Beyond the "Beyond" (Para Gate!) I am having an amazing and very full time in Holland. Paul and Jane live in a small town called Soesterberg about 35 minutes by train from Amsterdam. I am still trying to get my sleeping thing worked out. The night before last I was exhausted but ended up being up until 4 a.m. regardless, totally unable to sleep. Even the Delta tuners didn't help, which are tuning forks that entrain the brainwaves to different vibrational states. The Delta tuner is for deep sleep and it usually works pretty well for me. But I was being faithful to my blog that night and worked on the computer until very late and I think it really whacked out my melatonin. I finally got up at 11:30 a.m. after being awakened twice by Paul, took a shower and we got on the train to Amsterdam.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
News From the Netherlands
So for openers I will share this beautiful song my friend Paul Goudsmit turned me on to the other day. He and his partner Jane Tipping teach personal transformation workshops based on the principles of A Course in Miracles and they use a lot of music in their workshops. This is one of them. I was completely knocked out by it. So beautiful...
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Strange Encounter in Amersfoort
I started off the day today by giving a sound meditation with Tibetan bowls to Paul and Jane's Practitioner Training group which was quite lovely- about ten people all lay on the floor on tumbling mats. Interestingly, every person who shared seemed to feel the bowls strongly in their heart. It was sort of amazing the similarity that they described in that aspect of their experience. Maybe it's because they have been together as a group now since October so they are unusually connected, rather than a group that has just come together for the first time for the purpose of experiencing a Sound Journey.
After that Jane and I went to Amersfoort, a nearby city, the heart of which has retained it's medieval origins in it's architecture. It was really very beautiful. In 1300 a defensive wall was built around the city but about 80 years later it needed to be enlarged so a second wall was built around the first and the first one was taken down. The bricks from the original wall were used to build more houses. The front of theses houses were built on the original foundations of the first wall and is now called Muurhuizen (wallhouses) Street.
So Jane and I had just gotten to Muurhuizen Street and hadn't walked more than 50 yards when we were stopped by an old man, easily in his early eighties, who was about to go into his house and invited us in to see the inside of his house. He was quite persistent so in we went! Wouldn't you know he was musician- he played contrabass. The first thing he showed us was his toilet! Unfortunately I still haven't figured out how to get pictures to my blog so to understand why, you'll have to go to my Facebook page! Seriously- I am not saying this to plug my Facebook page- it's just the only place I've been able to upload pictures since I got a new computer!
Anyway it was a kind of a wonderful and bizarre visit. His house seemed like something out of "Amelie", the living room absolutely packed full of all kinds of knick knacks, photos, stuffed animals, crazy old instruments... God knows what! But it seemed so oddly auspicious that he was a musician. I got very excited and tried to tell him that I am a sound healer but absolutely nothing we said really registered. He just wanted to show us everything in his house. He showed us pictures of his family, his father, his brother- old pictures- very old! But it became apparent quite quickly that if we could stay all day he would have been very happy so finally we told him we had someone to meet and sort of backed out the front door of his funny narrow little house. He asked when we were coming back and told us to be sure to ring his doorbell and pay him a visit when we were back! His name was Fritz. He was sweet and lovely and I'm sure if you go to Amersfoort you too could simply knock on his door and he'd let you right in!
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Transformational Healing in Holland
Well, once again it has been a stretch since I have been writing. Much too long. I arrived in Holland yesterday and figure this blog will serve as one of my journals! Along with my Dream Journal and my other journal that I like to write in by hand- which also holds notes from sound healing workshops with Shyamji, Jai Uttal, Thomas Ashley-Farrand, Margalo Ashley-Farrand, Daniel Tucker and who knows what else!
Next weekend I am teaching a workshop on Transformation Through Toning, Tuning Forks and Tibetan Bowls. I will also be attending a workshop the following weekend with my Nada Yoga teacher, Shri Shyam Bhatnagar. Amazing that I have not been able to see him in the states for years but synchronicity provides me with the opportunity on the other side of the Atlantic!
