Sound Journey, Caterpillars- and oh by the way- I'm not crazy!

So far this has been an extraordinary trip. Last Monday when I was driving from St. Pete to Tallahassee my phone battery got down to about 35% so I plugged it into the radio as I needed the GPS. A while later I loooked at it and it was down to 17%. This was weird... I thought it must be a problem with the charger so I stopped at a Mini-Walmart (who knew?) and bought a new charger that I could plug in to the lighter- within a very short time it was down to 13%. Now I was nervous.  I was taking "the scenic route" to Tallahassee and definitely would need directions. I stopped the car and wrote down the directions to Ryan and Arielle's house, where I was going to be staying. Now it seemed that my phone was dying and I was nervous. I wrote down the directions on a piece of paper, texted Ryan and told him I was turning off the phone to save the now remaining 7% so I could call if I needed to reach them when I got to Tallahassee.

I drove the rest of the way to Tallahassee and when I got off the state road and was about a mile from their house, all of a sudden my battery light and brake light came on inside the car. Miraculously I made it to their house, went in and told them I had thought that my phone was dying but apparently it was really the car! Ryan relayed to me what good fortune I had because his dad has an auto repair shop so my car had broken down in just the right place! This was true for more reasons than just that. I could have broken down on the beautiful but very sparsely traveled road to Tallahassee. Also, since I had in fact reached my destination, we were able to transfer my instruments right away to Ryan's car, drop my car off at the shop (it started- another miracle!) and then go over to the yoga studio where I was going to be doing the Sound Journey the next night.
The car needed an alternator and front brake pads. My rule of thumb is that if a car repair is less than $500 I'm doing okay- this one was $384 and I had the cash to pay for it so I was relieved all the way around. I would always rather know that my car is safe and not have to worry.

The rest of the week there was great. Everyone loved the Sound Journey and I did a number of private sessions. The Abundance Wellness Center was such a beautiful space for everything I was doing, Arielle and Ryan and their little boy Aidan were sweet and wonderful hosts with a house fill of instruments from around the world, and I spent the last night at my new friend Lydia Rydiell's magic little house in the woods amidst her gongs and crystals. It was all so amazing.

On Friday I left my new friends in Tallahassee and drove to Murphy, NC to visit some old friends- two of my favorite people, Mahesh and Mukta. This was my time to take a break and stop working for a few days. I had a wonderful relaxing visit with them, laughed a lot, ate some good food, hiked in the woods and left today for The Farm in Tennessee.

Unfortunately I didn't get far! About 3 miles from their house a light flickered on my dashboard, a strange burning smell began to emanate from under the hood and my car struggled to make it up the next hill. A short distance away was an auto repair shop. I turned in, turned off the car, turned it back on thinking I should pull closer and it didn't want to move. I got out, called Mahesh and Mukta to find out if there was somewhere else I should bring the car too and Mukta said this was the place. Good thing since apparently it wasn't going any further!

So- my trip to The Farm has been delayed. I am back at Mahesh and Mukta's awaiting the verdict on my car- something to do with the transmission for sure and possibly in need of a new radiator as well. Again, I can only be grateful that I was down the road from my dear friends, that I get another two days to relax no matter what the problem is, and the way it looks we'll be able to reschedule the Healing Sound Journey at The Farm for either Friday or Saturday evening.

Meanwhile, here is a moment that caused a round of uncontrollable laughter in the woods near Murphy. Mukta, Mahesh and I were walking and we came upon this crazy gypsy moth caterpillar nest. I was curious what would happen if I started overtoning- the caterpillars went crazy! Mukta said, "You are the only person I know who would come upon a nest of caterpillars and start toning!" That sent us all off into fits of laughter for quite a while!
The other exciting thing is that my sister sent me this article today from last Saturday's New York Times, Sound Baths Move From Mainstream to Metaphysical. I would say so, if there is an article about it in the NYT. A lot of people (especially my family) have thought I was pretty crazy trying to make a living doing what I do. Clearly I was just ahead of my time!!!

Expanding the Vision


Beautiful flower arrangement made as a gift for Healing Sound Journey in Tallahassee
I have been on an amazing journey since I left RI on August 29th to drive down to Florida. The plan was one weekend workshop and a Healing Sound Journey. So far I have done 3 sound journeys which have all been incredibly well attended and am going to The Farm in Summertown, TN next week to do one and possibly two sound journeys there. I have given many sessions as well and have been so incredibly welcomed and well-received. It has been a trip beyond my imagination- seeing so many dear old friends and making many new friends on the way. Feeling so full of joy and gratitude today.

