We held our first sound healing yesterday. I’m still absorbing the event. It’s very different from being an attendee, very different from laying on the floor in the dark, going into a deep meditation. Very different sharing that experience with the man I love.

We went early, to set up and test the sound in the room. I found I could not play the tsunami anywhere near as loud as I am used to. This particular room was all wood paneled. It is an old building, built in the 40’s as a civic meeting hall. There is a stage at one end. The energy is wonderful, very special.

We put singing bowls at either end. Dan played the crystal singing bowls off to the side, but up by me. The friend with the Tibetan bowl was in the back of the room, with the ocean drum. Some people were coming for meditation, unaware that we were going to perform a sound healing. But everyone was open to the sound healing. We had about 15 people attend, which is a good crowd for the first time.

I managed to do the welcome, and the guided meditation into the gong bath. I was accompanied with the Tibetan bowl. I was nervous, though I didn’t know how nervous until I sat down to play the gong, and my stomach was on fire. Totally unexpected reaction. Playing was the part I was least nervous about. But, it was release….I guess I had a lot of varying emotions tied to being able to do this.

It was comforting and reassuring to have Dan there with me. I dropped a small mallet, and he came over and picked it up for me. He would signal me as to the sound depth, if it was too quiet or too loud. We found that when the room had 15 people in it, I could play louder that when we tested it with an empty room. I also could motion for him to go back into playing the bowls, etc.

More than the reasurrance and comfort, it was very wonderful to just be sharing this experience with him, working with him. He is as determined as I that this go well. He has a total appreciation of the vibrational quality of the different instruments, and is much more technical about the sound, which is good. At one point he walked up to the stage and whispered to me to not to worry so much about the volume, as it was not as loud as we thought. Which gave me the go-ahead to make the 2^nd tsunami louder than the first, although still a good deal quieter than it could have been. And I see him slowly beginning to understand the metaphysics of the vibrational healing too.

He is a blessing in my life.

At the end, he got the conversation going among the attendees, as to what part they liked the best, and we got a lot of good feedback. I learned that even though I spoke slowly and louder than I normally do (I have a too quiet voice) not everyone could hear me, because of the echo in the room. A few people liked the quieter parts the best, but I was particularly happy that quite a few people said that during the tsunami they at first felt some fear, and worked through it (I didn’t play loud for more than a few seconds at a time) and were amazed at how peaceful they felt after.

Which to me, is the whole point. Release the fear, relase what no longer serves, open yourself up to the love of the universe. So I felt that even though it was our first and we have a lot of work to do to get it where we want it to be, I did my job well. One good friend from my Spirit Girls group told me privately about the amazing experience she had. Another friend, one of my best friends, told me she can’t wait to tell me all the things that went through her mind, and the inspiration she got to write something.

This venue was free, because that’s a requirement of using that particular space. We will probably hold this once a month for a little while at this venue, to get the word out about it. But we are looking at other venues where we could make some money doing it.

Dan and I have discussed doing some of the sound healings with just the two of us. Just because. There is a special dynamic, a connection between us which lends itself to more cohesiveness. It’s good to play with the others too. Although I played the entire half hour on the gong, it would be nice to switch it off with Dan, because it would vary the sound, and give us both a chance to play the gong and the bowls. I would really like that. I guess because I still have so much reticence in front of a group, it took a lot of energy for me to continue playing the gong for the whole time.

After we got all the instruments, etc, home, we decided to get something to eat, since we hadn’t eaten yet all day and it was noon. When we got home, I realized I had a crazy headache and my stomach was slightly discombobulated, and I was exhausted. We played a game of cards and then I took a nap for over an hour. All I could think later in the day was how, at the end of the gong bath, I told everyone to be gentle with themselves, that they’d just released a whole bunch of toxins into their systems so to drink a lot of water and flush them out. Apparently, I needed to do this also! Sitting a foot away from the vibrations released a ton of emotions I had about doing this.

Well, the ice is now broken! I have more confidence in going forward, we have some venues to investigate where we can charge money, or ask a love offering. We are thinking $20 suggested donation, but will turn no one away for lack of ability to pay.

It’s an amazing thing for me to be able to do. Onward!

Love and light to everyone.

The gong rumbles low
The bowls sing overhead
We fade from the room
The path leads deep into the ethers
We go effortlessly
The vibrations bathe us
As the sound waves lift us into the flow.
Rising to open hearts and souls.

I’ve not been around WP much lately. I have really been working at the gong: learning to play it, learning to coax new sounds out of it, different harmonies, different stories to tell. And I’ve been putting together a few people who will join me in creating a sound healing that we can perform in and around this small town.

