Last night at my weekly Drum Class, Tues Feb 14, we participated in World Sound Healing Day.  Here are some stories about the power of intentional sound.  First - from the website:  The purpose of World Sound Healing Day:

~ To positively affect the earth thru the use of sound
~ To bring awareness of the power of intentional sound
~ To create a conscious community using sound for planetary healing
~ To help awaken humanity to Unity Consciousness

At 12 noon on this day, people around the world were invited to focus their energies and project a "Sonic Valentine" for the Earth.  We toned the heart sound 'Ah' for a minimum of 5 minutes, filling it with our intention of peace and love.  The story about what we did as a Sonic Valentine in my class is below, but first, here is some inspiring info on the potential effects of World Sound Healing Day.  From the WSHD website:

"The Global Coherence initiative measures with their magneto meters the geomagnetic field of the Earth in relationship to the human energy field and its interface with this planet.  Associated with the Institute of Heart Math, the GCI is collecting data to demonstrate if there is some sort of interactive interface between the human electro-magnetic field and that of the Earth.  Such interfaces seem to occur and be most powerful when the human electro-magnetic field is in a state of coherence - with the heart and brain synchronized together and generating the energy of appreciation and compassion.

The Global Consciousness Project uses a series of random number generators spread throughout the world to collect their data. When events of great compassion occur, the numbers become less random and can be charted.  What is usually a relatively straight line becomes a mountainous peak when events of great compassion occur."

There was a large turnout for my class tonight.  I am struck by how we as people are looking for focused ways that we can offer our energies to support the whole.  I know that music has been used historically by humanity to unite for this purpose.  The energy can then be aimed intentionally - for individual or collective purposes.  It is very powerful. We seldom have group experiences where we can participate at this level with sound. In the present world of music for entertainment, (as opposed to for 'entrainment'),  we have lost touch with the shamanic use of sound. This is a tool that is our birthright.  Fortunately, we remember on an archetypal and cellular level, and when the space, time, and focus are offered, a group can immediately engage and re-activate this.  This is a tool that is our birthright, and part of each of our ancestral lineages.  It is alive in our DNA and our collective memory.

Everyone in the class was very interested in the scientific info from the World Sound Healing Day website about the effects of intentional sound, and the 'State of Coherence', as researched by the Heart Math Institute.  I have heard of this Institute thru my daughter Willow, who did her grade 12 project on it - a 30 minute talk to the Waldorf School community in Duncan, BC, where we were living at the time. The information spoke so deeply to the audience that she received a standing ovation, with much bubbling emotion in the room!  What she shared was truly inspiring. I love experiencing firsthand when collective memory of Truth is stimulated in a group.

The information she shared was about how our brain and heart are meant to work together as our 'mind'. The 'state of coherence' is when we are perceiving thru not only our left brains, but our whole brain in a flow with the heart 'brain'.  The brain, as the embryo is developing in the womb, actually grows out of the heart - and then becomes a (seemingly) separate organ, which is meant to function WITH the heart, as a harmony of perceiving organs. When we experience expanded, lucid and embodied states of awareness, we are likely engaged with our system in this way. We feel altered, connected, powerful, harmonious, beautiful.  -What if humanity once lived in these states?  We may well ask what events occurred in our long ago history to knock us out of perceiving coherently and in harmony with the electro-magnetic field of our planet.  It is only from this 'knocked off course" state that we allow violence to occur, and even participate in it as seemingly helpless victims.

The beautiful thing about this information is that we can access this state - it is there for us anytime that we choose to change our focus and train ourselves....or 'entrain'.  In entering into this state we enter a new reality, and create accordingly!

In the drum class tonight we cultivated coherence, as we moved through Australian Aboriginal, Pygmy Rainforest, West African & Zimabwean musics and their chants.  A small child was present with its mother, which was beautiful, and reminded me of that missing element from our music gatherings....the element of many ages, while being in community.  It was a beautiful time. This is what drew me to music in the first place.  Thank you to all who came tonight, and gratitude to World Sound Healing Day for inspiring it to happen.

"The Institute of HeartMath is an internationally recognized nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to helping people reduce stress, self-regulate emotions and build energy and resilience for healthy, happy lives. Personal coherence, also known as psychophysiological coherence, refers to the synchronization of our physical, mental and emotional systems. It can be measured by our heart-rhythm patterns: The more balanced and smooth they are, the more in sync, or coherent, we are.