Right now I am in Tallahassee where I have found a whole new community of new friends, all due to one person, Ryan Sullivan, who I met years ago when I taught at Bhakti Academe of Intuitive Massage and Healing. He loved his experience and immediately signed up for the workshop when he saw I was going to be in St. Pete. Along with him, he brought his wife and invited another friend of his who then invited one of her closest friends who I connected with pretty much instantaneously. They all loved the workshop so much that they invited me to Tallahassee, made a gorgeous flyer, started telling their friends and clients and pulled together a packed house for a sound journey in less than a week's time!

I am pretty knocked out by the success of this trip on all levels. It has raised the bar in terms of what to ask for and to expect in terms of both attendance and income for my work and that has been very affirming for me as well.

Today I am happy and grateful that have I have held to my vision of what I want and what is possible. If things had gone according to my plan I would now be on my way home. Instead I am still riding the wave. Tomorrow North Carolina, next week Tennessee. Loving life!

Healing Sound Journey, Temple of the Living God, St. Petersburg, FL
Healing session with Himalayan bowls
Healing Sound Journey, Abundance Wellness Center, Tallahassee, FL
Healing Sound Journey, Yoga4All, Seminole FL
Ryan, after his session




Joyful Noise

I can't go another day without at least a brief update. I have to get up early tomorrow and go to Osprey to give some treatments and every day has been long and intense, but also very rich and wonderful. This is one of the best sound journey/healing trips I have done in a very long time- maybe the best ever. Such a warm, open appreciative reception. A very successful workshop last weekend and time spent with old friends and new. Have set up two more sound journeys since I've been here and new opportunities are opening up every day.

Saw two beautiful friends I made in the Bahamas last year this afternoon and will go back down to their house in Sarasota on Saturday and give them each a sessions. All in all it has just been great. Tomorrow night and  Friday night I do Healing Sound Journeys and another on Tuesday in Tallahassee where I will stay for 2-3 days and give sessions also. So bottom line, it's all good!

This is a picture taken earlier this evening when I was setting up for tomorrow night's Sound Journey at the Temple of the Living God in St. Petersburg. 

Sound Waves

One of my favorite quotes, by Dr. Alfred Tomatis:

“When you speak, sound pours from your mouth like water overflowing a basin. It inundates and spreads over your whole body. Without your conscious awareness, but nonetheless assuredly,
syllable waves break and wash over you.”
~The Ear and Language, Dr. Alfred Tomatis, ©1996~

Just think about that...


Morning Sounds

In the last week I wake up most mornings to the sound of hawks around my house. The sound of the ones I have been hearing lately is surprisingly similar to a seagull.

I woke up at 6:24 this morning to the sound of a couple of birds chirping very loudly. I went to the window and saw a relatively small hawk on a low branch of an oak tree near the house. It had a brown body and beautiful brown and white striped (or speckled?) wings. (Because of the earlier caterpillar infestation that has finally come to an end, the trees look like early spring with new growth just beginning so it is easy to spot most of the birds that would normally be fairly well hidden by leaves by this time in the summer.) Two robins were nearby, hopping from branch to branch and flying fairly close to it every now and then cause it to lift its head or ruffle its wings a bit. The robins seemed distressed by the presence of the hawk- they must have had a nest nearby.

This went on for about ten minutes and then the hawk lifted its wings and flew low through the woods to another tree about a hundred back. The robins followed it and continued their commotion at the hawk's new post. So now I know, when there is a loud chirping of robins, where the hawk is.

Sound Revelations

I am writing something that has not emerged yet- maybe a bit of stream of consciousness because I have stopped keeping up with this on a daily basis and am determined to pick my momentum back up. So much going on.

I had a skype session with my teacher Silvia Nakkach a few days ago and have committed myself to practicing sargam a minimum of 21 minutes a day. It was kind of an amazing session. I have had an issue with my breath ever since I was sick with a terrible respiratory infection in 2009. I have felt that I could not get the strength in my voice back, so I finally decided to get a one on one session with Silvia. It was so great and helpful. There were two issues- one with my breath and two with the actual pitch. Every note that she sang, when I sang it back to her I was down a half step. She showed me the simplest way of changing the shape of my mouth and lips that lifted the tone right away to the proper pitch- a revelation!

On a different note (pun intended), tonight my sister Jenny and I went to see the new movie, Mr. Holmes, about an aging Sherlock Holmes with Ian McKellan. In it was someone playing the glass harmonica, an instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761. How they managed to weave that into the movie is beyond me but it was very exciting to see and to hear! I have seen videos of it before but it was wonderful to see an instrument so unusual and relatively obscure in a movie. I love when unusual these sounds and frequencies that I am constantly searching for and researching are brought to the forefront in mainstream media.

