My Sound Healing Journey
So, I wondered, what did a sound healer do anyway? It had been quite a stretch to accept that I’d become a Reiki practitioner, working with unseen energies and helping people in ways I couldn’t really define. At least I couldn’t define it in ways nearly anyone I’d ever known in my life could understand. “You’re doing what? Well, how do you know you’re doing it? Did you go to school and get a degree to prove you can do it?” Etc, etc. But I persisted anyway. I kept doing Reiki. And the sounds kept coming, and seemed to “refine” themselves, becoming something of a “sound laser”. They seemed to be piercing the client’s body and energy field, moving those unseen energies from place-to-place, and perhaps even releasing harmful energies from the body entirely.
How did I know I was doing these things? I asked my inner guidance, and that part of me always told me what I was doing. How did I know I could believe this equally unseen part of me? I seemed to have no choice. It was the part that was speaking the loudest – and speaking the truth, as far as I could tell. So I figured I may as well follow it, as long as no harm was caused. Follow it, I did. On the way to becoming a Reiki master in 1993 and teaching others to do healing work, the sounds kept coming, escalating, further developing my newfound vocalizing skills.
Still, I never did consider becoming a singer. It still seemed apparent that wasn’t to be my path; that these sounds were for something else. These sounds do whatever they do, to help people clear old energies, as long as I’m clear myself and allow the sounds to come through me accurately. It’s so difficult to stop the toning these days, that I don’t much try anymore. I don’t like that constricted throat feeling. I often let the sounds come as they want, no matter how loud or how strange that may seem, and I let them heal or help the person however they may. I believe this is called trusting the universe to deliver what we need through us – even if it does seem a little strange at times. No problem trusting “normal” things; trust plays little part in that.
After a number of years of vocal practice, I was even to discover my musical instrument – something beyond spontaneous toning and my CD player. I purchased a Crystal Singing Bowl in 1999, and began using it some in meditation groups. People loved the energy that came through it. It seemed to deepen their mediation when I played it. I found myself toning along with the bowl at times, as if I were imitating its sound. A year later, I was inspired by a story a friend conveyed about being at a workshop where someone played a set of seven bowls, each tuned to the various notes of the musical scale, and I soon had my own full set. But don’t ask me to identify each note by sound – I still don’t do that. As with the vocal sounds and Reiki, my crystal bowl playing comes through me spontaneously, as if the bowls are playing themselves, while I’m having a nice meditation and moving the wands – as if guided by unseen hands.