Personal coherence, also known as psycho-physiological coherence, refers to the synchronization of our physical, mental and emotional systems. It can be measured by our heart-rhythm patterns: The more balanced and smooth they are, the more in sync, or coherent, we are.

Global coherence refers to the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of the greater community of human beings, while acting in concert with their own hearts, each other and nation to nation in harmony with our living planet. HeartMath believes coherence on a grand scale is highly achievable when large numbers of people focus their heart intelligence on a common goal."
http://www.heartmath.org

Check out Gregg Braden speaking eloquently about the Heart Math Institute's research, on Youtube.  More videos will also show up that you can select to view.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8dKcvROnl4&feature=player_detailpage

If you want to experience cultivating a state of coherence, come out to drum with me.  I will be teaching on Tues and Thurs nights in March and April.  Tuesdays will focus on drumming, Thursdays will be drumming, perception, trance, and special rhythmic journeys with attention to exploring and activating clarity and wholeness thru attending to our mind and body states as we play.

I also offer private lessons in drum, percussion, and mbira (mbira for beginners).  Visit my class page soon for updated info on the Spring Tues/Thurs drum class session.


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It is the dark time, 1:30 am, home from playing at the Chai Gallery.  The Chai is an extraordinary environment, created by the Reza family, from Afghanistan.  Tribal leaders in their homeland, before the Russian invasion, their family was violently displaced.  They wandered, experiencing much hardship, living for a time in India, and eventually coming to Canada.  We have the good fortune that they brought elements of their culture here to Vancouver.  Supporters of the Arts, siblings Mustafa and Razavia have created great beauty, and a place for community and music to thrive.  Not to mention food to delight the senses.  This is a rare thing, and does not revolve entirely around money, thus the beauty it engenders. Those of us who play at the Chai and connected East is East restaurants play for other reasons than monetary....we are so nourished and inspired by the rare and very human setting, the amazing food and Chai tea, the beauty and comfort of the surroundings, hand built with love, and the opportunity to play music with other great musicians.  The setting is an inspired one.

Tonight Jamie Perry, Bocephus King, gathered a crowd of friends, family, musicians, community, to celebrate his upcoming trip to Europe.  He is going on a musical quest. in search of Buddhist chant and music to record for the album he is currently working on.  Jamie plays roots music, and is a great singer, guitar player, and an energy wizard.  He drops in, tunes in, and goes, bringing coherence to all of us that play with him, and our audience also. The room comes into one cohesive, moving unit.  We move emotionally, physically, creatively, and by the end of the night we are all transformed.  We make the journey together, with Jamie as our leader.

There is a large fir tree that stands in the alley behind the Chai.  I feel it is a guardian and gives us its blessing, even as we bless it with our bliss. Perhaps it channels the energy of love and joy that is generated regularly at this blessed place, into the skies and earth.  And certainly, when the crowd is dancing and being moved inside, the land must feel our energy and soak it up.  I think of the Chai as a vortex.  I feel healed whenever I go there to play.

Coming home late, I am dropped off by Hazim, who joined us to drum at the end of our 2nd set. He is newly in Vancouver from Saudi Arabia.  I walk home a mile or so thru quiet, dark streets.  The trees are easier to feel at night.  Walking the empty streets, there are no distractions, and I can sense them.  I feel them responding to my awareness of them as conscious beings.  Something not the norm, for their passersby, I am sure!  All of nature is alive and conscious, and waits for our participation and awareness.  In C.S. Lewis's Narnia stories, a man guiding the children thru the deep forest describes to them how the trees, animals, and all of nature was once conscious and actively communicative with humans, but then something happened, and the wild world went to sleep, becoming seemingly inanimate and unintelligent.  This can only be through our own arresting of the dialogue.  Thus the ancient stories that now have been relegated to myth and faerie tale, of an alive and communicative natural world.  But we can engage the natural world of stars, trees, plants, animals - again - at any time, and it responds.  Nature lies in wait for our dialogue.