Words of Love and the Land of Nod

 


I have not posted as frequently lately, but that is because I have spent so much of time actually immersed in sound that I have not had time to write lately!

These tools are so powerful. I have been doing this work for so many years and it never ceases to amaze me. Today I gave an oncology patient a session with the tuning forks and she had a really great experience and felt wonderful afterward.

Last night I was up very late going through old journals reading testimonials from 1995 when I first started working with the Dreamweaver vibroacoustic environment all the way up to 2011- the last year I had the sound healing center.

Here is a very short one from a 7 year old girl who had a five-minute session about 20 years ago:

"Rose,

I was around a wall but the people were out side.
I was dancing inside the wall.
Thank you"... /

So cute!

Another from 1999:

"Rosie,
The loving healing you offered me was just what I needed. The earth toned embryo at the end will stay in my mind's eye forever.
I feel reborn!
Thank you for your love and unconditional healing"...

And a very sweet poem that my friend Joyce was inspired to write after her session a few years ago:

"Now I lay me down to breath
      Search my soul for what it needs
As sound is seen
And vision heard
      I soar within
            On God's word
                    Truth is there
                    My spirits free
      Please come back on earth with me."

Two nights ago I couldn't get to sleep so once again I decided to use the brain tuners, which have never failed me yet. Same old story- I tapped the fundamental and the one that goes with it to create a delta frequency and sure enough about 30 seconds later I put them down on the bed next to me and went straight off to sleep!







A Tibetan Bowl Healing Session

Yesterday's Tibetan bowl session.

Notice the progression of the layout of the bowls. I do not decide which bowls to play or where to place them. They tell me. As I played them they began to direct me to move them, closer and closer to Karen until they were almost hugging her body. Then at the end some of the bowls were moved away from her feet and her sides and the sound was simply moving back and forth from her crown to her feet, back and forth between the two.

I was very sorry that I did not record this session. The bowls were singing beautifully.




Is Western Medicine Waking Up?

Dr. John Beaulieu's sound studio in Stone Ridge, NY
One of my oncology patients at the Women & Infants Integrative Care program sent me this article tonight. She is actually going to be participating in this program. It is so exciting that western medical establishments are finally waking up to the power and potential of sound and music therapy.

Sloan Kettering and Pandora Music Genome architect to ‘prescribe’ music for cancer patients

by Mark Sullivan

Pandora’s chief musicologist Nolan Gasser has made a career of tailor-fitting streams of music to listeners’ tastes. Now, Gasser is taking the body of knowledge he gained as the architect of Pandora’s Music Genome Project and focusing it on helping ease the suffering of cancer patients. The Music Genome Project was about breaking down and categorizing hundreds of music characteristics (or “genes”), then delivering streams full of songs containing the genes that people like. That same matching algorithm, along with some hard science from music therapy research, Gasser believes, can be used to “prescribe” music that will ease some of cancer’s more unpleasant symptoms.

Gasser, an acclaimed pianist and composer in his own right, is now working with members of the Integrative Medicine Department at New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on the first phases of such a therapy, and hopes the project will receive sufficient grant money to bring these ideas to fruition. Sloan Kettering has long been a pioneer in the field of music therapy and has an active Music Therapy department.

Healing music on ESPN

Gasser’s music therapy work was featured last week in an ESPN Films special called “Breaking Music Down to Its Genes,” in which he takes viewers through “The Wellness Suite,” his composition designed to contain the right traits to soothe and inspire cancer patients.

You might wonder why ESPN would produce a show about playing music for cancer patients. The point of ESPN Films’ digital shorts series The Collectors is to “profile passionate people scrounging for information to save the world’s bees or find the formula for funny,” as the network put it. Producer Jamie Schutz proposed Gasser as a subject based on his music data work with Pandora, but when he learned what he was doing with music therapy at Sloan Kettering, he thought that would be a perfect focus for the film.


The music in “The Wellness Suite” uses a number of musical techniques that music therapy research has shown to help relieve fatigue, pain, anxiety, and nausea in cancer patients. “The slow, heartbeat-paced tempo, consonant harmony, lyrical and sustained melody, occasional bursts of rhythmic energy, the use of strings, and so forth,” Gasser said, have been shown in the research literature to create positive therapeutic effects. Longer pieces of music that have “a slow, unravelling, and narrative” quality also have been shown to captivate listeners and ease pain.

