coast of Vancouver on an island, and are there 30 miles between you and something else. Are you isolated?
00:08:02.630 --> 00:08:14.927 ann: Well, we're somewhat isolated. We have I to get to Vancouver, which is one of the closest big cities where you can fly from, is 3 ferries and about a 7 h journey.
00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:35.689 ann: Yeah. So I live on the coast of a little island and keep chickens. Have a big garden, do my food even. I just built a root cellar, which I'm very excited about. And I also have just taken on medicinal plants. And I'm loving that, you know. So, yeah, I love being close to nature.
00:08:35.880 --> 00:08:39.230 Linda Marsanico: It sounds amazing. Anne.
00:08:39.690 --> 00:08:41.445 ann: It is amazing.
00:08:43.450 --> 00:08:48.279 Linda Marsanico: My next question is, what is the role of spirituality in your life?
00:08:50.520 --> 00:08:55.429 ann: I actually don't. Really, when I look back at my life I realize that
00:08:57.480 --> 00:09:01.599 ann: it's it even comes before my art.
00:09:01.790 --> 00:09:29.569 ann: you know, which is. My passion is art, but my spiritual life. It started very, very innocent, just, you know nature, and feeling a presence in the sky, and and knowing I wasn't, Anne, but it moved on to. At a young age. I became like about 1312, or 13. I ended up getting very, very involved in Christianity
00:09:29.740 --> 00:09:38.600 ann: had many unusual experiences during that time. I found I came by faith very easily.
00:09:39.060 --> 00:09:46.482 ann: and I had gone through a lot of dark things in my in my early years, one of which was, I lived.
00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:53.689 ann: I had Tb. And I was in a sanatorium for 9 months when I was 7.
00:09:53.850 --> 00:09:54.260 Linda Marsanico: And.
00:09:54.260 --> 00:10:08.279 ann: But that in itself opened a world for me. You know you look at the things that were difficult and painful when you were young, but really that was one of the formative places that I learned
00:10:08.670 --> 00:10:10.579 ann: how to connect with the other world
00:10:10.920 --> 00:10:20.179 ann: little room of my own, and the the moon would come through the window and create patterns on the wall.
00:10:20.330 --> 00:10:24.830 Linda Marsanico: Yes, believes that it came through. And those patterns.
00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:37.390 ann: Became friends to me, and I found them. And so it created my imagination, and it created my sense of the other world being very close to me, and when I got well enough to
00:10:38.170 --> 00:10:42.709 ann: get out of bed and and walk around as I was healing.
00:10:42.990 --> 00:10:47.500 ann: I found that I, the way I got the needs that I had.
00:10:48.010 --> 00:10:50.490 ann: because in South Africa at that time.
00:10:50.640 --> 00:10:55.380 ann: if you were ill in hospital they didn't let your parents come to see you.
00:10:55.560 --> 00:11:01.350 ann: because they believed that it would just upset you and then make it difficult when they left.
00:11:01.700 --> 00:11:06.970 ann: So I I really thought they'd left. And when I asked.
00:11:09.540 --> 00:11:16.539 ann: When is mum coming back? They'd say, when you're better. Well, to a 7 year old. Better?
00:11:16.750 --> 00:11:18.039 ann: What is better.
00:11:18.230 --> 00:11:27.690 ann: I've got to be more good. I've got to be kinder. I've got to be, you know. I didn't have a full consciousness of illness other than how I felt.
00:11:28.140 --> 00:11:37.430 ann: and so, even though it kept me pushing all my life to get better, I realized
00:11:37.960 --> 00:11:47.920 ann: well, that was a negative thing, because I was always working over hard and trying to get somewhere, but it also was an ultimate blessing.
00:11:48.120 --> 00:11:52.340 ann: because I became very independent in my commitment to growing.
00:11:52.780 --> 00:11:55.460 ann: So I think that everything's a two-edged sword.
00:11:55.770 --> 00:12:08.970 ann: Also when I got when I got out of the bed and was well enough, my joy and sense of healing came from going from bed to bed, so I was the youngest in in the sanatorium. So I became.
00:12:08.970 --> 00:12:09.440 Linda Marsanico: You know.
00:12:09.440 --> 00:12:16.509 ann: Ascot, you know. Oh, Mrs. Smith, can I put your dentures in for you? I thought that was totally fascinating.
00:12:16.650 --> 00:12:19.039 ann: Hello, you know. So
00:12:19.330 --> 00:12:25.970 ann: I think everything I've come to see. Everything is a blessing, even the darkest, darkest things we experience.
00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:36.109 ann: If we look underneath the skin of it all, you realize, even even abuse, that I went through, and and things that I went through when I got into music.
00:12:37.730 --> 00:12:40.060 ann: My sense of spirit
00:12:40.270 --> 00:12:47.109 ann: can't even say what it is. It's like you can call it spirituality, but it's a sense that
00:12:47.700 --> 00:12:59.639 ann: we are literally walking through an interesting dimension which is filled with polarities.
00:13:00.330 --> 00:13:24.619 ann: But beyond that or or with that is more the point. We have a sense of transcendence and a largess that says that we're part of something so great we can't fathom it. In fact, when I was young there was a book someone gave me, and I never read it, because it said everything I felt, and it said, Your God is too small.
00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:37.560 ann: So, having come from Africa, where the Sangoma was the healing person in our community, I've always felt that
00:13:38.170 --> 00:13:42.709 ann: a force was speaking to us from every different religion
00:13:42.900 --> 00:14:11.180 ann: and my time in Christianity, which I can't say I ever really left, because I just expanded it to include other things. So now I've you know, I studied with Parmahansa Yogananda and when I was in India I went to his Ashram and and studied there. I you know I've worked with the Zulu Sangomas.
00:14:11.330 --> 00:14:15.980 ann: and so I've just seen that it doesn't matter.
00:14:16.410 --> 00:14:18.190 ann: The force is everywhere.
00:14:18.690 --> 00:14:19.020 Linda Marsanico: Yes.
00:14:19.020 --> 00:14:20.659 ann: Manifesting everywhere.
