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What Are Your Five Healing Music CD Picks…That Don...

by Andrew Young (Writer at Sounds True)

Can you help me out here? I need more great “background” music for de-stressing and sparking my creativity.

The skinny: I review healing and meditation music CDs for Sounds True and other retailers and labels and have listened to well over two hundred over the years. Most of them are, uh…just okay. Some totally suck the pranic wind. Of course, you’ll find none of those at soundstrue.com (nudge nudge, wink wink).

I play this kind of music for relaxing, writing, and drawing, so I don’t like distracting melodies, in-your-face vocals, cheesy synthesizers, or stuff that I’ll get sick of after a few weeks of frequent play. Recommendations please!

In the meantime, here are five of my faves:

1. Sampradaya – Pandit Shivkumar Sharma (Real World Recordings). Great for when I’m feeling mentally sluggish or “stuck.” Not marketed as a healing music CD—but incredibly effective as one. The Indian hammer dulcimer (santoor) master plays here with his son Rahul and tabla wizard Shafaat Ahmed Khan. These are traditional ragas, but sound nothing like the familiar sitar/tambour offerings: uplifting, resonant layers of bell-like melodies and jaw-dropping overtones arise independently from the actual struck notes and float beyond the room. Joyful and mind-expanding, sparkly and fresh like cool sunlit rain.

2. Crystal Bowl Sound Healing – Tryshe Dhevney (Sounds True). This is my favorite CD to play when writing, drawing, or photoshopping piles of photos. 100% organic (no synths), beautifully recorded in a giant natural cave (seriously). Tryshe uses rare customized gemstone bowls perfectly tuned for expanding consciousness via the Om frequency and other well-tested resonances. It’s so good that when I first got the 8-minute sample track for writing the CD package copy, I set it on “repeat” and listened to it looped for hours. Tip: if you download this album, don’t “re-rip” the tracks to make them smaller. You’ll want the highest sound quality to fully experience the effect of the pure, subtle harmonics.

3. Aural Resonance Astral Harmony – Simeon Hein (Mount Baldy Press). Yes “astral harmony” sounds really new-agey, but this recording is not, and it is amazing. My massage therapist played this for me during a session years ago. It’s just a sustained, multi-layered perfect-fifth harmonic chord that goes for 70 minutes. Made with 100% synth, but works so well that I grant it full amnesty. This CD is my sure-fire last resort for insomnia and clearing writer’s block, BUT it is not for everybody: the effect is so intense that the first five times I used it, I would sometimes hear it resonating in my head for hours after turning it off.

4. Relax – David Ison (Sounds True). I play this album on my iPhone so often that if it were an old-fashioned LP, it would be worn out. What makes it so good? For one, David doesn’t use brainwave frequency entrainment—he builds his compositions using healing principles based on sacred geometries and proportional tonal relationships and rhythms from ancient Greece, Egypt, and his own intuition and rigorous experimentation. He also uses some very unique studio sound production tools to create tuned ambient spaces that have a clear and calming somatic effect. Even more relevant though is that the music on this album is simple yet incredibly beautiful. The first time I played it, it gave me the chills. The primary “voice” on this album is Ison’s guitar (a massive dreadnought Martin acoustic I think). David has been using this music program to help war veterans in the healing process with powerful results. For maximum effect, play this on a good stereo speaker system or with high-quality headphones.

5. Audio Serenity (iAwake Technologies). These folks are at the far event horizon of brainwave entrainment research. For example, they’ve addressed the problem of frequency habituation—your brain adapting to sound entrainment so that it no longer syncs to beneficial effect. Problem solved here (don’t ask me how, but it works). And they use a suite of other acoustic technologies to massage your brain, nadis, meridians, and positronic circuits (if you’re a Star Trek android). Sound-wise, this program does in fact use synth, but it’s very gentle. Get ready for an extremely quick and deep calming effect. My only caveat is that it’s pricier than a conventional music track (iAwake’s first-hand research takes time and resources). That said, I can tell you that this program is as effective as the awesome MindSpa [http://avstim.com] audio-visual entrainment device that we reviewed here at Sounds True a while back—at a fraction of the cost.

