1.5.11 Compelling Sounds

The night before last someone came to the center for our weekly sound healing meditation. She had called me to be sure I was going to be there because she also wanted to buy a crystal bowl. She was hoping to purchase was a large A natural bowl and was coming from a fair distance.

She and her husband both came for the meditation and afterward we sat for quite a while so that she could pick out the bowl she wanted. She told me that she had come to an FSMTA (Florida State Massage Therapy Association) meeting two years ago that I had presented at. She said that when she came in to the meeting she had a headache. I started off by giving essentially a mini sound journey playing a variety of acoustic instruments so that they could experience how the different sounds affected them. The drone flute, didgeridoo and a crystal bowl were among the instruments I chose. When she left her headache was gone. The bowl I had with me was an A.

She never forgot the sound. She fell in love with it and ever since then had been waiting for the day that she could get one of her own. I was so moved by this, that a single sound could be so compelling as to never be forgotten- astounded and amazed once again by the incredible power sound has to grab our awareness and touch us so deeply that we can actually wait years for the opportunity to hear it again. And if at all possible we will find a way to keep that sound around us so that we can hear it over and over knowing we will never grow tired of it... those sounds that cause our heart to expand every time we hear them, that create a softening, a gentle melting within us... that connect us with the essence of beauty and the quality of compassion.

She ended up buying a crystal bowl and two Tibetan bowls that sounded incredibly beautiful with it. This way she could use them all together if she was at home or in her own office and if she was doing a massage at someone else's office she could just bring one of the Tibetan bowls which would be easy to travel with.

Once I was teaching a class and I was playing a C & G tuning fork, going around to each person holding up the tuning forks on either side of their head letting them listen to the two tones together. One woman instantly got tears in her eyes. When everyone had listened and were sharing their experience she said, "It felt like coming Home."