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

Healing Sound Journeys- How They Came To Be

Sound Journey in an old church in Cape Cod, MA

This Friday (day after tomorrow) I am doing a Healing Sound Journey at a martial arts studio in Woonsocket. (For more information click here.)  I have connected with a woman who teaches yoga there- Lisa Votta- and shares all kinds of holistic, inspiring and educational things that I am interested in on her Twitter page! AND she found ME via Google, which makes me happy, and there is a group of yoga students there who are excited about my coming up there to teach a sound journey. I am definitely looking forward to this event!

As I am thinking about the sound journey, I thought it might be fun to share a little bit about the Healing Sound Journeys and post some pictures from sound journeys past. 

Genie's Hookah Lounge, Newport, RI

In 1995 I began teaching sound healing workshops and found it to be most helpful for people to experience the effect of various instruments first, before discussing their effect. One could talk forever about how Himalayan singing bowls balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain and entrain the brain waves to a theta range, inducing a natural and effortless state of meditation (sahaj dhyan) but that will never give you the experience. I began opening my workshops with a short meditation on the various instruments that I had begun collecting- flutes, a small gong, a Tibetan bowl, a drum, rainstick, didgeridoo, an instrumental tamboura, a shaker- a very humble collection of instruments! I also used my voice, doing toning, overtone chanting and mantras.

High Rise, Rochester, VT

The meditation usually lasted about 15 minutes. The responses from participants were typically that they lost all sense of time and place, and that it was too short- an interesting dichotomy! As time went on, I began collecting more instruments and also realized that the effects of this short meditation were often profound so I began to extend the time. I offered a 6-week meditation called Sound Journeys, realizing that the participants were literally traveling on the sound frequencies and that each instrument had its own powerful effect and that they were all dramatically different.  So one week I would use a singing bowl, another week the didgeridoo, another week my voice, and so on. This was an amazing period of exploration and learning for me as well as those who attended.

Private home, Ridgefield, CT

As time went by the sound journeys began to develop a life of their own. People were having spontaneous healings- they took people much deeper than a meditation, with no effort at all on their part. All they had to do was lie down and the sound did the rest! Participants would come back with all kinds of stories of places they had been, colors they saw, loved ones who visited with them, physical healing, and sometimes an ability afterward to meditate on their own when before they'd had great difficulty.They spontaneously began to integrate the background sounds in their environment as a tool for meditation- in other words, the sound journey actually transformed the way they listened, heard and related to sound.

The sound journeys became Healing Sound Journeys. When I met my partner of 14 years, Henry Steffes, a musician who immediately saw the benefits of sound as a healing tool, we began doing Healing Sound Journeys together. We traveled around the United States and Canada, performing them in yoga studios, meditation centers and private homes. In 2005 I opened a sound healing center in St. Petersburg, FL and for the next 7 years I did a sound journey there every Monday night as well as in many other studios in the area and in other parts of the country as well.

(Tibetan bowl healing demo) Los Gatos, CA

In 2012, I moved back up to Rhode Island and have been offering Healing Sound Journeys in yoga studios and private homes up here as well as in Europe, with the occasional trip to Florida and California thrown in there as well.

For the past 3 years I have been recording all my sound journeys but unfortunately do not yet know how to upload them onto my blog- so sorry! I know that a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case a sound byte would be worth a thousand pictures but we'll have to wait on that and go with the pictures for now. Or you can come to one of my Healing Sound Journeys!

Saltana Salt Cave, Ridgefield, CT

Zettmar Studio, Newport, RI

Zettmar Studio, Newport, RI

Sound Journey Concert w/ Laraaji Naradananda, Temple of the Living God, St. Pete, FL

Sound Body Wholistic Health Center, St. Petersburg, FL

Women's Well, Portsmouth, RI

Sound Journey with orbs! Villari's Martial Arts Studio, Middletown, RI

Yoga Center of Newburyport, MA

Yoga Center of Newburyport, MA

Private home, Ridgefield, CT

First Unity Church With Alex Grey, St. Petersburg, FL

First Unity Church, St. Petersburg, FL

The Longhouse, Gulfport, FL- w/ Henry Steffes, Jr

Private home, Clearwater, FL

Recording Studio, St. Pete, FL w/ Henry Steffes, Jr

Healing Touch Wellness Center, Land O' Lakes, FL

Yoga Center of Newburyport, MA

Bright light after a Healing Sound Journey in Ridgefield, CT!

Inspirations

Beautiful Shyamji, my nada yoga teacher

This morning I updated my profile on my blog and spent so much time looking at pictures as I was considering updating that I came across all kinds of wonderful inspirations in the process! I decided I would share some of the things that have inspired me today- people, places, instruments- rather than getting too wordy.

The first is a suikinkutsu, also known as a Japanese water harp- an instrument I discovered while researching outdoor instruments for my healing sound gardens. The next one is a music piece by one of my teachers, music therapist, preserver of indigenous and sacred music Silvia Nakkach who has a voice of gold and a heart to match- Sarasvati incarnate!

Deity of Sound- sculpture by my dear friend Ceramic artist and musician, Brian Ransom

The side of a music school in Minneapolis

Singing, Ringing Tree- Crown Point, Lancashire, England

John Beaulieu's sound studio in Stone Ridge, NY

Sarasvati, She Who Flows

My beautiful teacher, shaman/maestro Don Tito La Rosa

Jim Pepper's saxophone! Smithsonian Institute

"The Gift" by Patricia Bowers

Playing music for visionary artist Alex Grey

Dear friend, colleague, amazing sound healer, Baba Frejon/Fred Johnson- vocalist extraordinaire and dancer Katurah Robinson who dances from her heart

Athena VibroAcoustic Table built by Somatron Corporation

My dear teacher, bhakti yogi, amazing musician and "kirtanmeister "Jai Uttal

Beautiful friend, brilliant artist, hostess of my healing sound journeys Suzanne Benton- blissed out after a Sound Journey

Another brilliant teacher teacher and revealer of the magic of tuning forks as well as craniosacral therapist/polarity therapist/naturopath/psychologist John Beaulieu

My Sanskrit teacher, the late Swami Sarasvati Sivananda I miss you, Swami Bob!