Biosonic Bliss 3.16.11

Right now I'm in Massachusetts visiting my 89-year old mother who is in pretty amazing condition for her age (which I attribute to her growing and eating her own organic vegetables for the last 60-plus years). Her only real complaints are dimming eyesight and arthritis which can cause considerable discomfort for her.

Her latest and greatest pleasure seems to be receiving treatments with tuning forks- specifically a protocol put together by John Beaulieu- Biosonic Repatterning using Pythagorean tuning forks. I learned this protocol over ten years ago from Avi Khadir Aberman (at that time still known as Phil), an old friend and colleague of John Beaulieu's. When I first experienced them I found them heavenly and wanted to add them to my sound healing practice right away. As it turned out though, I didn't use them much for a long time because I already had a primary sound healing protocol using Somatron vibroacoustic technology and this has really been the backbone of my practice for well over 15 years. In the last 3 years though I have begun working with the tuning forks more and more.

My mother has had all manner of alternative therapy and exposed me to a great deal as well. When I was 7 and injured my neck she had a woman come to the house and give me massage and reflexology almost every day for 2 weeks. When I was 18 she gave me a subscription to The Homeopathic Layman's League of the Northeast along with a homeopathic first aid kit of Dr. Schuessler's Cell Salts and I began learning about homeopathy. It has gone on from there. She herself has had every kind of sound healing treatment I have offered from toning which loved ("It's like taking a bath in ginger ale!") to a treatment in the Inner Dimensional Sound Chamber, which made her extremely nervous. ("Do I have to go in the monkey cage again?" referring to the sacred geometry frame around the sound chamber, when it was offered on another visit). She gets acupuncture, massage and craniosacral therapy on a regular basis, which includes treatments from my sister and I whenever we come for a visit- tui na, Thai massage, Bhakti massage, craniosacral therapy and sound healing.

So about 6 months ago when I was visiting I decided to bring my tuning forks with me. It's an odd thing. Even though I know that for me they are magical, somehow I think other people may just get bored. Well, so far- as far as I know- that has never happened, but somehow I thought it might be a stretch for my mother. Why? She is the IDEAL receiver of almost any kind of alternative therapy as long as it doesn't involve a monkey cage! Anyway I gave her a treatment with the Solar Harmonic Spectrum tuners. It is an off-body protocol and the person just lies on a massage table (or whatever works) while the practitioner(me, in this case) plays a series of intervals with two tuning forks at a time, holding them up to the client's ears. The whole process takes about 40 minutes. Unfortunately I didn't give her the session til the second to last day of my visit. As soon as it was over the first thing she said was, "Can I have another one tomorrow?" And then declared that it was simply blissful.

So now whenever I come she wants the tuning forks. Today, having arrived yesterday, I gave her the first session of what will probably be a series over the next seven days. Her response today was pretty much the same as every other time. After a bit of a challenge getting into a comfortable supine position on the table, within the first few minutes of cranial work she became deeply relaxed and then I started with the tuning forks and soon she was quietly snoring. She wasn't really sleeping but she goes in very deep. (Her snoring style when she is asleep is much more intense.) I also become entrained through the skin and bone conduction as I feel the vibration of the tones moving into my body. After the session was over she really did fall deeply asleep and slept on the table for about another half hour or more. Then she got up, needing less assistance from me than usual and exclaimed that it was simply wonderful, heavenly. She said she felt marvelous.

I asked her if she remembered anything. She said no, she just felt wonderful. She was beaming. She soon began remarking that she had much less pain in her body and couldn't get over how well she felt. She said she felt freer. She repeatedly stated over the course of the afternoon how amazed she was at how much better she felt. I must admit that I am somewhat amazed as well. Something that seems so gentle is so powerful and goes so deep. I haven't used the tuning forks on anyone else who was dealing with physical pain so this is a real eye opener for me to see just how powerful this treatment is on the physical level.

After I was done she called three friends and set up appointments for all of them, including one for one of the owners of the day spa where she goes for her manicure! So interesting...

Having just arrived yesterday we have been having a richly musical time so far. Last night we watched a wonderful program about a reunion of Pete Seeger's old group, The Weavers. The female singer Ronnie Gilbert had extraordinarily beautiful radiant youthful skin some 30 years later which I commented on. Mum said, "That's what music does- you know that!" Yes, it does.