I am staying with dear friends from Toronto who moved here last year. I met them in the late '90s when they were in Florida facilitating some deep process workshops based on the teachings of A Course in Miracles. After that they bought a sound table from me and hosted me for 6 weeks up in Toronto where I taught one sound healing class after another, gave many private sessions and met all kinds of amazing people.
Unfortunately I have a new computer and haven't figure out how to download pictures onto Blogspot yet. I need to find a Mac person here. So for now it will just be my random writings!
I have had a very full past few months with some wonderful sound experiences, not the least of which was a Nada Yoga: Temple of Sound workshop last weekend with Yogi Amrit Desai and Bhagavan Das that was extremely powerful. The most extraordinary piece occurred when I got back though and gave someone a treatment. I did not tell her the theme of the workshop but she received the whole teaching through the session. This is her testimonial:
My Experience with the Dance of Creation & Dissolution: Shiva Nataraja - Betsy Vaught
As I lay on the sound table with the heart opening rhythms of Jai Uttal vibrating through my body, Rosie was by my side energetically supporting me as I moved through this journey. The experiences I had opened my awareness and understanding, shifted limiting energetic patterns, and gave me insight into Satya: Truth.
The following words explain as much as they can of what I experienced, but cannot encompass the wholeness of it. I could feel my body energetically receiving the images, information and awarenesses in fully integrated form, as if a hologram was downloaded into my being, although I was able to view it in linear fashion.
Lying on the table with my eyes closed, the form of Shiva as Nataraja danced into view. I felt the energy, the movement, the creative life force flowing through the dance and out into manifestation. As the dance continued, the universe was created, and desires were made manifest. I saw, knew, understood that as I danced with Shiva/as Shiva, my deeply felt thoughts, beliefs, words, and actions came to be what I experienced as the 3-D material world. I saw, knew, and understood that I had created every situation in my life through this dance. Whatever I put energy into through my attention to it, became manifest.
In a brief instant I asked, “How do I then change the things I don’t like or want in my life?” Very clearly, I was shown that as Shiva Nataraja put his foot down and came to stillness, everything dissolved back into pure consciousness, Purusha. So it is in the stillness that the maya, the illusion of separation dissolves. It was when Shiva lay down in stillness under the foot of his Beloved Kali, that Kali was able to stop and recognize Him as her Beloved. The illusion dissolved.
And so it became clear that the opportunity in this lifetime in this moment is to consciously dance our dance of creation by choosing our thoughts, words, and actions to reflect the world we want to live in and then feel the reality, the truth of them in our bodies, dancing them into being. If we want peace, then we must live peace. When confronted with situations that are not what we want, we shift them by moving into the stillness, reconnecting with the oneness of pure consciousness, and merging our thoughts, feelings, words, attention and actions into our desired manifestation.
I must admit to being absolutely astounded as she began sharing with me the details of her experience. What I got from that is that the sounds, mantras, that we practiced were imprinted on my energy field and the experienced was transferred to her through the process of the sound healing session. And yet, she did not get my experience. She had her own experience that was completely accessible to her. I just keep learning about how this works and the endless forms it takes.
Next weekend I am teaching a workshop on Transformation Through Toning, Tuning Forks and Tibetan Bowls. I will also be attending a workshop the following weekend with my Nada Yoga teacher, Shri Shyam Bhatnagar. Amazing that I have not been able to see him in the states for years but synchronicity provides me with the opportunity on the other side of the Atlantic!
I am staying with dear friends from Toronto who moved here last year. I met them in the late '90s when they were in Florida facilitating some deep process workshops based on the teachings of A Course in Miracles. After that they bought a sound table from me and hosted me for 6 weeks up in Toronto where I taught one sound healing class after another, gave many private sessions and met all kinds of amazing people.
Unfortunately I have a new computer and haven't figure out how to download pictures onto Blogspot yet. I need to find a Mac person here. So for now it will just be my random writings!
