Common Threads

Sitting at my computer listening to Zoe Keating in the background.  Hmm... I don't think I have posted any of her videos yet... Okay- first things first first, so you can connect with my musical mindset this morning.

Brilliant...

I am awash with so many thoughts about sound that I don't know where to begin.  My mind is full and at so many points throughout each day I think, "Oh I should be taking notes or blogging about this idea... music... process..." whatever, but it rarely happens.  Now that I am out of Florida and have let go of ambassadorship at the sound healing center hopefully it will free me up for more writing!

I think about my last seven years in Florida and what I created there- a community when I didn't have one. A group of people who came together for many different events- meditations, zikrs, sound journeys, kirtan, classes, workshops and private sound healing sessions of kinds- all with personal goals, intentions and reasons for being there, unique to each one but with the common thread of a love of sound and music running through and connecting each person.

It occurs to me that maybe that's one of the things that makes Zoe Keating's music so compelling... these threads that run through and connect the different parts- entraining and entrancing. Others who come to mind with a similar approach- Phillip Glass and Mike Oldfield.

Common threads...

So what is at the front right now? Reconnecting with people from my past, letting people know I am here and ready to start working. 17 years have gone by since I was in Rhode Island for any length of time but it feels like no time. It's really sort of bizarre- like maybe 5 years have gone by? Except what I have done and what I have learned.

I left here just opening to the world of healing with sound, mostly exploring VibroAcoustic Therapy and healing with the voice. When I left I continued to explore and expand in those fields but have done so much more! Workshops with Fabien Maman, studying drum therapy with Buddy Helm, working with tuning forks, frame drumming with Layne Redmond and Barbara Gail, Mantra Therapy with the late Thomas Ashley-Farrand (Namadeva) and his  wife Margalo (Satyabhama), Nada Tantra with Bhagavan Das, workshops with Swami Karunananda and Vidyananda from Yogaville, Kirtan Camp and lots of weekend workshops with Jai Uttal, massage school (Bhakti Academe of Intuitive Massage and Healing), CranioSacral Therapy, Dolphin Assisted Therapy through the Upledger Institute, Biosonic Repatterning with tuning forks, various workshops in Ba Gua and Hsing-I... and more. Well, I guess it would take 17 years to have done all that...

So, I guess it's time to make a brochure...

Home Again

Hmmm... new Blogger page is unknown territory! Feeling my way through their new set-up.

Anyway, here I am- back in Newport RI after 17 years although it doesn't seem anywhere near that long. Familiarity is an interesting phenomenon- like there is no gap in time... But in that time I have done so much, learned so much, grown so much.

My new pad with massage table set up- sweet!
Tibetan bowls in foreground, tuning forks to the left of table!

Now I have a cozy little space behind an old friends house- a tiny cabin with two single beds and enough room between them to set up a massage table. Gave my first session up here a few days ago. The healing environment- the wellness consciousness- has vastly changed, expanded, opened since I left here, at least it seems that way to me. Time will tell what is really real! When I left very few knew much at all about healing with sound and I don't know yet what the awareness is (of sound as a healing modality), but there are certainly many more alternative healing centers here now so I am really looking forward to the opportunity of presenting more.

Lots of possibilities- my prayer is really to have more work than I know what to do with- I can sort out the overflow later! Meanwhile it is just wonderful to be home in a physical environment that really supports and nurtures my being.

 Florida was a place of such incredible growth for me for a lot of reasons- not the least of which was that I was in an extreme Discomfort Zone all the time- it was physically awful for me. Whenever I would get out of that climate I would feel about a hundred times better... so I am extremely grateful to have found a place in which I can make a transition in a pretty undemanding way. I don't have to make any big commitments. I am just here, feeling it all out- and so far IT FEELS GOOD!

On top of all that I am near two of my boys (grown men!), my mother and my grandson.

Life is good.

The Art Of Sound & Letting Go

This is a very good demonstration of cymatics, the study of waves- in this case clearly showing how sound organizes matter. I love that the higher the sound frequency is, the more complex the wave pattern.  And why do we love music so much? It's not just the effect on the emotional body, but the effect on our cells. Fabien Maman demonstrated this beautifully with his photographs of how healthy red blood cells are affected by sound, as well as cancer cells. Many more photographs can be found in his book The Role of Music in the 21st Century. 


