Revisiting the Road, 2nd Installment- A Lesson in Abundance!

Koi pond at Lynn Carol and George Henderson's house

Lynn Carol's art studio

My week in St. Pete was wonderfully full. Every time I've gone back in the last few years I have had so much to do- teaching workshops, closing up the center, moving stuff out of the house I lived in for 13+ years with my ex-boyfriend- and spending time with him because he still one of my dearest friends- that I was not able to find the time to see so many of the other people I was so close to when I was down there. This time I made sure that I took the time to visit everyone that I wanted to see- some of whom it was brief or I saw at one of my sound journeys, others I was able to hang out, walk with or share a meal. It was so wonderful to take that time and be sure that I saw all my old friends.

I stayed with my dear friends Lynn Carol and George Henderson, whose house is definitely my idea of heaven on earth!

Healing Sound Journey at Temple of the Living God

On August 6 I did a Healing Sound Journey at the Temple of the Living God. There was some kind of weird poverty consciousness going on before I got there. They asked me to lower my minimum which I had already discounted 70%! I decided that I was not going to join in their consciousness of lack so I said to my good friend Carol Mitchell who had arranged the gig for me, "Okay, here's what we are going to do- I am not going to charge a minimum. Instead, let's join our minds in this moment and set the intention that there will be at least 40 people at the Sound Journey." She heartily agreed. We set the intention and the night of the event, slowly but surely, the place filled up- 46 people for the Sound Journey! So many of them were dear old friends and people who had come to so many events at my sound healing center when I lived there. It really was the loveliest reunion- and I made what I would normally charge for my minimum rather than the heavily discounted price I had originally given them! The ladies at the church who were taking the money were stunned and delighted. Apparently they rarely get such a good turn out for their events. I would have to say that I was not as surprised as they were, but I was definitely very pleased!

A walk on the beach with my good friend, Brian Ransom

Expectant journeyers!

Selby Gardens with my old friend Linda Romero

Happy day with my new friends Ilona and Agnieszka, who I met last year in the Bahamas and discovered they live in Sarasota and that we have a whole circle of very close friends in common!

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.

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. 

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.

Benefits of Chanting Sanskrit

Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati (Ramamurti S. Mishra, MD) my teacher's guru

My beloved teacher, Swami Sivananda Sarasvati

Reasons for learning Sanskrit through chanting, according to Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati:

• You learn Sanskrit naturally and effortlessly.
• You enter your being through discipline of meditation, relaxation and concentration.
• You experience natural unity and integrity with the world.
• You receive natural and holistic healing, unifying body, mind and spirit.
• By the radiation of natural health on all levels you help others in the same direction.
• You experience the integrity of all world languages through the vibration of Sanskrit language with chanting.
• You enter into meditation in a natural way.
• You experience natural and spontaneous revelation of freedom and enlightenment, the light of natural awareness.

The Sanskrit language, known as “The mother of all tongues” is one of the oldest known languages, if not the oldest, on our planet. The written alphabet is called “devanāgari”. It is said that the language derived from the cities of the devas, “the shining ones” (“nagar” is the word for city). Each letter was derived from an icon of one of the many diverse Goddesses. The great Devi created 50 subforms of herself, the mātrikas or “little mothers” whose names are still recited daily by devout shakti worshippers. Each letter has its own meditative quality and vṛtti (perturbation of the natural mind) associated with it. 

Because each phenome in the Sanskrit language has its own vibrational quality, with the proper pronunciation one can attain states of mastery- theoretically even if you did not know the actual meaning of the words! This idea has another level of importance, because if the language is mispronounced one can inadvertently be bringing in unwanted vibratory energies. For example, “the pigeon”... rājakapotāsana... the word “rāja” means king or sovereign. Leave off the long “a” and the word becomes “raja”- which translates as either pollen of flowers or menstrual excrement! Properly pronounced it really translates as “the royal pigeon pose”. When one is teaching [yoga] one can be adding to this energy of excellence through the correct pronunciation of Sanskrit.

In 1786 Sir William Jones, one of the first people to seriously study the language outside of India had this to say about it:

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.

My personal experience of studying and chanting Sanskrit is that it charges the brain, balances the nervous system, creates new neural pathways and improves memory. 

This short video is from an introductory Sanskrit class for yoga teachers that I taught at Living Room Yoga in St. Petersburg, FL several years ago. The actual devanagari letters are below so you can chant along.