My senses are heightened by my night of music at the beautiful Chai Gallery, with my beloved community and friends.  The world feels alive and aware, and I with it. As I walk I am eager to get to my computer and begin typing, to capture this state in story.  It is not always so readily available.  Night time gives good conditions for opening my senses to what is always there.  The light sometimes blinds to what the beautiful dark, in the womb of the night, reveals.

Check out the Chai Gallery above East is East restaurant in Kitsilano.  Also check the family's Main Street location for live music every night.  Kits downstairs also has live music nightly.  Fine musicians from all over the world.  Food to inspire your senses.  Music to captivate and ensoul.

http://www.myspace.com/bocephusking            
Cowboy Neal is a great song to play here

http://eastiseast.ca/  
Info link for the Chai Gallery upstairs from Kits East is East Restaurant
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New Year's Eve in the West End, at a cosy pub.....There was an air of abandon, celebration, and connection.

What a delightful night! A new community for me, and a new musical friend, DJ Ahtz (Kurt Runte.)  I LOVED accompanying his funky dance tunes for the crowd, at his regular gig at this cosy neighborhood bar.  Playing for dancers is the best. It seems so natural when players and audience can have a transformative experience together, moving and being moved by the music and rhythm.  Because there is a sound to dance feedback loop, energy builds and increases! It's exciting. 

Personally, it is difficult for me to listen only with my ears.  My whole body listens, and activates with rhythm and melody.  I am set into motion, energy building and flowing. I'm getting connected. I'm smiling and breathing. Life feels good.

This crowd is in a village-like neighborhood. Many are regulars at the bar, so there is a sense of community and place.  Human things that I love.  The bar reminded me a little in atmosphere of an English pub. A place for gathering, and running into your friends.  Check out DJ Ahtz on a Fri or Sat night, at the Bayside Lounge on Davie at Denman, in the West End.  Bring your dancing shoes, and prepare to be amongst friends!

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On Technology and Being a Self-Employed Artist:

In my daily work, there are constant hours on the computer, navigating the world of the web, cyber-mind, and machines that help us....our computers. Connecting with others thru the web is an essential part of my income and creativity.  At first this was incredibly intimidating, and has been fraught with setbacks and puzzles along the way. For years the computer has been a tool that I alternately love and dread.  Today I was a little challenged by a web setback, and then I realized something landmark about how I can make friends with this non-optional aspect of my life and work!

I am learning with online stuff that often if I don't try too hard to figure out something when it does not work the first time, that if I take some space, and come back to it, it mysteriously works itself out, and I probably choose and find different pathways thru it.

It reminds me of the mystery of nature.  Going for a walk in the forest, I don't expect to understand everything I see. I am happy to be in wonderment and discovery.  If I bring the same attitude towards my computer and all the infinite paths it takes me on, things just work out!  And if I'm ok with it being a bit mysterious, it's all good.

Whereas, when I get frustrated immediately, and feel upset that techonology is ruling my life and think it should be serving me more easily - things just get worse!

I'm thinking..................MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE TECHNO WORLD, ESPECIALLY CYBER SPACE!!  Be patient with it, and it reveals its mysteries to you...Just like the forest does when you walk through it with an open mind and heart.


 
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  • Days in the Life of, cont'd...........
    work work work......it's a constant flow and i am working on being more focused with what i do so i do it better and promote it the way it deserves......it's gonna take some time to evolve my habits to serve me better....most of the time i am just running from one rehearsal, gig, meeting, show, class, workshop (some taking some teaching) - to another. it's intense. luckily it's all good stuff when i am in it, but the sheer volume of musical and creative material and exchanges and experiences is....huge and at times overwhelming.. like others in my trade, i need to hole up at home mostly when not working, to unwind, absorb, prepare for the next things....between the outside jobs....the inside job is an ever flowing river of correspondence to do with work over email and facebook, and also the ongoing promotional outreach.
  • And yet, luckily, each 'job', when arrived at and in the midst of, is rich with people, music, sharing, exchange of energies, and most of the time feeling elevated or transformed by the music and creativity.  Otherwise we wouldn't do this work, cuz it sure isn't for the money!

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Today, Oct 26, 2011 - or is that yesterday....I've been up all night working on the computer. Getting some much needed promo done....on time, for a change!!  It must be yester-today....or to-yesterday.  I'm delirious! -  It's a musician's life.

