THAT PROFOUND SOUND- Sound as a Healing Vehicle

By Zacciah Blackburn

Historically, sound has been used as a point of focus and invocation in meditation, prayer, healing, and ritual throughout much of the world. As with so much that is mystical, our culture has lost touch with the nature of sound as a healing vehicle. Yet more and more healers and musicians are focusing on the power that sound has on our bodies and on our well-being. There are two principal aspects to sound, as I see them, in healing and ritual. One aspect of sound, like a chant or mantra, creates a point of focus for the mind-force, through which one's intent forms a basic structure, or energetic grid, through which energy may flow, be contained, invoked, or built into a healing mechanism. The other aspect is the carrier force of the sound itself. This is dual in nature. The sound becomes a river upon which and through which energy may flow. The sound also has an intention, a vibration, an essence, or resonance, which can be a healing mechanism.

As one becomes involved with sound as a healing mechanism, whether through one's own intuitive guidance, or some traditional manner, one sees the power, which sound creates, unfold. We can see the traditional use of this power by looking at the Afrikan or Native American shaman invoking celestial allies through chant, song, and prayer, drum or rattle in hand, healing the imbalances in one of his or her people. We can see it in an entire Native American village chanting ancient rites to the corn maiden at planting time, or an Israeli village granting blessings upon a newly married couple through song and dance. We can look at an African-American gospel choir pouring out their hearts in song, reaching remarkable states of ecstasy and joy. Or we can look at an East Indian playing the sitar, focusing through power of meditation and specific ancient scales, invoking the balance and harmony of a specific deity (or energy stream) into the room. With any of these examples, and throughout most native cultures, sound is and has been used as a point of focus of creative intent and invocation of divine energies. Sound is a vehicle through which one may carry one's message to the divine, and through which one may merge with, and express, the creative divine.

The path to sound as a healing vehicle begins within the self. By exploring deep inside ourselves, we can easily tap into our own ancient mysteries, unfelt feelings, and creative energies through the use of sound. That sound may come out in the form of "unchained melodies," improvisational "noise" or cries of an infant unborn, but by paying attention to the sounds a particular wave of energy within our body wishes to make, we can create a truly healing process for ourselves, and eventually for others. This process requires a certain degree of trust and release of inhibition, yet that doubt or inhibition itself is a form of fear keeping our creative, expressive powers at bay. Whatever form of release we wish to use, the nature of healing and empowerment is to release the fear or limiting process within the self, and walk into the creative impulse resonating deep within our seat of being.

By sounding that creative impulse, which is our expressive self, we can walk through all our agony and pain, fears and prejudices, and all limiting thought forms we have created within ourselves, in this and other lifetimes, which bind us from our creative, expressive self. All of those devastating habits and self-agonizing behaviors, which have been built through years or lifetimes of reacting to traumatic circumstances or lack of nourishment, have embedded themselves in our fibers. They have been impacting on and diminishing the very core of our being, driving us in involutive spirals in upon, rather than expansive, expressive spirals out from, that core of being. The sound itself can resonate and discharge those emotional energies which have been locked so long in our bodies, within our tissue, within our cellular memories, our emotional and energetic bodies. Sound therapists can guide and nurture us on the path to self-healing through connecting with our own inner sound, our own inner child, and help us express it.

That inner child holds abundant energy, abundant love, and grace. And, through letting the noise and confusion of the outer self, one can hear her/his deeper, more intimate self sounding, resonating, at first ever so timid and quiet; but with each breath, with each courageous expression of that child self, feel waves of joy and hope break through all the pain and doubt we have built around us. It may be painful at first. But with courage and determination we can break through the pain and fear, and find unlimited oceans of beauty and wisdom emerging from within ourselves.

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