Early Beginnings
I have been looking through early photographs and found some of when I first trained in intuitive sound healing with Tom Kenyon in Sedona, on 9/24/1995. It was so good to see the pictures and remember how different I was then. I’m sure you have had pivotal moments in your life as well. You know when it happens because there is a shift inside that requires a great change.
I have had many of these shifts in my lifetime and people have said that I have lived twenty lifetimes during this one life. It is not easy because there is constant reinventing that happens countless times.
Sound has always been my method and means of expression. At an early age, I sat on the back patio step and played my guitar and all the neighborhood dogs came over, laid down by my feet, and fell asleep. I would sing to them and after a few hours, they would go back home.
I loved being outside and growing up along the DesPlaines River with the rhythm of the woods and seasons. I studied nature and learned its wordless language. My dad was a hunter and fisherman and was at home in the woods and taught me to love the vastness of nature. Every summer I went to a girl’s camp in the Northwoods of Wisconsin for 8 weeks to canoe, sail, and make the best campfires and invaluable friendships. These summers helped me become more self-sufficient and turn to nature as my teacher.
The sounds of the wind in the trees and water lapping on the shore allowed me space where time collapsed and I could be still and listen. Listening is an expansive gift. Every musician will tell you about the importance of listening and the pauses between each note. It’s the negative space between each note that helps to create phrases in music. Nature is always singing and creating new music. Early on, I learned how to hear it.
I always knew my interests were different from other people’s and grew up painting and singing. I was trying to find and capture light, watch it move and change and express it through art and music. I had a great hunger to know more and it led me on my search and journey my whole life.
Years passed and I went to college, then grad school and got my MFA in painting, played in bands in Texas, moved to San Francisco, and met my husband. We moved to Boston and then Chicago. I gave up all of the music because it took me away from where I thought I should be. I always had conflicts about that because I had stopped singing and I needed to find my way back to my inner home of sound.
Luckily, I had wonderful and dear friends who were also practicing yoga and spiritual pursuits. We traveled to a spiritual mystery school together for many years. My husband hated it. I continued my spiritual journey and it became more focused as well as my need to find out more about myself. It has always been a solitary path with friends and partners leaving and new people coming and going. I have learned that many people stay the same because they don’t want to change or are afraid of what it will bring.
Changing isn’t easy yet completely necessary in order to grow. Becoming a mom allowed me to change and I loved being a mom. What I understood about myself and who I was becoming had shifted and changed too and I couldn’t keep that same girl in a box anymore. She was clawing at the cage.
A spiritual fire was ignited inside and began to clean house to burn away the debris that was no longer me. I became unshakable in my truth even though it hurt. This process started earlier but by this time I could no longer avoid or ignore who I was.
A friend from mystery school told me about some amazing healers and I was drawn to them and wanted to learn more about sound, vibration, intuition and what I felt inside of me so it could be expressed in a new way.
Time shifted and everything lined up when I studied intuitive sound healing with Tom Kenyon in Sedona in 1995. I found a missing piece of myself. Tom played the crystal bowl and I felt like I had woken from a dream and that I had always known about the clear harmonic sounds of the crystal bowls and how to play and sing with them.
When I went home and back to my life with my husband and kids I ordered a frosted D crystal bowl. When It arrived I played with it and immediately was so afraid that I hid it in my closet for three years.
I was afraid of what it represented as well as my power. I had been powerless and let others dictate who I was. Playing the crystal bowl made me unwind from some deep place and I became transparent with no more room to hide. I had initiated a shift and woken myself up to that power that had been dormant. The sound was real and it felt and knew that I had done it before. Sound became my path and teacher to help others.
I am grateful for the upheaval, change, and divorce that occurred. Through that time the fire has burned brighter inside of me and happily, I have played the crystal bowls since then for many groups and individuals. People have had amazing experiences with the sound of crystal bowls and voice and experienced greater awareness and healing on many levels. I still feel the wonderment of having found my voice and the power inside so I can share it with others.
We all have a different path and our need to uncover ourselves and become greater than who we were in the past leads us through fire, change, discomfort and fear. We are here to find out who we are and to help others in our own way. It gives us meaning and allows our light to shine more brightly.
Thank you for your interest in sound and vibrational healing. If we can bring ourselves closer to greater clarity and understanding of ourselves we will find greater love and acceptance of each other. It’s not an easy path and takes a lot of effort. Gratefully, we are all in this together.
Tags Sound Healing, Spiritual Healing, Transformation, Yoga, change, Music, Gratitude