Okay your turn: please recommend some of your favorites so we can all have more relaxation and creativity music options!

Acharya Shunya: Sovereign Self

Acharya Shunya is a classically trained master of Ayurveda and an internationally renowned spiritual teacher and scholar of Advaita nondual wisdom. The first female leader of a 2,000-year-old Indian spiritual lineage, she has dedicated her life to the dissemination of Vedic knowledge for the spiritual uplifting of all beings. With Sounds True, Acharya Shunya has written a book titled Sovereign Self: Claim Your Inner Joy and Freedom with the Empowering Wisdom of the Vedas, Upanishads, and Bhagavad Gita. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Acharya Shunya explore our spiritual journey from feeling afraid to feeling powerful, from bondage to sovereignty. Offering unique perspectives that come from being both a woman and a householder, as well as the spiritual leader of her lineage, Acharya Shunya describes the boundless essence of spirit we all have within, the importance of breaking free from the cultural limitations that prevent us from remembering our true spiritual freedom, and how Vedic wisdom provides us with a timeless guided journey to spiritual sovereignty. 

Meet Your Subtle Body: Discover Cyndi Dale’s 12-Chak...

Meet Your Subtle Body Header Image

 

“I think [the 12-chakra system] is a good compilation to get us going so that we can be the entirety of the human that we are—the human divine being that we are.”

 

—Cyndi Dale

As seekers, instead of following set rules, we may set out to discover routes that feel uniquely true and right for us.

Cyndi Dale, a luminary writer on the subtle body and its connection to the physical world, works with a unique 12-chakra system in her healing practice.

Cyndi’s 12-chakra vision helps her pinpoint feelings and where wounds are emanating from the invisible, spiritual self.

Chakras Infographic

from Enlightened Energetics

WHAT IS THE SUBTLE BODY?

Each of us have both a physical body and a subtle body. The physical is what we think of normally: our shape, our volume, and that which we can touch. The subtle body arises from a different place: the intuition. 

The subtle body seems to be some sort of underground pathway for our physical one. It is invisible not because it doesn’t exist, but because it’s sub-observable to the five senses we normally use. I might even argue that she sees the intuition as the 6th sense, and that the creative nature of our spirits gives us the ability to wield this power for healing.

Just like quantum physicists are starting to say, our world (or, at least, some dimension of our world) is not physical at all, but actually consists of “immaterial energy waves.” These waves somehow come together and entangle to create the material world.

As I listened to Cyndi’s interview with Tami, I was struck by the idea that healers like her use the subtle body every day. In the interview, she really helps you comprehend how that’s possible by guiding you through an exercise that’s less about understanding and way more about feeling. (It made me whisper, “whoa!” out loud.)

Here’s an exercise from that part of the interview if you want to try it:

Rub your hands together until you create some friction, and then put your hands palms facing each other about three or four inches apart. You’ll feel that there’s still an energy in between those hands—because there’s chakras in the hands and because there’s fields of energy emanating from the hands.

If you start patting your hands, not touching them, but kind of patting that energy ball. Again, you can bring your consciousness into your hands and pour more energy into that ball that’s being created. All of a sudden, you’re going to feel like your hands are moving farther away from each other. If you turn the spigot down, your hands—in order to feel that friction or the energy between them—are going to move closer together. Then a really fun thing to do is imagine or turn that energy red—it’s not clear anymore; it’s red—and get a sense of how that red energy field can have a certain reaction to red, especially in comparison to blue . . . as we’re now going to turn that energy blue. It’s really different, isn’t it?

About energy workers and healers she says: “They’re consciously kind of deciding what type of energy might be useful, what might be helpful for them, for somebody else, and they’re sending that.” 

THE 12-CHAKRA SYSTEM

According to Cyndi, the western tradition of the 7-chakra system is based on a book by Sir Arthur Avalon. 

Chakras are eddies of light and sound. They interact, dance, rotate and orbit us like our very own planets.