00:14:21.430 --> 00:14:26.540 ann: Whatever calls you to it is what is calling to you so.
00:14:26.550 --> 00:14:27.919 Linda Marsanico: Beautifully said.
00:14:27.920 --> 00:14:31.890 ann: Yeah, now, we do need to take a break. Ann. Okay,
00:14:32.540 --> 00:14:41.169 Linda Marsanico: But I want our listeners to be reminded that you wrote this wonderful book. I hope everyone can see it in love with the mystery.
00:14:41.490 --> 00:14:44.760 Linda Marsanico: and when we come back I'm going to read
00:14:45.190 --> 00:14:55.520 Linda Marsanico: several of your inspirational verses. So listeners stay tuned. We're coming back to these wonderful verses.
00:16:41.090 --> 00:16:52.079 Linda Marsanico: Hello, everyone! Welcome back to the A. Train to Sedona. I'm Linda Marcannico with my guest, Anne Mordafi. So I'm reading as promised from in love with the mystery.
00:16:52.930 --> 00:16:58.359 Linda Marsanico: perfection let go of false ideas about perfection.
00:16:58.800 --> 00:17:02.880 Linda Marsanico: Perfection is not a state to be realized somewhere in the future.
00:17:03.130 --> 00:17:11.679 Linda Marsanico: It exists here and now even what appears to be a mistake offers a stepping stone toward greater wisdom.
00:17:12.380 --> 00:17:14.960 Linda Marsanico: My flaw may be your opportunity.
00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:19.020 Linda Marsanico: We are at different places along the pathway of unfolding.
00:17:19.300 --> 00:17:22.830 Linda Marsanico: Every mistake offers the possibility for awakening
00:17:23.290 --> 00:17:28.030 Linda Marsanico: every awakening could be potentially leading us to the next mistake.
00:17:28.260 --> 00:17:35.360 Linda Marsanico: Our life proceeds from possibility to possibility from mistake to mistake
00:17:36.080 --> 00:17:40.940 Linda Marsanico: or from awakening to awakening. It all depends on our point of view.
00:17:43.480 --> 00:17:44.800 Linda Marsanico: Extraordinary.
00:17:46.440 --> 00:17:58.410 Linda Marsanico: I don't know, Anne, if you want to say something or comment after I finish this one. What do you think? Do you want me to go on to the next? Or would you like to say it's such a beautiful verse.
00:17:58.770 --> 00:18:03.000 ann: Well, you know, it's wonderful to hear it, Linda, because
00:18:03.450 --> 00:18:10.939 ann: this is just my morning practice. I just I just take a moment in the morning, and I just open.
00:18:11.230 --> 00:18:25.900 ann: and I try to start every day. I've been doing it since 2,009, just writing a tiny little piece since 2,009, and it's been. It's led me deeper and deeper into myself, and I feel they're
00:18:26.090 --> 00:18:27.809 ann: I don't even feel I write them.
00:18:27.980 --> 00:18:34.769 ann: I feel they appear, and they need me to appear. But we're co-creating, as you said.
00:18:35.140 --> 00:18:36.580 Linda Marsanico: So they're coming through you.
00:18:36.580 --> 00:18:40.360 Linda Marsanico: They're coming through me. Yeah. My other phone.
00:18:40.670 --> 00:18:41.529 Linda Marsanico: What's that.
00:18:41.710 --> 00:18:45.219 ann: My other phone. I will mute while it plays.
00:18:51.800 --> 00:18:57.329 Linda Marsanico: And so another inspirational verse, cosmic timing.
00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:07.900 Linda Marsanico: We cannot know the appropriate, appropriate timing for events to occur in our lives. There is a hidden perfection that orchestrates all things.
00:19:08.090 --> 00:19:13.060 Linda Marsanico: learn to accept and surrender to the mystery of cosmic timing.
00:19:13.210 --> 00:19:16.929 Linda Marsanico: allow anxiety to transform into patience.
00:19:17.370 --> 00:19:21.350 Linda Marsanico: allow disappointments to become quiet, perseverance.
00:19:21.680 --> 00:19:26.470 Linda Marsanico: allow loneliness to evolve into fulfilled aloneness.
00:19:27.090 --> 00:19:33.349 Linda Marsanico: It is through building strength, by facing opposition that the great virtues are born.
00:19:34.120 --> 00:19:34.850 ann: Hmm.
00:19:35.260 --> 00:19:37.530 Linda Marsanico: Isn't that? Oh, so lovely, Anne!
00:19:37.820 --> 00:19:45.169 ann: Thank you, Linda. You know, with that, what's so interesting? I didn't marry until I was 57,
00:19:45.740 --> 00:20:01.380 ann: but I had known my husband, Paul Horn, who was a beautiful flute player. He he did an album in the sixties called inside the Taj Mahal, and he had played on my 1st album when I was 20, I think 21,
00:20:01.600 --> 00:20:11.790 ann: and we always had a special spiritual connection. But we didn't get together until I was 57, and he was 75,
00:20:12.120 --> 00:20:23.879 ann: and so, but I had always held something precious with him. We you know, we didn't see much. He was married, and we but we did the odd concert together, and so forth.
00:20:24.220 --> 00:20:40.850 ann: But I realized we we said, Oh, wouldn't this have been fabulous if we got together when we were younger, and for me it would have been fantastic, because I just I just did not find someone I could really travel with internally, except for very short periods. And
00:20:41.990 --> 00:20:55.528 ann: But he said, Yeah, cosmic, cosmic timing baby. It's all cosmic timing, and I realized that I could not have been with him at any age younger I had to.
00:20:56.320 --> 00:21:05.115 ann: I would have followed him. I would have followed his career because it was so much larger than mine at the beginning and and at the end but
00:21:07.230 --> 00:21:13.950 ann: It gave me the time I needed to individuate, to really become myself, to not
00:21:14.090 --> 00:21:18.099 ann: mutate my life around someone else which I would have done.
00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:28.400 ann: probably absolutely so. I'm a wonderful believer in cosmic timing, even though sometimes it's not that easy to wait.