I am leaving my sound healing center In Florida that I have nurtured for the last 7 years and going back to Newport, RI, my ultimate comfort zone, for a while. No idea what the future holds- who does? Lol! Hopefully I will find lots of work there teaching, giving private sessions and doing meditations and sound journeys- continuing to do what I love. Also I will be near my mother, two of my sons and daughter-in-laws and my amazing grandson Jonah which will be such a blessing.

Florida for me has been the Land of Exponential Growth- that's what happens when you live in a place that goes against pretty much every aspect of your nature- physical, mental and emotional- you grow and grow and grow! The one oasis I have had has been the Sound Body Wholistic Health Center. As a dear friend said to me a few days ago, I have kept it going with sweat and adrenaline against some very difficult odds. It has been my labor of love. And I am so ready to let it go! Sad, but ready...

Ch Ch Ch Changes!

This has been a most amazing year so far. I feel like I think about what I want and the Universe is coming to meet me at every new thought. Much is manifesting in my life. I have been rooted to my sound healing center which I started 7 years ago for such a long time now. It has been a labor of love, commitment and dedication. In the last two years I have been called to travel more and more, which is what I was doing before I opened the center. This year I have already been to Holland and am going to California in a month to teach there. I spent the winter in New England and when I was leaving to come back down here it hit me that I had been out of my comfort zone for so long and I was ready to be back in it for a while. I also feel that much has shifted in Newport, RI since I have been down here in FL and that the energy is ripe to reintroduce sound healing there. When I left in 1995 very few people had even heard about it but now there are so many more yoga centers and holistic healing centers that I feel I can go back there and really do a lot of work- sessions, group meditations and workshops.

I also felt so strongly that I wanted to be near my son Moose and his wife Addie before they move to Minneapolis in October as well as my son Nic and his family- particularly my grandson Jonah. And my dear mother who turned 90 last fall and is still as sharp as a tack. I had been thinking about this and the high prices for summer rentals in Newport when I got an email forwarded from a dear friend in regards to a rentals available through a mutual friend of ours. And everything I had hoped for was there for me. An affordable room in a wonderful location less than a mile walking distance from Moose and Addie! So I am there for the summer and so thrilled- leaving in a little over a month. Maybe my sentence in Florida is finally up!

Much to do to prepare. So many other things have occurred- too numerous to write about right now- but it's all good and I am very excited to be teaching, learning and traveling.

Remembering Love

Well, I decided to get right to it today! I woke up thinking ten thousand things, played with my theta tuning forks and got quiet inside and now thoughts about sound and frequency have risen to the surface. I got home from Holland just over a week ago. Felt very excited and inspired and soon notice how my energy and creativity begin to wane after just a few days. Florida is not a good environment for me physically, mentally or emotionally. It is good for practice because I am challenged on a daily basis by being far removed from my comfort zone. The only real comforts I have here are Henry and the sound healing center, and the center has played itself out in my life and I am pulling away.

Interesting with all that is going on internally that regardless the theta tuning brought my awareness to a very quiet space within me and as I write I find myself stopping and closing my eyes every few minutes and breathing into that space. That feels like my real comfort zone, the ride on the breath and the awareness of the quiet open space between each inhale and exhale, between the exhale and the inhale...

When I was in Holland I went to a workshop with Shyamji in Schoorl. The picture above is the sand dune that leads down into the village behind the spiritual center where the workshop was held. Schoorl is famous for having the highest and widest dunes in the Netherlands. It was a beautiful location for the workshop.

It was a lovely and powerful workshop with Shyamji (pictured below). Some of my awareness of the shifts that occurred for me did not come until after I got home and I looked at the pattern of openings within me and saw how they were directly connected with the goal Shyamji set forthe workshop, which was to reconnect with the memory of being at one with the mother (and the Mother) before any blockages occurred in the microchakras.

It was interesting because everyone else at the workshop was from either Holland or Belgium except one woman originally from England but she had lived in Holland for over 30 years so obviously was completely fluent in the language. I tend to be shy in groups of people that I don't know anyone and in this case I engaged with the others even less because they were all speaking Dutch- which was maybe good because I was that much more internal during what felt more like a retreat than a "workshop".

Some of the workshops I have taken with Shyamji before have been quite intense for me even in the quiet because we have been doing physical cleansing or purifications during the process so there is a lot of releasing and purging on all levels. This one was very gentle and felt so suited to where I was at the time- and also to the environment. It was a lovely simple retreat center in the woods on the edge of the dunes. Walking up the narrow brick road behind the center leads to an

overlook from one of the highest points in the Netherlands from where you can see an expanse of woods, dunes and the ocean way off in the distance. The air was cool and damp- early spring.

