By: Hettie Basil Lighttower
How was your week? Did you have a chance to enjoy the weather and listen to a few birds or windchimes? It made you feel great, didn’t it? Perhaps they sounded even better this week, since you now know how much our bodies benefit from them! I’d like to just share a few more things about sound, frequency, tones and notes, then we will move on to another fabulous topic. Have you heard of singing bowls? Or sound baths?
Believe it or not, Tibetan monks and other indigenous people have carefully designed bowls that are made of metal or even crystal. These bowls are formed to be resonant of these notes we have been talking about(BAGFEDC). I actually have ONE singing bowl and it is tuned to the note E. It is made of crystal and vibrates so loud and clear. It is wonderful!!!
For eons other countries have known about the powerful healing of sound and how much our bodies need these sounds for healing. We Westerners are just getting caught up to their knowledge base about sound frequencies and of course we like to test everything with science. So, in recent years many studies have been done which shows our stress levels (heart rate, breathing rates) before and after being exposed to this set of notes. And by the way, these receptor centers of ours are better known as chakras.
“Cakra” is a Sanskrit word discovered in 1888 to mean “center” or “wheel” from root etymology word kwel which means “revolve, move around”. This is how we get the name chakra. So, when our breathing and heart rates have been examined with electrodes attached to our receptor centers aka chakras, science has been able to show with numbers the resulting changes in our electrical field comparing before and after exposure to these musical notes. It is really VERY amazing!! And it is quite similar the way we use lie detector tests, where the person is hooked up to electrodes on the chest area and asked a series of questions and the little pen swipes across the paper and makes different designs base on the reaction and the heart rate changes. Certain changes mean more stress(indicating lying) and less stress(indicating truthfulness). So, tests in that same way, examining our response to notes…. the pen swipes across the paper in reaction to tones and notes showing less stress!
So, let’s put this all together now. When our bodies experience the notes B,A,G,F,E,D,C from head to toe our bodies through “a lie-detector” test had proven to have less stress. How is that healing with sound? These notes calm us, and our heart sends a signal to our brain that “all is well”. The brain receives the message that “all is well”, then responds by putting a halt to all the stress hormones it’s sending out and starts sending out healing neurochemicals like serotonin. There are seven common neurochemicals that are readily available to us and are just this simple to attain!! When we attain them through music calming us, it cannot get any more simpler….. or can it? We can get into all these natural healing neurochemicals at another time if you like. Just send me an e-mail and I would be glad to elaborate on them and get you familiarized with all the benefits they provide. But for now, let’s finish up with “what in the world is a sound bath”?????
A sound bath is a healing modality where you are sitting or laying comfortably and simply being exposed to B,A,G,F,E,D,C notes individually and sometimes slightly overlappingly. There are videos of these available and local classes of these experiences where a facilitator creates the sounds and you sit or lay still to receive. It’s kind of like a meditation. And when it is finished you feel rested and rejuvenated and stress free. You feel as if you had a full body massage, but did not have to take your clothes off!! It is always better in person because the actual vibration of the origin of the notes are in your presence. There is a local healing center in Wellsburg called metaStone: a healing group, that provides this type of experience. You will have to check for healing centers in your area and go get a sound bath!!
Tuning forks are also being used to heal our bodies. They are not just for instruments anymore. It is similar to a singing bowl or a sound bath where you are surrounded by the notes and musical vibrations and receive blissful stress relief where your brain is putting out all those healing chemical compounds to create homeostasis in our bodies. Tuning forks have calculated frequencies and hertz that serve a specific purpose or area of healing. For instance, the therapeutic effect of the 221.23Hz steel tuning fork is an emotional balancing and sleep/relaxation aid.
I hope you have enjoyed this discussion and you start your own healing journey with sound. It is so simple, we just have to take the time to do it. Maybe watch one less sit-com or one less soap opera.
As always, feel free to send in your notions and comments to [email protected]. I will include them in the next available column as per their arrival relative to the publication deadline of Tuesday by 12 p.m. of the same week. If you wish to be anonymous let me know. Kindness is contagious.