00:21:28.400 --> 00:21:35.059 Linda Marsanico: Trust me, I know personally. Now I wanted to ask you in your Wikipedia page.
00:21:35.970 --> 00:21:41.539 Linda Marsanico: It lists all the awards you've gotten. It is an amazing repertoire.
00:21:42.800 --> 00:21:49.099 Linda Marsanico: Did Paul do the music to in love with the mystery you collaborated on the music, or did you.
00:21:49.100 --> 00:22:05.656 ann: Yeah, we literally what we did. We went in with 2 of our other very dear friends, Ed Henderson and Miles Day black miles black, and we just got in there, and I had a page of all the
00:22:06.220 --> 00:22:11.080 ann: the pieces I would choose, you know, to put on a spoken thing.
00:22:11.240 --> 00:22:14.020 ann: and we said, How do we begin?
00:22:14.760 --> 00:22:29.089 ann: And, Paul, I said, Paul, why don't you lead us in? So he let us in, and whenever I felt like speaking, I would speak, and the other musicians came in, and we for 45 min we just
00:22:29.410 --> 00:22:43.089 ann: improvised, and the thing I love the most is, we would come to a point where I would be talking about something. I didn't know what was coming. They were all fresh for me at that time, too, and
00:22:43.940 --> 00:22:50.079 ann: I'd say, and it would turn into. And suddenly all the music would stop.
00:22:50.670 --> 00:22:52.430 ann: And I'd say, Silence!
00:22:53.260 --> 00:23:05.849 ann: You know we we went. We'd look at each other and go. Oh, we're being orchestrated so. Yes, it was totally improvised. It was a a shared moment for all of us.
00:23:06.010 --> 00:23:07.090 Linda Marsanico: How beautiful!
00:23:07.750 --> 00:23:15.670 Linda Marsanico: So my next one of the 3, the last. There are so many beautiful verses for anyone who wants to purchase the book.
00:23:15.960 --> 00:23:18.420 Linda Marsanico: This is called The Drama of Life.
00:23:19.160 --> 00:23:34.649 Linda Marsanico: Those who have committed themselves to vigilantly observe their own reactions to the ups and downs of experience are those who eventually master the role they have been called upon to play.
00:23:35.130 --> 00:23:43.140 Linda Marsanico: Most of us are too lost in the drama of life to ever step back and rewrite the script we are living.
00:23:43.570 --> 00:23:47.389 Linda Marsanico: If we do not like the content of a scene we are enacting.
00:23:47.580 --> 00:23:49.499 Linda Marsanico: we can choose to change it.
00:23:49.980 --> 00:23:55.890 Linda Marsanico: We each are the author, director, and actor in the play that is unfolding.
00:23:56.010 --> 00:24:02.369 Linda Marsanico: but only through constant vigilance can we become sensitive and astute enough
00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:05.949 Linda Marsanico: to know what in the plot needs to be changed.
00:24:07.130 --> 00:24:07.890 ann: Hmm.
00:24:08.400 --> 00:24:09.660 Linda Marsanico: Powerful.
00:24:09.660 --> 00:24:14.769 ann: That has truly been my lifetime commitment. It's hard work.
00:24:15.110 --> 00:24:22.060 ann: it's hard work, especially when things aren't going well for you, and you feel lost, and so forth.
00:24:22.643 --> 00:24:29.260 ann: Which I obviously like. Everyone, had lots of moments like that when heartbreak has come, or
00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:37.040 ann: disappointments in work. But when I really understood that
00:24:38.440 --> 00:24:53.509 ann: everything is a possibility, and it's a possibility to hone our spirit to hone our mind. As the Maharishi Mahesh yogi said to Paul, and he said to me many times, the mind is a wonderful servant.
00:24:53.770 --> 00:24:56.039 ann: but it's a terrible master.
00:24:56.826 --> 00:24:57.499 Linda Marsanico: And do.
00:24:57.500 --> 00:25:06.219 ann: Able to see how our thoughts follow our emotions and our emotions follow our thoughts, and that
00:25:06.430 --> 00:25:13.099 ann: when something goes wrong somebody says something that that triggers your anger. There's a little gap
00:25:13.430 --> 00:25:16.960 ann: between your reaction and a response.
00:25:17.260 --> 00:25:23.430 ann: and if you can grab that little gap and take a breath
00:25:24.130 --> 00:25:26.970 ann: and say, oh, I'm sorry you feel angry.
00:25:27.398 --> 00:25:32.479 ann: Could you explain what I might have done that I might not have seen?
00:25:33.130 --> 00:25:38.169 ann: And then suddenly, what happens is you're in a dialogue instead of an upset.
00:25:38.800 --> 00:25:44.869 ann: and then you take the dialogue away and you can look at yourself and say, Yeah, it takes 2 to tango
00:25:45.100 --> 00:25:47.000 ann: and I.
00:25:47.540 --> 00:25:59.429 ann: I have found that, being vigilant like that, I literally went through a period. Linda, if you can believe it, I went through a period where I made these. You know, the little stickies you get at the
00:25:59.910 --> 00:26:04.009 ann: store where you can write whatever on, and stick them out.
00:26:04.220 --> 00:26:12.280 ann: I had them written on my fridge on, on my mirror in the morning, and it's the the word I used was locate.
00:26:12.600 --> 00:26:17.009 ann: and it meant, Where are you and I would.
00:26:18.290 --> 00:26:33.700 ann: and that meant, are you in the future worrying about what's happening? Are you in the past regretting or angry, or hurt about something? Or are you right where you are, and I remember the day that I really woke up
00:26:34.090 --> 00:26:37.530 ann: and saw the importance of what you just read.
00:26:38.320 --> 00:26:41.419 ann: and that was when my son was 2 years old
00:26:41.950 --> 00:26:47.599 ann: and he was crying. I had just separated from his father.
00:26:48.130 --> 00:27:14.689 ann: I was in a state of total anxiety, because I felt, you know. I only know how to sing and write, and how I'm going to have look after him and go out and make the money, and make all the you know all the stuff, and so I'm imagining that, you know I've got him in a in one of those buggies, and I'm walking out on the street. You know I was totally panicked, and I was crying uncontrollably.
