Sacred Sound Healing Across Cultures
Ancient cultures have been utilizing sacred sound in ceremonial healing contexts for millennia. It is hard to even think of a single culture that does not utilize sacred sound in a healing, meditation, and prayerful gatherings. Sacred sound is everywhere, whether it is the Shipibo, Huin Kuin, and Yawanawa with their Ayahuasca chants in South American tribal societies, the Muslims with their call to prayer, the Hindus chanting Sanskrit mantra, the Huichol (Wirarika people) with their violin, the Native American Sundance songs, Christian hymns, Tuvan throat singing, Tibetan chanting, African drum circles, or Javanese gamelan music, just to name a few.
Scientists believe music and singing predate human language due to their superior capacity to communicate emotional and spiritual states in comparison to the spoken word. Group chanting and singing is essential in all spiritual traditions in the climatic and ecstatic act of transcending the limited, individual egoic reality to experience the ineffable union with the divine. The foundational and central importance of music as therapy, healing, bhakti, prayer, and meditation cannot be over emphasized. As Nietzsche wrote, "without music, life would be a mistake."
Sound Healing: Ancient Practice or New Age Trend?
Many people believe utilizing sound as medicine is a new age practice but it simply is not the case. I am not in opposition to new age culture. However, my personal experiences being formerly trained within indigenous shamanic healing circles has led to a perspective that new age culture has far too often co-opted the true power and deep knowledge of sound healing and offered it to the world in a commercialized, water-downed, and superficial context, where it often becomes a parody of its true origin.
There is a significant difference between a roadman facilitating a peyote meeting, summoning the elemental power of the rain through prayer songs to the water after undergoing years of intense training versus someone that picked up a drum after taking a 2-hour workshop they participated in online. Nevertheless! The difference I wish to make here is not to condemn new age culture. Everyone needs to start somewhere. It is better one go to a new age sound healing experience that has zero connection with traditional culture than to sit on the couch watching TV or go to the bar to consume alcohol. Even choosing to meditate in a group setting with a healing intention, as sound is being played, is well-worth the effort, regardless of the facilitator's training or experience.
The Role of Authentic Teachers and the Student’s Journey
As my teacher and Taino elder, Maestro Manuel Rufino, liked to say, "even if the teacher is fake, if the student is a real student, they will get something out of the relationship." He is pointing out here that what matters most on the spiritual path is not the guru's revelation but that the student looks within and comes to "know thyself". What matters is your own practice, your own discipline, and your own search for God within. The teachers and teachings are only sign posts to turn the mind inwards. That is something only we do ourselves. That being said, true spiritual masters carry a vibration in their being that can be transmitted in the same way a masterfully crafted musical instrument can transmit a divine sound. Of course, you still need to learn to play the instrument but the vibration and quality of it does seem to create a more graceful path to transcendental expression. Simply pick up a cheaply made handpan knock-off from a Chinese factory and play it next to an original PanArt Hang drum from Switzerland and this truth will be self-evident.
Honoring and Preserving Sacred Traditions
The music, soundbaths, ceremonial gatherings, meditations, clothing, instruments, artwork, prayers, and teachings we carry have all been passed to us by elders of the traditions after well over a decade of deep work and close observation. Our shop is run in conjunction with Native crafts people who we have established close relationships with. Our intention with sharing all that we do is not to create another capitalist enterprise but to guide people into proper use of tools that actually work in the journey towards true healing and awakening while honoring a connection from where this knowledge came from.
Our teacher and elder from Venezuela, Maestro Domingo Dias Porta, used to say, "the buffet is open", meaning that we are now in the second degree of the astrological age of aquarius, the 13th Baktun of the Mayan cosmology, the age of information and this is an period of humanity's greatest spiritual gifts being shared and made available for all who wish to know. The piscean paradigm of secret societies and hidden knowledge is being transformed into the humanitarian water bearer, releasing the bounty for everyone to receive. Maestro Domingo always follows this teaching with the reminder, "yes, the buffet is open, but don't get a stomach ache." This serves as a caution and warning that these traditions and practices hold tremendous power and without proper training and guidance they can be used to harm as much as they can heal.
Woven Visions Tribe’s Mission and Dedication
We offer all that we do as Woven Visions Tribe as a prayer to be fully committed in deep service towards a world that is rooted in compassion, respect, reciprocity, wisdom, social responsibility, connection to nature, health, family, humanity, and spirit. We believe through dedicating ourselves to this work that another world is not only possible but inevitable.
- Jerry Walsh
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