New Life

Margarett McKean Vernon
November 2, 1921~September 8, 2013

My last post was dated September 5. When I wrote it I was in Massachusetts at my mother's house where I have spent the better part of the last year.  I didn't write much during that time because, at the age of 91, my mother's health began to decline and she was moving toward making a transition. I wasn't living there but was there almost full-time, living an hour and a half away. She passed away on September 8- just over two months ago.  During the last two months I have spent a lot of time at there house, going through "stuff"- the stuff of a lifetime- as well as organizing her memorial service and celebration of her life which were held on November 2, which would have been her 92nd birthday.

The winter before last I lived with her for almost 3 months and after that decided I needed to be nearby on a permanent basis as I knew we didn't have much time left together.  So the truth is that I have spent the better part of the last two years with her, although in 2012 I did have more time to myself.  This year her dimming eyesight really failed her and her arthritis had gotten to the point where she was more and more physically uncomfortable.  I felt the need to be with her more and more. Although I have 5 siblings my life also was in transition having just moved up from Florida so I made myself available as much as possible.

We had had a challenging relationship for most of my life and when the healing came in the late '90s we really fell in love with each other and it became a very warm cozy intimate relationship- not without its challenges but they were minor and ultimately quite insignificant compared to what we shared.  I always felt that the miracle of the healing of our relationship far outweighed the length of time that it took and that, in a way, the fact that we had gone through such a long period of separation made our relationship that much more special.

After her service last week I moved into a beautiful spacious apartment in an old Victorian house with gorgeous high ceilings and for the first time in two months have had a chance to begin to reflect- to have moments of missing my mother, letting myself cry and feel the loss of her physical presence and then to get quiet and feel her true presence, to bask in the warmth of it and feel the continuing deepening of our relationship. What an extraordinary thing!

I could just end this post there but I can't, in good conscience, leave this page without putting something about wholistic sound! So I will tell you about how I have the most wonderful spiral staircase that goes up to a loft- an eight-sided room in which I can play music, meditate, or throw down a futon for a guest! Last night was the first time I played music up there. I brought my harmonium up and sat and had my own quiet sargam practice and meditation time.  What a beautiful sacred space.

I have always wanted a spiral staircase, I have always wanted a loft and I have always wanted to live in this house having walked by it hundreds of times in years gone by! Wow, I got everything all under one roof. I am filled with gratitude and am so looking forward to the emergence of whatever is the next thing I am to give birth to in this beautiful new space.

Sound, Biology and Synergy

This is a really interesting video- presented very well.  He has a lot to say and he says it without going into a bunch of conspiracy theories which I really appreciate.  I have been working with these frequencies for many years. They are, as he says, the frequencies of the Tibetan singing bowls as well as the frequencies of the Solar Harmonic Spectrum tuning forks that I use in my tuning fork sessions and are based on the Pythagorean scale. I choose to work with these frequencies because they are aligned with the mathematical matrix of the biology and physiology of the human body, nature and the cosmos. Conspiracy theories are irrelevant here.  Whoever came up with the tempered scale, whatever their reasons, I attribute it more to ignorance and it's really not that important. What's important is what works and how we can assist bringing the body-mind-spirit back into balance and harmony.

One of the things that is so beautiful about using sound to heal is that it works instantly because it is transmitted directly to the brain/central nervous system.  It is not like an herb or a pill where you have to wait anywhere from several hours to several weeks for it to get into the blood stream or the digestive system or whatever to begin doing its work. I have seen people have profound and permanent healing, both physical and emotional, from a 5-minute sound healing demo. Yes, the body can also shift right back into its old patterns of dis-ease just as we sometimes slip right back into our old stories after what seemed like an unforgettable awakening at a powerful workshop. So we continue to give gentle reminders to the patient, or ourselves, with the sound tools available to us so that the body becomes entrained to the new pattern of harmony. Over time the reawakening of harmony will become the normal frequency and sometimes even thinking of, remembering, a song or a frequency can be all that is needed to help make the shift when the physical, mental or emotional body starts to feel a little off.

We can gently nudge the body with these frequencies- we don't need to bombard it- which is another facet of the beauty of its effect. Using music to heal is wonderful and can be especially powerful and effective when working with the emotional body, but using these pure frequencies, pure tones, without a rhythmic or melodic structure can be even more powerful, subtle and deep because of the synergistic coherence to the biological matrix of the body.


 

Pyramids as Resonant Sound Chambers

I haven't written in over two months. I have spent the majority of my time very close to my mother who is in the last days of her life. The rest of my life has been pretty much on hold.  However my brother sent me a fascinating article about the theory that the pyramids were actually built as giant sound chambers. I have been aware of this for a long time- also the theory that sound was actually used to move the stones that were used in the building of the pyramids. That being said, in the interest of furthering the knowledge of the amazing potential of sound and the awareness of the possibilities of its use- past, present and future- I am posting this article.


Richard Hoagland is a fascinating guy.  I had his film on the Face on Mars and watched it several times almost 20 years ago but my boys were all teenagers at the the time and recorded over the video! Eventually I will have time to sit down again and write more of my own words but in the meantime there is lots of interesting information that I can share with a simple link or insert! Enjoy...

source: The Hieronimus & Co.

Newsletter #15-16

Filmmaker Boris Said and Researcher Richard Hoagland Agree and Disagree

Both Richard Hoagland and Boris Said are vocal about their suspicions that others in their field of interest -- Egypt -- are hiding what they know or have discovered, and for a variety of reasons. Boris does not conclude the cover-up is a conspiracy, but believes instead the Egyptians are most interested in the new discoveries being made by Egyptians and any delay would be caused by pride.

Richard, on the other hand, is convinced that certain officials in charge of granting permits for excavation and study and releasing information on discoveries are deliberately hiding or blocking some of the most extraordinary possibilities. They joined Dr. Bob Hieronimus together on March 8, 1998 to discuss both the areas upon which they agreed and where they disagreed.

Richard Hoagland is a former science consultant to Walter Cronkite, CBS News, CNN and NASA, and an advocate of the artificial creation theory for the anomalous Face and "pyramids" Mars. In August of 1993 he received the Angstrom Foundation Medal for Excellence in Science. His Mars anomalies research led him to the study of the ancient mysteries in Egypt when he noticed the striking similarities between the Face on Mars and The Sphinx. He says there is "a real set of connections that we now can prove connects this extraordinary complex on Mars at Cydonia with an equally extraordinary complex on Earth at Giza."

