From Kilns to Cars

Tonight I'm writing on my phone so I can tell you right now- it's going to be short and sweet!

Today I had an experience of gratitude. It came about when I was packing my car with my instruments for a Sound Journey I was doing tonight in Newburyport, MA. I used to be a potter and one of the skills I acquired from that is being a great packer- from kilns to cars! I had all the instruments above plus a couple more tubs with instruments for tomorrow's workshop packed into the back of my car with room to spare.

I am falling asleep holding the phone!

Mum, John McDowell and Couch to 5K

Two years ago, about this time of year I started Couch to 5K. I only had six workouts to go when my beautiful mama got so sick that I just wanted to spend every minute I could with her and I stopped running. She passed away at the end of that summer. Winter came and then I severely injured my left foot, so last summer I never got back to my jogging routine.

Today I went out for my first Couch to 5K workout- Week 1, Day 1! I am so happy to get back to it. I wake up thinking about it almost every morning but today was the first day I actually rallied and got my butt out the door. I listened to the marvelous and inspirational John McDowell (appropriately titled "Speaking the Mamma Tongue") while doing my walk/jog/walk routine. It was a joy and I feel like I started my day off on the right note!

Riding the Wave

Breaking Wave- photo by Andrew Schmidt

A little while ago I was feeling tired and spacey so I decided to take a break and go on the vibroacoustic table in my living room for a while. What a ride! I listened to the entire CD Winds of Devotion by Carlos Nakai and Nawang Khechog, a beautiful meditative blend of Native American and Tibetan flute music and chanting. There are some other great musicians on there too including David Darling, Peter Kater and the late Geoffrey Gordon.

I was in a pretty dreamy state- literally, experiencing snippets of dreams but not sleeping- for quite a while. Then I began feeling some low level anxiety, seemingly unconnected with any actual events or projections- just an awareness of the feeling. My heart rate picked up a bit and I hung out with it, still relaxing into the waves of musical vibration moving through my body, while being curious about what was happening.

Eventually a memory came forth of a frightening experience I had when I was very sick a few years ago. I had a terrible respiratory infection and woke up one night with a high fever and horrible coughing fit. I got up to use the bathroom and was hallucinating- I couldn't find the light and thought there was an animal in the bathtub. I began screaming for my boyfriend, Henry, who was sleeping on the other side of the house because I was so sick. I was in a state of terror, screaming, crying and coughing, unable to make sense of any of it.

The memory faded and my anxiety dissipated. I slipped back into the calm rhythmic entrainment of the music.  When it was over I got up feeling clear, calm, balanced, energized and happy.

I don't know exactly what that was about- perhaps a thread of the trauma that was still in my body which the music released. I do know that the illness was very traumatic and I was the sickest I have ever been in my adult life. Ever since, whenever I thought about it or talked about it, I would get triggered emotionally- except that now I don't feel triggered by it at all. I feel a very calm detachment from it for perhaps the first time.
 

MUSIC

Music is silence,
music is mountain,
music is freedom,
music is universal,
music is heart,
music is bridge,
music is temple,
music is teacher,
music is path,
path to compassion, love, forgiveness, wisdom,
spirituality, freedom,
joy, happiness, divinity,
and inner-peace.

~Nawang Khechog~

Staying in the Game

I am completely exhausted tonight and making a real effort to get to bed at a reasonable time. So, I am shipping tonight by updating my Airbnb website, plus creating an event for my Saturday evening Healing Sound Journey and Sunday workshop in Newburyport, MA. So far only one person signed up for workshop but that's what we thought in Holland too and ended up with enough people to cover my plane fare and I made some money beyond that- so I'm not throwing in the towel just yet!

Inner Tuning

"Slowly the musician is tuned, ever so slowly; doing nothing but playing." ~Patrick Smith~

Earlier this evening I had decided that I was going to write about how I have observed music healing my brother, who decided when he turned fifty that he wanted to play the guitar. Tonight I went to listen to him play at an open mic. I am constantly astonished at how much better he has gotten over time. He is persistent and dedicated to his practice- and I have observed the guitar tuning him, both physiologically, his voice due to the resonance of the body of the guitar against his own body as well as his emotional body. It has been a beautiful journey to witness.

When I got home and opened my computer to write, the first thing I saw was a blog entry by Patrick Smith which ended with the above quote. It could not have been more apropos. To read the rest of his blog entry click here.

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.

~Not my 12-string guitar!~

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.

Sound Observance

This afternoon when I was out in my yard, I walked over to a honeysuckle bush to smell the blossoms. Nearby I noticed a bumblebee gathering pollen from it. As I stood there and got quiet, a humming began to emerge and as I got quieter still, it grew into a gentle buzzing. It was a large widespread bush with arching branches, only the lower ones drooping down enough for me to smell them and as I stood there I began seeing more and more bumblebees flying lazily from flower to flower. I felt like I was in a sacred space and I crouched down slightly and stepped under the curved branches so that the bush was all around me. I stayed there listening to the electric sound of the bees feeling like I was in a small cathedral enveloped in sound, fragrance and the energy of the bees.  It felt very warm and meditative- in fact I think I shall put a small chair under there so I can spend more time observing the sound and energy. It was such an incredibly pleasant feeling, embraced in that buzzing vibration of life.