00:27:14.860 --> 00:27:16.730 ann: I went over to the fridge
00:27:17.030 --> 00:27:32.570 ann: because Devin was in his high chair crying, wanting breakfast, and I'm crying, wanting life to be different. And I opened the fridge, and as I pulled the door open the sticky came by that said Locate, and I went.
00:27:33.200 --> 00:27:37.219 ann: Oh, my God, I'm just getting orange juice.
00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:45.770 ann: that's all that's real. Everything else is make-believe. I am torturing myself.
00:27:45.990 --> 00:27:55.250 ann: And I said so. What is really true, I said. I'm sad. The relationship is over, and I'm I'm afraid that's all that's true. So
00:27:55.620 --> 00:27:58.320 ann: the future isn't here. Nobody's died.
00:27:58.500 --> 00:28:07.390 ann: The past you've done. You did your best, and it's over, and so just pour your son some orange juice.
00:28:07.520 --> 00:28:13.029 ann: So I took the orange out, and I remember pouring it in the glass watching this
00:28:13.680 --> 00:28:22.499 ann: bright orange, cheerful liquid flowing into the glass. And I said, I'm going to change myself.
00:28:22.740 --> 00:28:40.979 ann: I'm not going to torture myself anymore, because the story is what hurts us, the story that we're going to be miserable, that it's all over, that it's never going to be, whatever our story is, and I just committed myself at that moment that I would be vigilant about locating myself
00:28:41.340 --> 00:28:53.319 ann: and know that I can always handle what's happening right now I may not like it. It may be really difficult, but if I go step by step by step, I'll be fine.
00:28:53.940 --> 00:28:56.600 ann: and that is when I changed.
00:28:56.820 --> 00:29:01.850 ann: and it didn't mean I changed overnight, but that was when I really got
00:29:02.020 --> 00:29:05.590 ann: that. The only one who tortures me is me
00:29:06.270 --> 00:29:13.279 ann: that I can leave any situation that is, you know I can. I can be the captain of my ship, as it were.
00:29:13.420 --> 00:29:19.810 ann: and so I totally surrendered myself to that journey at that moment, and that was 38 years ago.
00:29:20.850 --> 00:29:23.879 Linda Marsanico: You made a quantum leap, you made a quantum leap at that point.
00:29:23.880 --> 00:29:29.710 ann: I made a quantum leap. It's taken till now, and I still have to self correct.
00:29:30.120 --> 00:29:36.520 ann: you know. But the self correction happens so quickly, because I became friendly with the gap.
00:29:37.020 --> 00:29:42.730 ann: you know. Oh, you're gonna go down that rabbit hole again. Do you want to? No, okay, get out.
00:29:43.030 --> 00:29:45.240 ann: Okay. How do you get out?
00:29:45.470 --> 00:29:48.250 ann: Get out! Just don't go there.
00:29:48.390 --> 00:29:54.290 ann: and it's training the mind. And that's when I really understood that the mind is a wonderful servant.
00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:58.530 ann: It can help you get out of the rabbit hole. You're going down.
00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:05.739 ann: but it's a terrible master. If the mind runs away from you and tells you the story of the misery you're in.
00:30:05.930 --> 00:30:08.480 ann: It really is a skill.
00:30:09.020 --> 00:30:10.390 ann: It's a skill.
00:30:11.140 --> 00:30:16.100 Linda Marsanico: I totally agree. We're at break time. When we come back.
00:30:16.550 --> 00:30:21.300 Linda Marsanico: I would like to talk about how you became aware
00:30:22.260 --> 00:30:35.909 Linda Marsanico: of being the artist that you are, and you also came to New York City to star in. Jacques Brielle is alive and well, and living in Paris. So listeners come back and let's hear Anne's tale about that.
00:30:36.463 --> 00:30:37.016 ann: Great.
00:32:29.300 --> 00:32:42.460 Linda Marsanico: Hello, everyone! Welcome back to the A. Train to Sedona. I'm Linda Marcannico with my guest, Anne Mordafi, as we begin. Anne, can you tell our listeners where they can find the book in love with the mystery.
00:32:42.740 --> 00:32:47.400 ann: Well, there used to be some on on Amazon, and
00:32:47.530 --> 00:33:00.640 ann: actually, somehow, my my whole thing disappeared from there, and I have a friend working to put it back on. There may be a few books left there, but otherwise they could go to my website, and I could mail it to them
00:33:00.920 --> 00:33:04.020 ann: which is, and mortafi.com.
00:33:04.160 --> 00:33:05.490 Linda Marsanico: Lovely, lovely.
00:33:05.990 --> 00:33:09.220 Linda Marsanico: So when did you realize you were an artist?
00:33:09.540 --> 00:33:12.229 Linda Marsanico: And please tell us about your
00:33:12.360 --> 00:33:16.870 Linda Marsanico: starring in singing in because you have a 4 octave range
00:33:18.304 --> 00:33:23.169 Linda Marsanico: your register is 4 octaves, so tell us about all of that, Anne.
00:33:24.290 --> 00:33:38.229 ann: Well, I you know I never, ever my whole life has happened to me. I they weren't conscious choices. I never thought oh, I'd like to be a singer. But what happened? I was actually at a Christian camp.
00:33:38.340 --> 00:33:42.070 ann: and through a series of strange
00:33:42.620 --> 00:33:51.280 ann: happenings, the 2 gals who who led the singing one of them went, had appendicitis and had to be
00:33:51.660 --> 00:33:53.480 ann: flown out of the place.
00:33:53.700 --> 00:34:15.260 ann: And and so the gal, Evie Gillespie, who was a huge influence in my life. She was a wonderful gal, and she she begged me to come on, and I said, No, no, I don't know how to sing, but I shared a room with them, so she said, well, I'm not going on if you don't come. So she said, Well, if you won't do it for me, do it for Jesus.
00:34:15.420 --> 00:34:23.580 ann: And at the time I said, Okay, you're showing up for duty. So I went on, and I stepped on that stage.
00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:27.619 ann: I loved it. I felt at home.