Boris Said has a very unusual biography beginning with an education at Princeton University and a fluent knowledge of several languages including Russian, French, Italian, Spanish and English. From 1953-1980 Boris was a sportsman and attained several automobile racing speed records. He was a member of the U.S. Olympic Bobsled Team in 1968 and 1972, and in 1980 Said began the transition to film work as he both drove the four-man bobsled at the Lake Placid Olympics and worked on TV interviews for ABC.

Since 1983 his credits have included writing, producing and directing documentaries on bobsledding, dolphins, a Zulu witch doctor, and other varied topics. The 1994 NBC TV feature documentary that he produced with John Anthony West, "The Mysteries of the Sphinx" hosted by Charlton Heston, was awarded an Emmy.

Boris first learned about the mysteries surrounding the monuments in Egypt and the questions about their origins from John Anthony West, when in 1990 West asked him to help make this documentary. West was working with Boston University geologist Dr. Robert Schoch whose ground breaking work indicates that the age of the Sphinx is thousands of years older than the Egyptian civilization itself.

"I came to it with no opinions whatsoever," says Boris, regarding the controversial debates on the new findings.

"I mean, I didn't know. I had just about figured that Egypt was spelled with a "y" and Sphinx was spelled with an "i", and I had those backwards for a while.... I listened to Robert Schoch the first trip explain why the Sphinx was older than 4-5000 years, and it just made perfect sense to me, I mean, nothing could have been more obvious. The marks were there, it was in the stone, and so I got interested right from the start in... an alternative viewpoint to the age, and perhaps the meaning, of those monuments."

In his bio, Boris states his life goal is to prove the existence of ancient, highly advanced civilizations on our planet, perhaps our true ancestors. It's a new life goal for him, he says.

"My life's goal used to be to go faster than anybody else, but now I'm doing something a little headier, and it came from my initial exposure to Egypt, and I've got to thank John Anthony West for that."
 

WHO BUILT THE PYRAMIDS?

To this eternal question, Boris says,

"they were Egyptians, they lived in Egypt. I mean... we've called them variously "Atlantians" and, I suppose, "Little Green Man from Mars", but that was Egypt, and so therefore, to me, they're Egyptians."

He says there is no way the pyramids were intended to be tombs for Pharaohs.

"They've never found bodies in them. There's no single mark that identifies the pyramids as the tomb of any particular Pharaoh and, to the extent that in some of the pyramids bodies were later found, I think these structures were probably used as tombs by people who came later. I think that whoever created these structures used something that we don't know [about]."

Robert Bauval revealed how, at the dawning of the Age of Leo, the air shafts in the Great Pyramid point directly to the stars of Orion. Boris continued to point out how the Sphinx looks like a lion, "its got to give you some indication that the people back then knew something we don't know."

Richard adds that we are the descendants of these architects of the Egyptian monuments, whoever they were. He notes that when he first began his research into the Face on Mars in 1983, he remembers the almost unanimous reaction of archeologists when they were shown unidentified pictures of the Martian anomalies.

"The answers ranged from Hanuman, the Indian monkey god, to an aerial view of some pyramid complex in Egypt.. Initially looking at these things, I was thinking in terms of aliens, in terms of other, in terms of visitors to the solar system who had erected a stunning artificial complex on Mars.... Over the ensuing 15 years... my thinking has come perhaps 180� and in good measure because of... John West, Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval."

Richard began wondering about the possibilities that the anomalies an Mars perhaps could indeed be related to the monuments in Egypt.

"Which really got me to thinking," he said. "If this stuff on Mars was not alien, if it wasn't somebody else, somebody from way out there, then the comparisons between the architecture we find at Cydonia on Mars and the ancient enigmatic architecture, bits and pieces of which we have found now all around this planet, maybe make the case for a previous high civilization epic on planet Earth, in which case we could be looking at our stuff, the human race. So I think Boris is very perceptive when he says, ultimately, it's Egyptians that did what we see in Egypt. The only question is, how ancient, ancient, ancient were those Egyptians?"
 

WERE THE PYRAMIDS ON MARS BUILT FOR THE SAME REASON AS THOSE IN GIZA?

Richard says to answer that, one has to examine what the pyramid complex in Egypt was used for,

"By tracking the numbers, the geometry, the specific angles, the relationship of these things to each other, and their relationship to the sitting of the things here on Earth, particularly the Giza Plateau, we have gotten on the trail of what I call, an old/new physics, which we term hyperdimensional physics. It turns out its the same physics that physicists like Maxwell and others in England were attempting to launch about 100 years ago.

The numbers at Cydonia, the numbers on Mars, the numbers at Giza, the numbers of many ancient sacred sites all over this planet, are the same numbers that Maxwell and Kelvin and those colleagues back in England 100 years ago were deriving as the basis of the physics of the 19th and 20th century.... The usage of the pyramid complex at Giza appears to have been in service to this physics. These were not tombs, not temples, but potentially, machines, huge machines built of limestone as the working substance, the working material, at a specific site on a rotating planet, such as Cydonia is on a rotating Mars."

The positioning of the structures was of the utmost importance, having to consider the physics and the interaction of the "pyramid machines" with the planet itself when they were turned on. According to Hoagland, this is all part of

 "a technology which we are just beginning to glimpse again, incredibly ancient, incredibly sophisticated, incredibly arcane. We can only now see the empty shells of what might have been a functioning complex whose purpose we are also just beginning to dimly grasp. But it was light years beyond providing tombs for some egocentric Pharaoh."

Boris Said agrees, saying,

"It's very difficult to find fault with Richard's logic," noting that Bauval's concept suggests the pyramids were placed in a position representing the stars of the Orion constellation. Boris is now working with Tom Danley, sonics expert and consultant to NASA, to explore the air shafts leading down into the King's and Queen's chambers, "which have been described by Bauval as lining up with the stars of Orion. Quite recently a fellow named Gantenbrink sent a robotic camera up the end of one of those shafts and he found a door with hinges and apparently some space underneath it. What we've been doing is, we've been approaching this problem from a completely different scientific viewpoint.