3.9.11 Forever Young

Watched the movie "Young at Heart" last night, which follows a senior citizen chorus from Northampton, MA over a period of six weeks as they prepare for a concert in their home town. The music is great- songs by James Brown, Talking Heads, The Clash, The Police, Bob Dylan- and the old folks ROCK! I showed it at my sound healing center and was disappointed that so few people showed up- four to be exact (besides me). It is such a wonderful inspirational movie and I cannot imagine how anyone would not love it, so I felt badly knowing that so many people missed it. It speaks to the power of music, and in this case singing, to bring people together- to connect, uplift, inspire, empower, heal, motivate, and above all to keep the spirit alive.
Here they are doing a song by Kurt Cobain... totally cool!

3.4.11 Healing Frequencies

Watch this! A series of frequencies showing cymatic formations in a drop of water. Absolutely astounding as you consider the effects of these frequencies on the brain and the body. Dr. Gary Robert Buchanan is taking the work of Hans Jenny and Dr. Peter Guy Manners to the next level. Enjoy...

2.28.11 Tambouras and Headphones!

A few days ago I wrote about about my experience with headphones and how generally these days I tend to stay away from them, as well as an including a really interesting article from the New York Times. The same day I ended up having a really interesting experience.

My friend Rob Pieniak came over to the center that afternoon to record some stuff with me. I was playing the tamboura and had it tuned so that the dominant tone was a B instead of the usual C# which I tend to play it in. Rob recorded me playing the tamboura for about 7 minutes. Tuning the tamboura down just that much created a very deep rich resonance in the lowest string. After he had recorded it I put the headphones while he played it back and I chanted along with it. The resonance of the tamboura and the steady entrainment of the rhythm was so powerful- it was amazing listening to it through the headphones. I could feeling the tone moving down inside of me, especially in my chest, resonating deeply within my body. It brought me into a very blissful state!

2.24.11 Headphones- To Have or Have Not

People have often recommended using headphones or earbuds to me for use with the telephone, in favor of having one's hands free while talking. Years ago I would hold the phone in place with my shoulder while I did the dishes. My neck no longer allows that, besides the fact that phones have gotten so small it is practically impossible to hold them in place that way anymore. If I could have my way I would have a nice old-fashioned desk phone with a rotary dial and a curly cord but I'm afraid I will never have another such phone. I have also developed a tremendous distaste for "multi-tasking" and today I'd really prefer to just sit down with a cup of tea while I talk on the phone. I also have an extreme aversion to the idea of these frequencies going directly into my ear and have never been able to stand earbuds. In my teens and early twenties I loved listening to music with a really good set of headphones but once I had kids it was no longer an option as I needed to be able to hear them if they cried or needed something so I gave them up a long time ago.

Then when the Walkman craze hit I just found it rude- that someone would sit right next to you and put their little headphones on and go off into their own world. I actually had a boyfriend who would do that when we went for bike rides together. It was a very short relationship because he was more interested in listening to his music- without sharing it- than he was in being with me or listening to music together, or being able to have a conversation when we were riding our bikes.

For a while Henry kept trying to convince me to use earbuds when I was on the phone but I couldn't stand the way they felt and intuitively I just felt like the sound going directly into my ear was not a good thing. I have not researched this at all. I just know how it feels for me. Interestingly a few weeks ago this article came out in the New York Times. I have copied the article below in case the link doesn't work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/magazine/09FOB-medium-t.html

Against Headphones
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN

One in five teenagers in America can’t hear rustles or whispers, according to a study published in August in The Journal of the American Medical Association. These teenagers exhibit what’s known as slight hearing loss, which means they often can’t make out consonants like T’s or K’s, or the plinking of raindrops. The word “talk” can sound like “aw.” The number of teenagers with hearing loss — from slight to severe — has jumped 33 percent since 1994.

Given the current ubiquity of personal media players — the iPod appeared almost a decade ago — many researchers attribute this widespread hearing loss to exposure to sound played loudly and regularly through headphones. (Earbuds, in particular, don’t cancel as much noise from outside as do headphones that rest on or around the ear, so earbud users typically listen at higher volume to drown out interference.) Indeed, the August report reinforces the findings of a 2008 European study of people who habitually blast MP3 players, including iPods and smartphones. According to that report, headphone users who listen to music at high volumes for more than an hour a day risk permanent hearing loss after five years.

Maybe the danger of digital culture to young people is not that they have hummingbird attention spans but that they are going deaf.

The history of headphones has always been one of unexpected uses and equally unexpected consequences. Headphones were invented a century ago — the brainchild of Nathaniel Baldwin, a tinkerer from Utah who grew frustrated when he couldn’t hear Mormon sermons over the noise of the crowds at the vast Salt Lake Tabernacle. Baldwin’s device, which was designed first as an amplifier, came to incorporate two sound receivers connected by an operator’s headband. Within each earphone was, according to legend, a mile of coiled copper wiring and a mica diaphragm to register the wire’s signals with vibrations. When the Navy put in an order for 100 such Baldy Phones in 1910, Baldwin abandoned his kitchen workbench, hastily opened a factory and built the prosperous Baldwin Radio Company. His innovations were the basis of “sound powered” telephones, or phones that required no electricity, which were used during World War II.