I have had a very full past few months with some wonderful sound experiences, not the least of which was a Nada Yoga: Temple of Sound workshop last weekend with Yogi Amrit Desai and Bhagavan Das that was extremely powerful. The most extraordinary piece occurred when I got back though and gave someone a treatment. I did not tell her the theme of the workshop but she received the whole teaching through the session. This is her testimonial:
My Experience with the Dance of Creation & Dissolution: Shiva Nataraja - Betsy Vaught
As I lay on the sound table with the heart opening rhythms of Jai Uttal vibrating through my body, Rosie was by my side energetically supporting me as I moved through this journey. The experiences I had opened my awareness and understanding, shifted limiting energetic patterns, and gave me insight into Satya: Truth.
The following words explain as much as they can of what I experienced, but cannot encompass the wholeness of it. I could feel my body energetically receiving the images, information and awarenesses in fully integrated form, as if a hologram was downloaded into my being, although I was able to view it in linear fashion.
Lying on the table with my eyes closed, the form of Shiva as Nataraja danced into view. I felt the energy, the movement, the creative life force flowing through the dance and out into manifestation. As the dance continued, the universe was created, and desires were made manifest. I saw, knew, understood that as I danced with Shiva/as Shiva, my deeply felt thoughts, beliefs, words, and actions came to be what I experienced as the 3-D material world. I saw, knew, and understood that I had created every situation in my life through this dance. Whatever I put energy into through my attention to it, became manifest.
In a brief instant I asked, “How do I then change the things I don’t like or want in my life?” Very clearly, I was shown that as Shiva Nataraja put his foot down and came to stillness, everything dissolved back into pure consciousness, Purusha. So it is in the stillness that the maya, the illusion of separation dissolves. It was when Shiva lay down in stillness under the foot of his Beloved Kali, that Kali was able to stop and recognize Him as her Beloved. The illusion dissolved.
And so it became clear that the opportunity in this lifetime in this moment is to consciously dance our dance of creation by choosing our thoughts, words, and actions to reflect the world we want to live in and then feel the reality, the truth of them in our bodies, dancing them into being. If we want peace, then we must live peace. When confronted with situations that are not what we want, we shift them by moving into the stillness, reconnecting with the oneness of pure consciousness, and merging our thoughts, feelings, words, attention and actions into our desired manifestation.
I must admit to being absolutely astounded as she began sharing with me the details of her experience. What I got from that is that the sounds, mantras, that we practiced were imprinted on my energy field and the experienced was transferred to her through the process of the sound healing session. And yet, she did not get my experience. She had her own experience that was completely accessible to her. I just keep learning about how this works and the endless forms it takes.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Tools for Transformation
Oh my heavens! The new year came zooming in whilst I was in throes of dealing with my son's post-surgery recovery followed swiftly by a scary fall when I arrived at my mother's house on New Years Eve day. She fell, not me. Literally within minutes of arriving at her house, bringing in our bags- she fell in front of the fireplace and hit her head, blood everywhere but Grace abounding... no concussion, broken bones or anything else... ambulance within minutes and she was patched up and sent home with 4 staples in her head. :-( Oh my poor mama! But as she has been quick to remind me every time I start to say that, how lucky she was!
I have been treating her quite consistently with tuning forks and lymphatic massage as her legs tend to swell up from arthritis and she has responded so well! Much less pain and edema seems to have disappeared for now. I will keep at it as long as I am here. ("Here" is Massachusetts.)
This is looking like the year my dreams come true. As soon as I get back to Florida I will be able to buy a harmonium which I have been wanting ever since I went to Kirtan Camp last summer. But the big news is that I am going to Holland to teach a sound healing course, March 10-11. Since I have never been to Europe before I am going to go for 3 weeks and I am so excited I can barely stand it. It was a huge plunge and I was so afraid to press the button to buy the ticket, but there was no good reason not to- and every good reason to do it! And once I did I became so excited that I am practically bursting at the seams.