7 Chakras Infographicfrom MindBodyGreen

THE 12 CHAKRAS

1. Root

The root chakra is about spirituality, purpose and connection, as well as our relationship to Mother Nature and the Earth. It is associated with the underlying structures (both intuitive and ordered) of our minds. It is associated with pheremones and our sense of smell

2. Sacral

This is a chakra of motion and flow, representing the water element in the body. It bears a relationship to reproduction and fertility, joy and desire, and the kind of rest that encourages immune system recovery. It is associated with our sense of taste.

3. Solar Plexus

The solar plexus is a fiery center for our unique powers and gifts. When it’s in balance, we can feel like our lives are autonomous and in harmony with our value system. It helps define the energy that guides our motivations, disposition and mood, and it expands our idea of what’s possible when we are inspired by it.

4. Heart 

The heart chakra is related to our personal and romantic relationships. When it is in balance, we might be immersed in feelings of joy and real freedom. It is strengthened through trust, non-manipulative communication, and authentic respect for ourselves and others. It is also strengthened by the exploration and implementation of personal boundaries. With the heart, we send and receive our gifts.

5. Throat 

Here is our center for speaking and listening. The throat enables expression and facilitates spiritual dawnings of both rational and emotional understanding. Balancing the throat chakra can help prevent burnout. If you have writer’s block, it can be helpful to check with this chakra.

6. Third Eye

The third eye is associated with the pineal gland and rules telepathic ability. A vortex of sublimation, it is empowered by critical thinking, especially when we seek to release fear and guilt. Through the third eye, we can become more lucid, deepening our understanding that duality is an illusion. Opening it helps us to understand symbols and receive messages in both dreams and waking life.

7. Crown

The crown chakra is related to your nervous system and brain. Tap into its power by becoming present in the body through meditation, visualization and relaxation. It can look like a circle of light around your head, and is an expansion into space where you connect with the rest of the universe. It is related to transcendence & wisdom.

8. Soul/Shaman

Located a few inches above the head, this chakra encompasses past lives and your memories of other dimensions. From Cyndi’s description, it is a beautiful, mysterious chakra that connects our physical body to our soul’s experience in its totality. It empowers our ability to transcend spacetime and engage with “the sphere of potentialities in the making.” When it’s in harmony, it becomes easier to communicate with beings in other realms, like your spirit guides.

9. Luminary

This chakra is about an arm’s length above the top of your head. Lift your hand all the way up to connect with where it is. Cyndi sees this chakra as gold, related to our connection to the divine. It is the space of the greater spirit, the “seat of the soul,” which can act as a doorway into your divine self and your archetypal patternings.

10. Earth

This chakra blooms from beneath your feet. It is how your body connects to the earth, a cord that goes through the legs and feet into the ground. It is associated with nature and the cosmos in their simple essence, and the memories that arise from it can be related to ancestral lessons and inherited traumas. Substantial healing can arise from relationship with this chakra.

11. Supernatural

This chakra is “actually around the body. It’s like this lovely rose film, like way out in our energy field, but it’s collected around the hands and the feet.” Through this chakra, you can discover your inherent connection with both natural and supernatural forces. In this part of the interview, Cyndi mentions that chakras are located in multiple dimensions, existing in different places at the same time. She observes this chakra, which is responsible for our ability to move energy, as energy balls around the hands and feet.

12. Auric

This chakra surrounds the auric field of the body like a halo. Cyndi says, “I think of [it] as the outer bounds of our own unique essence or our own spirit.” She emphasizes the uniqueness of this chakra—its defining characteristic is you, and your individual purpose as a spiritual being. There is a connection between this chakra and the ability to envision, create and become, alongside the truth of universal unity.

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Listen to Tami’s full interview with Cyndi Dale here on Insights at the Edge.