It’s not incidental that Baldwin imagined headphones first as a way to block out crowd noise and hear sermons. Workers and soldiers have long used them to mute the din of machinery or artillery while receiving one-way orders from someone with a microphone. From the beginning, it seems, headphones have been a technology of submission (to commands) and denial (of commotion).

When World War II ended, submission-and-denial was exactly what returning veterans craved when they found themselves surrounded by the clamor and demands of the open-plan family rooms of the postwar suburbs. By then, they knew what device provided it. In the ’50s, John C. Koss invented a set of stereo headphones designed explicitly for personal music consumption. In that decade, according to Keir Keightley, a professor of media studies at the University of Western Ontario, middle-class men began shutting out their families with giant headphones and hi-fi equipment. Further, they recalled the sonar systems they saw at war.

The Walkman appeared in 1979, the invention of Sony, and headphones became part of a walking outfit. Headphones and earbuds are now used with MP3 players, mobile phones, tablet computers and laptops.

Most discussions of the transformation of music by digital technology focus on the production end. But headphones transform sound for the consumer too. Headphones are packed with technology. When an audio current passes through the device’s voice coil, it creates an alternating magnetic field that moves a stiff, light diaphragm. This produces sound. If you think about all the recordings, production tricks, conversions and compressions required to turn human voices and acoustic instruments into MP3 signals, and then add the coil-magnet-diaphragm magic in our headphones, it’s amazing that the intensely engineered frankensounds that hit our eardrums when we listen to iPhones are still called music.

Whatever you call it, children are listening to something on all these headphones — though “listening” is too limited a concept for all that headphones allow them to do. Indeed, the device seems to solve a real problem by simultaneously letting them have private auditory experiences and keeping shared spaces quiet. But the downside is plain, too: it’s antisocial. As Llewellyn Hinkes Jones put it not long ago in The Atlantic: “The shared experience of listening with others is not unlike the cultural rituals of communal eating. Music may not have the primal necessity of food, but it is something people commonly ingest together.”

Headphones work best for people who need or want to hear one sound story and no other; who don’t want to have to choose which sounds to listen to and which to ignore; and who don’t want their sounds overheard. Under these circumstances, headphones are extremely useful — and necessary for sound professionals, like intelligence and radio workers — but it’s a strange fact of our times that this rarefied experience of sound has become so common and widespread. In the name of living a sensory life, it’s worth letting sounds exist in their audio habitat more often, even if that means contending with interruptions and background sound.

Make it a New Year’s resolution, then, to use headphones less. Allow kids and spouses periodically to play music, audiobooks, videos, movie, television and radio audibly. Listen to what they’re listening to, and make them listen to your stuff. Escapism is great, and submission and denial, too, have their places. But sound thrives amid other sounds. And protecting our kids’ hearing is not just as important as protecting their brains; it is protecting their brains.

2.20.11 Resonant Frequencies and Altered States

MRI two days ago. Entranced by the sound. Had one few years ago after a head injury and it took them 45 minutes to get me to actually relax enough to lie down in it due to the claustrophobia. They were going to give me a sedative but I didn't dare take it as I didn't know the extent of the injury yet and was afraid to take anything. When I had it this time (for cervical spine) I was totally fine. It was an open MRI so I had peripheral vision which was nice but all that is beside the point. What I really loved was the sound- I did use earplugs but it was still very loud. All these different rhythms that I became quickly entrained to- some took me out of my body and some brought me back. I was also fascinated by the sensation of the radio waves as they moved around my body and came from different angles.

Today, a Sunday, Henry and I were sitting outside in the courtyard at our home in St. Pete playing music together. I was playing guitar and he was playing flute. All of a sudden a huge flock of birds came in and started singing wildly. As long as we played they sang. Then he started playing a quena, a beautiful wooden flute with a very sweet sound that he got in Peru and I was playing the silver flute along with him. The birds seemed to love the harmonies, especially when we were playing intervals of thirds.