Nada Brahma

Can you imagine a world, a life, without sound? Without sound we would not exist. 

Nada Brahma...
creation is a never-ending flow of sound.

The Healing Power of Sound

There is a new film coming out called The Healing Power of Sound. I am wildly excited about this. Apparently was shown at Cannes this past weekend. It is so wonderful that there are more and more films coming out sharing the power of this beautiful, noninvasive, highly effective healing modality. This is good news!

Himalayan singing bowls balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain and create deep alpha and theta waves which induce states of deep relaxation, spontaneous meditation and healing.

Also my teacher Silvia Nakkach has a new CD coming out. She has started a Kickstarter campaign to cover production costs. Given that she is one of the most brilliant, beautiful, beautiful, wise and talented women and teachers that I know, with a voice like silk and honey, of course I am supporting her campaign to spread her sweet sounds. I hope you will click here and go to the link and check out the video. Really- it is just so sweet and you will get a lovely sample of her voice!

Turn Up the Volume

This is Lord Dhanwantari, an avatar of Vishnu and the embodiment of perfect health. I could use a little of his magic right now.

Here is a video of the Dhanvantari mantra that I taped in a workshop a few years ago.

I am very tired but feeling slightly better than yesterday although feverish earlier. When I was in Holland my friend Paul turned me on to a lot more Peter Gabriel that I was not familiar with. I really hadn't listened to him much in close to 20 years, other than one track with the Blind Boys of Alabama on The Long Walk Home, the soundtrack to Rabbit-Proof Fence.

Today I have had a song going through my head that I listened to several times when I was in the Netherlands. I recommend connecting to some good speakers and turning up the volume.

Back to the Boggy Blog!

Okay- I haven't blogged in three days. This is an acknowledgement! I just got home from Holland yesterday and have a pretty bad sore throat so I must scramble off to bed. I had to write a tiny bit though so I get back in my blogging groove. Holland was wonderful and I am back to my computer so now I can post pictures with ease!

Here are a few highlights- maybe for the quality of the photo, the colour, the light or the event...

Tensegrity, Home and Healing Sounds

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Sound-Healing-Journey---workshop-with-Rosie-Warburton.html?soid=1101953514758&aid=d8x8hPiz9nQ

Looking forward to going home on Tuesday. Holland has been wonderful, beautiful, busy and at times quite intense. Today I have participated in a powerful Course in Miracles process group and tonight will give one of the participants a sound healing session. Tomorrow I give a session to someone else who has been giving some Tensegrity classes (https://www.cleargreen.com) here and is giving me a little extra help with it tomorrow so that hoepfully I can do some more practice when I get home. I have really been loving it and can easily see how powerful and effective it can be for training and toning the body and mind.

In Brugge

Paul and I went to Brugge today. The soundtrack was 80's music most of the way. On the way back an hour and a half of Ludovico Einaudi followed by an amazing CD by Peter Gabriel called Scratch My Back- all compositions by other people arranged by him. Phenomenal.

Personal Sound Journey

This afternoon I lay down on the sofa in the living room at Paul and Jane's house in Hoogland and played one of the sound journeys I had recorded during the weekend workshop- actually the last sound journey from the end of the day on Sunday.

I had recorded it on my iPhone, so I lay down, turned it on and placed my iPhone on my chest. And then I went OUT! I didn't hear much of it because I was totally gone. At some point it ended and I woke up- I think it was about 39 minutes long. I couldn't move for the longest time. They are lucky when I play for them because they have me to bring them back- to remind them to come back to their breath- to breathe themselves back into their body, to begin to move and to stretch and to rub their hands briskly together warming up the palms and then rubbing them over their face, their eyes, their head, their neck and their heart. I didn't have anyone to tell me that- I knew what I needed to do but that wasn't enough... So I lay there, glued to the sofa for probably another 20 minutes before I began to revive.

Well, now I know even better why they like it so much! 

View from the sofa- I took it when I woke up. :-)

Late Night Update From Amsterdam

I started off the day today doing a sound healing meditation for Jane and Paul's Course in Miracles group at their home. After that I took a train in to Amsterdam to meet a friend at the Van Gogh Museum. Afterward we saw this guy sitting in the park playing the didgeridoo. He was a good player and it was such a nice grounding sound after the museum experience.

Yesterday Jane and I visited the Royal Delft Museum and factory. It was so wonderful. When I was about 6 years old a friend of my mother's gave me a small blue and white ceramic windmill. I loved it and my mother told me then about Delft and the famous white and blue pottery. I was a potter for many years myself before I became a sound healer so it was somewhere I have always wanted to go. I loved it! Lots of the structure itself is actually made from building ceramics with beautiful earthy glazes of browns and greens. 

