Sound Healing - good vibes for body and soul PART 1

Dear Steemit community,

a years ago I wrote this booklet about Sound Healing together with Om Didge music project for Sound Healing. I was inspired with my trip to Hawaiian island Kauai where I met Jonathan Goldman, a pioneer on Sound Healing and participated in Healing Sounds workshop with over 40 participants.

When I came back to Croatia I conducted couple of Sound Healing workshops myself and also wrote and record music together with my friend percussionist Kresimir Oreski - Daksh.

He played frame drum and clay udu pot and my instruments were didgeridoo, overtone singing, rain stick and overtone
singing.

Booklet with CD was originally published in Croatia and this edition is almost sold out. English version is to be found on Kindle and music on CD Baby. I would like to share this project here with you dear Steemers and it will be in 3 parts.

At the end of each part you can find a link to Om Didge music for Sound Healing.

Here is PART 1

Sound Healing - good vibes for body and soul
by Svemir Vranko

Svemir Vranko @prana

Content:

1. Acknowledgements

2. Prologue

3. My path to Sound Healing

4. The World is vibration

5. The formula of Sound Healing

6. Methods of Sound Healing

7. Vocal harmonics

8. Vowels as mantras

9. Jonathan's Goldman's meditation with vowels and chakras

10. Sound and movement – Vision Dance

11. Sound Healing treatment

12. Instructions for Sound Healing session with OM DIDGE music

13. About the instruments with OM DIDGE music was created

14. OM DIDGE testimonials

15. Step into Emptiness

16. Acknowledgements

I want to convey my deepest gratitude to the following people who helped make this book and OM DIDGE music possible!

Thanks to Krešimir Oreški for quickly coming to record the OM DIDGE music. Without him this music would not have seen light of the day.

To Andrea Vranko for her optimism, support and a beautiful photo for the book cover (it is snow ).

To musical genius Tomislav Ocvirek for post mastering and for his didgeridoo which is recorded here and which, oh no, disappeared in the trunk of one of the millions of Cairo cabs in 2005 after Music Medicine concert.

To Miljenko Bublić from TO JE TO (THAT'S IT) design studio for creating the cover and for his everlasting support.

To Danijel Vukošić for inspiring me to write this book and his valuable information ;).

To Katherine Fisher from Hawaii for the long lasting trans-ocean friendship, intercontinental travels and diving into meditations on Jonathan's Sound Healing seminar.

To Steve Cobbs for his amazing gift – a trip to Hawaii.

To Jonathan Goldman for his beautiful Healing Sounds teaching and permission to publish parts of his work in this book.

To musicologist Ana Polanović for her help in the creation of OM DIDGE music.

To Zvjezdana Kastrapeli for time management & coaching, translation and text editing.

To Stefania Kregel for translation.

To Vesna Bačić for translation, editing and support for english language release.

To Marina Kralj Vidačak for feedback.

To Nened Maljković for life coaching and his simple but miraculous method for reaching the goals.

To Jelena and Ana Mikin for great friendly continuous support and co-working while publishing the First, Croatian Edition of Sound Healing in 2008.

And to all of you dear readers and listeners who gave me feedback about this book and OM DIDGE music. You helped me to believe in myself and make the decision to publish it!

It is great to be surrounded with the love of so many friends!

1. Prologue

Before the beginning of Everything, in the time of Nothingness, in the house of God there was a gong. One day, when God wanted to practice with his band, he slipped and hit it with his knee. BAAANG! Sounded the gong. Actually it was a BIG BANG. At the same time from God´s throat a long and painful AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUM came out! His thunder-like voice together with the sound of the gong started to spread through the vastness of Nothingness causing collisions of newly created stars and galaxies, creating mad, almost unnecessary drama, which even today causes the expansion of this Universe. A couple of billion years later, the writers of the Bible noted: “In the beginning there was the Word...”¹ , and the writers of the Vedas said that AUM is the Word that describes the beginning, the duration and the end of this Universe. “Turururu turururu” would say the music of the Twilight zone series about the Mystery of Creation...

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¹ Bible, Genesis, John 1:1 (New International Version, ©1984)

1. My path to Sound Healing

For the beginning of this little roadmap about the power of sound and music, it is interesting to quote H.P. Blavatsky, author of The Secret Doctrine, a theosophical classic from 1888 and the chapter about the Force whose time is yet to come.