We've been testing the sonics of the Great Pyramid. We've known for a long time that if you lie in what they call the sarcophagus, which is that stone box in the King's Chamber cut from a solid piece of granite, and you hum, you hum a scale, for example, there will be certain notes that sound louder and more resonant to you than other notes. And recently we had an opportunity to put sensors all over that pyramid, including the five chambers above the King's Chamber, which I guess we're going to discuss in more detail later, and we found that when we activated the pyramid with hugs speakers and amplifiers in the King's Chamber that all of these sensors resonated, leading us to believe that the entire pyramid was some sort of huge sonic machine."

Richard equates the pyramid to a pipe organ. The openings of some of the recently discovered air shafts from the King and Queen's Chambers are open now and wind is blowing across them like a pipe organ. When you blow air across an organ pipe you get a certain resonant frequency. Richard Hoagland says the builders of the pyramids created hyperdimensional machines, placed at certain latitudes on the spinning planet to excite certain acoustic resonances when the air passed through the open passages.

Boris adds that even if the passages were closed, if you had an internal excitation mechanism, the pyramid as a whole will resonate with certain fundamental tones. The more power, the more energy, the louder the tones.

"What we proved," says Boris, "was when we got back to the laboratory and analyzed our recordings, we found that there were sounds present in the King's Chamber even when we weren't making any sounds. They were below the audible range, below 20 Hertz, below 20 vibrations per second.... Down as far as half a vibration per second, or half a Hertz.

We found that these lower scales had the same five peaks, and when you plotted the peaks on a graph and raised them three or four octaves to where you could hear them, low and behold, it was the same notes. It was the same chord... an F sharp chord, which the early Egyptian texts suggest was a harmonic of Mother Earth. And I might tell you, coincidentally, and we bring this out in our tape, a lot of Native American makers of sacred flutes, tune their flutes to F sharp. Why? Because it's compatible with the harmony of Mother Earth. Now that's just too big a coincidence."
 

THE PYRAMIDS WERE USED FOR SONIC RESONANCE

Boris continues,

"We're right now working on a program to replicate the Giza pyramid in a virtual reality state with virtual sound, which we believe will restore, in theory, restore the pyramid to the way it was when the sides were smooth. You know if you think about the wind blowing over the aides of the pyramid, it's like blowing across the mouth of a pop bottle. It makes a hooting sound, it makes a toot, right? You blow across a Coke bottle? Well, we think that's what used to happen with the Great Pyramid.

And we believe that if we can replicate the pyramid, make it smooth, and get rid of the incursions, all of the tunnels.... We believe that maybe the entrance to the pyramid was from the bottom, from down underneath somehow, a long series of tunnels. Because clearly, there was no intrusion into the grand gallery, and we believe that was all part of the giant echo chamber that enhanced the vibrations.... We're gonna try and compare this condition to other pyramids around the world and see whether perhaps that wasn't what they had in mind."

Richard explains that in resonance theory,

"it's really the mass and the length of the cavities or chambers that determine the ultimate tones that a structure will produce."

He says Boris and his NASA colleagues are on the trail of a theoretical model that Stan Tenen and I have been working on for about ten years relating to the model that the pyramids really were machines designed by an extraordinary physics, much older than the classical Egyptian model, designed to do something interacting with the planet.

Now, if you excite these things acoustically, meaning with sound, not from the outside but from the inside, with technology which is now missing because it was all taken away, you got the same effect that Boris is talking about.

"The very structure of the pyramids is calcium carbonate, limestone, which has a certain molecular configuration of the crystal. It's a little tetrahedron made of calcium and carbon atoms, over and over and over again in six million tons of this stuff stacked up in a perfect geometry of the crystal itself called the Great Pyramid. Now if you excite this, if you basically create a tone inside with some kind of huge loud speakers or huge system powered by some energy source... the result is the entire pyramid, all six million tons, will vibrate. It will resonate. It will sound a set of tones, the tones that Danley and Boris are now tracking, in a very faint way."

Richard envisions the builders of the Pyramid designing it so the amplified tones would literally twist the calcium carbonate crystal back and forth in a rhythmic pattern in such a way that you could also twist space and time itself and potentially create extraordinary changes of consciousness. He goes on to say that,

"because the pyramid, through the plateau, is anchored to trillions and trillions of tons of this limestone stretching a quarter of a way around the planet to Indonesia, you literally could change the resonant characteristics of Planet Earth itself if you pumped enough energy into the pyramids [serving] as machines at their precise latitude".

 

ALL THINGS ARE VIBRATION

Boris says be doesn't know about hyperdimensional physics and space time travel, but he,

"loves the work that Richard's doing and I think it should all come together.... What I'm saying is that if you lie in the pyramid and you hum or you chant it's conceivable that you could put yourself into an altered state... There is a very easy way to establish the logic of this argument, and that is to try it out, and that's what we're trying to do. There are sounds .... that tape, you know, that were made inside this King's Chamber, and if nothing else, they're spooky."

He says they are something different, something we haven't heard, or been exposed to in a long time, although researchers like Don Campbell, a former guest on 21st Century Radio� are showing how vibrations and classical music can be used to assist healing in surgery and in analysis.

"I think that we're getting to a point," says Boris, "where all of a sudden we're going to find out that vibes is not just a colloquial expression for the New Age.... It's where healing is, it's where altered states are, where awareness is."

NOTES:

For more Information on Richard Hoagland's work visit www.enterprisemission.com , or send an SASE to Planetary Horizons, P.O. Box 1130, Placitas, NM 87043. For an autographed copy of his book, The Monuments of Mars, call 1-888-338-8581.

You can learn more about Boris Said's work on the web at www.magicaleye.com , or send an SASE to 1906 Smugglers Hill Rd, Friday Haror, WA 98250. To order his video, "Behind The Scenes At The Giza Plateau", call 1-800-243-1438.

Hieronimus & Co., Inc., P.O. Box 648, Owings Mills, MD 21117 USA
Voice Mail: (410) 356-4852 Fax: (410) 356-6229

Creating From the Inside Out

Well, it's taken me over a year but I have finally learned how to use iMovie and upload videos from there to Youtube! I feel so accomplished every time I make it over another techno hump! That being said, here is a video of a sound healing session I gave my dear friend Paul Goudsmit during our sound healing workshop last year in Utrecht, Netherlands. Really his smile at the end of the session is absolutely worth the price of admission.

