Zigs and Zags and Patti Smith

~Wrote this two days ago while flying out to SLC but didn't get a chance to post until now. Benjamin is having surgery this afternoon. Feeling more nervous about his recovery than the actual procedure. Fortunately he and I both have great support as he goes through this next challenge. He has an excellent team of doctors and his roommates are two very close friends who have reassured me that they will be at the ready and available to help him out with whatever he needs when he gets home. I am staying about ten minutes away with my best friend, Mimi Charles, from when I was a teenager and we seem to be more connected than ever after having lost touch for more than 30 years! We reconnected about 7 years ago when Ben moved out to Utah but had only seen each other once for an hour or two when I was out here 3 years. Life is strange and sweet amidst the challenges.~

Sitting on an airplane headed to SLC. My son Ben is having a surgical procedure the day after tomorrow on his eye- actually the optic nerve. It could be a fairly simple procedure- optic nerve decompression due to a rare bone condition that he has had since childhood- and I am more concerned about the recovery but it could also be a bit more extensive than what they are anticipating.

Flight zigs and zags- a 12-hour travel day. Providence to Baltimore, Baltimore to Detroit, Detroit to Las Vegas, Las Vegas to SLC. I hate writing on my iPhone but figure I may as well do something constructive!

Finished reading Patti Smith’s amazing book “Just Kids” en route. Didn’t plan so well- I didn’t want it to end, especially when I still have hours to go before arriving in Salt Lake. Somehow I didn’t take into account all the time changes and didn’t realize it was a four and a half hour flight from Detroit to Las Vegas! The upside of being stuck on a plane for many hours is being held hostage by creative artistic literary rock n’ roll inspiration.

What is it that gets me about Patti Smith? I had no idea how steeped in art her life has been. How did I not know so much more about her in years gone by? I knew she was a rock icon and a legend- every time I heard her music I loved it but I never chased her down- until last year when I read “M Train” and had my mind blown. Now I want to hear every song, read every poem, every book and see every drawing she ever did.

Part of what is so captivating is her humility and her unabashed honesty. It’s as though she looked life straight in the eye and fell into it. The lack of ego is one of the most refreshing things in her writing. It was quite a contrast to Graham Nash’s autobiography which I recently finished and grew very tired of about 2/3 of the way through because I felt it was so full of ego. Somehow there was always the feeling to me that he was name-dropping and talking a lot about how fabulous he was, whereas with Patti Smith, even while she writes about meeting Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and other legends, it feels very innocent and natural. There is sense of detachment around it- like she’s just writing about her life as it unfolded in a very organic way. There is always a sense of wonder, simplicity and connection.

When I saw her in New Bedford in January I had the same sense- an invitation to be fully human with no shame, no hiding. It is a powerful and inspiring invitation, to be the fullness of who I am and to me the greatest gift of true spiritual teachers. The ones I have been most affected by are the ones who I feel are fully manifesting in every moment. So I guess I am adding Patti Smith to my list of great gurus. Thank you Patti.Sitting on an airplane headed to SLC. My son Ben is having a surgical procedure the day after tomorrow on his eye- actually the optic nerve. It could be a fairly simple procedure- optic nerve decompression due to a rare bone condition that he was born with- and I am more concerned about the recovery but it could also be a bit more extensive than what they are anticipating.

Flight zigs and zags- a 12-hour travel day. Providence to Baltimore, Baltimore to Detroit, Detroit to Las Vegas, Las Vegas to SLC. I hate writing on my iPhone but figure I may as well do something constructive!

Finished reading Patti Smith’s amazing book “Just Kids” en route. Didn’t plan so well- I didn’t want it to end, especially when I still have hours to go before arriving in Salt Lake. Somehow I didn’t take into account all the time changes and didn’t realize it was a four and a half hour flight from Detroit to Las Vegas! The upside of being stuck on a plane for many hours is being held hostage by creative artistic literary rock n’ roll inspiration.

What is it that gets me about Patti Smith? I had no idea how steeped in art her life has been. How did I not know so much more about her in years gone by? I knew she was a rock icon and a legend- every time I heard her music I loved it but I never chased her down- until last year when I read “M Train” and had my mind blown. Now I want to hear every song, read every poem, every book and see every drawing she ever did.

Part of what is so captivating is her humility and her unabashed honesty. It’s as though she looked life straight in the eye and fell into it. The lack of ego is one of the most refreshing things in her writing. It was quite a contrast to Graham Nash’s autobiography which I recently finished and grew very tired of about 2/3 of the way through because I felt it was so full of ego. Somehow there was always the feeling to me that he was name-dropping and talking a lot about how fabulous he was, whereas with Patti Smith, even while she writes about meeting Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and other legends, it feels very innocent and natural. There is sense of detachment around it- like she’s just writing about her life as it unfolded in a very organic way. There is always a sense of wonder, simplicity and connection.

When I saw her in New Bedford in January I had the same sense- an invitation to be fully human with no shame, no hiding. It is a powerful and inspiring invitation, to be the fullness of who I am and to me the greatest gift of true spiritual teachers. The ones I have been most affected by are the ones who I feel are fully manifesting in every moment. So I guess I am adding Patti Smith to my list of great gurus. Thank you Patti.

Credit Sebastien Bozon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

From the External to the Eternal

Still feeling energized and grateful and off to a new start since my birthday. Doing a simple cleanse, a simple exercise regimen and a simple meditation- almost every day! The fact is I haven't done my exercises today but I did do an extra round of meditation and relaxation this morning by adding yoga nidra to my morning wake-up... waking up by allowing myself to fully consciously relax for another 30 minutes before I got out of bed this morning! That was nice. :-)

My gift today was talking to my eldest son Namdev for 2 1/2 hours on the phone. We don't talk all that frequently but we have such an easy communication when we do. We talk about our inner worlds, our outer world, art, psychology, movies, you name it. It feels very real and relaxed in that there doesn't seem to be anywhere we can't go or topics that we need to avoid. There's just an easy natural flow.

I am sitting here looking at a picture of my dear friend Shin Ae Tassia, who passed away last April, that I just printed out. It was taken at a Sound Journey I did for a group of cancer patients at a retreat in Exeter, Rhode island in 2015. She had been diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer the year before. She was given 9 months to live at the time but was now approaching a year. She was doing amazingly well at the time, looking so radiant. She loved sound. She loved the singing bowls. She loved the gongs. I gave her treatments using tuning forks which gave her great relief as time went on and her pain increased. She told me that she had become a sound evangelist.

She had a huge impact on my life, on my being, on such a deep level that I have yet to fully grasp, and maybe never will. One of those people that you feel as if you have known forever the moment you meet and know you have a soul connection with that goes far beyond the boundaries of a lifetime. She was one of those people. I am sorry that she had to go so soon. I wish I had known her better and longer, I wish I had been able to spend more time with her when we did finally meet and connect- but that's just external stuff. The connection was what was real and remains.

Interesting that when you drop the "x" external becomes eternal.

My Beautiful Life

I woke up this morning to a clear, windy, bitterly cold, snow-covered world. It is beautiful and fortunately I don't need to go any further than my house today. I have a warm fire and a couple of apples filled with rice, pecans and currants baking in the oven as I write this! It doesn't get a whole lot better- unless, like me, you have some fabulous sound healing technology in your living room! I decided to have my coffee in the Somatron recliner this morning (which is located about 6 feet from the woodstove).

It was an interesting excursion. I decided to put on a CD I had never heard before. Apparently it was a sample White Swan Music sent me a few years ago that I'd never listened to. The CD was by Philippo Franchini, called Magic and Grace. Initially, I didn't love it. It sounded too pretty and melodic and New Agey for my tastes and a little too weak for a deep therapeutic experience on the Somatron. I decided to give it a few minutes though and at some point some nice low rumbling tones came in and I began to feel more of the vibrotactile effect, the resonance of the frequencies coming through and massaging my cells. The second track had more of this and some nice deep percussion. I was still thinking about getting up out of the chair and putting something else on but the vibrotactile effect was beginning to have a hold on me.

Before I knew it I was sitting there filled with a profound sense of gratitude, tears streaming down my face- grateful for my beautiful life, grateful for the work I am blessed to do and blown away by the power of sound and music- and specifically this amazing technology which enters through the body and touches the soul.

The Effects of Chanting Sanskrit

I KNEW IT!!!

Back in the early 90's I studied Sanskrit with a wonderful teacher, Swami Shivananda, AKA Swami Bob to all those who knew and loved him. I studied with Swamiji consistently for about three years and when I left RI and moved to Florida continued with my own studies for quite some time. When I came up to RI for visits I would always stop in and spend a few hours with my beloved Swamiji one on one or sit in on one of his workshops if he happened to be teaching that weekend.

I strongly believed that the study and practice of chanting Sanskrit did wonderful things for my brain, particularly in the area of memory. It actually felt to me as if it were making me "smarter"- certainly helping me to think more clearly and efficiently. I had no positive proof of this but within me I was always quite certain that this was so.

In January of 2006 I sustained a severe blow to the head (my right temple) resulting in a fairly serious head injury. I was living in Florida at the time and my sound healing center had just been open for a year. A month after the injury I was invited to a retreat with another of my teachers, Shri Shyam Bhatnagar. It was very synchronistic as it happened that it was going to be in Florida, about an hour and a half from where I lived and I was in desperate need of healing. I was well enough by that time to take a chance on driving myself, which I did- the first time I had driven since the injury. I was in a very internal place as it literally hurt my brain too much to think at that point, but every day we would chant Sanskrit mantras with Shyamji. He is a Nada Yogi and his practice is solely using sound- mantra and tamboura- along with a strict Sattvic diet. Acharya Roop Verma defines Nada Yoga thusly: "Nada Yoga is an ancient science of sound vibrations. It is a path of exploring consciousness through sacred music which originated in the Vedic times. The aim of Nada Yoga is to purify and harmonize the gross and subtle bodies in alignment with their natural vibration, and to bring the individual to the highest state of awareness, the state of Yoga."

I was there for 5 days- maybe 7- I don't have memory of certain things from that time.  What I do remember though is feeling the vibrations, the frequencies, of the Sanskrit mantras working on my brain, literally healing my nervous system. I didn't realize how poorly I was still doing until I began seeing the improvement in a daily basis.

I was so excited when I ran across an article this morning in Scientific American confirming what I already was sure to be true. I have told many people over the years that chanting Sanskrit literally feeds the brain, but that information only came from my own personal experience. To me, that is always the best testimony to the efficacy of a practice but I also love seeing the scientific confirmation!

Below is a short video of Shri Shyam Bhatanagar as well as a link to the article from Scientific American. For article click here.

Riding the Energy of Love

Feeling lots of positive changes as I shift along with the changing seasons. The fire is going and I'm eating a breakfast of a hot baked apple with cashews, brown rice and cardamom. Decided to do a cleanse in preparation for a retreat and my body is so grateful and thanking me in every moment! Sleeping deeply and dreaming well.

Preparing for a Healing Sound Journey tonight at St. Paul's Methodist Church in Newport. Looking forward to it as always. Thinking about some of the different aspects of a sound journey and what makes it work. Being open, deep listening, willingness to let go of any agenda and follow guidance. I think ultimately we are riding the energy of love and healing on the waves of sound vibration. And through the medium of sound we are able to extend that vibration.

Also, in terms of my preparation and set up there is an element of an art installation. It should not only sound beautiful- it should look beautiful. Every instrument has its own perfect spot where it wants to be and is aesthetically harmonious within the context of the setting.

That being said, functionality is an important element- certain instruments need to be within easy reach and yet there needs to be enough space to be able to move around comfortably and get up and walk to another instrument, like a gong, which isn't resting on the floor and may be played standing up.

So, the sound journey is an expression of love, maximal during the time in which it occurs, in the form of a sound and art installation- that's the way I see it!