The sounds Shyamji produced during the opening concert and over the next two days were so lovely. His energy is so sweet and gentle, his voice so pure. He speaks without sacrificing honesty and also a great deal of humor. He explained how there are blockages which occur during the third trimester in the womb and more which occur during the birth experience, particularly the way it has been hijacked by the medical profession in the west. These blockages occur in the microchakras of the right channel and they cannot be unblocked but with the right sounds, with proper guidance by a good teacher we can revisit that place before the blockages occurred when we were completely merged at at one with our mother.

What happened for me was on the second day of the retreat I was sitting in a restaurant having breakfast by myself and suddenly, out of the blue- unexpected and unbidden, triggered by a piece of music that came on- the awareness, the remembrance came up of being completely totally and deeply in love. It was my first experience of being really deeply in love with a man and it was now 25 years ago. I didn't make the connection to the sounds Shyamji had been singing during his concert the night before- not until several weeks later when I was relating the experience to a dear friend and I realized that really this is the experience he was talking about. It doesn't matter where or when we experienced it- that first connection within the mother is the anchor to that experience even if it's not in our conscious memory. The point wasn't so much the who of the relationship (or the loss thereof) but of awareness of the experience of deep surrender and merging with another being to where the energy flow is like two rivers coming together as one. What an extraordinarily beautiful gift- coupled with the knowing that that possibility of experiencing deep love and surrender is still and always available to us.

Days of Wine and Roses

Well, I have been in Holland for two weeks now and my blogging intention seemed to slip away. The only time I seemed to have for the computer was late at night and it messed up my sleeping too much so I had to let it go.

Last weekend we had a wonderful workshop in Utrecht, home of the Speelklok Museum, and now I am in Alkmeer, a beautiful city in the north of Holland. I am at the house of Basia Szpak-Borst, a Watsu practitioner I met in Arizona about ten years ago. Tonight we are going to Schoorl for a concert with my teacher Shyamji- www.innertuning.com- where I will spend tonight and tomorrow night attending a workshop on microchakras. I have not been with Shyamji for over 5 years and I love that when I made plans to come to Holland I found out that he was going to be here at the same time!

Sunday, back to Soesterberg and then I cram in as much sightseeing as possible before I leave on Thursday! Yesterday I spent most of the day giving sessions with toning, craniosacral therapy and tuning forks. This weekend is for me! Next week I am hoping to go to Delft, The Garden of Life www.levenstuinen.nl , the Kinderdijks, and see a movie at the amazing art deco Theatre Tuschinski in Amsterdam.

I am fascinated by the use of space here and the ability to keep things uncluttered and tidy. I understand that in a small country with a relatively dense population that space is at a premium and must be used wisely. Everything is narrow- the streets, the cars, the stairs, the refrigerators! I remember when I was little reading the book "The Dutch Twins", which is when I first decided I wanted to go to Holland. The little children slept in brightly painted cupboards! It also has come back to me that someone gave me a little Delft windmill when I was about 6 years old. I have no idea where it came from but I loved it- it was a treasure. So more and more I remember this resonance and the desire to come to this land of windmills and tulips.

Which brings me to the flowers! The supermarkets (which are quite small, more like the old grocery stores from when I was a kid) are full of flowers along with all the other neccessities. Inexpensive- beautiful varieties of orchids for example that would at least twice as much in Florida and twice as much again in New England- and I wonder how this country that is far from tropical can have all these beautiful orchids at a reasonable price!

But... there are greenhouses... and greenhouses and greenhouses and greenhouses! Driving along the highway you look off to the side and there are vast stretches of farmland, green fields and not just one or two large greenhouses, but maybe 20 or 30 all side by side. The Dutch love their flowers!

I went to Lottum last week, a town in the south of Holland. I have always thought of Holland and tulips, but this part of Holland is famous for their roses. Of course they were not out yet- August is the peak season here, but as I walked along the sidewalk I saw that there were these big curlycue structures that looked to be the framework for topiary rose bushes. I don't know that for sure but that seemed to be what they were. I'll google it later! How I would love to come back in August and experience a sea of roses. I imagine the scent filling the air that must be divine.