00:34:27.750 --> 00:34:46.670 ann: I just loved getting people singing. I loved being involved in music, and so I sang every night for a month, and then we. When we went home she had a birthday and invited me, and her mother had bought her a new guitar, and she gave me her guitar
00:34:47.130 --> 00:34:56.870 ann: and her old one, and I I just took to it like a duck to water. I then, at 17, I or 16
00:34:57.490 --> 00:35:15.150 ann: by 16 I was working professionally in a little cough, little coffee houses. My mother would let them come and pick me up and take me down while I was still in school, and I went to pick up my guitar on a on a Saturday, and the owner of the
00:35:15.470 --> 00:35:19.310 ann: the shop, or the the coffee house, which was called the bunkhouse.
00:35:19.460 --> 00:35:31.180 ann: he said, are you going to the audition? I said, oh, what's an audition? And he said, Well, the theatre is looking for a girl singer to play in the ecstasy of Rita Joe.
00:35:31.430 --> 00:35:50.189 ann: and I said, What's that? And he said, It's a play, and I said, No, no, I can't. I no, I don't know anything about the theatre, he said. You're coming with me. I'm going to take you down. So he drove me down. He told me what to sing. I got the job, and the chap who had been hired to write the music
00:35:51.040 --> 00:36:09.619 ann: often was not at rehearsals, and so the director start, and the writer of the play, George Riga said, would you? Would you just make something up? Just here's the words in the script. Just make something up, I said, just like, just make it up. And he said, Yeah, just make it up. We have to see if music's going to work in the play.
00:36:09.810 --> 00:36:15.940 ann: So I started making things up, as you know. Play. I play a chord, and whatever came out came out.
00:36:16.280 --> 00:36:23.160 ann: and they started to record me and tell me take that home and learn it because we like that.
00:36:23.390 --> 00:36:40.860 ann: And if you need to fix it a little bit, you can. But but we want that. Okay, that's how I became a composer. I had no idea what I was doing, and in that play Chief Dan George, who played the grandfather in Little big man with
00:36:41.410 --> 00:36:44.160 ann: Dustin Hoffman. He was there.
00:36:44.340 --> 00:36:53.290 ann: and he played the grandfather in this play, and so it was like coming home for me, because I'd grown up with a different
00:36:53.640 --> 00:36:54.530 ann: culture.
00:36:54.760 --> 00:36:55.990 ann: So he
00:36:56.090 --> 00:37:04.439 ann: pulled me into his family, and I spent a lot of time with him, and and that opened me to the native
00:37:06.110 --> 00:37:18.889 ann: spiritual sense of things. And so I felt like I was being pulled into a whole new world. That play opened the National Arts Center in
00:37:19.050 --> 00:37:21.679 ann: Ottawa, which is our Washington.
00:37:21.900 --> 00:37:28.970 ann: and it then I was seen there, and I was asked to go into a
00:37:29.210 --> 00:37:38.569 ann: another play, and that play moved to New York, and then I got seen by agents.
00:37:38.880 --> 00:37:43.220 ann: and I got a contract with an agent in New York.
00:37:43.470 --> 00:37:48.800 ann: and then I was offered the lead in promises, promises, and
00:37:48.920 --> 00:38:00.550 ann: I had just come from this extraordinary play. The ecstasy of Rita Joe, which was about a native gal who is torn between 2 cultures.
00:38:00.910 --> 00:38:15.270 ann: and her grandfather represented her past life, and the judge and the city people represented how she was trying to fit into the white culture, and I was so moved by it.
00:38:15.400 --> 00:38:23.040 ann: and over the year that we played that play we had. It changed the conversation in Canada
00:38:23.260 --> 00:38:26.060 ann: on what had happened in our past.
00:38:26.260 --> 00:38:39.469 ann: and I felt so good about that because of my African experience, and knowing that apartheid had actually been built on the India Act Indian Act
00:38:39.610 --> 00:38:50.290 ann: of Canada, and so I was. My consciousness was growing into my passion for for justice in the world.
00:38:50.500 --> 00:38:53.339 ann: And so when I was with the
00:38:53.730 --> 00:39:00.009 ann: the musical director singing so he could see if I could sing the parts of this.
00:39:00.240 --> 00:39:15.669 ann: but I'd been offered the contract, and I was singing, and absolutely nothing about the song, which is a fabulous song. It was where I was at the time, but the song said, What do you get when you fall in love? You'll get enough germs to catch pneumonia, and
00:39:16.250 --> 00:39:23.760 ann: he'll never phone you. I'll never fall in love again. And I went. Oh, my God, I have to sing this
00:39:24.820 --> 00:39:28.939 ann: 8 shows a week for 3 years.
00:39:29.780 --> 00:39:32.079 ann: I said, what if I died singing this song?
00:39:32.280 --> 00:39:41.970 ann: What about you know? I just felt, after this other experience of actually helping to shift consciousness and and culture.
00:39:42.110 --> 00:39:49.240 ann: I just I just couldn't bear the thought. And so I said to my agent, Could I do it for 6 months?
00:39:49.530 --> 00:40:09.610 ann: And he said, No, you can't. No, I mean it takes a lot to train you and to get you into the show and to advertise, and no, and I, anyway, while we we were in there, and I was torn apart by this because I knew I was being offered something that any artist would go for.
00:40:09.850 --> 00:40:10.420 Linda Marsanico: Yes.
00:40:10.420 --> 00:40:12.240 ann: But somebody called him.
00:40:12.640 --> 00:40:25.059 ann: and he was on the phone with a producer trying to get the producer to say she should. One of his other clients should have a 16th of an inch larger print
00:40:25.170 --> 00:40:30.959 ann: in the program, and he was getting quite strong with the guy
00:40:31.070 --> 00:40:43.710 ann: with the person on the other phone on the phone, and he said to me, just a minute, I have to check with my secretary. He closed the phone and said, What are 3 of the shows on right now in
00:40:44.010 --> 00:40:52.170 ann: on TV. And I went I don't know. I think MoD Squad, or I'm just making up names, but I gave him 3 names, and he said.