What else is happening? So much stuff! Had a wonderful evening at Doris Duke's house ("mansion" would not be inaccurate) presenting a mini-workshop on Mantra Therapy and leading a short kirtan a couple of weeks ago. It is said that there are 330,000,000 mantras- no, that is not a typo. Three hundred thirty MILLION. That's crazy!  There are 87,000 mantras just based on the seed sound "Ah". Where do you begin? Ommmmmm... Ommmmmm... Ommmmmm... 

Anyway, as you might be able to tell from the pictures below it was a huge beautiful room with incredible acoustics. A lot of times I feel like I really have to push to be heard over the harmonium but not this time.  It was just lovely and very well received. Plus I saw some people I hadn't seen in many years and that was pretty sweet too.  So I am reconnecting with old friends and making lots of new friends and wonderful connections lately.

I know I already wrote about the wonderful weekend in the Catskills with John Beaulieau and Silvia Nakkach (remember to smile when you say her name- "Seeeeelvia"- so you pronounce it correctly!) I have been reading her book "Free Your Voice" and working with the downloads that come with it as musical lessons- FUN musical lessons and also recorded some of the lessons we had in the Catskills so I have been singing a lot! That has been wonderful.  I sometimes wake up in the morning singing, as per Tina Turner's instruction on her beautiful CD "Beyond."

 

Finally seem to be getting a groove going on here in Newport. We had a great turnout at Jesse Harding's martial arts studio about two weeks ago which has led to more openings as well.

Am also taking an Expressive Arts Intensive at Salve Regina University which has been absolutely amazing. I had no idea what I would do with it- how I would utilize and incorporate it into my practice but I trusted that it would reveal itself. Now I am definitely getting ideas about I might integrate some of the practices into sound healing workshops with groups.  I definitely see it as being particularly beneficial for the oncology groups I am starting to work with. I have started a monthly Community Sound Healing Group for oncology patients through Women & Infants Hospital Integrative Care Program which is really exciting.

There is something about processing using visual art that is very exciting to me.  It feels like the missing piece in all of the art, music and healing work I have been doing for so many years. It is like creating art from the inside out, which is exactly how I do my sound healing and the energywork and bodywork I do. I don't know why I never got this before- it's sort of astonishing to me and it just makes so much sense. As much as I loved doing art it was never satisfying to me because I was always looking on the outside for my inspiration.  It never occurred to me to try to put on paper how a tree budding in the springtime makes me feel, rather than just trying to draw or paint the tree.

Our Expressive Art group meets 3 times over the course of 5 months. Our last module we spent some time working on mandalas and I have fallen in love with them!  Again, I have always loved mandalas and looked at pictures of them, studied them, had coloring books of them but somehow it just never occurred to me to make my own. I am so happy! Today I made one on the beach as part of my Mandala Project.

 Beach Plaid Prayer Flag Mandala with Tobacco Offering
(cigar holder in center on rock is the tobacco)

Observing Gratitude

The other day I was driving down the road and started thinking about something stressful- no idea what it was. I just remember that my whole body began to feel uncomfortable and constricted so I said, "Thank you for this moment" and immediately I took a deep breath.

Try it. Just say, "Thank you" quietly to yourself- you can even whisper it. And see what happens.  It was so obvious, that deepening of the breath, that I have been practicing this whenever I feel any tension- physical, mental or emotional- ever since.  I don't always remember right away- in fact I rarely do.  But the moment I do I just say "Thank you" and everything shifts. I have been amazed by how powerful it is- and how simple and natural.

I have had a practice of gratitude for quite a few years but it's been more like a prayer or a meditation- a deliberate time to remember all the things I have to be grateful for- which ultimately always come back to my breath.  This, however, is very spontaneous and in the moment and it is changing things for me in a profound way.  Maybe it is an offshoot of my practice- that there is a trigger and a resonance in those two words for me now that has developed over time but really I don't think so. I think there is something inherent in the simple remembrance and expression of gratitude that brings us back to our life force, back to the breath. Our whole being is grateful for the experience of gratitude and we breathe into it deeply and naturally. 

    Thank you for this moment.
   
        Thank you for this breath. 
       
            Thank you for this life.
       
                Thank you.

A Brief Sound Update!

I have been away from my blog for far too long.  And it is very late at night so I will have to make this short and sweet!

It's been a wild ride lately.  My mother has been quite sick so giving her as much time as I have available has been taking up any free time lately! I am so grateful that she is only 1 1/2 hours from me so I can see her quite often.

Aside from that I spent two weeks in Florida, ostensibly to teach one workshop and spend the rest of the time packing up stuff in my old house where my boyfriend Henry still lives. As it turned out I taught FOUR workshops and did a sound journey in someone's home so there was very little time left for packing.  I was so exhausted by the end of the week that I left some of my Tibetan bowls down there because I just couldn't handle taking an extra suitcase even though I could have on Southwest Airlines.

Here is a picture from one of the workshops. This is one of the therapists just after they had received a session with Tibetan singing bowls.

After I got back I spent a few days with Mum, moved back into the little cabin where I spent last summer and then zipped off to the Catskills for a 4-day workshop with John Beaulieu and Silvia Nakkach.  I am feeling that meeting Silvia has changed my life! What a fabulous weekend!

Silvia Nakkach leading a Medicine Song

From the Catskills I went straight to my mother's and spent 5 days there and today I finally got back to my little cabin this afternoon.  I feel like my life is steeped in sound vibration. I have spent most of my day today either talking about sound with other sound healers, singing my heart out, playing my tamboura and tonight sitting on my bed playing planetary tuning forks which are amazing! 

I am obsessed with sound!

Sound and Synchronicity

It was a wild and busy week last week.  Tuesday I did a workshop at Child & Family Services for some oncology patients from Women & Infants Hospital.  I really only expected about 3 people but instead there were 11 and they all loved it.  It was an introductory program for the purpose of bringing awareness to sound healing sessions being offered at the Integrative Wellness Program. However, since it was so well received I am going to offer it on a monthly basis for the community along with the individual sessions. I happen to have a very soft spot for CFS because when I was in recovery for substance abuse in the late 80's that is where my children and I went for counseling.  I feel like I really got a lot from them and am grateful to be giving something back.