It reminded me of when I lived in Jamestown, RI many years ago and had a pottery studio in the barn on the property. It was quite dilapidated and the loft really had no windows left- they were just big openings in the wall! It was full of barn swallows but the first floor where I had my studio had been set up for an auto mechanic some years earlier so it was enclosed, had a huge heater, great shelving and 220 current so I could run an electric kiln in there. One day I was in there throwing pots and I put a Mark Isham tape on (it was the 80's- no CD's yet!). It was a very rhythmic piano piece and the birds in the loft suddenly started singing along right in time with the music. I was so amazed, they just loved that music and whenever I put it on that would happen- and they would not only sing, but they would keep the rhythm of the music.

It also brought back a great memory of Sunday mornings years before that when my exhusband Jonathan and I would get together with our neighbor Dave Nabozny in Newport and play music. It was a Sunday morning ritual for a while- coffee, pot, pastries... and Dave on the guitar, Jonathan on blues harp and me on the flute. My kids were little and they would sit on Jonathan's lap while he played the harp and all in all it was a pretty wonderful time. This time there was no pot (we no longer indulge!) and instead of little kids around there are just flocks of birds to enjoy it along with us, but it was equally as pleasant a morning and in fact I did dip into quite an altered state of consciousness for a while and ended up laughing hysterically.

2.11.2011 Synchronicity



Ahhh... good morning sound explorers! I sat down to write at least an hour ago but got sidetracked by so many wonderful things showing up in front of me including this amazing video of Australian didgeridoo and guitar. And I haven't even had my coffee yet!

Thinking this morning about synchronicity... my thinking on this being that as we operate, vibrate, move at a particular frequency we attract people and events that sympathetically resonate with our vibration. As a sound therapist I tend to think about this generally in terms of sound typically as it relates to musical frequencies and healing but yesterday I began exploring it in a larger way as it was a day of interesting synchronicities.

The first thing that happened... a close friend (I will call her Tina) who had been in a life-threatening car accident in the end of July, 2010 stopped by the center to talk. She had to have extensive plastic surgery as a result of her accident- basically the left side of her face reconstructed including her jaw and her nose- and has healed phenomenally well. Nonetheless, she is having to come to terms with looking in the mirror and seeing a different face than what she identifies as "hers", so this was the gist of our discussion. Is my identity the face I see in the mirror? ie. is my face/my personality who I really am? Or can I move into a deeper place and connect with my "real" identity? A quote from A Course in Miracles came to me during the session which I shared with her before she left:
"Spirit am I, a holy [Child]* of God,
Free of all limits, safe and healed and whole,
Free to forgive and free to save the world." (Workbook, Lesson 97)
(*The Course uses the word "Son" here)

We had a good visit and before she left a client and friend came by for a session. (I will call her Cary) Tina was still at the center when she got there (Sound Body Wholistic Health Center, a sound healing center in St. Petersburg, FL). I was finishing up a couple of things so they had a few minutes to connect and basically chit chatted. Before Tina left I wrote the quote from A Course in Miracles down on a piece of paper for her. Meanwhile while the two of them were talking. Cary also happened to mention to Tina her connection to me through A Course in Miracles which I had totally forgotten about as it had been a year since I had last seen her.

After Tina left I gave Cary an energy balancing session with sound, and then we sat together and chatted for a bit. It wasn't long before the topic of A Course in Miracles came up and I shared with her a little bit about Tina's story and why I had shared the above quote with her. I told her a little bit about Tina's accident and surgery, and the whole topic about how we perceive ourselves and the challenge Tina was having moving through that. Cary exclaimed, "The exact same thing happened to me!" As it turns out, she too was in a terrible car accident 25 years ago and her face had to be totally reconstructed. But the change was so dramatic that literally no one recognized her. She said it took her ten years to get over it, to heal from it and then said, "So that's why we [she and Tina] connected! I wondered why we ran into each other here." We talked for a while longer and then she left, leaving her card so Tina could contact her.

After she left I felt a little tired from a pretty intense visit followed by the session and not eating enough. Another client was supposed to be coming in within minutes. She didn't show up so I called her and it turned out some stuff had come up and she had totally forgotten about her appointment. Under the circumstances it was fine. She is someone who has a lot of energy and consumes a lot of energy and I didn't really feel like I had much left. So I sat at my desk getting caught up on some work and suddenly the door opened and an old friend who I rarely see because she has been so busy with her own business walked in! I was so happy and surprised to see her. As it turned out she was coming in to pay for a workshop I am teaching in March. She has just closed her business so we had time to catch up and I was able to give her a short session on the sound table which I have been trying to do for her for years! The timing could not have been more perfect and it was a connection which boosted my energy rather than depleting it further.