00:40:52.290 --> 00:40:58.009 ann: back on the phone, yes, he had a leading role in MoD Squad Blah Blah and the other ones.
00:40:58.420 --> 00:41:08.210 ann: And I I said he, he's blatantly lying, and something in me felt alarmed
00:41:08.670 --> 00:41:12.420 ann: that he would include me in that deception.
00:41:12.720 --> 00:41:17.319 ann: and I said, How can I trust this person to look after my life.
00:41:17.790 --> 00:41:18.760 ann: And
00:41:18.900 --> 00:41:47.090 ann: and I said, You know, unless I can do it for 6 months, I can't do this. And he said, Well, then, you should leave New York because I won't work with you anymore. I said, Okay, so I left New York and went home and said, oh, did I make the? Was I being offered the world? And did I make the worst? But I knew it wasn't right for me. I was home 2 days staying at my mom's and dad's place, and I was still
00:41:48.700 --> 00:41:53.370 ann: think it was 19 at the time 1819, and
00:41:54.870 --> 00:41:57.779 ann: the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, which was the biggest
00:41:57.920 --> 00:42:02.030 ann: ballet company in Canada, called me and said.
00:42:02.190 --> 00:42:10.159 ann: we are going to do the ballet of the ecstasy of Rita Joe, and we'd love you to write the music, and I said.
00:42:10.380 --> 00:42:20.319 ann: Oh, I could never do that, I said. I don't know anything about ballet. I don't read music. The only things I've ever written are
00:42:20.870 --> 00:42:27.599 ann: you? Have, you know, from Rita, Joe? And he said, Well, and we like what you did.
00:42:27.840 --> 00:42:36.589 ann: And I said, Oh, my goodness! Like it was so over my head I couldn't even envision it. And then he said, and tell me, do you love Rita, Joe?
00:42:38.210 --> 00:42:39.579 ann: And I said, yes.
00:42:39.750 --> 00:42:52.599 ann: he said, do you know how she feels? And I said, I'm not sure but I feel for her, and I love her and I I'm concerned about her, and he said, Well, why don't you bring your heart to Winnipeg?
00:42:53.080 --> 00:42:56.380 ann: And we'll see how it goes.
00:42:58.270 --> 00:43:02.439 ann: And that totally changed my life.
00:43:03.450 --> 00:43:11.080 ann: because the ballet was so far beyond me, I had to totally rely on
00:43:12.060 --> 00:43:22.360 ann: inspiration, and by that I mean, I had to inspire. I had to bring in the spirit and let it do the job because I didn't know anything.
00:43:22.750 --> 00:43:23.650 ann: and
00:43:25.150 --> 00:43:42.910 ann: when I, Norbert Vizak that was Arnold Spohr, who was just a marvellous artistic director of the Royal Winnipeg ballet, and Norbert Vizak, who was the choreographer. We would go up into the rehearsal hall, and I'd say, you know, I don't know.
00:43:42.910 --> 00:43:56.399 ann: Would you dance pain for me, Norbert? I don't know what this person would say. I don't know how to get here, and he'd start to dance, and we'd just have very low lights, and I'd have my little guitar. And
00:43:56.530 --> 00:43:57.749 ann: and off we went.
00:43:57.900 --> 00:44:04.369 ann: and that was how the ecstasy of Rita Joe the ballet, and it became an international hit, and my life was changed.
00:44:05.130 --> 00:44:05.720 ann: I mean.
00:44:05.720 --> 00:44:07.340 Linda Marsanico: If you go ahead.
00:44:07.340 --> 00:44:15.470 ann: No, I just have been led, and I've followed as closely trusting my instinct, trusting
00:44:15.900 --> 00:44:19.150 ann: that I, because my desire was to be.
00:44:19.520 --> 00:44:22.570 ann: I can't even say it was of service, but
00:44:22.780 --> 00:44:28.989 ann: it was. My desire was to to follow something inside myself.
00:44:29.180 --> 00:44:35.180 ann: and because I'd had a lot of spiritual experiences by then I
00:44:35.770 --> 00:44:39.620 ann: I knew I had to listen to my gut knowing.
00:44:40.190 --> 00:44:44.949 ann: and that that was how life would speak to me. You know.
00:44:46.260 --> 00:44:56.090 Linda Marsanico: When you turned away from promises, promises. That was a leap of faith. It was an amazing, courageous decision.
00:44:56.510 --> 00:45:01.910 Linda Marsanico: Because you've led with your heart and and your heart is. It's the heart is our wisdom.
00:45:01.910 --> 00:45:02.360 ann: Is, the.
00:45:03.080 --> 00:45:03.800 Linda Marsanico: Yeah.
00:45:04.240 --> 00:45:16.269 ann: Yeah. And you know, as the years went by, because I I walked away from my career 3 times when the world was being offering, and on all 3 occasions something different
00:45:16.410 --> 00:45:19.170 ann: happened that helped me to know
00:45:19.420 --> 00:45:27.550 ann: this is not your path. Do not go down this path, and and and I see now.
00:45:27.760 --> 00:45:35.080 ann: as I'm older, that I would have been lost. You know I look at the music industry today, and
00:45:35.330 --> 00:45:50.069 ann: there's so many people being eaten alive by it. You know they're thrown into fame and fortune. And I was somehow this voice inside me said, You're not strong enough to go down this road, you will lose yourself.
00:45:50.780 --> 00:45:54.529 Linda Marsanico: Wasn't appropriate for you, Ann. It was not appropriate for you at all.
00:45:54.800 --> 00:46:02.160 ann: Exactly, and I didn't know. If. Was it my fear for success? Was I afraid of?
00:46:02.660 --> 00:46:05.879 ann: Was I afraid? Was that was what was no.
00:46:06.190 --> 00:46:13.409 ann: only in retrospect do I not have. I knew I did the right thing at the time, but then I questioned myself.
00:46:13.800 --> 00:46:18.160 ann: and thought that I was that that I was lacking courage.
00:46:18.500 --> 00:46:19.290 ann: But
00:46:19.480 --> 00:46:32.520 ann: what I realize now I was following a star. I was following something. You know. I love that song to dream the impossible dream, you know, to really go, for what your heart says is the best thing for you.