“We say and maintain that SOUND, for one thing, is a tremendous Occult power; that it is a stupendous force, of which the electricity generated by a million of Niagaras could never counteract the smallest potentiality when directed with occult knowledge. Sound may be produced of such a nature that a Cheops pyramid of would be raised in the air, or that a dying man, nay, one at his last breath, would be revived and filled with new energy and vigor.” ²

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² H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 Cosmogenesis, page 555, chapter „The Coming Force“

I don't know about pyramids or dying people, but I do know that sound certainly moves living people. Sound always fascinated me and although I don't have a formal musical education I can freely say that throughout my whole life music and sound have been present around me and I know they will be there as a constant until my last breath. One of the most important events related to the awakening of my interest for the healing aspect of music was the ”Healing Sounds” workshop with Jonathan Goldman in the year 2000.

At that time I lived in San Francisco, California. One day my friend Kathryn called me. She was a rebellious medicine student, massage therapist and a trained gymnast. She reminded me of the main character from the movie Hair with her free nature and messy hair, which reminded me of the beginning of the hippie movement. She disliked medicine studies because they were mostly focusing on the physical aspect of the human being, so she was searching for other ways of healing, for something more. She asked me if I would like to go with her to Kauai, called the Green Island of Hawaii where she had vouchers for a time share apartment. She suggested that we should fly using an air hitch method which is basically filling in the free places in a plane because this kind of travel lowers the cost of the plane ticket for about 50%.

The next day I was dining with my dear friend Steve. I told him what Kathryn said. He was delighted and told me that accommodation is the biggest cost in Hawaii. ”I will pay the trip to Hawaii for you as my Christmas gift!” - he said, and a beaming smile lit up my whole face, because it was only October! A trip to Hawaii! What a surprise, this kind of gift is a rare bird! I told my friend that I would go with her and she showed me a flyer which said that a certain Kimba Arem was organizing a sound healing workshop with Jonathan Goldman, a pioneer of Sound Therapy, on the same island, exactly at the time when we were planning to be there. Right away I felt that this was the reason why I was guided by some invisible hand into the middle of the Pacific, to a paradise island of Kauai. We signed up for the seminar. Kathryn landed on Hawaii a day earlier and we met after my successful air hitch. One could talk a lot about the wonders of Hawaiian nature, the spirit of Aloha, orange sunsets and of somewhat sad indigenous people of Hawaii who seemed to be waiting for something, maybe the return of their lost King?

The “Healing Sounds” workshop started on Friday night in the lobby of Craig's house – a new, just built villa worth 4 million USD. In the lobby there was a big pool with goldfish, pretty big and fat ones – very good Feng Shui symbols of luck, enjoying the waterfall which whirred from the wall above the pool. Around fifty pretty exotically dressed people of all ages came to this introductory lecture.

Kimba, the organizer of this workshop, www.heartherapy.com, a recognized sound therapist and scientist, introduced us to the atmosphere of the workshop with the soft, gentle, subtle, and at that time for me a powerful and unearthly sound of the Australian didgeridoo. I had never heard anything like that before. One term that could describe “this” is love in sound form, which gently but omnipresently stroked every bit of my physical and possibly other, non-physical, cells. Jonathan gave an interesting introductory lecture followed by a slide show about the origin of sound therapy, and about sound and its influence on matter and psyche. His voice filled with excitement for the subject, he introduced us to the theory and future practice of healing sounds. One of the things that Jonathan said that night is still resonating in my head even today. It was the title of a New York Times article from 1988:

“Ultrasonic rays may create, break or rearrange molecules and lift objects in the air.”

Kimba Arem - one of my didgeridoo teachers, Kauai'i, Hawai'i

There are days in our lives when minutes are like hours, and days are like weeks. The two following days were like this. Time got MP3 form, compressed itself, so that it could unroll later. Now, seven years later, that condensed time is starting to take effect. On the first day of the workshop we learned the basics of overtone singing. Jonathan wore a ceremonial robe and an exotic hat on his head. Later I realized that he looked like one of the wizards from Harry Potter, with one difference: he was a REAL magician of sound and he shared his knowledge with the joy of a child. At that time I believed that one and a half months before that I got enlightened at the Burning Man festival, which is held in the Black Rock desert, Nevada, so coming to such a colorful gathering and to Jonathan's lesson on chakra meditation with sound seemed a little strange to me. The truth is I did feel the different states of mind of the people around me and with Katie Fisher, who was sitting on the left of me, and without words I shared a plunge into deeper states of consciousness. It was like diving and exploring the depths of unknown waters. She would submerse and I would follow her and vice versa. It was a beautiful feeling of some sort of companionship with a dolphin. Mainly, I constantly meditated, trying not to lose the state of inner ecstasy achieved by concentrating on the ajna chakra – an energy center on the forehead between the eyebrows.