I'm also giving an old friend a series of Tibetan bowl sessions which is wonderful because I hadn't done any since I got up here- only for groups.  So that is a pleasure along with the fact that I am reconnecting with a dear friend who I've known since I was a teenager which makes it even more fun! I give her a session and then we yak yak yak, catching up on all kinds of stuff after being pretty much out of touch for the better part of 20 years! Here is a picture from her last session.

There was actually a ton of synchronicity around this. I was in the health food store a little over a week ago , when I heard a voice say, "Rosie?!" I turned around and it was my old friend Alix.  She said, "I can't believe you're here! I just dreamt about you this morning- I saw a picture of you giving someone a session with all those bowls around them and I dreamt you were giving me one- and just now as I was driving over the bridge I was thinking to myself that I have to get your number and call you as soon as I get home! And here you are!"

That on top of the fact that I had just started reading a wonderful book- "Healing With Tibetan Singing Bowls" by Suren Shrestha- so the sudden arrival of someone wanting to have a series of sessions was especially timely. Suren teaches techniques that have been passed down from healers and shamans in his village in Nepal for centuries. It is a short simple book with some very useful information in it.  I am so grateful to have found a book that actually has the teachings from an authentic lineage.

Up until now I had been able to find very little information about the use of singing bowls as a healing tool. It was my intuition and common sense that told me they must have been because they have such a powerful effect on consciousness, but pretty much everything up to that point had been hearsay, or flat out denial that they were ever used for healing- the much repeated phrase being that the history of the bowls has been shrouded in secrecy"- which I love! What Shrestha says is that the teaching has been passed down orally.

So the last session I gave Alix I used a series of chakras bowls and placed them in the order of the cycle of 5ths starting with F for the root chakra. That is also how Fabien Maman teaches the placement of crystal bowls so I was very familiar with the protocol before but had never used it with Tibetan bowls.  In fact it was the first time I even checked the frequency of the bowls before using them.  Usually I simply walk through the room and pick up whatever bowls call to me and then place them around the body as I am guided.  This time I was very thorough in tuning the bowls first.  Which is not to say that one way or the other was better- but this was good in this case and I would definitely do it again, just as I would do it totally intuitively again. I do not want to get attached to one way of working with them.  There are too many wonderful possibilities and his book opened me up to quite a bit more.

A lot of other really exciting stuff has opened up as well.  I have been invited to play the crystal bowls in a salt cave in Ridgefield, CT in June which I am very excited about! I'm so crazy about that Himalayan pink salt- I can't even believe that I am going to get to sit in a cave of it and play my bowls- too freaking cool!  Then someone called and offered their space for me to do another two day workshop while I'm in Florida in May, so that whole scene is shifting. A few days ago I was panicking that only two people had signed up for the one workshop I was offering and now I am teaching actually two more- one day on tuning forks and one day on healing with Tibetan singing bowls.  Also the place where I just saw Shyamji in Newburyport has invited me to do a Healing Sound Journey there, which is great because it means there is a network opening up near my mother which is wonderful.

Lots of great stuff coming up- my first weekend of the Expressive Arts Therapy Program next weekend and at the end of next month a 4-day workshop with John Beaulieu and Sylvia Nakkach which should be pretty amazing.

Oh.... AND my Facebook webpage has reached over 5000 people in the last 6 days! Woohoo!!!

Perfect Vision

Last night I led a kirtan at my friend Karen Kuzminsky's house in Middletown, RI.  What a wonderful evening!  I have to say before I go any further how grateful I am to Jai Uttal for all the wonderful kirtans and workshops of his that I have attended in the last 8 or so years- but especially for the weeklong summer kirtan camp that I was at two years ago in California.  What a blessing. The greatest gift that I got from it was COURAGE- knowing that it didn't matter if I didn't have a fabulous voice, if I wasn't a virtuoso on some instrument or another- if I could just lead a simple chant and sing from my heart, that was good enough.

As it turned out I was sort of put to the test.  I brought my instruments- guitar, harmonium and tamboura- and was just about ready to go when I realized I had forgotten my music! Since I am a beginner on the harmonium I wasn't too thrilled about that.  But I figured that I knew enough chants on the guitar and at least one chant that I could do with the harmonium that it was probably okay- and it was. We had about 20 people and a few kids which really added so much.  Karen's 6 year old son  was so fascinated by the harmonium he practically had his head in it!

But the best part was connecting with a number of people I hadn't seen in 20 years or more.  I knew that the daughter of an old friend of mine was planning to come who was best friends with my oldest son when they were very little.  Now she's a beautiful woman in her late 30's with a daughter of her own. Her mother used to live next door to my ex-husband and me and little Amy would come to the window every morning and call for Sparky.  They lived on the third floor and we were on the second of the house next door.  I have such a strong memory of her precious voice and seeing her face in the window of their 3rd floor apartment looking down to see if Sparky was out on our porch so they could play together.

She hadn't arrived yet when I began. I sang a couple of opening prayers in Sanskrit and was deep into the first chant when I looked up and there was beautiful Amy smiling at me!  I felt such a welling up of emotion that I was quite overcome and tears began to come- I suspect people thought it was because I was so moved by the chant but really I was just so knocked out to see Amy there smiling at me! I actually thought about stopping right then and getting up and giving her a hug but instead I closed my eyes and went really deep and was able to drop into a place beyond that level of emotion to carry on with the music and just let it flow. We saved our hugs and shared our tears after the kirtan and that was such an incredible blessing.  I don't even know yet what it means, what it was for or what it is leading to.  I just know it was, and is, profound.

The grace of the kirtan was that it allowed me to go deeper and deeper- and maybe also that emotion was a catalyst that really somehow carried the kirtan to another level as well. Who knows? It was what it was. The next one will be different.

Every moment is an expression of perfection- every note, every breath. If it isn't perfect, it is our vision that needs correction- not what we're seeing or experiencing, but how we're seeing and experiencing.

Thank you Jai!!!

One Self, Two Birds

Today's Course in Miracles lesson: "I am one Self, united with my Creator, at one with all aspects of creation, limitless in power and in peace."  I have stayed with this lesson for the past 4 days. The practice is supposed to be 5 minutes at the beginning of each hour.  I set my timer and then remember one time, re-set it and then pretty much forget about it for the rest of the day.  Since this series of lessons emphasizes self-discipline I've decided to stay with it until I feel that I have improved a bit more on that side of things.  Given that I've been studying this for over 20 years and am still in the dream I figure it's time to give it a bit more effort. After all, what is the purpose of the Course? And what is my purpose? On March 28, 2006 I wrote in  my journal that I had realized that the purpose of Henry's and my relationship was to help each other wake up. That was 7 years ago almost to the day... At this point being by myself seems to be a better way to work to try to wake up.

