By playing a gong gently, we bring forth the fullness of sound. By applying subtle sound to the body, we can coax it to gently release the trauma it is holding.
Song With No Words
This morning I got up- for about 5 minutes. I took out my 12-string guitar which I have hardly played at all in about four years- not because I don't love it but because the body is too big and it is just a little awkward for me. Sat back down on my bed with it and didn't stop playing for close to two hours.
I had forgotten just how much I love the sound of that guitar. I heard things I had never heard before, beautiful overtones. I also found myself playing in ways that I had never played before and developed some kind of a cool riff in a minor key that I couldn't stop playing. I loved the sound of it.
I sat playing it and wondered how I could be playing better than I had ever played and how I could be making up new riffs when I hadn't practiced in forever and had also put it down for a good 20 years before I started playing again just a few years ago. My technique is lacking but my ear is better- more creative and more open.
I think it is partly due to all the sound healing work that I do. My sense of hearing is much more sensitive and refined- being able to hear more subtle sounds also allows me to produce more subtle sounds. The other thing that crossed my mind was that I seem to be thinking of the creative process differently since I took the Expressive Art Therapy training. In relation to creating art, one of the freeing things for me about the EA process is that when I see something now that inspires me to draw, I don't have to draw or paint the object or person that inspires me. Before that, I had always felt that I had to be able to paint the landscape or the flower or the person perfectly and I didn't have the technique so I always felt frustrated and incompetent. What I learned from Expressive Art Therapy was that I could express the feeling I get from it and get a great deal more satisfaction and joy from the process.
I think the same thing is happening for me when I play the guitar. I am experiencing a deeper ability to listen to what wants to be played, as well developing a new kind of openness to what is emerging from the instrument. There are times that I have felt constricted by the belief that I had to either learn, or write, a song. After all, that was why I learned to play the guitar in the first place- because I loved to sing. I have always enjoyed just sitting and playing the guitar, but even when I did that I was mostly playing chords to songs even if I wasn't singing along with them, rather than allowing the song to find itself, so to speak.
I had forgotten just how much I love the sound of that guitar. I heard things I had never heard before, beautiful overtones. I also found myself playing in ways that I had never played before and developed some kind of a cool riff in a minor key that I couldn't stop playing. I loved the sound of it.
I sat playing it and wondered how I could be playing better than I had ever played and how I could be making up new riffs when I hadn't practiced in forever and had also put it down for a good 20 years before I started playing again just a few years ago. My technique is lacking but my ear is better- more creative and more open.
I think it is partly due to all the sound healing work that I do. My sense of hearing is much more sensitive and refined- being able to hear more subtle sounds also allows me to produce more subtle sounds. The other thing that crossed my mind was that I seem to be thinking of the creative process differently since I took the Expressive Art Therapy training. In relation to creating art, one of the freeing things for me about the EA process is that when I see something now that inspires me to draw, I don't have to draw or paint the object or person that inspires me. Before that, I had always felt that I had to be able to paint the landscape or the flower or the person perfectly and I didn't have the technique so I always felt frustrated and incompetent. What I learned from Expressive Art Therapy was that I could express the feeling I get from it and get a great deal more satisfaction and joy from the process.
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| ~Not my 12-string guitar!~ |