“The Wellness Suite,” Gasser said, is “an extended work that puts all these things together.” In the ESPN special, the piece is performed in front of three cancer patients. Their responses to the music tell the story (see video above). “I came up with a melody that for me spoke of healing,” Gasser said.

Accounting for taste

“The Wellness Suite” acts as a sort of pilot for the wider body of work Gasser hopes to do with Sloan Kettering. He hopes to find existing music, and create new music, that brings to bear both the therapeutic musical styles used in the suite and the personal musical tastes of the individual cancer patients at Sloan and elsewhere. For instance, the research shows that long, sustained drones with shifting harmonies above have the capacity for healing. “So if the patient likes jazz, we might go out and recommend modal pieces by Miles Davis or Charles Mingus that have those qualities,” Gasser said.

Sloan Kettering and Gasser hope to develop a repertoire of music for different types of patients (with different musical tastes), then conduct scientifically rigorous testing to find out if patients who undergo this approach to music therapy really fare better than patients who receive different approaches, or no music therapy at all.
Pandora's Nolan Gasser
Above: Pandora’s Nolan Gasser
Image Credit: FiveThirtyEight
 
Evidence exists that music can help ease discomfort, but very little has been done to affect this by linking specific musical traits to personal taste. “Hopefully the results of our research will show that by integrating musical features with personal taste, we can better move the needle on treating the ailments of cancer treatment,” Gasser said. He says patients will also be given some instructions on how to listen to music so that they can get the maximum benefit.

The first round of testing at Sloan Kettering will focus on using music to relieve symptoms like pain and nausea. But later tests may try to determine if music can accomplish even more in some patients, tapping the body’s innate healing powers. “It would be nice to explore grander prospects like increasing general metabolism in the fight against cancer,” Gasser said. “The prospect that a sustained musical therapy could help in the act of healing or even reduce the spread of cancer is pretty ambitious, but it certainly can’t hurt.”

Gasser says there’s every reason for optimism. “We are musical beings; music is part of our very identity,” he said. “We all have the capacity for music to have a positive effect on our well-being.”
Gasser is working on a new book called Why You Like It: The Science and Culture of Musical Taste that documents his work at Pandora and his 20-plus years exploring the nature of musical taste.

 

 

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

They Just Get Better!

I have had such a busy past two weeks that I have rarely been able to find the time to blog- and when I do it's late at night and I find myself falling asleep at the computer. Because of that, many nights I have simply opted out rather than drive myself into exhaustion.

It has been good. More sessions, last week's company and training, the holiday weekend which meant time with my son Nic and my grandson, working for my friend Lark today who was behind on jewelry orders- and tonight- a concert by David Crosby which was so excellent. As good as and better than ever!

That's the nice thing about musicians- they just keep getting better with age, unlike some other professions where you're better off quitting while you're ahead or before you make a total fool of yourself. And, as Dave Crosby said, "Music uplifts humanity." Yes, indeed.

A Sound Experience

This past week a woman came up here from New Jersey to train with me from Monday through Thursday. We had a great connection pretty much instantly- she was relaxed, easygoing and very receptive- so it was really was a very enjoyable experience on my end. While she was here I gave four sessions- one to her, two which she observed and one in which she assisted by doing reiki while I was working on the person.

I wanted her to have as wide a range of experience as possible for her first time here so I ended up having a kirtan the second evening she was here. My friends Lynn Carol and George Henderson were here also, visiting from Florida, so there were four of us already! I invited a handful of people at the last minute and got a great response so we had a really nice group and very sweet kirtan here on Tuesday evening.

I also gave her a session with a set of Himalayan singing bowls she had tentatively picked out for herself. My thought was that if she was going to use them for healing she should experience what it would be like to actually receive a treatment with them!
One morning we went over to my friend Lynda Loranger's beautiful sound studio in Little Compton and experienced a sound bath with her gongs and Himalayan bowls. That was really wonderful- and nice for me also to be able to receive that day!

On her last evening we watched the movie Touch the Sound- a brilliant documentary by Thomas Reidelsheimer about Dame Evelyn Glennie, a solo percussionist who is quite deaf in that she lost her ability to hear through her ears by the time she was 12 years old, but has made up for that by learning to hear with her whole body. Watching and listening to her play it is clear that she is profoundly sensitive to sound. The way that she talks about and shares sound is a revelation.

