Just back from a trip out to Sedona, AZ. Sitting on top of Submarine Mountain with my sound healing friend, Gina, a flute and a Tibetan bowl in hand, we played...when the wind allowed it. Sometimes we just listened to the music of the wind. My heart responds to all healing sounds, to me it is all music. There is a song in everything, and to heal with sound, you need only to find the song that brings forward a healing response. Sitting on top of that mountain as the wind washed through me, and the sun warmed me, and I played Gina’s flute, and Gina played her bowl, I started to think about the many varied sonic tools we can use for healing.
Did you know that just listening to soothing music can raise nitric oxide levels in your blood? Even better than listening to music, you can simply hum a happy tune and raise your levels of nitric oxide. That brings me to the first sonic tool I want to highlight: your voice.
VOICE
Your voice is calibrated to your body, and if you know how to use it, you can bring balance back into your body. One of the most powerful and under-appreciated instruments is your voice. When you hum, or otherwise make self-created sounds, you are vibrating your internal organs and releasing nitric oxide into your blood stream, which increases the amount of oxygen in your cells, and that in turns improves immunity. Pretty cool, right?
Not sure that you are ready to self heal through vocalizing? A sound healer can use a variety of tools, including voice, to help bring you back into balance.
VOCAL SOUND HEALING
Vocal sound healers have developed their voices to produce tones rich with harmonics. Some vocal sound healers use a technique called overtone singing, where the listener is able to discern two to three notes at a time. A vocal sound healer uses the voice with intention to project sound into your physical and subtle energy bodies to release tension, dissolve discordant energy, and bring you into a state of harmony.
CRYSTAL SINGING BOWLS
Crystal singing bowls are made of quartz crystal that has been heated to 4000 degrees, its melting point, and then poured into a mold and formed into a bowl. Clear quartz is prized for its ability to amplify energy, including thought energy and the healing properties of other crystals. Clear quartz singing bowls amplify pure white light. If the quartz has been alchemized to blend with other minerals, metals and crystals, it will amplify the healing properties of those elements as well.
TIBETAN SINGING BOWLS
Tibetan singing bowls are made of a variety of metals, including iron, copper, zinc, tin, mercury, gold and silver. Modern bowls are also made of bronze. Tibetan bowls are used in both ambient settings and directly on the body. When used as an ambient tool, the practitioner will strike the bowl to initiate sound, or rim play the bowl to created a drone-like sound. The effect is very relaxing, and can produce a state of meditation. When placed on the body, the vibrations will pulse deep into the tissues, relaxing and releasing tension that is held there.
TUNING FORKS
When you strike a tuning fork it produces a sound that resonates a rich and pure tone over a relatively long period of time. Traditionally tuning forks were used to tune musical instruments. Sound healers use tuning forks to re-tune the human bio field. Tuning forks can be used around the body, or in the case of weighted tuning forks, vibrating directly into the body. They work by entraining the bio field to the resonant patterns of the tuning forks, thereby bringing the body into balance and harmony.
CHIMES
Wind chimes or wind bells have been used throughout Eastern and Southern Asia as a tool to ward off evil spirits and attract beneficent spirits. They are hung off of sacred structures and pagodas. Today they are used in sound healing for their relaxing tones, and to add texture to healing music.
TIBETAN BELL AND DORJE
Together, the bell and dorje represent wisdom and compassion. The dorje is held in the right hand and symbolizes the ability to transform all experience into an enlightened perspective. The bell is held in the left hand and is a symbol of The Great Mother (she from whom all things come). The hollow of the bell symbolizes a void from which things come forth, including sound that radiates outward and then dissolves back into a void. When the bell is played it both invites deities to participate in ceremony, and drives away disruptive forces. Sound healers use these bells for their beautiful rich tones, and their ability to transmute discordant energies into harmony.
GONGS
Gongs have been used in ritual ceremony, prayer, and meditation since the Bronze Age. When gongs are played the electrons in their metal become excited and form an oscillating plasma field, or plasmon. When metal electrons become excited they leave their atoms and join other atoms, so the activity of the plasmon is happening off the surface of the gong. This means that the listener becomes part of that field of energy. Gongs move energy powerfully and can dissolve emotional and physical patterns of dissonance.
RATTLES, RAIN STICKS AND DRUMS
Percussion instruments are the non-pitched instruments in the sound healers bag of tools. Percussion breaks frequency. Its that simple. Pitched instruments produce frequency and can be used to transform the energy within your subtle energy bodies and your physical body. Percussion, on the other hand, breaks frequency and can be used to break up energetic patterns. They also add texture to the symphony of sounds that create healing music.
Sound healers use sonic tools as mighty as the wind and as gentle as a summer day to bring harmony back to the body, mind and spirit. If you haven’t yet experienced sound healing, try it. It’s good for you! As the late Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.”