So far, I have me on the gong, which is the focal point of the meditation. Dan will play the singing crystal bowl and my Tibetan singing bowl. Another friend will play her Tibetan bowls, and perhaps some shakers, bells or other instruments. One more will bring an ocean drum, and a rainstick, and perhaps a couple other drums. We’re going to get together next Wednesday for the first time to see how we do together.

I’ve been writing what I hope will be a good introduction for at least the first few. I can safely assume that most of the people who might come won’t have any experience with this, so I’m trying to explain what it is, how it works, without putting any expectations in people’s heads. I have also been working on a short guided meditation to bring people into the meditation. It will be short, only a few minutes, accompanied by the singing bowls, and will end with the gong coming in low and deep.

Next week I’m going to really begin to look for a place to hold this sound healing. I’m hoping we can be ready by sometime in July. I will offer the sound healing for a donation only, for the first few. Eventually, I want to get to a fixed price of $20 or so. I’ll have to see what the response is to it. I have a few leads on places.

This whole thing is a little outside my comfort zone. I’ve never been comfortable speaking in front of others. But the weird thing is that I am very excited to do this. I don’t really have a fear of it. Maybe because I am pretty sure that the first one will be mostly my friends, from my two groups, the writer’s group and the Spirit Girls. However, the guy who is bringing the drums holds a weekly guided meditation, so he might bring a following from that. At any rate, I don’t (yet, at least!) have any fear of any of this. In fact, I am really excited at the idea of sharing what has been such a healing thing for me with others.

At some point I’ll get back to more writing, and jewelry making. Going down to the boat today, and relax lol. Because that’s something else I’ve not done much of lately.

Love and light to all.

Sitting and waiting
To hear the sound of your voice
Pointing to true north

I can navigate
The seven seas, but without you
Can’t find my way home.

Take my trembling hand
Steady it on this ship’s wheel
Point me towards home

By Deborah E. Dayen

By Image from askideas.com via Google Images

I’ve consumed about a half a bottle of a “bourbon barrel aged” red wine blend that was on sale as a BOGO (you know, buy one, get one). It is one we had not tried before, but it looked good on the wine app “ Vivino”. We bought it and a cabernet sauvignon on the BOGO deal. It turns out the red blend, at least, is quite good! I lean, we  both lean, to red zinfandel wine, which is really a full-bodied red wine, so a red blend has to be good for me to call it good. This one is. (by Cask and Barrel, Rack House Red Blend. 2017).

I am just slightly inebriated, but only slightly. To be honest, I also had a couple hits of legal, medical marijuana. But I digress, just a little. Though it’s all part of the whole, I suppose.

My eyes have been getting really bad over the last year. I’ve not worn glasses, except for 1.75 readers for years. But last year I got prescription glasses, and this year I need a new prescription. The result of cataracts not yet ripe enough to remove. So, I got my eyes examined a few weeks ago, and lo and behold, they gave me a new prescription. So. Between Dan’s daughter and gk’s being here, and then Easter, I didn’t get back to the eye dr.’s til today to look at glasses.

What a friggin nightmare that was. My health insurance gives me $300 toward glasses. Since I paid less than $150 for the pair I have been wearing for a year, I thought $300 was a real deal. Ha Ha Ha.

The $300 was only available at vendors approved by my insurance, one of which was the place that examined my eyes and gave me the prescription. The glasses there were $850.00, so with my $300 credit, they’d have been over $500.

Really? When I can buy them online for $140?

I decided to go to Sam’s Club. They are basically next door to the eyeglass place. I’m going to make a long story short here, At Sam’s, they discovered a discrepancy in my prescription. I drove the 1000’ back to the eyeglass place that gave me the script in the first place. They could not correct it on the spot. They had to wait for the dr who wrote it, to come in and change the prescription. (One of the things I needed corrected was the fact that they had given me, at my eye exam 3 weeks ago, last year’s prescription, not the new one. So if Sam’s had filled the order, I would have had a duplicate of the glasses that no longer enabled me to see.) They actually called Sam’s and got into an argument with them. Like, much more interested in winning the argument than in whether or not I was inconvenienced. But finally they agreed to do what had to be done. It meant that we had to go back to the eyeglass place for a 3^rd time in 3 hours to get the prescription corrected. By then, I was burned out on getting glasses, despite my inability to read the “info” on the TV screen.

However, Dan got a new pair, so that’s good for him! And at least the day wasn’t a waste.

So on the way home, I said, “Let’s go home, open a bottle of that wine we bought BOGO yesterday and play cards or something.” Because my head was splitting. I couldn’t seem to let go of the fact that if Sam’s hadn’t questioned something on the prescription, I would have ended up with a pair of glasses that did me no good.