So all of that being said, does this tie in with frequency, and if so, how? Personally I think it does. Tina has something she needs to heal. She drew to her, not by some magic or miracle, but simply by the vibration of her energy at this time, exactly the right person to help her through a piece of her journey. And if the day had gone as planned I would have missed my friend- AND been exhausted. But due to unforeseen circumstances, things shifted and my friend showed up at exactly the right moment rather than exactly the wrong moment!

I think part of this is also that I try to keep the energy at the center as clean and clear as possible. This allows whoever comes in to radiate- their energy is not muddied up by whatever else is going on, and that frequency draws in those with a sympathetic resonance. Thus Cary and Tina show up at the same time. Cheryl walks in at a time when I am most open to being available for her on every level.

Everything is vibration. Nada Brahma. The world is sound. Could you be the sound you want to hear in the world?

2.6.11 Writings of Dane Rudhyar

This morning I found a book by Don Conreaux, gongmaster, with excerpts from writings of Dane Rudhyar- Theosophist, philosopher, astrologer, musician. It is fascinating and wonderful little book, clarifying some concepts about sound and music as well as putting into words some stuff I "knew" but had no words for.

"When a sound is produced oscillations in the air occur. These airwaves are not sound, only the result of the passage of sonal energy (an etheric flow) through the air, just as thunder is not the lightning but the result of it. Sonal energy is in a way like an invisible lightning passing through any substance and shaking rhythmically the molecules thereof into so-called sound waves. But while certain substances like air are easily shaken into sound waves, when sonal energy passes through a big mass of metal, sound waves proper exist no longer, at least not in the same way as in the atmosphere.

It is a paradox that sound travels more quickly through a solid bar of iron miles long than through plastic air and modern acousticians have no logical explanation for it. They will not be able to do so until they recognize that sound is an etheric flow which passes through the molecules."

2.3.11

Thinking about sound, teaching about sound, talking about sound. Making sound- toning, chanting, reciting mantras, playing tamboura, Tibetan bowls, treating people on the sound table but I have not been writing about sound lately! Time to get back to it. What have been some recent powerful moments or openings I have seen?

Last week my kindergarten teacher came to visit me- the first time I had seen her in over 40 years! She had been a very special person in my life when I was young and we had reconnected in the last year but not actually seen each other. It turns out that music and dance have been very important healers in her life. She came to the sound healing center and at one point I played for her a crystal bowl. She had never heard them before. The first one I played was a frosted 8" G# bowl. She was sitting on the edge of the massage table and when she heard the sound her mouth dropped open and she said, "Oh Rosie..." in a voice of amazement and her eyes filled with tears. The beauty of the sound took her breath away. It was a very powerful moment.

This past weekend I taught a sound healing workshop. My sister Miranda was visiting, attending the workshop and helping me. On Saturday morning after showing a film on cymatics- the effect of sound on matter- featuring the work of Hans Jenny, I did a sound journey so the participants could feel how the sound of different instruments affected them. I used a variety of instruments- an A-minor Freenote (an instrument much like a xylophone), Tibetan bowls, 2 small clear crystal bowls, ocean drum, rainstick, aboriginal clapsticks, a 22" wind gong, a small wind gong, Native American drone flute, condor feather flute, and a didgeridoo. (maybe one or tow others that I don't remember!) I only played each instrument for 2-3 minutes in general because we were short on time. I did go around the room and play one of the gongs around each person as well as the didgeridoo. After the sound journey we all took a break and she and I went for lunch together. When we got in the car she said to me, "Okay, I just want to say one thing. If everybody were just to go home right now they would have already gotten their money's worth." I guess she liked the sound journey!

1.27.11 Fine Tuning

You can tune fine tune your energy with sound in much the same way as you dial in a radio station until there is no static and you have a clear signal. Frequency is used to remove static and interference so that you energy is clean and clear. There are many sources and methods of utilizing sound for this purpose- Tibetan bowls, drumming, crystal bowls, rattles, tuning forks, gongs, toning and mantra are all fast and effective.

1.15.11 Dream Frequencies

Last week I had a most amazing dream. I was at a hot springs- there were actually two springs side by side that each had man-made rectangular entrances that made them look like small pools- about 3' by 8'. But in fact, when you went into the water it opened up underneath into larger underwater pools, big enough that you couldn't see how far they extended. The water was very clear and light blue and ten to twelve feet deep. I was in the water briefly- underwater, looking around- but then realized there were some sea creatures in there that made me nervous so I decided to get out. There were squid, small, about a foot long but they would try to attach themselves to people or suck on them and even though they were actually friendly it creeped me out. Also the people I was with were a little too "new agey" for me so I was being pretty introverted and keeping to myself.