00:46:32.740 --> 00:46:40.130 ann: and it's not necessarily the best thing in the world, but it's just been the best thing for me to follow my heart
00:46:40.390 --> 00:46:41.110 ann: and
00:46:42.500 --> 00:46:44.060 ann: I'm so grateful.
00:46:45.320 --> 00:46:47.189 ann: I was guided in that way.
00:46:49.120 --> 00:46:53.789 Linda Marsanico: And we've gotten so much joy and creativity from your path.
00:46:54.760 --> 00:46:58.969 Linda Marsanico: As a result, it's it's just a wonderful thing when we co-create like that.
00:46:58.970 --> 00:47:00.130 ann: Yeah, it is.
00:47:00.580 --> 00:47:04.189 Linda Marsanico: So we're going to take a break now, and when we come back
00:47:04.430 --> 00:47:10.039 Linda Marsanico: I'd like to share with our listeners what your next project is going to be.
00:47:10.260 --> 00:47:10.930 ann: Oh!
00:47:11.090 --> 00:47:16.050 Linda Marsanico: Where are you going to? Where are you going to be led? Where are you going to co-create? So listeners
00:47:16.780 --> 00:47:17.860 Linda Marsanico: stay tuned.
00:48:52.060 --> 00:49:04.930 Linda Marsanico: Hello, everyone! Welcome back to the A. Train to Sedona broadcast. I'm Linda Marcannico with my guest, Anne Mordafi. So, Anne, what's in store? What's your next project?
00:49:06.150 --> 00:49:10.619 ann: Well, it's fairly large at the moment, you know I have.
00:49:11.100 --> 00:49:20.670 ann: I have written 4 musicals and and been passionate about them, and
00:49:21.670 --> 00:49:38.049 ann: Strangely enough, the 1st one well, the second one was when the rains come, which was included in the National Academy of Music Musical Theater in New York. It was one of the plays chosen.
00:49:38.190 --> 00:49:41.669 ann: and 9 11 happened right at that time.
00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:54.209 ann: but before that, when I had written it the day we opened apartheid was over because I'd written it for South Africa. And now, all these years later.
00:49:55.280 --> 00:50:03.060 ann: I really feel called because Africa is in a lot of trouble. At the moment South Africa and
00:50:03.400 --> 00:50:12.400 ann: and I feel, you know people forget what they've gone through, and how you often, if you're a victim, you often become the perpetrator.
00:50:12.790 --> 00:50:28.609 ann: you know. Afterwards, if you don't do the work, you need to do so. I'm feeling a call for Africa. I spent time with the Zulu's head. Sangomazulu Creedo mutwa years ago. He's gone now, brilliant man! And
00:50:29.560 --> 00:50:31.470 ann: he he ended up.
00:50:31.680 --> 00:50:34.369 ann: It ended up turning out that the woman
00:50:35.030 --> 00:50:40.159 ann: that I had set as the Sangoma in the play, which was
00:50:40.430 --> 00:50:43.159 ann: purposefully Mandela was still in prison.
00:50:43.860 --> 00:50:52.590 ann: And so I have this feeling that that play had that difficulty at that time, because now's the time.
00:50:53.640 --> 00:51:05.200 ann: Now is the time for it to come out. So I'm going to go to South Africa and work with some some musicians there, so that I'm excited about. I also have been writing
00:51:05.950 --> 00:51:07.659 ann: about my life.
00:51:08.140 --> 00:51:22.430 ann: and the reason is is that you know, I've had just this strange life of in and out of the arts, and I've gone on pilgrimages. I lived in Lebanon for a year, worked in the Palestinian camps.
00:51:22.980 --> 00:51:27.400 ann: I felt I had to. That was in 79, when they had
00:51:28.240 --> 00:51:34.920 ann: A civil war was raging, and I felt I couldn't understand people.
00:51:35.170 --> 00:51:45.539 ann: man, if I hadn't ever been in a war. Well, I live to to regret that. But I went there for a year, and it was.
00:51:45.820 --> 00:52:03.310 ann: It was life, shattering life, changing life, advancing life. I really changed after that, when we were being evacuated, there were only 2 planes going, and I could only take the one that went to India, which was great. So I ended up in India with no money.
00:52:03.770 --> 00:52:04.500 ann: and
00:52:05.055 --> 00:52:14.199 ann: that was when I learned meditation and so forth. So I've had a life that has spanned so many different things.
00:52:14.350 --> 00:52:17.780 ann: My music, my art, has been
00:52:18.520 --> 00:52:24.050 ann: what kept me alive, and gave me an outlet for my passion.
00:52:25.565 --> 00:52:30.910 ann: So I. I have a body of work that has never really
00:52:33.020 --> 00:52:35.859 ann: because I have. No, I have no
00:52:36.490 --> 00:52:41.649 ann: ambition, so I don't tend to try to get things to happen.
00:52:42.717 --> 00:53:02.860 ann: I've had good managers and various things over the year. I certainly my career as an artist, as a singer and writer of one woman shows. I worked steadily and and traveled with Belafonte. Bless his heart, Harry, and traveled with, you know John Denver, and
00:53:04.070 --> 00:53:13.970 ann: so many people I've had. I've had wonderful, wonderful experiences, and in between all those experiences I have had
00:53:14.140 --> 00:53:22.280 ann: other extraordinary experiences of traveling to far off places. So through it all.
00:53:22.710 --> 00:53:27.319 ann: and the only reason I'm writing the book is not because
00:53:27.940 --> 00:53:34.279 ann: of my of my life as an artist, but because of
00:53:34.810 --> 00:53:41.139 ann: the miraculous things that have happened along the way I mean, my life is full of serendipity
00:53:41.260 --> 00:53:48.140 ann: in a way that you know. I mean, when I wrote when the rains come, I discovered that
00:53:48.743 --> 00:53:56.980 ann: the Sangoma that I had written into the play, because I dreamt about this woman in my dreams.