Ok, yesterday was Tuesday.  The day started with me having stayed up till extremely late after teaching and gigging at night at the Kino Cafe show with Sal and Pancho's amazing and colorful Gypsy Caravan 'tribe'. A family group that attracts a super colorful extended family and friends 'audience' that also ends up flowing on and off stage, since many of them are other players, singers, dancers. It was beautiful.  Jacky Essombe and other fashion models / dancers from the Maiwa Fashion Show were out in force!  (including me - we did that show 2 days before, with music by friends Pepe Danza, Ron Stelting, and Sacha Levin).  After a virtual parade of talent across the stage and thru the music at Kino I went home and relaxed by studying music parts for some of the repertoire I have to know, while stretching on my sheepskins. It was such a nice change to be quiet and doing music just for my own pleasure and learning at home, that I got to bed at 7am or so.

When I got up, it was late afternoon.  Enough time to rush about getting ready for the day, or what was left of it - dressing and feeding myself, whilst sprinting around the house, and preparing myself to teach my Tues night drum class, last of the 7 week session. (I run the classes throughout the year except August). Rush rush.....to the space, set up, then enjoy the blissful class with beautiful people, then a little student performance group meeting, then to Nyala restaurant on Main St. with friends, for their closing musical night, then to an invitation to Sal and Pancho's place with friends.  Chill lying about at that point was very appropriate.  Me and 2 friends walked into their warm and cosy living room of people quietly jamming and relaxing. I let the others play music while I chatted and flopped on the couch.  We were all musicians!  People living an unusual, often nomadic, and very colourful lifestyle.  Pancho brought out Kombucha and Tequila (not to drink together!), and we enjoyed time into the wee hours with each other.

Before dawn, it was time to go.  I'm packing it in with them since they are leaving for a few months in days time.  I love to play music with people who are also my friends.  It is the best.  We've spent a lot of musical time together in the past year and it has been sweet.  Now, change is in the air, and it's on to the next thing.  As an artist, everything changes all the time.  It's hard to keep track. Constant factors are busyness, late night schedule, lots of bliss music moments but lots of crazy running around between, and the ever ever ever present administrative work - hours on the computer every week, promoting, outreach, organizing gigs, planning and scheduling rehearsals, and trying to manage the ever growing email inflow.  Scary.  But all good, and all necessary for the job. Constant factors are also running from one thing to the next with barely time to absorb or process all the varied and rich experience, let alone the material that is played, learned, taught, shared.

Speaking of which, last night, I came home to recall my admin work, undone, at 4am.  Decided to get to work instead of sleep, so I could go to Ladner to Jamie Perry's daughter Stella Bella Blue's birthday party with my musical friends.  Jamie is musical genius Bocephus King, and we have been playing together with my other above mentioned friends regularly for a long time now.  Members of the Chai community, where we play a lot, and who also become like family, will be at the gathering too.  It will be a beautiful time, and I have missed all those times this year so far, out in Ladner at Jamie's, due to crazy busy schedule with work.....so, this is the moment to make it happen.  8 hours of newsletter writing later, here I am.  It was a lot of work but always easier to actually just do - than to get started.  And sooooo good to have finished, on time.
Now I can have a nap and go enjoy my friends again in a few hours, and probably more music, definitely more hanging out and being human.  I love this!

My calendar tells me I have a meeting for preparing for a DJ accompaniment gig on the weekend at 1030pm tonight, so it feels like I have some time, at 1:30 this afternoon, as I write..

Yep, it's a crazy lifestyle.  But for now, I love it.  So many moments of musical transportiveness.......being human with my friends........being in creative flow........being in community.  The quiet life will come later.....down the road......or maybe even tonight, for a brief moment, late and when my time is only mine, with no audience or students....or bandmates....and I am quietly enjoying my carpeted, sheep-skinned room on the floor, stretching, reading, listening, indulging in some downtime and dreamtime.
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This happened at Towards Eden Festival, in the Interior of BC, this summer. I was a performer at fest, and this was the last night, after I was done with my many shows.

I knelt at this beautiful altar on the ground along the campground pathway at fest, around 3am last night.  I only saw the altar for the first time last night walking in the moon and starlight, after an ecstatic hour dancing in the crowd to Adham Shaikh's DJ music. 