The sufis use the scent of roses as a way of connecting to the Divine. They place a drop of rose essence in their ear because it is the highest vibration of any plant and causes the consciousness to vibrate at a very high frequency. I tried this once. It was heavenly. Somehow it enters into the system and I was breathing roses- very subtly- but it was intoxicating. Days later after the scent had faded away, I went swimming in the ocean. I dove underwater and when I came up instead of breathing the smell of the ocean I was breathing in roses and went into total bliss. It was so unexpected, but I guess the wash of the ocean released the essential oil once again and it was absolutely beautiful. I lay on my back in the water breathing in sunshine and roses.

Cheese? Oh my God, the cheese! All I eat is goat cheese, no moo cow... but really. Goat cheese with coriander? HEAVENLY!!! I tried about 6 different kinds this morning in a cheese store ("kaaswinkel") in Alkmeer. I have already forgotten what they were but they were all amazing! I may have to go back there before I leave. I don't understand how I can eat all this stuff here I'm "not supposed to eat"and I feel great! Chocolate, dairy, the occasional nightshade... no problem! I swear I am starting to think it's just Florida that doesn't agree with me and all these dietary restrictions are for the birds. However, that being said, I think in general the food is cleaner here. Organic vegetables are organic vegetables- but other than that, I think the milk (which I have been using in my coffee) and the meat is generally better and cleaner.

Also, they don't put heaps of food on your plate. Just enough. A small plate of salad or veggies, a few onion rings and your meat- and the fried potatoes or french fries with green mayonnaise. And maybe a glass of wine. Dessert? One dark chocolate bon bon. Lovely and delicious. It's all so simple and nice. Most Americans don't know much about simplicity! Food for thought...

I know for some of you this is nothing new- but for me? I've never been to Europe before and it is so refreshing! I am loving it.

Speelklok Museum- A Dream Come True

I had a most extraordinary and exciting day today.

When I was little, as I think I mentioned before, the first country I ever wanted to visit was Holland. And I am here. I had actually forgotten that this was one of my first childhood dreams until I realized that I was coming here.

One of my fascinations as a child was music boxes. I loved music boxes and was totally fascinated by them. When I was about 6 years old I had a stuffed rabbit with a music box in it. One day I decided I wanted to find out how the music box worked so I some how managed to open up the rabbit and remove his stuffing, followed by the music box itself. I was thrilled to discovered the inner workings. I got in serious trouble for it- I actually got a spanking- which I didn't understand because as far as I was concerned, it was my rabbit to do whatever I wanted with it, and I did not regret for a moment taking it apart!

The next one I got was a little piano which I didn't have to take apart because I could lift up the top of the very baby grand piano and see into it! My fascination with music boxes had begun- also with watches. It wasn't long before I got a watch which I took the back off of so that I could see how it worked and watch the little gears inside of it move as the seconds and minutes ticked by. Reincarnation was not an unusual dinner topic in our somewhat unusual family and I was quite certain from a young age that in a past life I had been a watchmaker and repairer. I loved the idea that I had once been a happy little old man in Switzerland taking apart, repairing and building cuckoo clocks.

What I never imagined was that there might be a museum of musical clocks and music boxes! When my friend Jane mentioned to me that she wanted to visit this museum in Utrecht that she'd read about and would love to go with me while I was here, I jumped at the chance. Certainly had I ever known that there was such a thing it would have been on the top of my list of places to visit in the world. What an incredible wonderful place beyond my wildest dreams!

It was a very cold wet rainy day in Utrecht and Jane and I were quite chilled when we reached the museum which seems to be in a very old church in Utrecht that has been restored as this amazing museum. We decided to go into the cafe first and get warmed up but I kept jumping up and looking at these huge extraordinary "music boxes", many of which were so huge that they were more like wagons from a carousel. I was absolutely astounded and so thrilled that I actually had tears in my eyes. At one point I actually thought "This is the happiest day of my life"- being in this museum that was dedicated to this incredible creative exploration of playful and beautiful ways of creating sound with exquisite detail and craftsmanship... I felt like I had entered into the heart of these miraculous musical machines that I so adored as a small child and have been fascinated with all my life.

To see pictures from my visit to the museum click here.

When we left the museum it was colder and rainier than when we got there. We had parked quite a ways away and it was so windy that I was using the umbrella as a cane on the cobblestones streets which worked far better than the function it was designed for. Cold and soggy, we got back to the car with our clothes soaked through, but we were laughing, delighted with our adventure and entry into a land of musical magic.