Finding Peace- A Woodland Sound Journey

 
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.


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!







Sound Around

Very busy last few days. After doing sound journey for a group of bankers the day before yesterday I had someone call and ask if I could give her son a treatment who has been going through a personal crisis. The session went so well and I hope he will continue for a while. The beauty of sound is that it can cut through the story...

Next Wednesday I am going to be offering demo sessions for the Rhode Island Cancer Summit in Warwick. I will be using tuning forks and singing bowls. The opportunity came through the Integrative Care Program at Women & Infants Hospital where I give treatments to oncology patients 1-2 days a week. The money is not great but the blessings are many and the fact that a hospital is paying anything for alternative treatments is pretty remarkable. I absolutely love the work and the amazing people I get to meet through the program- women who are grateful to be alive and
so proactive about their health, caregivers who need some nurturing for themselves- people who are empowered because they have made the choice to care for themselves in a challenging situation. It is pretty phenomenal.

Today I got a beautiful shipment of Himalayan singing bowls in and I know I will be getting more in about 3 weeks. I am very excited about that!

Moving Forward

I am very happy and grateful to be feeling relatively settled in my house so that every day now I get to spend a fair amount of time either playing music or doing something related to sound healing- instead of just unpacking and organizing! One or two days a week I am off to South County to give massage and sound healing treatments to oncology patients, which is really an incredible gift for both them and for me.

Today I spent several hours practicing my harmonium, combining a couple of different chants to Shiva, the transformer, for the yoga and chant class tonight. The icicles are melting, spring is around the corner and with that transformation is in the air! I am starting to figure out the chords with relative ease now which is really a big step. Also, for some reason that I don't really understand, my guitar playing seems to have improved dramatically recently even though it seems like I don't play that much. I feel like it has something to do with the pretty constant immersion in some form of sound that, even though my actual technique isn't nearly as good as it was when I was younger (since I took about a 15 year break from it), my sensitivity to sound has greatly increased and by virtue of that, so has my creativity. Whatever it is- I'm liking it!