Clearly Thomas Reidelsheimer is a deeply sensitive individual as well. Fifteen years ago he made the movie Rivers and Tides about the artist Andy Goldsworthy, which is pure poetry and then followed it up with this extraordinary film in which he illustrates his subject with his own incredible perception of sound and movement that is reflected in every frame of the film. I have watched it at least 5 times and am stunned by its beauty every time.

This is all to say that we had a great three and a half days together, filled with sound experience. It was nice for me to be able to focus so much energy on one person who wanted to engage in all that I had to offer in a short window of time. There is much more and I think we are both looking forward to her return in the fall. I know I am! I am also looking forward to doing other one on one trainings and sound healing retreats for individuals and being able to tailor the time for their own individual process and practice.

Profound Sound


 profound
    sound
    abounds
       astounds      
           resounds
             confounds
                 surrounds
           in the sonic playground

                 
                
                   
            

Sound Immersion

Looking forward to the next three days. I have someone coming to do a Sound Immersion with me tomorrow, staying for three nights. I spent a few hours preparing food so we won't have to spend too much time with that while she is here. There is so much ground to cover! She asked if she could apprentice with me and come up perhaps three different times between now and the end of the summer. Sound Immersion is what I am choosing to call it- it just came to me when I sat down to write. It leaves it open without expectations and I don't have to rename what is happening any time anyone wants to study with me or come for a sound healing retreat for a few days.
At the same time, my friends Lynn Carol and George Henderson are going to be here as well for two or three days, so it is going to be very full!

I have had the idea of individual personalized sound healing retreats for a while so I am excited that this is finally coming to fruition. This is not quite that- the emphasis of course will be more on  education and practice and there will be less time for receiving and reflection. She will very likely get a session each day that she is here however and that in itself is worth the price of admission! I also have several people coming over for sessions during the time that she is here.
We will be discussing and working with the voice, first and foremost and then dip into VibroAcoustic Therapy, tuning forks and Himalayan singing bowls. When she comes back we will explore more deeply the singing bowls and tuning forks and who knows what else? It depends on how much she wants. We can go into mantra, Sanskrit, chanting, crystal bowls, Healing Sound Journeys and more.
If it was you, what would you want for your Sound Immersion? Would you want to learn to heal others with sound? Yourself? How to incorporate an instrument you already play into your healing practice? Would you simply want receive and have time to process with Expressive Art Therapy? Or maybe after each sound healing session you would just want to go over to the beach and take a nice long walk!


Your Sound Immersion is for you- you get to design it the way you want it!








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.

Buzz, Buzz, Buzz...

Tonight I add a couple of small touches to the Event Registration page. Right now am going to Facebook to create an event there too. Also working on setting up some other events in FL while I am down there.

Very busy getting ready for apprentice who is coming for four days next week as well as my dear friends Lynn Carol and George who are coming up from Florida. I am feeling slightly anxious around the possibility of not getting enough time with them and putting my energy into trusting that it will all work out perfectly!

I got a small shipment of Tibetan bowls in a couple of days ago- a set of five among them that are absolutely intoxicating! They are more expensive than the ones I usually get but they are definitely amazing quality- stunning both visually and vibrationally. Tomorrow I will post a little video of them.

A Sonic Wonder

Well, I fell behind on my daily blogging with so much going on in my life. One was a problem with the internet for a couple of days and then a big glitch getting the Event Registration page working properly which took a lot of time. However it IS working now and you can click here to check it out! It needs a bit more tweaking just to get it really looking right but at least it is all working well and people can now sign up with relative ease.

So, I am committed to Being Back! Tonight is more of a brief check-in as I have to get on Facebook and create an Event for the Florida workshop, as well as making some final touches on the Registration Page for it. As of about an hour ago I am also contemplating setting up a series of Healing Sound Journeys for August and turning my ride back from Florida into a bit more of a road trip.
I did discover this very awesome project which is going on in Rangely, Colorado. A huge abandoned and unused oil tank was discovered by "sound artist and sonic thinker" (I love that description!) Bruce Odland back in 1976. When he entered it, he discovered it had extraordinary sonic properties. Ever since then, a small group of musicians have been playing and recording in it. As it says on the website, "The Tank is a sonic wonder of the world, with a shifting, swirling reverberation longer and richer than the Taj Majal or the Great Pyramid." In 2013 a project began to raise money to turn the tank into a Sonic Art Center which is now coming into being.

Guess what my newest obsession is? I can't wait to go out to Colorado and visit this place! I want to do a Sound Journey there. Please be sure to click here and visit the website (http://tanksounds.org/the-tank). It is just to cool to miss- and be sure to watch one or two or more of the videos. They are all so fascinating. They are on the top menu of their website under "Media" or just click here.