Each "pool" had a cover that could be pulled over the entrance when everyone left for the day and it was getting close to that time. I was sitting on steps going into the pool to the left and I began toning. It was almost like an entrance into an underground chamber only it went into the spring and I was curious how the tones and overtones would resonate into the entrance and in the water. They were getting ready to cover the entrances and in fact they did. I expressed my disappointment and someone remarked "Oh now that we're getting ready to go you're suddenly interested." I said yes, that I was curious how the overtones would sound in the chamber so they opened it back up and let me tone into it. I wondered what it would be like toning into the water and how the resonance in the entrance chamber would affect the surroundings and the sea creatures.

I begin toning again. To the left of me on the bank it is fairly muddy. I am toning and creating strong overtones and as I look around me I see that there is movement in the mud bank that is clearly caused by the overtones. As I continue toning and watching this area a small girl's face begins to emerge from the mud. I go over to her, continuing to tone. She is dead. She looks like she is about 4 years old, a very beautiful face, still covered with mud but her features are visible and her body emerges from the mud revealing the rest of her as I tone. She hasn't been dead for very long. Her body has not begun to decompose. I take her in my arms and as I continue toning I see two men in suits standing a ways off to the right, 12-15 feet away. Clearly they are "bad guys", the men who have killed her, and they move closer, smirking, as the girl begins to come back to life with the sound. They are silently telling me that I cannot beat them at their game. They are each holding an oblong object in one hand- a frequency generator. Nothing but a dark oval shaped object with one red button that fits comfortably in one hand.

I am not afraid of them. I am holding her in my arms and they are now standing over us, still smirking. They each push a button on their frequency generator and it emits a single frequency which I know is intended to kill the little girl once again. She is so beautiful. I am bent over her, holding her close to me, trying to protect her with my body as well as my voice from their sound, overtoning loudly, modulating the pitch trying to find the exact tone that will negate the frequency they are generating. But it doesn't work. She is dead, again, but this time with a beautiful broad smile on her face, a look of total happiness and peace. And I know that they did not win.

1.13.11 Sound Adjustment

One morning last week Henry and I were sitting in bed having coffee. I had kind of a crick in my neck and was some what uncomfortable not having much range of motion when I turned my head to the left. For whatever reason I suddenly remembered how when I was little, about 5, that when I would get sent upstairs to take a nap I would stand on my bed with my blanket over my shoulders and shout over and over, "When can I get up? When can I get up?" I would repeat it very rhythmically and loudly and really I wasn't unhappy at all. I just didn't want to take a nap! Eventually I would tire of it and wrap my blanket all around me like a cocoon and lay down on my bed and fall asleep. I told Henry about it and began laughing and said, "That was my first chant!" I began repeating it again just like I did when I was little and suddenly my neck adjusted and I had no more pain! Once again, healed by chanting!

1.5.11 Compelling Sounds

The night before last someone came to the center for our weekly sound healing meditation. She had called me to be sure I was going to be there because she also wanted to buy a crystal bowl. She was hoping to purchase was a large A natural bowl and was coming from a fair distance.

She and her husband both came for the meditation and afterward we sat for quite a while so that she could pick out the bowl she wanted. She told me that she had come to an FSMTA (Florida State Massage Therapy Association) meeting two years ago that I had presented at. She said that when she came in to the meeting she had a headache. I started off by giving essentially a mini sound journey playing a variety of acoustic instruments so that they could experience how the different sounds affected them. The drone flute, didgeridoo and a crystal bowl were among the instruments I chose. When she left her headache was gone. The bowl I had with me was an A.

She never forgot the sound. She fell in love with it and ever since then had been waiting for the day that she could get one of her own. I was so moved by this, that a single sound could be so compelling as to never be forgotten- astounded and amazed once again by the incredible power sound has to grab our awareness and touch us so deeply that we can actually wait years for the opportunity to hear it again. And if at all possible we will find a way to keep that sound around us so that we can hear it over and over knowing we will never grow tired of it... those sounds that cause our heart to expand every time we hear them, that create a softening, a gentle melting within us... that connect us with the essence of beauty and the quality of compassion.

She ended up buying a crystal bowl and two Tibetan bowls that sounded incredibly beautiful with it. This way she could use them all together if she was at home or in her own office and if she was doing a massage at someone else's office she could just bring one of the Tibetan bowls which would be easy to travel with.

Once I was teaching a class and I was playing a C & G tuning fork, going around to each person holding up the tuning forks on either side of their head letting them listen to the two tones together. One woman instantly got tears in her eyes. When everyone had listened and were sharing their experience she said, "It felt like coming Home."