Oh well, I was soon convinced by my significant other to let it go. Go home, look through some other sites, see what I can find online. I did so. Found the frames I currently have, which I like, after looking through 500 pairs of glasses. However, the online company doesn’t accept my health insurance so first I need to go look at a couple other of their vendors, considering I can get $300 if they have regular priced frames and lenses (as opposed to those 300% higher). After that, I took two Tylenol for the headache I’d developed and laid down for a short nap.

The day ends well. I beat him at gin, which in and of itself is just this side of amazing. Especially considering that was when the wine etc was consumed. Then we made a nice dinner of blackened grilled swordfish steak, some Malaysian Curry Ginger flavored rice (which is SOOOO good) and some homemade coleslaw.

Life here is good, even when it isn’t. Even when what you need to do is a pain in the ass, and gives you a headache, there is a place to go that lets me breathe, while I rediscover that I’m not alone.

Love and light to all.

How many nights have I spent swinging on the hook, lazily gliding back and forth? I don’t know, really. It’s been over a decade since I’ve done it, probably closer to 15 years. Maybe more. But until it stopped, there were many. 100? 200? 500? I honestly can’t say, but many from 1980 until I left my ex in 2007.

We watched the world as it slowed down and went to bed, as if unattached to it. Observing, feeling the flow of the ocean beneath us. Smelling the salt air, feeling the diminishing sea breeze. The lights on the hotels on the barrier islands across the bay, and on the condominiums in town, situated on the water, began to come on, one by one. Soon the world is wrapped in an indigo sky, lit by the bars and restaurants on shore in my little town. We can hear the music and general reverie that is typical of any night here in Gulfport, floating across the now calm water.

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Earlier in the day, I had put on my dolphin charm earrings before we left for the boat, hoping that my spirit animal would appear. It had been a long time since the dolphins greeted us. They came, and two or three of them swam within 50 feet of us for quite a while. Maybe chasing fish to eat, maybe to say hi, we heard you. Because who knows how dolphins communicate? Maybe they can sense our brain wave – heart wave activity and sort it out. Maybe I am an expert manifester. I’m not a believer in coincidence, so I assume there were forces at play here beyond my comprehension. All I know for sure is that they are a sight to behold, these beautiful, graceful creatures of the deep who also breathe air.

Then, as evening fell, we ate our dinner and skipped the wine, I think not wanting to dull our senses from taking in the full panorama of the changing world around us. As the sun lowered in the sky, and the lights began to flicker, senses other than sight became stronger. The now very subdued rocking of the boat in an almost imperceptible breeze somehow connected us to the water, and each other. Even the silence had an ebb and flow to it, connected to our very breath. Watching the sunset was an experience I have had hundreds of times. It never gets old, but it never was better than this time. For him, it was his first time, and for us both, it was very similar, as well as very individual. I was delighted to share it with him, to see and feel his acknowledgment that it was as satisfying, fulfilling, and peaceful for him as it was for me.

There was not much need for words, as we sat beside each other. Unusual, for people who generally talk a lot. But now….watching the sun fall below the horizon, and watching darkness settle over the land, feeling the rise and fall of the ocean, as it has been for the millenia, we sat for long periods of time, taking it all in. The sea was still, so still that it made not a sound. Touching, holding hands, leaning in to each other and then back was enough communication.

We broke from our musing occasionally, and took pictures to try to hold onto that moment. Darkness settled, the world became black and white. Interesting, how darkness can hide somethings, and expose others. The pictures in sequence showed how the colors muted as the sun set, and the one taken at 2 in the morning, shows with clarity the black night, the just-past-full moon reflecting on the calm water, the shoreline in the distance, lit with people’s lives.

In the morning, we awaken before sunrise, to the sound of gently rocking waves lapping the sides of the hull. We watched the reverse of the night, as the world awoke. Sea birds flying, and calling to each other. Fishing boats racing through the bay to the channel, heading out to the fishing grounds. Sky turning from black, to muted grays. The riotous colors of the bars and restaurants on the waterfront began to appear as the sky turned to pink, to orange and finally, blue as the sun rose in the sky. A small school of tiny fish broke the surface as they flitted around, looking for some food I would guess. The gentle rocking of the boat now felt familiar, allowing us to wake in concert with the world, feeling the flow in reverse, as we sat looking at the shore, opposite of the one we watched of the night before.

Yes, an old experience refreshed into a new one. I can never take any of it for granted. Every one is a joy, a blessing to behold.

Love and light to all.