Meanwhile, in my waking dream, I am sitting in my room in Middletown and I meditate on my morning lesson.  As I contemplate the words "I am one Self" I begin meditating on all the sounds around me.  The closest are my breath and the heat coming up.  But outside is a conversation between a crow and a cardinal- the crow calls loudly and repeatedly, "Caw, caw, caw" and the cardinal replies with one whistle that rises in pitch. Back and forth they go, never interrupting. There is a cluster of bells from Arco Santi which ring occasionally, producing melodious arrhythmic tones.

Sound is a good meditation. It is always there.  The rhythm of the breath, the pulses of the body, the blood, the beating of the heart; beneath that the inner sounds which can be heard with deep listening- a quiet white noise with some high frequencies, a steady stream of sound; on the outside, the sounds in the room, in the house and then the sounds of nature from out of doors which cut through everything and delight the nervous system.

Shoulds and Self-Revelation

Just for today I am not paying attention to the shoulds.  I should get dressed, I should check my email, I should work, I should turn my phone on, blah blah blah.  The phone is off, I am in my pajamas- I threw my pants on for ten minutes, ran to the liquor store for a bottle of stout to cook my corned beef and cabbage- and I am mostly sitting in bed drinking tea and reading Jed McKenna's Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment. That's my cup of spiritual reading.  I opened it this morning and all bets were off. Occasionally I look out my window and there is a light flurry of snow.  A blizzard would bring me great joy. Give me an excuse to hole up for a few days- please!

Just now I came in to put on some more hot water, pondering the notions that traipse across my mindscape and decided it was a good time for a blog entry.  Usually I write about music or sound in some capacity.  Apparently not today although I never really know what will show up on the page.  Maybe that will be there too- not like it isn't in my mind- just not at the forefront today, except in the form of needing to call this or that person to confirm a time/date for a recording or a Sound Journey or a workshop... which I am postponing for at least a few hours.  Things are unfolding well enough on their own that I am going to trust that it will continue without my constant attention and occasional interference.

Here is an excerpt from my journal during one of my pauses from reading. (It's fairly heavy stuff requiring an occasional break as I process some piece of my own self-inquiry.)

     "My fuel for the day- oil pulling, a protein shake, green tea (or mate on most days) and A Course in Miracles. This morning I added Jed McKenna and now I'm not going anywhere- until I decide to. And I wonder, if 'I am as God created me' [this morning's ACIM lesson] why do I need any of this? Or does it require a body (and thereby some physical maintenance) to know that I am as God created me.
    "I will cook corned beef and cabbage today...
     "One realization, my family reflects back to me the sum of all my fears about myself. The belief that I am a loser because I don't make enough money to support myself doing what I do. That one came up and reduced me instantly to tears. My defense? What I do has changed people's lives- given them relief from pain, helped them to realize their true purpose, etc. etc.  What does it matter? It is my mistaken belief about myself that says I am a loser. It is my ego- defending myself against myself in the midst of the attack.
     (A little while later...) "I am reading Jed McK and I am getting tweaked. Something deep in my mind... that I can't quite reach. But I am reading and I stop to cry for some unknown reason. That's how I know it is have an effect on my consciousness- not just interesting reading."

Life Sounds Good!

Here I am again- weeks flying by.  The truth is that I spend so much of my time thinking about and working with sound and music that I often don't know where to begin and what to write about- but I know it's important. So today I am just going to let it flow and see what comes out.

We're in a transition from winter to spring.  The weather can't seem to make up its mind here in RI so we gets buckets of snow which lately melts in a day or two.  Today I am looking out my window at green grass and listening to the birds.

I have been obsessively recording outdoor sounds lately with the voice memo app on my iPhone.  Yesterday it was Purgatory Chasm- a split in the rocks overlooking Second Beach where the water flows in- or depending on the day slams in- and then flows out. 

Here is the view- an amazingly beautiful place... I recorded the water flowing in and out but haven't figured out how to upload my voice memos to my blog.  Soon though- I have beautiful sounds of water flowing and all kinds of short tracks of Tibetan bowls, crystal bowls and more. That little invisible mic on the iPhone is pretty incredible!

So many exciting things coming up in the next few months- a workshop with Shyamji in Newburyport, MA in the beginning of April followed by the first weekend of the Expressive Arts Therapy Program I am taking this summer.  Then a long weekend with Sylvia Nakkach and John Beaulieu at John's sound studio in Stone Ridge New York, which should be pretty amazing- it will be a combination of working with voice and tuning forks. I have heard a lot about Sylvia but never experienced her work.  I am really looking forward to it.  Two more long weekends over the summer of Expressive Arts Therapy, week-long Kirtan Camp in August- ki jai!- and potentially 3 other weekends I will be able to attend with Shyamji.  This year is for me! I feel like finally I can sink back into some of the intensive sound exploration with my incredible teachers that I have been wanting to do for a while. 

I just found a wonderful book on healing with Tibetan singing bowls by Suren Shrestha which I am very excited about. It is the first book on healing with the bowls that I have found that seems to have some really authentic information about the ancient traditions of this art. I have about 50 bowls right now, my inventory grows the more I sell! I have been working on recording some, specifically have just done a recording of bowls for helping with insomnia- but again- have not figured out how to upload it so that I can make a CD. I do have the cover photo though!

This is the layout of the bowls from when I made the recording. It was very cozy- it was actually during the weekend of the blizzard and it was a perfect time to hunker down since I certainly wasn't going anywhere. I hung out near the fire and played the bowls for hours on end while learning how to work my cool new Zoom recording device! Very fun- a great way to spend a few days of hibernation.  I know that some people weren't as fortunate as I was during that storm. For me it was a good time!!!

And finally,  this week looks like I will start doing some sessions with the Integrative Care Program at Women & Infants Hospital! So looking forward to that- doing sound therapy for cancer patients which I know will be so amazing.

Right now? It's a beautiful day, the sun is shining and the birds are calling me to come outside for a while. Peace out.

