Kirtan Camp, Here I Come! 6.21.11

It has been my heart's desire to go to Jai Uttal's Summer Kirtan Camp in San Rafael,CA for the last however many years- ever since I first heard about it, whenever that was. I keep in touch with him and Nubia and every year threaten that I am coming but have never been able to get the dough together. This year is the last year he is offering it for a while and when I heard that my mind was made up. There was no way i could afford not to go. Bought my plane ticket to California today! Don't have the money yet for the camp but I am committed and it will come. Living life out on a limb! What else is new?

This is one of my very most favorite Jai Uttal videos, hanging out singing to Ganga Ma in Rishikesh. So beautiful, simple, heartfelt... I posted it on my blog a while back but I didn't write so I guess nobody really saw it. It should not be missed- such a sweet 48 seconds of bhakti bliss. Oooh! That sounds like a poem...

48 seconds of bhakti bliss
Something my heart wants not to miss
A song of love, the soul's sweet kiss
48 seconds of bhakti bliss...

Wholistic Healing with Tibetan Singing Bowls

Lately I have been giving a lot of sound healing sessions with Tibetan (or Himalayan) singing bowls. They are called singing bowls because of their harmonic resonances and also because when you strike them the tone continues to ring long after they are struck. I have discovered through giving individuals sessions that the bowls seem to have an intelligence of their own and they actually seem to communicate how they should be arranged and played, as well as what bowls to pick for a given session. I am finding that there are different layouts or "spreads" that direct the sound energy in different patterns and directions. So far no two have been the same.

A couple of weeks ago I gave a friend a session with the bowls. Before she came I had already picked out a chakra set because I knew she was going to have a session with the bowls- she didn't know until she got there, but I had already been guided as to the beginning of the session. Once she lay down on the mat other bowls began calling to me and I put them around her as I was directed. I was astounded that each bowl I picked was in perfect harmony with the others even though I didn't try them or play any of them in advance.

After I felt that the layout was complete I began playing the bowls. What I began to sense as I played was that the layout was a Sun/Moon Spread, that it was assisting in balancing her male and female energies. In the beginning the layout looked like this.









Toward the end of the session, maybe after 20-25 minutes I was guided to begin changing the layout of the bowls. I began moving them and was directed very specifically where to place each bowl and soon discovered that the energy of the bowls was being directed very strongly to the heart, and clearly going in toward the heart. The sound was traveling up from the bottoms of her feet, through her legs and into the heart. And from the fingertips up through the arms and into the heart... in through the shoulders and into the heart, and also straight up from the root and straight down from the top of the head meeting in the heart as well. It looked like this.









It was incredibly beautiful and powerful and the sound of the bowls was extraordinary. I felt like the sound energy wanted to go to her heart. When the session was over I did not move the bowls away from her as I usually do because I wanted to share with her what I had witnessed and I felt she would better understand if she saw the layout of the bowls and the shift from the first part of the session to the second.

But before I shared with her I asked her about her experience. The only thing I said was "The sound all wanted to go to your heart." When I said that she began weeping. And then she told me that what she experienced was all these orbs surrounding her, these little spheres that were totally full of love and they all began moving into her. She said they were all her "buds", her friends and they were all part of her and then they all went into her heart and they were just hanging out there, in her heart. And she just wept. And so did I.

This is the last few minutes of the session, when I began changing the layout of the bowls. This is what it sounded like.

Blogging in my Mind 6.10.11

Forgive me bloggers for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last entry. I have been blogging in my mind practically nonstop, but as J says in A Course in Miracles "Your good intentions are not enough." Okay, that being said, I have been writing- just not in here, so I am going to paste some of the stuff I have been working on. I have been teaching workshops galore- almost every weekend. Last weekend was one on Healing With Tibetan Singing Bowls. I put together some information on the bowls, compiled from a variety of sources, mainly Eva Rudy Jansen and Rain Gray who has a wonderful interview with a Tibetan lama on his website, sprinkled with some insights and wisdom of my own! ;-)

I have been working like crazy on these workshops and then in the middle of last week I was suddenly asked to be in a play- a musical play- this Saturday. I said yes and ended up with two parts- one of which is a singing part and I have to do a couple of songs. Sound healing I know and I am comfortable talking about it and facilitating very large groups- but performing, playiing my guitar and singing to an audience really throws me out of my comfort zone- which I kind of love in a way, too! Because I know how empowering and healing it really is to be out of one's comfort zone and move forward regardless. I do really enjoy theater and haven't been in a play for SO many years (never mind how many!) and I love the parts I am playing- an archetype from Hildegard's visions- Ecclesia- and Hildegard's protege, Richardis. They are both wonderful parts and the music is great. The challenge has really just been that I had put aside this time to prepare for my workshops and that got totally cut into so I got really stressed- not a good body/mindset for a healer! so tonight I get my comic relief from "Romance & Cigarettes", one of the funniest musicals I have ever seen.

Okay a little bit about sacred sound here... after all that is what we are doing here!