00:53:57.090 --> 00:54:25.690 ann: And so she told me what her name was, so I made her name in the play, and then I am led because I'm writing things in the play that there's no way. I knew what they were, but I found a book by Credo Mutwa when I was working in a retreat center in the north of Scotland, Findhorn, which is a wonderful place, and a book fell off the shelf. I'm reading the book. It was written by Vosamazulu Credo mutwa, and
00:54:26.660 --> 00:54:38.089 ann: there is one of the songs I've written. I mean, the story is right there, and and I had no way of knowing that story. So I had called him and gone to see him.
00:54:38.310 --> 00:54:45.220 ann: and he asks me, who is the San Gome in your dreams?
00:54:45.750 --> 00:54:49.590 ann: Tell me about this Sangoma. So I told him.
00:54:50.080 --> 00:54:55.209 ann: and he says, Well, what does she look like? I said, well, she's got one white and one black eye.
00:54:55.680 --> 00:55:03.470 ann: and one is normal eye, and the other is all completely white. And and tell me, what do her legs look like well, they look like the trunks of a tree.
00:55:04.269 --> 00:55:12.760 ann: And what is her name? And I said, her name is Eskoe. Say again, Eskoe, he said.
00:55:13.500 --> 00:55:16.450 ann: that woman is my grandmother.
00:55:16.760 --> 00:55:25.999 ann: She had a cataract in her right eye which turned it completely white, and she had elephantitis which made her legs look like the trunks of a tree.
00:55:26.470 --> 00:55:36.750 ann: and she had told me someone was coming to visit me. That was, I needed to know, and he said I just did not think it would be a white woman, and he laughed.
00:55:37.960 --> 00:55:42.361 ann: So that started an extraordinary journey. And
00:55:44.720 --> 00:55:49.429 ann: So I've I've had experiences like that all through my life.
00:55:49.800 --> 00:55:56.490 ann: And I, you know, after I ended up receiving as a gift that he checked on
00:55:57.057 --> 00:56:12.129 ann: tested me about. I won't go into it because it take too long. But I was tested, and then went through a ceremony and so forth. But he he! I ended up with the central divining bone of his grandmother.
00:56:13.430 --> 00:56:17.829 ann: and it had been made for her by her grandmother.
00:56:18.570 --> 00:56:23.939 ann: So of all and I, after these experience, I would say.
00:56:24.720 --> 00:56:34.570 ann: I said to him, What am I supposed to do this with? With what with this? What what does she want from for me to do? And he said, how should I know? That's for you in spirit, to discern.
00:56:35.755 --> 00:56:36.940 Linda Marsanico: So.
00:56:36.940 --> 00:56:45.469 ann: I've had so many things that is for you and spirit to discern, you know. And so so what I want to do
00:56:45.860 --> 00:56:48.159 ann: is write this book
00:56:49.070 --> 00:56:55.640 ann: and allow, because I've kept so many of the things that have happened at arm's length.
00:56:55.780 --> 00:56:59.519 ann: not fully understanding them, not knowing what they wanted.
00:56:59.950 --> 00:57:17.240 ann: But I've started to write about it, and as I do other things pop up and pop up. I have been guided all my life in extraordinary ways, I suppose, because even as a child I was listening to who am I? When I'm not dreaming? I am, you know.
00:57:17.240 --> 00:57:17.700 Linda Marsanico: Yes.
00:57:17.700 --> 00:57:18.540 ann: So
00:57:18.980 --> 00:57:38.349 ann: I'm I'm starting to write that and that book, and which takes me all through my Africa experiences and with the native people. And and in India, and so forth, but but mainly I want to bring my body of work together, so that I can at the end of my day. Say.
00:57:38.540 --> 00:57:39.840 ann: I showed up.
00:57:40.320 --> 00:57:48.299 ann: I did the best I could, and if I have a place here, and if you want to use any of the work, anything I've written
00:57:48.790 --> 00:58:13.079 ann: I need help. Somebody will come to help me do it so. But I will do my part, which is so. That's what I'm doing. I'm getting all the musicals totally up. And on the website I'm getting all of the one woman shows laid out. I'm going to do an audio book of my time. Once I finish this book, which is quite close to being done.
00:58:13.290 --> 00:58:28.270 ann: and I'm just going to see where life leads me now, and I'm living in this beautiful little place on the water. And so I'm just writing, looking after my chickens. And yeah.
00:58:28.740 --> 00:58:32.329 Linda Marsanico: Thank you so much, Anne. It's been such a joy.
00:58:32.860 --> 00:58:38.379 Linda Marsanico: And you've shared so much to inspire the listeners of talk. Radio new York city.
00:58:38.520 --> 00:58:42.390 Linda Marsanico: When your book comes out I want you to. I want to invite you to come back
00:58:42.770 --> 00:58:45.439 Linda Marsanico: to share some of that with us.
00:58:45.640 --> 00:58:46.990 ann: I would love that
00:58:47.280 --> 00:58:53.409 ann: I would love that Linda and Linda. I have to say you are an extraordinarily wonderful human being.
00:58:53.590 --> 00:58:59.560 Linda Marsanico: I thank you very much, and I thank you for having me a joy and a pleasure.
00:58:59.750 --> 00:59:06.599 Linda Marsanico: Just tell our listeners the website again, so that they know how to get your book and how to reach you.
00:59:06.860 --> 00:59:10.789 ann: It's annmortafi.com, and it's a NN
00:59:11.940 --> 00:59:17.269 ann: MORT IF as in Frank ee.com.
00:59:18.310 --> 00:59:33.380 Linda Marsanico: And thank you so much. So, listeners. I wanted to mention that if you like this broadcast, share it with your friends. Your family. Talk about the if you like the passion and the creativity of our guests.
00:59:33.540 --> 00:59:34.669 Linda Marsanico: Talk about it.
00:59:35.030 --> 00:59:37.520 Linda Marsanico: Thank you so much. Next week
00:59:37.650 --> 00:59:46.859 Linda Marsanico: my guest is going to be Susan Griffith Jones, an English woman artist, living in India with the most amazing images.
00:59:47.050 --> 00:59:49.500 Linda Marsanico: We'll see you then, bye, for now.
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