Big Ears

My wheels are turning, turning, turning.  So much to write- so little time! Okay, let's start with the musical inspiration for the day.  I found this lovely video on YouTube of a Tibetan bowl meditation, one of the best I have heard.  Now, it sounds to me like he may have some sort of a recorded track running underneath it but I don't know that for sure.  Whatever, and however he has created it, it is really beautiful. So at some point when you have a chance just lay back and enjoy. It's quite long- over an hour- so do it when you need a little restorative or you feel like having a nice background to your yoga practice.

Last night I went up to Warwick, RI to take a class at the community college on self-publishing your book. The teacher had an emergency (we found out today) and never showed up but there were 12 of us there, some of whom had had experience in publishing in various capacities- large publishing company, self-publishing and digital publishing. So we all hung out for an hour or so and shared what information we had.

I went because I started writing a book on sound healing about ten years ago. When I opened the sound healing center I put it up on the shelf above my desk and there it remained for the next seven years. When I open it and read what I have written so far it seems incredibly relevant and I want to pick up where I left off.  I thought it would be really good for me to be around some other writers who were wanting to get published and because I was sure there would be some helpful information for me- but it was really the energy of being around other writers that I felt would be most helpful for me.

It actually worked out kind of nicely despite the inconvenience because now we are all connected and since the class was rescheduled for next week we will all get to meet up again- which is kind of great!

I also had a wonderful reading from Lee Harris today. I have been wanting to get one from him for a year.  Finally this year I decided to give one to myself for a birthday present. I scheduled it at the end of December and the first available date was today! I am very discerning these days about who I get readings from, and somewhat skeptical, I have to admit, because I've gotten so many that in the end just seemed totally bogus. From the first time I heard one of Lee's Energy Forecasts I totally resonated. I listened to some of his other readings from various venues and every time they (he?) felt at times like he was speaking directly to me on a pretty deep level and I decided I really wanted to get a reading from him.  It was amazing and so worth it.

Of course he knew nothing about me but at some point he started talking about the way I listen, the way I pick up on things around me, and the way I hear. Describing me as being almost as alert to what's going on around me as an animal- and then he said, "You have very big ears." Actually physically, my ears are tiny. An old boyfriend once told me my ears were like little dimes! So I knew he was referring to the way I hear- which reminds me of a funny little preliminary sketch  I did of a happy little man who is thoroughly enjoying his ability to hear deeply.

Then he said, "Book." Long pause. "There's going to be a book. You're going to publish a book." Okay Lee Harris, you are right on! Thank you for the confirmation.

Now- back to the big ears... What I realized from this was that the extreme sensitivity that I have experienced all my life is not because of some old family stuff, is not because I am a "spaceshot" who is easily distracted, but is truly because I am ultrasensitive both in my hearing and energetically to what is going on all around me.  I have had a sense of that for a long time but did not know for sure whether it was actually my own defensiveness that was putting that idea forth.  I know that sometimes my tendency to be easily distracted by the sound of a bird, a chime, an animal, a distant conversation, a song playing in the next room- whatever- has caused people close to me considerable frustration.  The way he described it is that I am more like an animal in the wild- the way they are constantly looking around, listening and alert to all the sounds around them.

He also said that somehow through my work I am teaching telepathy. That was very interesting too. As I thought about it it began to make a great deal of sense to me. I know that I am always stressing in my classes the importance of "deepening one's listening." This definitely means, in part, listening more deeply to one's own intuition- as well as listening to the sounds around you and exploring what sounds cause you to feel a particular way.  So for some it may very well have the result of increasing their telepathy.  One person came to me for a session who was a psychologist. During his session he had a profound spiritual healing and subsequently began hearing messages from people who had "crossed over". He realized his calling as a medium which is what he has been doing ever since!

Now... scroll back up to the top and click on those two words "musical inspiration"- or just click here-
for a really amazing journey to inner space. Enjoy!!!

Be Still...

Yesterday morning I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep so I picked up the journal next to my bed and began skimming through it.  It is the journal I took notes in for many of the sound healing workshops I have taken in the last 7 years.  I opened to 14 pages of notes I had taken during a workshop with the western authority on mantras and Vedic priest, Thomas Ashley-Farrand (Namadeva) and his wife, also a Vedic priest and very wise woman, Margalo/Satyabhama.

Puja with Satyabhama (Margalo Ashley-Farrand) at Sound Body Wholistic Health Center- 2011

Kirtan Camp- San Anselmo, CA- Summer 2011

Rosie and Jai Uttal, the supreme ultimate purveyor of kirtan and bliss!

Nada Yogi, Shri Shyam Bhatnagar

Puja with picture of Sant Keshavadas and the late Namadeva (Thomas Ashley-Farrand)

Satyabhama leading puja at Sound Body Wholistic Health Center- 2011

From there, as I continued reading, I found copious notes taken during various workshops with Shri Shyamji Bhatnagar, at Kirtan Camp with Jai Uttal two years ago, Nada Tantra with Yogi Amrit Desai and Bhagavan Daas and a workshop with John Beaulieu that I attended last summer.

There were so many interesting and enlightening statements from all of these wonderful teachers that I thought I would share some of what I came across.

"Mantra is used to invoke the presence of the deity within you." ~Shyamji~

Two ways to pay back your karmic debts- suffering, or doing your spiritual work. The more you do your spiritual work, the less you suffer. Doing your spiritual work you develop compassion for your ego.  Our cells are constantly in a state of renewal- after 12 years we don't even have the same bones. Tell the painful memories "Wrong address"!

"Memories of the past are a curse on my mind.

Oh God, snatch it away." [Iqbal?]

At night press all the pressure points on your feet and thank them for carrying you through the day.

[Bhagavan Das- as you step from one foot to the other feeling the Mother Earth, say "Thank you, I love you, Thank you, I love you."]

Miracles- we seek them- or "signs"- outside of ourselves and do not recognize that WE are the miracle. The greatest miracle is I AM.

You can't "experience " the Divine. You can only "experience" in duality.