Shamanism and the Esoteric Teachings of Tibetan Singing Bowls

“Every atom constantly sings a song, and it is this tone which creates finer or denser forms of greater or smaller density.” Lama Govinda

The bowls are shrouded in secrecy.The Tibetan, or more accurately Himalayan singing bowls originated in the Bon culture of the Himalayas- the original religion of Tibet, a shamanic animistic tradition which predated Buddhism. Buddhism was introduced in the 7^th c. AD and split off into two branches. The Bon religion is a more shamanic branch of Buddhism, and Lamaism is essentially Buddhism with strong Bon influences. Although both used sound extensively in ritual and meditations there is no written account whatsoever of the use of the bowls in their practice although they have been found in both monasteries and private homes.

That being said, according to Richard Rudis, "In the words of the great Tibetan master/Bodhisattva Gwalwa Karmapa, the Singing Bowls of Tibet emit the ‘Sound of the Void', the sound of the universe manifesting. They are a symbol of the 'unknowable' and as an alloy, date back to the Buddha, Shakyamuni (560-480 B.C.). Their origins and detailed histories are shrouded in the distant past and are surely a gift from the shamanistic 'Bon' religion which precedes Buddhism in Tibet by centuries. For centuries they have been utilized for healing and consciousness transformation."

Over 20 years ago Rain Gray, seeking answers to the mystery of these singing bowls, went to Nepal and found a very old Lama who talked to him at some length. Lama Lobsang Leshe told him that the bowls give a very high teaching, the pure teaching, the essence of Buddhism. He said that all sounds give different teachings and the singing bowls give Voidness teaching. The Voidness or emptiness teaching is the highest of all teachings. Without emptiness teaching there is no enlightenment. “This sound wang, wang, wang, wang, wang, means emptiness, empty, empty, empty, empty.” “Buddha is not here but singing bowl is.” (From interview with Rain Gray and Lama Lobsang Leshe, 1989)

“It is said that in the beginning the wind created the gyatams [matter/substance], the basis of our world, by a spinning movement. This movement of the wind was melodious and it was this kind of sound that combined the form and the matter of the gyatam to form a whole. The gyatams sang and from them emerged shapes that, in turn, produced others through the power of the sound that they had made. This applies not only to the past but is still true today. Every atom ceaselessly sings its song, constantly creating coarse and fine substances.” Lama from the Bon monastery of Tesmon, Tibet. Tibet: Bandits, Priests and Demons by Alexandra David-Neel, 1988

The Role of the Shaman... In the past shamans have acted as “mediators” between man and the spirit worlds. Part of their ability is to restore communciation when it has been temporarily disturbed. Their primary tool is sound- first the voice, chanting and singing, and then other instruments- drums, rattles, wind instruments and presumably the bell, bowl or gong. Through the use of sound shamans are able to reconnect us with parts of ourselves that we have lost the ability or forgotten how to access- sometimes indeed our right mind.

Paradigm Shift... We are in a transitory phase moving into a new paradigm, a consciousness in which we no longer need the doctor, the priest or the shaman... the mediator. Tools are becoming available to the masses so that we can learn to heal ourselves. We are learning to “tune in”- to fine tune our frequency. The Himalayan singing bowls with their resonant tones and powerful frequencies are wonderful tools that have really only begun to become somewhat more available to the Western world in the last 20 years. It may seem that Tibet is losing its rich culture at times- and on some levels that's probably true- but this is also part of the process of opening up to a greater global and universal consciousness. These bowls are a gift from their culture to us to allow us to begin to expand our consciousness, fine tune our frequencies and begin to absorb some of these age old teachings. Just as the vibratory essence of Sanskrit mantras is inherent in the seed sounds and can reveal itself to us with the proper practice and pronunciation, these bowls have ancient voices and teachings to reveal to us.

Seven Metals (more or less)... Singing bowls are made of various metal alloys depending on where they were made and what ores were available to the traveling metalsmiths. A metallurgical investigation, conducted by the British Museum in London, discovered the fact that the oldest tools usually are crafted of a 12-metal alloy composed of silver, nickel, copper, zinc, antimony, tin, lead, cobalt, bismuth, arsenic, cadmium and also iron. The ancient Himalayan bowls were composed of seven holy metals located in Tibetan plateau. The metals corresponded to seven celestial bodies:

1. Gold – Sun – Leo
2. Mercury- Mercury – Virgo/Gemini
3. Silver – Moon – Cancer
4. Iron – Mars – Scorpio/Aries
5. Lead – Saturn – Capricorn/ Aquarius
6. Tin – Jupiter – Sagittarius/ Pieces
7. Copper- Venus- Taurus / Libra

Each metal has its own sound and the combination produces the unique singing and harmonics of the bowl. The proportions of metals are different in each bowl. It is said that the bowls from Nepal have more of a golden glow whereas the bowls of Tibet had a higher concentration of silver and tin giving them a dull anthracite luster.
A Lost Art... Today's bowls are cast. They have not been made in “the old way” for at least 60 years and it seems to be a lost art. No one really knows how they have such a multiplicity of tones, and such a precise balance of overtones and frequencies that has so powerful an effect on consciousness, but the older bowls create measurable beat frequencies which entrain the brainwaves into alpha and theta states. These are the states which are most conducive to an “open” mind, the states that support deep relaxation, meditation, peace and an inner stillness. These are also the conditions that can lead to profound changes and healing on a physical plane.