Group of around 40 participants slowly progressed in the skill of overtone singing. Vocal harmonics were gathering in the upper empty space of our hall penetrating into invisible dimensions above the house. These tones were merged together with the hypnotic sounds of the Pacific waves. They were splashing on the sand of the Hawaiian shores down below. Jonathan also demonstrated the ancient skill of Buddhist Tibetan monks of the Gyuto tantric order, where three tones produced simultaneously create a so called “One tone chord”. During the American tour of these Buddhist monks in 1985 and 1986, Jonathan tried to make them teach him this technique, which they jealously kept for themselves, and which Tibetan lama Je Tzong Sherab Senge received in 1433 in a dream. He heard one incredibly deep sound and with this sound, one more of a higher pitch. In his dream, these two sounds meant the uniting of the divine aspects of male and female energy. The next morning, during the recitation of prayers, out of the throat of Je Tzong Sherab lama came the same deep voice as in his dream and that's how the technique of tantric Tibetan singing started. For a long time Jonathan tried to produce that tone on his own but did not have any success. As he wasn't initiated in that tantric order, the priests did not want to reveal their secret. During their tour Jonathan got the unique opportunity to record their singing in a studio. After recording and just before he went to bed he listened to the recording again. The next morning he tried again and then it happened! He started to sing with the “One tone chord”! When he came to the recording studio the next day, the technician who did the recording told him that he could perform the same tone as well. They both looked at the lama who guided this group of monks and he just smiled. It was his present to them.

Jonathan didn't try to teach us the technique of the “One tone chord”, he said that he doesn't know how to do it and that it is given from teacher to student by direct transmission, that is, it happens when young lamas are staying in the same room with other monks chanting the same style. I have tried to produce that tone in Jonathan's presence and it seemed to me that I succeeded at one moment. Later, when I went back to San Francisco, I tried to chant that tone again and then the deep tone appeared, not produced with vocal chords but deep down in the windpipe area.
Today, years later, I can still produce this tone, still feeling that I am on the edge to do it right. It seems that my throat is not relaxed enough and I could experience scraping or coughing after several attempts. Maybe one day a lama will appears who will give me a mysterious smile and I will easily sing the “One tone chord” for the good of all sentient beings.

On the second day of the workshop we went deeper into transformational work with sound, we used tuning forks to quickly change our state of mind, crystal and metal Tibetan bowls, and we learned the sound diagnostic method, that is a „siren“ technique in which one scans the body of a client similarly to an ultrasound machine and performs Sound Healing treatment with vocal harmonics.

Jonathan also brought us in touch with Shamael, the angel of Sound, and for the end of the seminar he left the most powerful method, the practical application of vocal harmonics in group healing sound treatment. One person would lie down in the middle of the room, she or he would say her or his name or the name that she or he would like to be called just for this exercise, and also she or he would name one quality such as love, tenderness, or strength and would say one color associated with that quality. The task of us in the Sound Healing circle around the receiver was to sing the name of the person and at the same time imagine the quality and color mentioned by the receiver. This group treatment is one of the most powerful tools that I experienced in my work with sound. Voices were blending one over the other, gradually building their way towards other dimensions of existence which opened at one moment. Suddenly, in my inner view, the roof of the villa where seminar was held disappeared and in front of my spiritual eye appeared the vastness of heavenly spheres where, above and around our sonic medicine circle bathed in sounds, tones and positive intentions for the person who was receiving the treatment, floated dozens of angelic beings in their spiritual bodies of semi-transparent light. They were witnesses of what was happening, but they also took part in the whole process.

When the session was over the person who received the treatment described THE SAME experience! I was deeply touched. Such an experience is very subtle, almost untouchable and unsubstantial; it can't be recorded nor firmly grasped, as if it were spun with silk threads which evaporate under the influence of awakened consciousness. And then only this feeling of being moved, of an open heart and blissful elevation speaks of the reality of this experience and stays as a gift woven into all the cells of my body and my soul. Thank you Jonathan for introducing me to the miraculous world of Sound Healing.

With Jonathan Goldman on Healing Sounds workshop, Kauai'i, Hawai'i

1. World is vibration

Everything in Nature is in the state of vibration. Everything produces sound. Everything has some vibrational frequency which is CHANGEABLE. Atoms oscillate, quantum possibility of electrons rushes with the speed of light around atomic nucleus and joins with other oscillating atoms; a molecule is created out of particular elements which make the base vibration of certain chemical combination. More molecules are gathering in bigger clusters which stay in their clean form as minerals and elements or they mix with other sorts of molecules creating what we call the manifested world. Stones on the beach only look immovable; the movement in them is expressed through vibrations which are not visible at first glance but only on microscopic level.

