A Slight Adjustment

I haven't written in a while- busy getting settled in for what looks like a permanent stay in Rhode Island- at least for a while! I closed my sound healing center in Florida on October 1 after a flurry of activity there in September, then headed back up to New England.  It was strange. I had been gone for four months- May through August- and although a dear friend had taken it over with the desire to keep it open and run it, it had clearly for the most part been lying dormant during the time I was gone.  The garden was untended, the kitchen cupboards were becoming home to insects... a couple of people had rented some space for the first couple of months after I left but apparently didn't have any clients so they had left, and there were no other activities going on there.  Initially it was very sad going in there and feeling the emptiness.  I wasn't really expecting that. The good news is that I went back to get some winter clothes and teach a couple of workshops and was slammed from practically the minute I got there. Sessions, workshops, kirtan, selling merchandise... I actually had the busiest month I have had since I opened the center 7 years ago. Nonetheless, I was leaving and so the decision was made to close, a good decision in all ways.

And now I am in Rhode Island sitting in my new "office"- a small sun room which doubles as a dining room with a table that seats no more than a cozy four people and an old Glenwood cook stove in it. It isn't winterized but the stove heats the room up quickly and the room gets warm and cozy as the sun comes round. I have two other rooms in the house- a bedroom with a four-poster bed and a loft, and a small kitchen with a small fridge and freezer- and the shower is in the kitchen as well! It is great- fun and funky with the touch of an artist's eye everywhere you look.

I am sharing a space for giving private sessions with an old friend in downtown Newport, upstairs in the Congregational Church, a beautiful old brownstone church and historic landmark designed by John LaFarge.  It's very interesting because years ago I used to attend Sanskrit classes up there with my teacher, Swami Bob, so I have a strong connection to it. I also did a concert there with Roop Verma years ago after he taught me to play tamboura. And the person whose space I am sharing worked for me close to 30 years ago when I was a potter and had four small boys all under the age of ten! It is so wonderful to return to the intimacy of New England after the generic spread out emptiness of Florida, where there is such a lack of community simply by design. Each "neighborhood" seems to have its own mall down there rather than the neighborhood coffee shop (with a few exceptions) where you know you will run into someone you know.  It was one of the things I missed most when I was living there. Even out west, where the land is very open and spread out, the layout of the towns are designed to create community- a church, a town square, a restaurant, a coffee shop, whatever...

What happened for me was that I actually created a community there via the sound healing center because I was so starved for it! I wasn't aware of that at the time- I simply knew that the space I was looking at for an office was actually perfect for a sound healing center.  It was a calling I could not ignore. It served many purposes as it turned out- and one was my own personal need for community and connection.

One of the things I have been exploring lately is working with tuning forks for self-healing- conducting an experiment, if you will. Organization is not my strong suit and I have been very challenged moving into such a small space, especially after having lived in a good-sized house in FL and having all my sound healing tools and instruments in their own space- the Sound Body Center.  Now most of my crystal bowls and Tibetan bowls are in my car! I can only have what is really necessary- anything more just takes up space. So... if I come in the house after shopping, put down the groceries, throw my coat and scarf on a chair, take off my clothes to change and don't put them away immediately, suddenly everything is cluttered and slightly overwhelming.

I am working with the brain tuners. Ahhh... simplicity! Tap those tuning forks- in most cases right now the Fundamental (256 hz) and the Beta tuner- a few microtones up from the 256- which creates a beat frequency that corresponds to the the Beta brainwave. The pulse created between the two tuning forks entrains the brain to the Beta frequency for peak concentration and alertness. Every time I find myself feeling a need to organize- whether it's to clean the kitchen, put stuff away in my bedroom, or simply having a lot to do and not knowing where to begin, I tap those tuners and listen. 

Theoretically it takes 40 seconds for the brain to respond to a frequency, but with the tuning forks it doesn't seem to take that long. Maybe it's because you bring them up to yours ears to listen to them and it starts the temporal bones resonating right away, sending the signal directly to the brain. Thus the response is virtually instantaneous. I don't know- that's my theory though, because every time I have done this lately I immediately (within about ten seconds) know what I need to do and where to begin. It's feels like such a tiny little adjustment and suddenly everything is doable- sort of like working on a puzzle and you just need the one right piece to make sense of it all and bring it all together.  That is how it feels- like I look around and nothing quite fits and I don't know how to make it fit- and I use those tuning forks and here we go, really very cool and exciting to see how consistently effective they are.

I've also been using the Alpha tuner to minimize anxiety and the Delta tuner for sleep. I don't have a great deal of anxiety- it's very low level but I have an awareness of it at times, and again- I just tap the tuning forks and it seems to simply disperse within a few seconds, leaving me feeling peaceful and grounded again. Sleep? Not a big problem either, but occasionally after I go to bed it's as if I get a second wind and suddenly could stay up for hours.  Delta tuners... ding! Thirty seconds later I am putting them down on the bed next to me and drifting off into a wonderful sleep- so amazing!

Hopefully, with my new sense of organizing my mind and my time I will be writing more! I think of this blog every day and so often don't get to it. That is definitely one of my intentions for the winter- to write lots more.