12.19.10 Sound, Healing and Money... What is Sacred?

Earlier this year I received a sound healing session from a friend. She didn't want any money for it. She said she had been guided by Spirit to offer these sessions free of charge. It was quite a lovely session, very powerful and beautiful. The word "transcendent" comes to mind because it really lifted me out of my body and carried me to another dimension. It didn't change my life. It did add to my experience and wonder of the ability of sound to transport us to other realms and realities and remind me again of why I so love this work. The curious element was the discussion that followed and her very strong stance that it is wrong to charge money for the sacred work of sound healing.

The day before yesterday I took my last $100, which I had been saving to buy stocking stuffers for my family and paid the electric bill at my sound healing center, which was due to get shut off. While I was out doing that the internet service was disabled for nonpayment. So, I have sound and money on my mind.

Part of what was put forth in the aforementioned discussion by the woman who gave the session was the idea of trust. Specifically she said, "What ever happened to the idea of trust? That if we do the work Spirit will take care of our needs?" Apparently for her it does. I have no idea whether she has other employment- a "day job". My day job is putting all my effort, energy and time into running a sound healing center, trusting that I am doing the right thing, and that even on what sometimes looks like the thinnest of shoe strings (like this week!) that my needs and the needs of the center will be taken care of!

I confess that I am feeling defensive right now and irritated at the implication that charging money for my sound healing sessions suggests a lack of trust. Or that money is inherently "dirty" and soils whatever (and whoever) it touches. Interestingly I spent years undoing my own belief that "money is bad". So maybe for me this whole conversation was actually reflecting that back to me, inviting me to look at that old belief again to see if I have really healed it. (Judging by my bank account, maybe I have a little more work to do!)

I have had a sound healing center in Florida for almost 6 years- the Sound Body Wholistic Health Center in St. Petersburg. I had no money when I decided to open the center. (You say "Well, you must have had some." No, I had none!) It was initiated by clear direction from Spirit and is continually supported by love, prayers of gratitude and an abundance of TRUST. Financial support and and sufficient income have been sorely lacking and every month that I am able to come up with the rent seems to be a miracle and I see the hand of Grace in all of it.

Most people love sound and music, they seek solace, comfort and healing and they want to learn simple of ways of healing themselves. Most people have music to listen to, many have instruments and we all have a voice. With a little more clarity of purpose and consciousness of how to use the tools already available to us we can greatly enhance our sense of well-being.

I provide a service. I am very clear about this. If I drove a bus- providing a service... say, to a special needs population?... no one would question that I should be paid for it. "Well of course, there's gas, there's your time, there's maintenance to keep the bus running, etc." Is driving a bus for those who need the service, for whatever reason, any less sacred than offering a sound healing session for someone in need? If we put the word "sacred" in front of the word "sound" does it preclude an energy exchange from the person receiving the treatment? Both persons in any relationship should have the opportunity to give and to receive in equal measure in whatever form is befitting, comfortable and appropriate for the situation and the people involved.

Is it less sacred to give than to receive? Is there any difference between the two? I think not. A Course in Miracles puts it like this, "To give and to receive are one in truth."

12.14.10 Sanskrit and Blogging



I have had a huge resistance to blogging ever since I first heard about it. One very simple reason- the word "blog". It is simply an ugly word and I couldn't get past it.

The Sanskrit alphabet is a series of phonemes called the "varnamala" which translates as "garland of letters". Each of these sounds has a particular vibrational quality and effect on consciousness specific to that sound. For example, "ga" removes obstacles, "a" (as in "father") is "all pervading", "sa" absolute truth, etc.- you get the idea. What are the vibrational qualities of "bla" and "ug"? Well, I don't have a copy of the varnamala in front of me so I can't actually tell you the specific esoteric energies associated with those sounds, but I do know how they feel- yucky!

So now that you know why I avoided blogging for so long and have made a decision to move past that issue I will share some more information on the Sanskrit varnamala. I found an excellent article on it this morning as well as the picture at the top of the page of the energetic breakdown of the sounds of the Gayatri Mantra.


ORIGIN OF THE VARNAMALA.
EXCERPT FROM "MANTRA & INITIATION" BY PANDIT RAJMANI TIGUNAIT
......Just as there are countless currents of energy in the cosmos, all of which are distinct from each other, so are there countless energy currents in the human body. In yogic literature these are called nadis. Of the 72,000 distinct nadis the yogis have identified, fourteen are of principal importance. Yogis have also discovered the exact nature of these major energy currents, their pathways in the body, how they interact with other energy currents, and what effect they have on the body, nervous system, biochemistry, and mind. Then, realizing that it is practically impossible to enunciate distinctly the sound that is produced from the vibrations of each nadi, yogis with extraordinary spiritual powers captured the entire range of sound produced by all these energy currents, and divided them into fifty-one parts. That is how the fifty-one letters of the Sanskrit alphabet were discovered.