Vibrations are around us and they influence us. If we take a little bit of fine sand from this imagined beach and put it on a metal plate, and then put the plate on a loudspeaker we will get a sound spectrograph. If we then sing a vowel, let’s say O using a microphone and an amplifier, the sand on the plate will begin to change its shape in a particular way; in this case it will take the shape of a circle. If we change voice frequency towards either higher or lower tones, each time another shape will be created in the sand. Between two tones sand will be in the state of chaos until another new form is created in different frequency. This means that sound affects matter, which changes its form under the influence of different frequencies.

Second example is famous work of Dr. Masaru Emoto, www.masaru-emoto.net . He took photographs of microscopic size crystals of frozen water which he first subjected to the influences of sound, thoughts, words or prayers. When the thoughts were positive or music pleasant the crystals would assume nice, harmonious form. In case of negative thoughts or chaotic music the frozen crystals would become ugly and deformed in shape. Also, Dr. Emoto left distilled water between loudspeakers for several hours using different music and then he photographed the frozen crystals. Their beautiful and different variations show us how every form of music style or sound pattern has a very defined impact.

So, thoughts and intentions, whether with or without sound, create changes in matter as well. If we know that the human body contains 80% water we can imagine how negative and positive thoughts influence our body. Positive ones create beautiful, harmonious patterns so that we feel pleasant, relaxed, empowered in the body filled with these patterns. Different body systems support each other, creating healthy and resilient network of protection from the outside influences. This influences our immunity; strengthens our psyche and gives us physical and psychological stability. We are able to work on our life goals longer and more efficiently, we are aware of our boundaries while at the same time being conscious of a healthy connection with the world.

Other, negative patterns weaken our boundaries, increase irritability, and make the body more prone to illnesses, we easily succumb to stress and negative influences of others, we tend to always notice the negative aspects of other people and situations thus attracting more of these situations in our life. It seems that Bob Marley was doing the right thing when he tried to bring more love into the world through music.

I believe you will find it interesting to learn that cats, whether small pets or big ones in the wilderness, purr, and not only because they like to do it. Research made by Fauna Communications from the US www.animalvoice.com , established that cats purr when they are in pain and when they sustain fractures. With low sound vibrations that purring produces from 20 – 50 oscillations per second and harmonics up to 150 oscillations per second, cats are able to promote bone growth ,heal fractures, tendons, improve mobility of the joints, reduce pain, heal their wounds, strengthen muscles and heal pneumonia or bronchitis! Imagine that! I had spent some time working on a prototype of a device which would heal the above mentioned symptoms based on cat purring frequencies, and then I found out that Fauna Communications had already patented and created such a device.

Let’s now see how sound influences our psyche. It is enough to go down a noisy street full of traffic or to hear a pneumatic hammer and observe how we feel. Our natural instincts make us want to get away from these vibrations. On the other hand, if we go to a forest and listen to a birdsong, a whisper of the wind and a bubbling brook or sea waves – the sounds help us relax and recuperate. Thus, sound influences our psyche as well.

It is also known that plants grow better if we play classical music and talk nicely to them. The book The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird is about that topic.

In Sound Healing we are interested in double effect of sound on both human body and psyche. Since the body is the carrier of awareness, and we know that by changing the awareness we also change the processes in the body, it is very interesting to look at how sound affects the different states of mind. What I would like to see is how sound can help change certain psychological states and enable us to influence our physical processes.

Our brain produces several types of electrical waves and we can detect them with EEG, a device for measuring the electrical potential of brain waves. Four different types of brain waves have been discovered so far, which are measured in cycles per second – Hertz (it is interesting to notice that the speed of a computer is also measured in Hertz). Every frequency of brain waves is connected to a change of a state of mind, the way one perceives him or herself and the world.

So far the following waves have been discovered:

1.) Beta waves – from 13 to 40 Hertz, related to the normal, awake consciousness;
2.) Alpha waves - from 8 to 13 Hertz, which are present in a relaxed state of daydreaming, during visualization and meditation;
3.) Theta waves - from 4 to 7 Hertz, which are present during dreaming, meditation and in healing activities,
4.) Delta waves - from 0, 5 to 4 Hertz, measured in the state of deep sleep without dreams, in state of deep meditation and also during healing activities.

According to principle of resonance it is possible to change your brain waves frequency, breathing, and heart rate.

End of PART 1

Svemir Vranko

Kresimir Oreski - Daksh

Link to Om Didge music:

Thank you for your attention dear Steemit friends, please upvote if you like it and yes, do not forget to comment.

@prana