Pam Greenslate
Pam Greenslate – Pam has been playing the NAF for over 13 years.
Originally she was self-taught – having bought a traditionally made
flute – and learning to play by experimentation with the NAF and its
sounds. In 2006 she decided to seriously study the flute – purchased
a concert-tuned flute – and began taking lessons. In June of 2007
she traveled to Tarkio MT to study with the world’s foremost NAF
player, R. Carlos Nakai. Her studies with Nakai deepened her
instinctual relationship with the NAF. Nakai returned her to her
traditional beginnings with the NAF – teaching that to truly play
this instrument was a journey to the heart – where the player hears
and learns her own song. On returning from Montana Pam’s
mediation/yoga teacher, Swami Dharmakeerti, explained that in the
culture of India the “master” teaches a student for 12 years – at
which time the student is expected to move into the world and teach
what she has learned. Dharmakeerti’s charge to Pam was that for 12
years she apprenticed to the energy of the flute, which is the sound
of the heart chakra, and in her 12th year of apprenticeship she
found Nakai the teacher who returned her to the “song of her heart”.
And in her 13th year of study of the NAF she is to take the
teachings to others in her world. This is what she now does.
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