 

ABOUT CYNDI

Cyndi Dale is an internationally renowned author, speaker, intuitive healer, and visionary who has taught thousands of students to access their spiritual gifts through her books and workshops. She has authored several groundbreaking books and audio programs on energy healing and the chakras, including The Subtle Body, The Subtle Body Practice Manual, Advanced Chakra Healing, Energy Clearing, Attracting Prosperity Through the Chakras, and New Chakra Healing. Her work has been translated into nine languages.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When she isn’t writing poetry or music, Dani Ferrara blogs for Sounds True and seeks to learn more about healing alchemy. Learn more about her art at daniferrarapoet.com.

Resmaa Menakem: Somatic Abolitionism

Resmaa Menakem is an author, artist, and psychotherapist specializing in the effects of trauma on the human body, as well as relationships within Black families and Black society. He’s the author of the beautiful and inspiring book, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Resmaa Menakem discuss racism from the perspectives of trauma and body-centered psychology. Resmaa unpacks some of the language he’s introduced into our vocabulary around racism—including “white-body supremacy” and “somatic abolitionism”—helping listeners to deepen their understanding of the structural and philosophical underpinnings of racism in the Western world. They also discuss the ways our bodies metabolize our experiences around racism, and the importance of finding healing in community. This interview originally appeared in Sounds True’s Walking Together, a collection of free resources for healing racism.

Pema Chödrön: Living with Vulnerability

Pema Chödrön is an American-born Buddhist nun who currently resides at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. Her many publications include How to Meditate, Getting Unstuck, and Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better. This special episode of Insights at the Edge—originally broadcast as part of the Living with Vulnerability online program—features a deeply heartfelt conversation between Pema and Tami Simon. Here they discuss why it can feel so hard to live with your innermost self open to the world. Pema emphasizes that choosing to be vulnerable brings a more genuine and fulfilling experience of your daily life. Finally, Tami and Pema talk about listening to the inherent lessons of your emotions and why acceptance of the moment will open you to ever-greater opportunities for joy and enrichment.(66 minutes)

The Hobo Code (for Spiritual Pilgrims)

Right behind the Sounds True office backyard, just a hop over tangled barbed wire, run these local railroad tracks:

AndrewY - 002 - The Hobo Code - image 1

The other day I was watching television’s most underrated exploration of the Jungian “shadow principle”—Mad Men—and it reminded me of these tracks. In the episode called “The Hobo Code,” we get a glimpse into the protagonist Don Draper’s childhood during the Great Depression. And we learn about a secret vocabulary that was chalked and carved on fence posts and telephone poles across America.

As it turns out, the hobo code was real. It varied from region to region and across the years. Countless souls used it to help each other find food and shelter and to avoid the perils of the day.

Here are some of those hobo signs (scraped from cyberspace) that still feel relevant to me, if only metaphorically:

ST Blog - AndrewY - 002 - The Hobo Code - image 2

I spotted one of my first “hobo marks” decades ago. It came as a crackling transmission of Roy Tuckman’s legendary Pacifica Radio show “Something’s Happening.” I was homeless, hopeless, and definitely “hobo” at the time, couchsurfing in a friend’s farmhouse in Carmel, California.

The clock radio clicked to 2:00am and, drifting in and out of the night static, was the voice of Alan Watts. He was chuckling at the folly of “trying to catch an ocean wave in a bucket.” Which is exactly what I was doing with my life at that time—trying to rack up achievements and experiences that would assure my permanent, foolproof success.

Um, yeah, right.

Alan’s “hobo mark” pointed me onto the boxcar of radical self-inquiry, though I didn’t realize it until years later. And ever since, I’ve shared his humor and wisdom whenever it’s felt right to.

In fact, I had the privilege of working with Alan Watts’ son, Mark, to hand-pick the sessions for the audio set Out of Your Mind. Alan’s “catching waves in a bucket” allegory is in there.

Is the spiritual path so different from those rolling train tracks? Maybe the markers we find on our own journey—a haiku by Ikkyu, a meaningful photograph, the advice of a friend—reflect the same pilgrim’s spirit that says “we’re all in this together brothers and sisters.”

If I ever go back to visit Victoria’s family farm, I think I’m gonna chalk this symbol on their fencepost:

image3_hobo_sign_watts_bucket

So, what was your first metaphorical “hobo sign” on your life’s journey?

 

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