Sound Revelation

Today's sound revelation- that different sheep have very different voices! Yesterday I went down to the edge of the river to look at the new dock and there was a sheep with a very deep voice "Baaa"ing at us. Coming toward us on the river was a scull with four or five people rowing toward us. I heard a very high-pitched "Baaaa" and the big sheep with the deep voice replied. Again there was a high-piched "Baaa". I started laughing because I thought it was someone in the boat answering the sheep. After the third time I realized it was actually another sheep and not someone in the boat goofing around!   Today Paul, Jane and I were walking down to the edge of the river and there was the flock of sheep again. This time I heard several voices and there was no one else but us in sight. Maybe you already knew that but I found it very exciting, silly as it may sound! 

Letting Go In Trust

Yesterday morning pretty much from the moment I woke up I had the Durga Stuthi in my head, a beautiful Sanskrit prayer to the Divine Mother in all her different forms and manifestations- as sleep, as memory, as abundance, as compassion, as peace, as power... I was preparing to teach the second day of a workshop on Sound Healing for Balance and Joy. Day number two, Sunday, was all about joy- I had a sense of how we were going to begin the morning, doing some exercises to open the voice. I am also always open to inspiration and guidance while trying to stay within certain parameters.

I started to wonder if for some reason I was supposed to share this prayerful song with the group but it didn't make any sense. It just didn't fit. It was too long and we had an important piece to start the day off with. We had to do the vocal warm-ups before getting into anything else. A different workshop, on chanting perhaps and it might be a nice fit but this just felt like something stuck in my head that I needed to let go of.

I started the class but almost as soon as I began I had to go upstairs to get something I had left up there. On my way down I suddenly realized it was Mother's Day! Ah- that's where the song had come from- Durga was tapping me on the shoulder giving me a reminder! It had taken me about an hour to realize it, so when I got back downstairs I wished all the mothers a happy Mother's Day and told them the story about the chant that had been in my mind since I woke up.

Now that I had gotten the message I shifted gears, got out the guitar and played the Durga Stuthi- there are many verses but there is also a beautiful chorus they were all able to sing along with. Everyone present had powerful experiences of their mothers. Some of them including me had lost them fairly recently- within the last 2-3 years- one woman over 40 years, but we all felt their presence and their love. As it turned out it was such a beautiful, moving and intimate way to start the day. It was also a way for us to connect very deeply which created a beautiful setting and mood for the rest of day.

It was a reminder for me, once again, to trust my guidance and not second guess. Things show up- ideas, thoughts, inspirations, people- for reasons we cannot know. We just have to trust and let things unfold and be revealed in their own time and their own perfect moment.

Deep Listening

A very short post today to say that the weekend's workshop went well- 6 people yesterday and 9 today- and it seemed that everyone got something that they felt they could take home with them at the end of the day. Two things I endeavor to share in a workshop- a sense of safety and the presence of joy.

One magic moment- at the end of one of our sound practices, as we were doing some breathing for centering ourselves back in our bodies a train went by. I suggested they listen deeply to the sound of the train with all of its overtones and breathe that sound into their being. It was full of beautiful sounds. Paul said he would never hear a train the same way again. Now he would listen. That was a gift.

Irresistible

Today's workshop...

Before the chakra balancing sound journey with Tibetan bowls...

The line up... 7 bowls for 7 chakras and one dolphin bowl:

Me, about to start playing...

Afterward- who can resist those sounds? 

Who can resist that smile? 

Willing To Be Wrong

Okay! Pictures! Finally! Wow, that was quite the struggle. Thanks to one of my Your Turn Challenge professional bloggers, I finally got it handled. Right- we should know there is an app for everything, yes? I keep hearing that- just don't know how to apply it. My mind doesn't go in that direction. I'm still trying to follow the step by step route instead of looking for the shortcut. The shortcut turned out to be the Blogger app- and suddenly it is all so simple.

The picture of the instruments is from one of my workshops last week, although the setup for tomorrow looks pretty much the same- except that I will have more Tibetan bowls and tuning forks out.The workshop is on sound healing for balance and joy.

One of the things I am enjoying most is the sound of the Dutch language. I find it very pleasant and not so difficult. I guess a lot of people have trouble with the gutteral tones but I think it's not too bad for me. The bigger challenge is just getting the nerve to actually try to say things and know that it's okay to mispronounce if that's what happens- my deathly fear of doing something wrong. Always better not to try, at least in my inner world. On the outside I have actually learned to just go ahead and try it anyway but getting past the saboteur at the door who is ready to stab me if I make a mistake- that's still always a bit of a struggle. I only know four words so that doens't leave too much room for any huge errors. Good morning, thank you, you're welcome, hello (hallo, about as simple as it gets) and bye. 

That's it for tonight. I have to get up early to be ready for the workshop in the morning. Dag.