Morning mantra:
       Isha vasya
       Idam sarvam
       Jagatayam jagata

(Above are excerpts of notes taken during Purification Retreat with Shri Shyam Bhatnagar in 2006)

Sanskrit is an energy-based language, which explains the divergent translations. The frequencies are "hard-wired into your chakras." (Thomas Ashley-Farrand/Namadeva) Everything in the universe is constructed of those vibrations.
"God SAID 'Let there be...'" The petals of the chakras vibrate when you chant. You bring in tiny discreet amounts of spiritual energy.
Density provides impetus for spiritual advancement.
(Notes from workshop with Namadeva)

Question: What are the moments you place on the altar of your life?

"How can our voice connect with the deepest core of our being?" 
"We should love ourselves to deep cuddliness."
"Don't pimp your purpose."
(Quotes from Jai Uttal during kirtan camp)

"The instinct to preserve one's self-image is as strong as the instinct to preserve the body."
~Yogi Amrit Desai~

Human beings entire life is in fight or flight/survival mode, on body level and ego/mind level.  Animals do not have I AM so they don't go against their subconscious- ie falsely perceived threats. Unfulfilled goals create an energy field/unconscious pattterns. "Get rid of the alien that is having false perceptions." Bring consciousness to "the wall". Bring prana to the place of fight or flight. BREATHE. In the place of discomfort, BREATHE.
(Above excerpted from discourse during workshop with Yogi Amrit Desai, February 2012)

"Happy thoughts create happy molecules in the brain." ~Shyamji~

Memories form when we are not permitted to be who we are.  Blockages in upper chakras (6th and 7th) form in third trimester in part due to the "commercialization" of the birthing process. Laying down to give birth, induction of labor, etc..."No wonder the only person not laughing and happy is the baby." Working with sounds can take us to the place when we were one with our mothers. 

The 50 sounds of the chakras create all the languages on earth. 

"Each chakra has its own mind." ~Shyamji~ 

There are 330,000,000 mantras!

Chanting in lower octave affects 1st three chakras.  Middle octave affects 4th and 5th chakras and higher (3rd octave) will affect 6th and 7th chakras.

One way to deal with "saboteurs"- TOTALLY DISEMPOWER THEM. If you believe they are controlling you it is very hard to disempower them. Turn it around. Say "I am Divine. Saboteurs cannot touch my divinity." Focus on the solution and avoid the problem. Disempower the saboteurs by establishing our own autonomy.

The tamboura is the external manifestation of the 5th chakra.

Breathing through the mouth activates the animal brain.  Breathing through the nose acts as a filter for prana.

(Excerpts of notes from workhsop with Shyamji, Schoorl, Nederlands, 2012)

Whoever comes into your healing space/office- you have to be able to adapt to them- find their "normal"- as a healer.

Eastern music fills the spaces between the notes with overtones- the spaces of the angels adn the devas. 

Sound- as a healer- is more neutral. Music is based on individual taste.

Dependencies- what do you get from them? Ex. What is the "feeling tone" of chocolate? Sound can create the essence of specific drugs (chemicals) in your body. 

"Sound is a superconscious modality." ~John Beaulieu~

Marijuana- a weed.  Energetic quality of a weed is to take over... take root.  Marijuana takes root in the consciousness (energetic feeling tone). Numbs the somatic consciousness...

(Above snippets from John Beaulieu's workshop on Trance and Tuning Forks, June 2012)

Journal excerpt- "Sita Ram, Sita Ram, Sita Ram"

Journal excerpt- "Hari om tat sat jai guru datta"

Be still

Be still and listen

Be still and know the Truth

Be still and know that I am God

Be still and know that I AM

GOD

Be still and know God

I AM

Be still and know I AM

Be still and know

Be still

Be

(Journal excerpt 7.5.12)

Chanting Ganesha

Tonight I am reading about and chanting to Ganesha, the great elephant-headed god, son of  Shiva and Parvati, the Remover of Obstacles.  Several years ago in a workshop with Thomas Ashley-Farrand, the late Vedic priest and scholar. He chanted a mantra over and over to Ganesha which I fell in love with and never forgot.

Om shrim hrim klim ganeshvaraya
Brahma rupaya charave
Sarva siddhi pradeshaya
Vighneshaya namo namaha

Tomorrow I am leading a kirtan and since it is the New Year much of it will be devoted to Lord Ganesha, full of prayers for the removal of obstacles.

That being said another Baha'i prayer comes to mind as well.
 "Is there any remover of difficulties save God? Say: praised be God!  He is God!  All are His servants and all abide by His bidding!" ~The Bab~

I found the following on a website devoted to Ganesha when I was looking for translations of the previous mantra. Another mantra that I will begin weaving into my practice as well.

Ganesh Mantra: Om shrim hrim klim glaum gam ganapataye...

Whether you recite, whisper or utter them silently to yourself, mantra japa or repetitive chanting is said to be the simplest way to access God. The 15 Ganesha mantras are described as ‘siddhi mantras’ (siddhi in Sanskrit  varyingly means “perfection”, “accomplishment” or attainment of spiritual power.), with each one containing powers attributed to the elephant God. Meditating on these awakens our own untapped potential for accomplishment in varied endeavors. Regular chanting will also enhance one’s ‘psychic body’, energizing the kundalini or subtle energy that lies coiled at the base of the spine. Thus, the worshipper is freed from negative thoughts and emotions; at the same time, his mortal body too is cleansed of toxins.


Om shrim hrim klim glaum gam ganapataye... 
vara varada sarva
janamme vashamanaya svaha

The bell-like tones of this mantra bring forth a shower of blessings from Ganesha. In uttering them, the worshipper surrenders his ego to the Lord, seeking His protection and grace at all times.  Notice the first line which contains several seed (in Sanskrit, “beej”) mantras, single syllabic utterances from Vedic texts whose meanings vary depending on their intonation and the purpose of incantation. ‘Om’ for instance, is an affirmative sound, one which fuels our energies and is associated with divine protection and benevolence. ‘Shrim’ invokes love and beauty; it concerns the heart and hence, both physical and emotional health. ‘Hrim’ is associated with Maya, a syllable that empowers us to see through the illusory nature of the world. ‘Klim’ is forceful, stimulating and energizing; symbolically, it is represented by a thunderbolt that destroys lowly ignorance. ‘Glaum’ is the earth element while ‘Gam’ is the primal Seed, Ganesha himself. In chanting this mantra, the devotee seeks the grace of Ganesha in his present life and all future lifetimes.

Here is a beautiful rendition of the second mantra: