Revisiting The Road, First Installment (My Own Healing Sound Journey)

Three and a half weeks ago I returned home from a trip that was supposed to be just over two weeks long. It turned out to be almost exactly one month. I didn't document it very well so, a little bit at a time, I will make an effort to fill in some of the gaps.

On July 28 I packed up my Subaru Outback with tuning forks, singing bowls and all my magical sound instruments and headed on down the road. I have to add that my car was running very well. (There's a reason I mentioned that which I'll get back to that in another installment!) I had a great, and easy, drive down. Google maps sidestepped all the heavily trafficked areas and I got there way ahead of schedule!

On August 1-2 I taught a workshop on Sound Healing with Toning, Tuning Forks and Tibetan Bowls at the office of my favorite Ayurvedic practitioner, Dr. Soman Nadhan. The workshop was full, not only with local therapists but also four people from Tallahassee who had taken the 5 1/2 hour trek to St. Pete! The workshop was partially for massage therapists to get continuing education requirements to renew their license but my workshops are always open to anyone who would like to enhance their personal practice or their healing practice with sound, so the majority of the class were massage therapists but we also had a violinist whose husband is a sound healer and a vibrational healer who came with her best friend, a sound healing practitioner. It was really a great weekend. Everyone seemed very pleased with the content and the delivery- and we all had a great time together. Some of us, including me, made some great new friends!
Lydia Riedell, a very happy camper with two beautiful new (antique) bowls to add to her collection of sound healing tools.



Taking It To The Next Level

Listening to a fantastic radio show saluting Brian Wilson- "June 9, 2015 broadcast of the Magic Transistor Radio show on WPRK FM, Winter Park, FL, USA, spotlighting the music of Brian Wilson, in celebration of the June 5 opening of the motion picture Love & Mercy in American cinemas." Click here to listen. It's so good! There are some great and different arrangements than what you may be familiar with- like the version of "California Girls" which is very cool.
Playing music during 11:11 event with Alex Grey

Spent a long time this evening looking through old newsletters from the Sound Body Wholistic Health Center. How I miss that place! I love where I am... and I am still trying to figure out how to get things really moving the way they were when I had the center in a space that is my home. There was the Monthly Sound Healing Movie, frequent sound healing and nada yoga workshops by myself and so many others, concerts with Sacred Voices and Fred Johnson at the center and all over the St. Pete area, weekly sound journeys, garden lunches, playing music for all kinds of events, drumming classes and so much more. I am astounded when I look through the old newsletters and my appointment books.


A gorgeous cake from a memorable birthday celebration at the center!
 The truth is that, beyond giving birth to four awesome sons who have grown into amazing men, I feel like the center was my greatest achievement thus far- and I am certainly not ready to throw in the towel! How to take things to the next level in a totally different environment, that is the question.
Practice session during a tuning fork workshop

5 Exquisite Singing Bowls

I can't believe that after three years of not being able to upload videos from my computer to YouTube, it is so easy from my phone!
So here's what we have tonight- a few days ago I got a shipment of Himalayan singing bowls. This is a grouping of five of them that sound absolutely gorgeous together. I find myself haunted by the sound. Every time I walk by them I have to hear them and even thinking about them does something indescribable to my mind. I find them completely intoxicating.




Click here to find out about the upcoming workshop on Toning, Tuning Forks and Singing Bowls on August 1-2 in St. Petersburg, FL.

Sound Around

Very busy last few days. After doing sound journey for a group of bankers the day before yesterday I had someone call and ask if I could give her son a treatment who has been going through a personal crisis. The session went so well and I hope he will continue for a while. The beauty of sound is that it can cut through the story...

Next Wednesday I am going to be offering demo sessions for the Rhode Island Cancer Summit in Warwick. I will be using tuning forks and singing bowls. The opportunity came through the Integrative Care Program at Women & Infants Hospital where I give treatments to oncology patients 1-2 days a week. The money is not great but the blessings are many and the fact that a hospital is paying anything for alternative treatments is pretty remarkable. I absolutely love the work and the amazing people I get to meet through the program- women who are grateful to be alive and
so proactive about their health, caregivers who need some nurturing for themselves- people who are empowered because they have made the choice to care for themselves in a challenging situation. It is pretty phenomenal.

Today I got a beautiful shipment of Himalayan singing bowls in and I know I will be getting more in about 3 weeks. I am very excited about that!

Diverging Directions (All Roads Lead Home)

My mind is going a few different directions with what to write about tonight and I am also very focused on changing my blogging and sleeping pattern so my plan is to keep it short tonight.





One: Still enjoying the energy of the gathering of sweet friends here last week.


Two: My brother came by my house last night and gave me a beautiful new guitar that plays so sweetly. I feel like we have been friends forever and she is inspiring me to play better and try new things that I have never done before.
Three: Yesterday I wrote up the outline for my weekend workshop in Holland that I will be teaching on May 8-9. The course is Sound Healing for Balance and Joy. The realization for me was the same tools that will first serve by restoring balance are also the tools that will bring you joy- not the tools themselves but the effect of their use.

Sound Healing for Balance and Joy
A Two-Day Workshop utilizing Vocal Expression, Singing Bowls, and Tuning Forks

Sound Healing for Balance
Chakra Tones
Chanting
Body Tuners (C & G Tuning forks)
Brain Tuners
Singing bowls

Sound Healing for Joy
Chakra Tones
Overtone singing
Chanting
Body Tuners/Brain Tuners
Singing Bowls

The same tools that are used to bring balance and harmony to the nervous system and the mind-body-spirit can also elevate us to states of great joy. The first task is to clear away the clutter and excess chatter. Sound has the capacity to sidestep our left-brain linear thought processes and allow us to drop fully into the present without fear, projection or anxiety. Once we have arrived, we are in a place to access the fullness of our being.

This is a fully experiential workshop. We will immerse ourselves in sound, produced from within and without. What you will take from this are simple, accessible, powerful tools that can assist you in managing physical, mental and emotional pain so that you can tap into the true potential of your being.

“The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.”
 
Holland- 2012



Sound Still Heals!

This is going to be abbreviated so that hopefully it is posted before midnight! Celebrated my 60th birthday today with some dear friends at a great restaurant  (Cav) in Providence. Rough start though... woke up this morning with a terrible pain in my side and my back. Did not want to have to cancel party which has been postponed numerous time over past two months due to various other people's illnesses, inclement weather (that means snow, and lots of it!) and who knows what else.So tonight was the night.

I knew it was digestive, after eating popcorn at the movies last night and then following it up with corned beef and cabbage when my friend Lynda and I got home at 10:30 craving something with protein. As it turned out, that was not the best choice! What to do? Sound healing. Took my pendulum and made a little map of what possible organs it might be. My hope and suspicion was that it was intestinal but the location of the strongest pain said it could be kidneys. This was all after I had taken various supplements to get things moving, had cranberry juice mixed with black cherry juice for sweetener and some water. The pendulum went straight away to large intestine. Whew- I knew at least that was manageable. I was praying it wouldn't go to kidneys, a much bigger problem.
Then I made another map of the all the different notes of the chromatic scale. I had never done this before. It was an experiment. I thought perhaps I could see if there was one particular frequency I needed. The answer (according to the pendulum)? F#, unequivocally. So the first thing I did was get a crystal bowl that was a very pure F# and play that for a few minutes. Then I went and got my set of Fabien Maman's tuning forks which is also a chromatic scale and designed to be used on the body. I tapped the F# and placed it on the area in the front of my abdomen that was hurting and got Lynda to do the same on my back behind my lower left ribs. The pain began to decrease in intensity.

We carried on this way for a while and then it occurred to me to go on the Soundweaver (vibroacoustic sound table within a copper dodecahedron) with Boris Mourashkin's music. Boris is a dear friend and a Siberian sound healer who completely healed himself of severe chronic pain from a very serious car accident with the use of his own musical compositions. I know how powerful and effective his music is. By now the pain was already starting to decrease and move around. I went on the Soundweaver and listened to a 20 minute recording from his CD "Points of Light." I didn't experience any pain while I was on the table and clearly when I got off it had dramatically subsided, if not gone away altogether.
Rosie Warburton, Boris Mourashkin & Linda Romero
at the Sound Body Wholistic Health Center, St. Pete, FL c. 2005.
Ginger tea and followed by some jook- good to go! Wonderful birthday party tonight- no pain! Sound still heals.

Files, Piles and Binaural Beats

Having moved in October after being in temporary and transitional living spaces since spring of 2012, I got relatively settled in my new house pretty quickly. It had been a long time coming and I was "ready". People who come to visit are always surprised to see that it is pretty well set up and feels, as they say, as though I have lived here forever- in the best sense of that phrase! That being said, I still have some boxes and plastic tubs stashed away in closets and little storage spaces that they don't ever see. Once every couple of weeks or so, when I'm feeling adventurous, I haul out another box or two and put away some more books or art supplies, or the odd grouping of nonessential instruments. This week I discovered all my Sanskrit books, workbooks, notebooks and practice pads which is very exciting for me.

Last night I decided it's time to organize paperwork as I have an appointment with a tax person coming up fairly soon. (They called me this a.m. and told me they have to postpone my appointment for tomorrow until two weeks from now- looking at all my papers I breathed a sigh of relief!) So, at this moment, instead of my living room feeling like the sacred space- or at least relaxing space- that I like it to be, the floor is covered with paperwork! Some of it is from the last two years but the bulk of it is 7 years worth of files from my sound healing center- time to reorganize it and figure out where it's going to go. I use the word "file" loosely- most is in files but some is in piles- piles that need to be filed!

This morning I was feeling some anxiety and there was a lot of internal chatter going on with regard to old family stuff and between that and looking at my living room floor I thought, "This is a job for brain tuners!" The brain tuners are a very effective sound healing tool that use binaural beats to shift one's state of consciousness. Here is a description by John Beaulieu, inventor of the Biosonic Brain Tuners and developer of Biosonic Repatterning:
"Brain Tuners are based on brain wave studies using electroencephalography (EEG) technology to map different states of consciousness known as Delta, Theta, Alpha, and Beta. Delta is associated with deep sleep. Theta is associated with meditation and dream states. Alpha is associated with relaxed awareness, creativity, and heightened learning. Beta is associated with high alertness and focus.

When the Brain Tuners are simultaneously sounded – one in the left ear and the other in the right ear – the two hemispheres of the brain function together to integrate the two sounds, creating a third, different tone called a binaural beat. When the Fundamental Brain Tuner tuning fork is sounded with a Delta, Theta, Alpha, or Beta tuning fork the difference between the two tuning forks creates a binaural beat which is heard as a pulsation. The binaural beat gently signals the brain to shift into a different state of consciousness."

 I have been using the brain tuners for quite a few years now and sometimes carry them around with me like a sonic toolkit.  Today I was sitting at my kitchen table feeling a little jagged and thought I would first use the alpha tuner to relax my mind and then the beta tuner to help me get organized. I tapped the alpha tuners, held them up next to my ears, closed my eyes and sank into the frequency. When I opened my eyes I saw my kitchen. What I mean by that is that I saw my kitchen- I mean, I have a really great space! I know this, but I hadn't actually seen it for weeks. It was as if I suddenly woke up. All the unproductive internal dialogue was suddenly quiet and I realized how myopic my vision had been for weeks. My vision suddenly became as expansive and open as the space around me.
I was completely calm, completely at peace and the ability to be productive and creative took over. I never did use the beta tuners because relaxing my mind was actually all that I needed to shift my energy and start getting things done. Very cool!