The yogis have also discovered that every letter of the Sanskrit alphabet has its own color, shape, presiding force, and unique transformative quality, as well as its own seer. They have also experienced the relationship between these letters and different planets, stars, and constellations. They have discovered the approximate location of these letters in the human body and the particular pranic or psychological forces to which they correspond.

At a more subtle level, the Sanskrit phonemes relate to the energy currents which lie deep within the interior of the human body. Each of the 72,000 currents has a distinct sound, although they are too diffuse and vague to be enunciated distinctly. Moreover, the yogis have identified places in the body where two or more energy currents cross. In mantra shastra, the point where two energy currents intersect is called a sandhi, the point where three energy currents cross is called marma shthana, and the point where more than three energy currents converge is called a chakra. Here at the chakras, the vibratory patterns of energy are strong and vibrant. At the center of each chakra a distinct sound predominates, and other distinct sounds are centered around it. That is why, in kundalini yoga, each chakra is represented as having a particular letter at its center, as well as a letter on each petal........

Whoops!

Sorry- that didn't work. Try going to www.thepersuasions.info and play the video! Apparently I don't knwo how to post links yet- maybe someone can advise me? :)

12.8.10 The Perfect Moment


On Sunday I gave a concert at the Unity Church up the street from my sound healing center. The theme was "The Coming of the Light"- a musical representation of the dawning of the Christ Mind- primarily using gongs, crystal bowls, Tibetan singing bowls, chimes and Tibetan bells. It started with deep low tones with a very large crystal bowl, a gong, thunder drum and didgeridoo and gradually progressed to lighter and brighter sounds using the smaller bowls, bells and chimes.

It was a spontaneous creation, well thought out but mostly unrehearsed and clearly something that would never be played the same way twice. I felt it was coming together very nicely and I was quite happy with the unfoldment as I played- but there was one moment that completely took my breath away. It was a very quiet. I was playing one small Tibetan singing bowl with a little bit of water in it, with a violin bow. When I play it that way it makes a beautiful high-pitched sort of mewing sound with extremely high overtones and it is a very captivating sound.

The audience was quiet, not another sound in the room but the high haunting tones of that bowl and suddenly a woman in the audience let out a tiny audible sigh of the utmost pleasure, as if the sound that she heard in that moment was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard in her life, like her whole being had just suddenly melted.

And the sound of her voice surpassed the beauty of any sound that had come before in its utter and exquisite expression of joy.

12.7.10 Where Does Bob Dylan Fit In?

Reading a biography about Bob Dylan right now... The other night I had a dream that I was getting up in front of an audience to read an excerpt from "A Course in Miracles." There were several rows of people in front of me and I had to sort of cut through them to get up to the front. I was trying to figure out an easy way to get through and thought about making "a soulful bounding leap". I didn't and kept the thought to myself but woke up with that wonderful phrase from "Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" ringing in my ears.

Then last night I was doing a sound healing meditation at the Sound Body Wholistic Health Center in St. Petersburg, which I do every Monday night. Before I began one of the people in the group went outside to have a cigarette (no comment... :) Throughout most of the meditation I played a large Tibetan bowl, a couple of crystal bowls, gongs and a couple of other instruments. At the end I held a little set of chimes in my hand and played them very quietly. Suddenly I could feel myself sort of gently, but quickly, slipping out of my body. I put the chimes down and off I went... and suddenly there was Bob Dylan's face (slightly younger than he is now) in a very friendly and congenial way asking one person after another if they had quit smoking yet!

Is this remotely relevant to wholistic sound? Okay- probably not from a visionary aspect! But in the grand scheme of things on this plane, I would have to say yes, because Bob Dylan's music got me through some very tough times over the years. There were times, many times over many years and many stages in my life, that his music was the most healing thing I could listen to. How many hundreds of hours listening to more albums and more songs of his than I will bother to name... and how many hours playing my guitar and joyfully singing "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", and in other moods, more introverted, sometimes angrier sometimes sadder, singing "Love Minus Zero, No Limits", "Masters of War", "Gates of Eden" and on and on... His music was like a healing balm for my heart and soul. It allowed me to feel deeply, when feeling deeply was frowned upon my so many people in my proximity. "Don't feel too much, don't cry too much" was the message I got.

Music allows us to ride the waves of our emotions and eventually reach a quiet shore, where we are, as we were told we would be, released.