Yesterday was a day of sound and musical wonders! It started by me giving a woman a session on the Soundweaver (a therapeutic vibroacoustic environment) whose body has been wracked with pain by Lyme Disease. All of her joints were very painful but her knees were by far the most acute. I did an energy balancing using toning, chanting and overtone singing and also did some vocal sounding directly into the areas of the most acute pain. Then I put music on and did some energy work and craniosacral therapy. I used tuning forks (specifically a 128hz Otto tuner) on her knees and various other areas of the body. The session lasted about an hour and a half, maybe a little longer. She had a lot of emotional releases but beyond that, when she got up she said she had no pain in her knees. That was huge.

After the session light was pouring into the room and vibe was so beautiful and peaceful, but strong- very strong. Here is a picture of the room after we were done.

Later in the day, after she and her boyfriend (my good friend Walter) left, I put Mike Oldfield's "The Songs of Distant Earth" on in the Somatron vibroacoustic recliner and went for a long journey myself. It's such a brilliant album and totally exquisite as a vibrotactile experience- one of my very favorites. Sounds, rhythms, melodies penetrated my mind, body and spirit from all directions. I traveled far- it was wonderful.

And then there was Mary Gauthier. I honestly cannot begin to say how amazing- how powerful and moving- her concert was last night. I was just knocked out by it. (Check yesterday's post to hear a great song by her.)

A day spent cruising at the speed of sound... So good, so inspiring.

This past Friday I attended a retreat for oncology patients in Exeter, Rhode Island. I was there as a therapist offering treatments with tuning forks and craniosacral therapy. For the closing of the retreat I did a sound journey in the woods by a fire. What a setting! All the women that I spoke to during the course of the day expressed feelings of gratitude, empowerment and deeper connection to themselves and the people around them. Here are some pictures of the beautiful spot under the pines where I did the sound journey as the shadows grew long at the end of the day. It doesn't get much better than this! Some women sat by the fire, others lay down on rugs and blankets.

As I wrote in my last blog entry, I had just learned the night before that Dr. Mitchell Gaynor had recently been found dead in the woods near his home in New York. He did so much for the field of sound medicine, bringing it to the forefront as a complementary therapy, introducing it to all of his patients, as a means of boosting the immune system and helping patients to quickly drop into a natural state of deep peace. It was very powerful and poignant for me to have the opportunity to dedicate the sound journey to him at a time when I was still feeling raw from the news.

A couple of years ago I gave a patient with very advanced cancer a treatment with tuning forks. She was a beautiful bright spirit who was in a lot of pain with tumors throughout most of her internal organs. She had fought for a long time and knew she did not have a lot of time left. She was still willing and eager to try anything that might give her some relief. I gave her a treatment with tuning forks, never touching her body. After the session she told me her pain was not relieved but that she had experienced deep peace which was a great gift for her as it was something that she no longer had.

Dr. Gaynor was right. There is no other modality that can bring a person to a state of peace as quickly as sound. It doesn't have to be long, complicated or dramatic. It can be as simple as one tone from a Himalayan singing bowl or the sound of two tuning forks tapped on the knees and held up close to the ears, vibrating the temporal bones and sending the frequency directly into the nervous system in a matter of seconds. (Dr. John Beaulieu's Body Tuners with the frequency of 256hz and 384hz (C & G) are ideal for this.) Sound is simple, effective and can also such a pleasant form of medicine, so natural that we often don't even consciously notice its effect right away.