The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

The intellectual and spiritual godfather of sound medicine was Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher and mathematician who lived from about 580 to 500 BCE. Pythagoras is credited as the first person to take an organized approach to using music as a healing technique.
The seventeenth-century Dutch scientist Christian Huygens noticed that the pendulums of two clocks, hung side by side, would begin of their own accord to swing to the same identical rhythm. The reason entrainment occurs is that the more powerful rhythmic vibrations of one object, when projected upon a second object with a similar frequency, will cause that object to begin to vibrate in resonance with the first object. We human being also react in resonance with the vibrations and fluctuations in our surroundings, so it follows that our physiological functioning may be altered by the impact of sound waves, whether produced by our own voices or by objects or instruments in our environment.

Take a Deep Breath: Preserving Homeostasis In The Body-Mind. Sound is a manifestation of breath, and breath is the most fundamental aspect of life. Breathing is much more than a mechanical reflex for oxygen exchange; it is the basis for all our cellular functions; our energetic well-being, even our emotional health.
Yoga is a three-thousand-year-old discipline whose goal is to create a sense of harmony with the universe by integrating the mind, body and spirit. The word yoga means union, and its three-part practice of postures, breath work, and meditation is designed to take us beyond the transitory concerns and pleasures to a discovery and awareness of our highest self. Prana, the universal life energy, flows through the nourishes every cell in our bodies; pranayama is the Vedic science of controlling the breath in order to direct the prana and thereby balance both body and mind.
in shallow breathing, the diaphragm, doesn’t move downward sufficiently, so that the lungs never fully expand into the abdomen. As a result, the lower portions of the lungs, which are filled with small blood vessels that carry oxygen to our cells, hardly receive oxygen. In an effort to compensate for this inadequate oxygen intake, our heart rate and blood pressure increase, as our cardiovascular systems work overtime. In deep abdominal breathing the diaphragm moves freely and forcefully downward, allowing ample room for the bottom portion of the lungs to fill up with oxygen. The result is more than adequate oxygen exchange; we take in substantial amounts of oxygen during inhalation and expel more than enough carbon dioxide during exhalation.

Shallow breathing is also evidence that the body is in a perpetual state of “flight or flight, the stress response to external danger or anxiety provoking events. This is a natural mind-body reaction to stress,our adrenal glands pump out stress hormones such as adrenaline, the musculoskeletal system goes into a taut state of preparedness, and heart rate and blood pressure become elevated.

The first thing we notice when breath is studied, is that breath is audible. We use breath, and therefore sound. To maintain harmony in our bodies. Music therapy has increasingly come to be recognized as a practical and productive application for a wide range of physical, emotional and mental conditions. Music, whether produced by voice, instrument or the two in concert, restores our connection with our essence, the realm beyond our conscious awareness, and thus, with the cosmos. Crystal bowls and guided imagery shifts brain waves into alpha and Theta States, and thus achieve a state of relaxation that is highly conductive to healing.