Mistress Verity Veil

The word ventriloquist comes from the Latin venter (belly) and loqui (to speak): "one who speaks from the belly." Long before puppets graced theatre stages, belly-speakers were surrounded by mystery. Their voices were believed to come from somewhere deeper than the visible mouth.

Mistress Verity Veil remembers the older meaning.

She has no interest in making puppets speak.

She listens for the voices already living within a person—the inherited scripts, the borrowed beliefs, the words spoken by fear, shame, expectation and survival.

Then, with quiet curiosity, she asks:

"Whose voice have you mistaken for your own?"

She offers no answers.

She lifts the veil.

What follows belongs to you.