About Lucia

The Beginnings of a Listening Life

I grew up as one of eleven children in a large Irish family. Prayer, singing and choirs were woven through my early life. I loved to sing, but some of my most natural experiences of voice happened away from an audience—singing outside, to the trees and fields, where there was nothing to prove and nobody to impress.

As a child, I imagined I might become a singer. Life took me in a very different direction. I studied Computer Systems, completed a Master’s in Artificial Intelligence and spent twenty years working in technology.

And yet, the voice kept calling.

During a time of profound personal change, I joined a community choir because singing was one of the few things that brought me peace. Through that choir I discovered a deeper way of working with the voice, and in 2005 I began studying The Naked Voice with Chloë Goodchild. I later became a facilitator of the work.

This was the beginning of following a trail of breadcrumbs—voice leading to sound, sound to silence, silence to movement, poetry, yoga, mantra and Sanskrit.

Following the Voice

What began as a personal search gradually became the work I now share with others.

I trained as a Sound Healing practitioner with the College of Sound Healing and later became a tutor, teaching others to work professionally with Sound Healing through the human voice. I studied Poetry Medicine with Kim Rosen and trained as a yoga teacher, deepening my understanding of breath, body, movement and awareness.

My ongoing study of Sanskrit has brought another dimension to this path. Through the sounds of the language, mantra and the ancient teachings around Vāk—speech or sacred voice—I continue to explore the relationship between sound, consciousness, body and presence.

I do not see these as separate disciplines. Each is another way of listening. Each offers a different doorway into relationship with ourselves, with another and with the mystery of being alive.

When the Voice Disappeared

A few years ago, I lost my voice. This was deeply challenging: voice had been at the centre of both my life and my work for more than a decade.

Yet losing the voice asked something different of me. It asked me to stop reaching for sound and listen more closely—to the body, to silence, to what could not be spoken, and to what might become known without words.

It brought me more deeply into the understanding that listening is not passive. It is a form of presence: receptive, spacious, curious and alive.

The Listening Field

During a ten-day silent retreat, the name The Listening Field began to take shape—not as an idea to build, but as something revealed through paying attention.

I came to understand that listening is the precursor to everything. Before voice, there is listening. Before expression, there is listening. Before we can accompany another person, we need to be able to listen inwardly as well as outwardly.

The Listening Field is not simply a name for my work. It describes the space I try to create:

• listening inwardly—to body, breath, heart and the quieter yearnings beneath the mind

• listening to another—with presence, curiosity and attention beneath the words

• listening to the land and the living world around us

• listening through voice, sound, poetry and movement

• listening to silence and to the sacred

When we listen beneath the noise, urgency and need to respond, a different kind of knowing can become available. We may begin to meet ourselves, each other and life in a different way.

How I Work

The human voice remains at the heart of my work—not as performance or something you need to be “good” at, but as a living instrument of breath, vibration, relationship and presence.

Depending on the setting, our work may also include Sound Healing, breath awareness, poetry, mantra, gentle movement, yoga and silence. These are not separate treatments that must be chosen in advance. They are different doorways into listening.

My approach is embodied, collaborative and trauma-aware. Choice, consent and pace matter. There is no particular sound you must make and no experience you are expected to have. My role is not to fix or prescribe, but to create a soft and sturdy space in which you can listen, explore and meet what is present.

No singing, musical, yoga, poetry or Sanskrit experience is needed. Your voice is welcome exactly as it is.

Professional Background and Continuing Study

• The Naked Voice — study with Chloë Goodchild from 2005; later facilitator

• Sound Healing Practitioner — College of Sound Healing, 2013

• Sound Healing Tutor — College of Sound Healing, 2015

• Yoga Teacher — qualified in 2018, with further study in trauma-informed yoga, women’s health and menopause

• Poetry Medicine & Conscious Connected Breathwork — study with Kim Rosen

• Sanskrit and mantra — ongoing study with Lucy Crisfield.

My learning continues through practice, teaching, supervision, collaboration and ongoing study. I remain a student of voice, sound, language, silence and listening.