I will be staying with dear friends who have a sound table and will be bringing Tibetan bowls and tuning forks with me. The workshop will be on Transformation Through Toning, Tuning Forks and Tibetan Bowls. They used to have a Course in Miracles retreat center in Toronto and I did a lot of sound healing work there in 2000 and 2002 so I am so looking forward to spending time reconnecting with them, doing lots of sound healing work and exploring Amsterdam!
In closing, here is a beautiful and empowering message by Lee Harris on the implications and possibilities of 2012. Take 20 minutes out of your busy day to soak this in. Enjoy.
Love, blessings and a beautiful 2012!
I have been treating her quite consistently with tuning forks and lymphatic massage as her legs tend to swell up from arthritis and she has responded so well! Much less pain and edema seems to have disappeared for now. I will keep at it as long as I am here. ("Here" is Massachusetts.)
This is looking like the year my dreams come true. As soon as I get back to Florida I will be able to buy a harmonium which I have been wanting ever since I went to Kirtan Camp last summer. But the big news is that I am going to Holland to teach a sound healing course, March 10-11. Since I have never been to Europe before I am going to go for 3 weeks and I am so excited I can barely stand it. It was a huge plunge and I was so afraid to press the button to buy the ticket, but there was no good reason not to- and every good reason to do it! And once I did I became so excited that I am practically bursting at the seams.
I will be staying with dear friends who have a sound table and will be bringing Tibetan bowls and tuning forks with me. The workshop will be on Transformation Through Toning, Tuning Forks and Tibetan Bowls. They used to have a Course in Miracles retreat center in Toronto and I did a lot of sound healing work there in 2000 and 2002 so I am so looking forward to spending time reconnecting with them, doing lots of sound healing work and exploring Amsterdam!
In closing, here is a beautiful and empowering message by Lee Harris on the implications and possibilities of 2012. Take 20 minutes out of your busy day to soak this in. Enjoy.
Love, blessings and a beautiful 2012!
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Sound Circle of Life
Listening right now to Walela singing "Amazing Grace" in Cherokee. The first time I heard it I started weeping and decided in that moment that I want this played at my funeral. Other than that I don't have too many thoughts about a funeral- but I would have one just so that I could have this song played at it! It is so beautiful.
I haven't been blogging. I miss it. I think of it just about every day. I have been spending time with my mother in her 90th year which has been an incredible gift for both of us. And then unexpectedly my 33 year old son had to have surgery to remove some scar tissue in his small intestine from Crohn's Disease. The surgery took a lot longer than they expected and his healing is slower also than anticipated. So I have been very much dealing with that, plus my mother- and Christmas around the corner. I am so grateful that I am in New England to be with my son while he is going through this.
And there is the grace! "I do not know what anything is for."
I haven't been blogging. I miss it. I think of it just about every day. I have been spending time with my mother in her 90th year which has been an incredible gift for both of us. And then unexpectedly my 33 year old son had to have surgery to remove some scar tissue in his small intestine from Crohn's Disease. The surgery took a lot longer than they expected and his healing is slower also than anticipated. So I have been very much dealing with that, plus my mother- and Christmas around the corner. I am so grateful that I am in New England to be with my son while he is going through this.
And there is the grace! "I do not know what anything is for."
Thursday, December 8, 2011
The Amazing Talent of Alice Coltrane
Clicked to some great link online just now which opened up a world of bhakti and in the middle of the page was this wonderful piece by Alice Coltrane. God how I love her music. Her "Radha-Krsna Nama Sankirtana" was one of my all-time favorite albums years ago. Played it til I could play it no more. Would often listen to it over and over. I ache sometimes to be able to hear it and chant along with "Govinda Jai Jai" and "Prema Muditha".
I think the couple my ex-husband and I lived with off and on must have had the album with this title track because when I heard it tonight I knew every note of it and it resonated so deeply within me. So interesting to hear this music from a time when I knew nothing on a conscious level about sound healing and have the awareness of how deeply healing this music was for me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)