I had fallen asleep early in the night, and missed most of the show.  I got up and caught the last hour from 2am. All my friends had gone to bed, so I danced alone in the crowd, with the music moving me in the darkness. A sweet man that I did not know, who was clearly very attracted to me, danced close to me a couple of times, then danced away. 

Later he came and respectfully asked me to slow dance with him at the end of Adham's set.  Without fear, but with containment...without desire, but with respect and honor for his tender feelings, I danced with him, enjoying his male energy fully, yet with care and containment...and feeling myself female energy fully.....unafraid of a man's attraction to me...in fact witnessing it with love, enjoying it, and feeling no guilt or shame, no anger, no closing off to protect.... I felt healed by the love that was present.  it was very special.  We finished our dance and all was complete.  I was free to go and danced alone awhile with this small miracle gift from a stranger.  I felt he understood everything without me needing to say words.

Afterwards, when all the music was done, I walked to the forest, feeling blessed, and stood alone in a small grassy clearing, looking at the stars.  Amongst the myriad stars, and the brightness of the moon against the indigo sky, my eyes eventually fell upon a strange moving light far above the trees, that looked like a star, but was not a star.

It was moving independently, like a firefly, but was not a firefly...like a bird but as bright as a star, looking the same size as a star, but just above the trees. It was not a plane, because it flew straight for stretches, then changed direction whimsically and meanderingly.  It made no sound.  I had the impression it was very happy.  Behind it was the blanket of stars.....I have not seen true night sky for a long time.  It was magical and dark and sparkling and I felt very blessed to watch the light.  I remembered I had heard in the day before, that others had been seeing moving lights in the forest and in the sky.  I watched it a long time.  At a certain moment it disappeared, and it was time for me to go. 

Afterwards, I walked along the path past the tents in the edge of the forest. I was walking toward the big sky beside the hills on the plateau.  Most people were in bed by this time. I came along the path to something I had not seen before.  It was an altar to the Ocean, just on the ground. Someone had left a few shells, an assortment of curious objects, a small notepad with paper you could tear off, and a pen...This was just beside the path, at the edge of the small pine trees that the sandy path wound through.  There was a gently glowing lantern there made of sticks and a tiny l.e.d. light inside.

People - both adults and children, had written prayers and poems to the Ocean on it, and left them on the sandy ground for others to see, and as offerings to the Ocean.  The notes were short and very moving.  Here are some. I copied some intending to write this story in my first website blog, about Towards Eden Festival. 

The last note below is a poem that I wrote to my lover there, at the ocean altar, under the stars, on the sandy path amidst the pines. 
________________________________________________________________

Love Messages to the Ocean:  
(a few favourite ones that i copied from the many, before i wrote my own prayer, and left it there...)

"Dear Sister Oceans...I love you so much and am eternally grateful for the life and unconditional love you give effortlessly.  I apologize for the disrespect you have received in return".

"I love you with all my heart.  xoxo "

"I trust the flow"

"Life causes change.  We will change for the better"

"Sorry
We love you"

"You're forgiven.  I love you and believe in you"    
(-from some caring person back to the people who were writing the apologies, I think)

"With every breath, all the stars in the cosmos expand and contract
with the same rhythm as the stars in your body."

"Thank you for this small beauty, which is a miracle"  (I wrote this and left it at the altar)

Then I wrote this poem, for the man I love,
~
You are a tender flower
that is helping me to open
the petals of my heart

Do not be afraid, please.

I remind myself to hold you lightly, and touch you deeply.
I thank you.
I love you and I thank you.
_________________________________________________

I later heard that the altar I found, and its Love Messages To The Ocean were written by participants from a daytime workshop on this principle:  The healing work of Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, from Hawaii - known as 'Ho'Oponopono'.  The Ho'Oponopono work is similar to the work of Dr. Masuru Emoto from Japan, famous for his water research documented in the books 'Messages from Water', which shows scientific proof that water molecules respond instantaneously to our thoughts and feelings.

The Ho'Oponopono prayer is said to be a clearing' technique that can be applied to any and everything in life.  It consists of saying the following:  "I am sorry.  I love you.  Thank you.  Please forgive me.'", spoken to anything or anyone, with the understanding that we have connection and history with everything that comes into our experience, that we co-create it as it is, and that we can heal it and ourselves in the process, in a moment.

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