LegacyJournal The voices that made you
Begin a Journal

01 / tutorial

How a session
works.

A Legacy Journal session is short, deliberate, and quiet. Five minutes is enough to know whether this practice is for you. Twenty minutes is enough to leave something a grandchild will play, decades from now, and be glad of.

02 / before you begin

What you need.

i

A quiet room

Twenty minutes uninterrupted. Door closed. Phone face-down. The room you'd choose to read a long letter aloud in.

ii

A microphone

Your phone is fine. AirPods are fine. A real condenser mic is wonderful but unnecessary. Audio quality is checked automatically; we'll prompt for a re-take if anything's off.

iii

A question

One you've been carrying. We'll suggest one if you're stuck — from the seven arcs of inquiry, drawn slowly — but the best sessions begin with a question that's already known.

03 / the three movements

A session has
three parts.

FIRST MOVEMENT

Open the room.

You sign in. Elora — your guide between turns — reads the question once, slowly, in a steady voice. Then she goes silent.

This first minute is the one most first-timers skip. Don't. Sit with the question. Let it land. The recording isn't about content; it's about presence, and presence takes a moment to assemble.

SECOND MOVEMENT

Speak.

When you're ready, begin. Wander. Repeat yourself. Stop and start. The recording is yours; nothing about it has to be linear or polished. The instrument is forgiving on purpose.

If you stall, the question is on screen the entire time. If you want to abandon and re-record, one tap. The first try is rarely the keeper. That's normal.

THIRD MOVEMENT

Seal it.

You name the recipient — one person, by name, by relationship. You set a delivery rule: now, on a date, on an event, posthumously. Elora confirms the seal. The recording is encrypted to that recipient's key and goes into the vault.

You can edit the transcript afterward; you cannot edit the audio. The voice is the thing.

04 / the first session

The ritual is the point.
The recording is the residue.

Beginners try to over-prepare. Don't. Open the room, ask one small question, speak for three minutes, seal it. The first session is a calibration; the second is when the work starts. By the fifth, you'll know which question is yours to ask.

05 / tips for first-timers

Things we wish
we'd known.

It will feel awkward at first. That's normal.
Speaking into a microphone alone in a room is a strange thing the first few times. By session three or four, the awkwardness is gone and what's left is the work.
Address the recipient directly.
"Lila, I want to tell you about your great-grandmother." Speaking to a specific person changes the cadence and the choices. The voice softens. The detail sharpens. The recording finds its center.
Don't edit while you record.
Halting and restarting because a sentence didn't land breaks the spell. Let the imperfect sentence stay. Edit the transcript later, if at all. The audio is more honest if you let it run.
Repeat yourself if you need to.
Repetition is how memory actually surfaces. Saying the same thing twice in slightly different ways is often the moment something true comes out. Keep both takes.
Specifics over summaries.
"My grandmother was kind" is forgettable. "My grandmother peeled apples in long unbroken spirals on the porch in October" is a memory your great-grandchild will keep. Aim for the spiral.

06 / what happens after

The recording, kept.

The audio is encrypted with the recipient's key. The transcript is generated automatically and made searchable. The recording shows up on your tree of life, alongside the recipient's name, on the day you recorded it.

You can re-record. You can re-deliver. You can write a written note alongside the audio. You can decide, on a later session, that the recording was meant for someone else. Everything is reversible until the moment of delivery.

Sit down.
Speak the first thing.

Begin a Journal