For the past 3 days I have been immersed in the Sound Healing Global Summit online. Two days left. I had an idea that I couldn’t stand online workshops but in the time of Covid I am finding myself incredibly grateful for them. I dipped my toe in when I was in the Philippines- initially to attend a Weight Watchers meeting that I used to go to every Saturday morning when I was at home in Rhode Island. It was so wonderful to see familiar faces and feel the connection from 12000 miles away! After that I started joining in on Jai Uttal’s Friday evening kirtans and Gina Sala’s Monday Mantra class, which for me, being 15 hours ahead, were a perfect way for me to start my Saturday and Tuesday mornings- with joyful sound and meditation- and to dive into practices that otherwise were completely inaccessible to me where I was, especially once we were in lockdown.
So back to the Sound Healing Summit…
FAST FORWARD!!! I started writing this on August 5. It is now October 17. My life has made such a wide and clear circle in a year. One year ago today I was getting ready to drive to North Carolina to help my dear friend and former partner Henry navigate his way through a health procedure. Sadly he died on October 18 while I was still on the road. Two days later my sister Jenny died. Henry’s death hit me like a sledgehammer and I spent a year moving through layers of grief around that. Now, a full year later, I find myself in North Carolina living in the house where he spent the last year of his life which he had helped one of our very close friends to build.
Last week, on October 11, we had a Celebration of Life on Zoom for my sister Jenny, and I found myself processing a lot of untapped grief around that. It was a beautiful event and I am so grateful that it was a full year later so that I could be fully present for it and not held captive by the feelings I had been dealing with around Henry’s death.
So… transition, changes, travel, lockdown, Philippines, music, sound and healing…
The Sound Healing Summit was an inspiration. At some point well into my stay in the Philippines, after being on what turned out to be a major sabbatical that went on much longer than I anticipated, I realized I could not make a plan as to what would be next. And I knew that I would know what the next step was to be quite simply whenever it came to me. Clarity came within the first hour of my tuning into the Sound Summit. I have a lot to process and won’t get into much detail here but it centers around creating a Wholistic Sound Certification Program. Nothing will begin to happen until at least the spring. I am spending the winter here in North Carolina brainstorming, formulating a plan, and writing.
When I went to the Philippines I brought one small (but mighty!) Himalayan singing bowl with me. I had an idea about doing short meditations and making some videos. Unfortunately there was never a strong enough signal to post them so now I am posting one short video I made one beautiful morning on Camiguin. The sound is not great as there was a ton of background noise- the people of the little fishing village mending their nets right behind me- and I was really just experimenting. Unfortunately since it turned out to be impossible to upload anything I never refined the process!
