The Healing Power of “Singing Bowls”
Imagine for a moment you’re just getting settled into your seat at the symphony. The musicians are warming up, adjusting their instruments. So many sounds, pitches, reverberations, each instrument being tuned to a very specific frequency in preparation for the melodious event ahead. Now, imagine you are one of the instruments. You are part of the sound symphony about to take place.
That’s what it felt like on my visit with gifted sound healing therapist, Daniel Bastacky, and it was nothing short of a full sensory experience.
Sound healing is the therapeutic application of frequencies used to bring the body and mind back into a state of healthy balance. A powerful healing modality since ancient times, it affects each organ, bone and tissue, down to the individual cells of our bodies.
Every part of your body carries a specific frequency- from tooth to toe. Disharmony can creep in with everything from mild stress to full-blown trauma. Energy can become blocked and stagnant, and much like an instrument needing to be tuned, your body is no different. With an incredibly tense back and neck from working on the computer far more than I’d like, I’d been in need of a tune-up for a while.
I first heard about sound therapy years ago in Dr. Mitchell Gaynor’s book, The Healing Power of Sound. Dr. Gaynor, MD is a board certified medical oncologist, internist and hematologistwho uses integrative medical treatments, or mind-body treatments, to complement Western medicine. His practice is Gaynor Integrative Oncology. At the time I read the book I was in my 20’s with no real complaints, just an interest in lots of different healing methods.
15 years later, I was ready to see what this treatment could do for my overly tense traps: neck shoulder and upper back muscles. It was time to see firsthand if sound healing really could re-harmonize these cells, release the unwanted blocks, cleanse, balance and nurture my cells back into a gentle re-alignment.
“Daniel even had a ocean wave sound machine playing for our session.”
My session began face down on the massage table as my new friend, Daniel, applied weighted tuning forks along my spine. It was a wonderful sensation unlike anything I’ve felt before. As I began to relax, he moved on to placing crystal bowls on my upper and lower back before treating my lower legs and feet. While playing the bowls, he joined his voice with that of the reverberating quartz crystal. It produced the most wonderful sound sensation, like participating in a Gregorian chant.
Next he asked me to turn face up as he placed the singing bowls along my stomach, chest and head correlating to the chakra points. He told me each bowl has a note associated with a particular chakra. His wife gave him his first bowl and a friend, he made while attending a training at The Chopra Center, showed him how to really harness the power of sound.
That friend, Andrew Clark, introduced him to his “alchemy bowls”. With gemstones mixed into the quartz, the sound they produce carries the quality of that stone making them a powerful vibratory experience. In our session Daniel continued playing each quartz bowl, finishing it off with a rainbow of sound in the form of energy chimes. I felt centered, present and clear.
Next he placed Tibetan singing bowls on and around me. As he played, his vocal toning joined the bowls and the experience was serene and meditative. I’m fairly certain I could have laid there for days if he would have let me.
During treatment Daniel also used a Cymatherapy machine. It’s an electronic sound therapy tool that helps restore the body by pulsating corrective frequencies associated with healthy tissues and organ systems. The sound waves promote the synching of the cells back into their optimal state of vibrational resonance.
His particular model had close to 500 different frequency settings. I found it fascinating that the machine would be pulsating in one area and I’d feel it somewhere entirely different. Daniel explained, “The energy of the sound moves where it’s needed. You may not know you have a problem there but the energy will try to move to fill up the voids.”
I left the session feeling calm, centered and peaceful. Physically, I noticed an immediate difference – I was looser than I had been in a long time. My partner and cohort in all things MDQ noticed a difference too. Saying he hadn’t seen me look that relaxed in months, he’s already put in for me to schedule another session.
It was a truly unique experience. Daniel’s intuition into the areas needing attention and his gift of layering sounds takes you into a deep meditative and healing state. His vocal harmonics, joined with the bowls, washed over me to create an experience like no other. Afterward I asked him about the use of his voice and the rippling effect it created. He smiled and said, “It’s like riding a wave with my voice.”
It was a perfect analogy and it got me thinking about how sound travels in waveform through bodies of water. Sound travels much further in water than air. Considering that our bodies are 70-80% water, it makes a lot of sense that sound waves can quite literally penetrate at a cellular level, and I can now vouch for this first hand.
For more information or to contact Daniel Bastacky visit: www.GoodVibrationsAtlanta.com
To read more about Sound Healing: Get Dr. Mitchell Gaynor M.D.’s book The Healing Power of Sound on Amazon (click on the book title).
Heather is Co-founder and Co-creator of Modern Day Qi. Her goal is to reach those interested in looking beyond what is conventionally known and accepted because when they do, possibilities abound.
Heather Harper – who has written 11 articles on Modern Day Qi.
goodvibrationsatlanta.com 