Music to stir the soul ..

What an amazing night.

Voted 'The Most Relaxing Tune Ever Recorded'

I recently wrote about some meditation classes coming up (in March) focused on the theme of using the senses in meditation (and relaxation).

And this week I read about a recent study which found that this eight minute song helps to slow the heart rate, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress. 

Nourishing ones Soul

Music feeds the soul. 

Tonight .. my soul has received a mighty good nourishing. 

Firstly, I am totally TOO excited to have purchased tickets to the artist that speaks to me more than anyone else .. Ludovico Einaudi who early in 2014 will be appearing in concert for the first time in Melbourne (Australia). 

I am taking some family and friends .. my Christmas gift to ME. 

And this evening, a hot and balmy summer night in Melbourne, I have some time alone .. time to nourish myself listening to his music once again. 

Have you taken some time today (or scheduled some time 'soon') for nourishing yourself?

Soul Music

Our November Quiet Mind e-newsletter went out last night (sign up via link in left column).. and I shared one of my favourite musicians Ludovico Einaudi who was here in Australia (alas in Sydney) recently .. and who rumour has it, will be back in 2014. 

 Music has the power to move and soothe us 

Beautiful, healing and soulful music can be one of the quickest ways to calm and rebalance.

I have been sharing some of my favourite 'meditative' music every Friday afternoon on our Facebook page and if LIKE our page you too can share some soul music.

what is your favourite 'chill' music?

Just listening ..

I am often asked about the music that lingers in the background of this blog.

The selection is all mine .. just my favourites at the moment .. I often work with the blog music playing through my day ..

I close my eyes today .. and listen .. and imagine being here (see image being Bali where I purchased most of the music) .. just listening .. music, waves, breeze ...

Hope you enjoy .. at the moment the tracks are :

* Easter Song – Cafe Del Mar Vol.2
* Dreamcatcher – Bahramji & Maneesh De Moor
* Oltremare – Ludovico Einaudi
* Ghazal de Savoy – Al Gromer Khan & Kai Taschner
* A Seated Night – Moby
* Temple of Silence – Deuter

Listening to ...

What a wonderful week .. a banquet of infinite delights (quoting Kevin Hume who MC'd at Saturday's Australian Meditation Conference) .. somehow this past week I have found myself in something of a slipstream of new thought and creativity. I am awash with new books, blogs, research and discussions .. lots to nourish and digest. And now I sense a greater understanding of the global trend of 'cultural creatives' which Kevin also introduced (more on that soon .. lots of reading still to be done).

Another great gift of this week has been new music .. thank you New World Music Australia and Australian Yoga Journal (Aug/Sept 2010 edition) .. a free CD 'Sounds of Samadhi' which I have had playing on repeat pretty much all week. Some old favourites and some new. I played the CD before a meditation class last night and had a number of inquiries. Maneesh de Moor is a fav. (you can hear one of his tracks on this blog) .. and the track 'Garuda' by Pravana who I believe is an Aussie as well! Highly recommended if you enjoy ambient world music .. little voice, lots of tones and evocative soundscapes.

The conference had a great range of speakers this year .. and many Australian's on the bill. It is wonderful to have the opportunity to listen, share and discuss what we are passionate about - and have our minds stretched and challenged too! I have a journal book filled with notes, quotes and ideas to research ..

Music for the soul ...

From the 'Ashes and Snow' collection (the most inspiring collection of photographs and my favourite artist)

Who doesn't love a free gift? .. and in this months issue of Australian Yoga Journal (Feb/Mar 2010) there is a free 70 minute gift of music! I have blogged before about my love of music .. so of course I was very excited to get home, lie on the couch to open my fresh read and listen to my new CD .. bliss!

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
~Aldous Huxley

Music has the ability to weave some wonderful magic .. it can inspire us, mellow us, ignite us and take us places we may never have expected. I have music that I listen to when writing, music for entering meditation, music for my morning yoga routine, music for bbq's in the sunshine, and even music that inspires my house cleaning (well, sometimes).

When we listen to music we are engaged in 'just listening' .. and this allows our thinking mind to quieten and our body to relax. The right music can easily sooth the chaotic thinking that so often overtakes us .. and gently leads us into the present moment. Research has shown that different sounds/pitches/tones can soothe different parts of the body .. deeper tones work on the lower chakras (heart and stomach), while mid-range tones soothe the heart, and higher tones move to affect the throat, third eye and head.

Three artists are featured on this Cd, two Australian and one international. I first saw Sacred Earth at a festival in Queensland many years ago, and instantly fell in love with their sound .. so I have many of their albums and receive their regular newsletter so I am in the know for any new opportunities to see them. I often put details up on the Meditation Tribe link .. and you can see them next at the Warburton Harmony Festival 17th-23rd March.

Pravana was new to me .. but when I went hunting I found that this is in fact Simon Lewis .. again, an Aussie who has made some of my favourite music as both a solo artist and as part of Rivertribe (another band I first heard at a market .. St Andrews). Pravana's current album Eastern Meditation 'Music from Bali to Tibet' is described as "an enchanting journey to exotic lands and beyond with a unique fusion of sounds that resonates and provides a fresh and uplifting soundtrack for meditation, yoga and dreaming. You can purchase the Cds or download direct from the artist (this way supporting the artist 100% and helping to keep independent music alive - which is an added bonus!) at Pravana Music. I found out also that Simon has been involved in some of the Buddha Bar albums which are my absolute favourite compilation albums, and I nearly have every one of them!

Deuter is new to me .. and I am so thrilled to have this amazing addition to my iPod .. the two tracks on this CD are so hauntingly beautiful that I have been playing them back to back all weekend. Living in the New Mexico forest, Deuter describes himself as hermit/monk/wolf and is renowned for his inspiring sound in the genre of healing and meditative music. Soaring flute melodies, angelic vocals and delicate keyboard, these tracks have a special gentleness .. track 4 'Temple of Silence' instantly brought to mind the photo above .. one of my favourites from Ashes and Snow .. delicate and surreal.

So go out and get yourself a copy of the magazine, or check out the site links above .. I would love to hear what music leads you to those quiet meditative spaces ..

Melbourne : Moby

A night of deep soul food .. moving with the heat, the beat and tribal rhythm .. Moby in concert last night at the Palace Theatre .. completely inspiring and uplifting ... at a loss for words ...

Music scores for a beautiful life ..

Music that moves me ...

Chakra Balancing : Body, Mind & Soul

Deepak Chopra

Rasa Records

www.rasamusic.com

.. a gift from my wonderful sister the rock star!

arranged and produced by her friend Adam Plack (another inspirational Aussie)

July 2009

Chakra Balancing : Body, Mind & Soul

"Don't go outside your house to see the flowers.

My friend, don't bother with that excursion.

Inside your body there are flowers.

One flower has a thousand petals.

That will do for a place to sit.

Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty

inside the body and out of it,

before gardens and after gardens"

~ Kabir

Gifts from a heavenly muse .. music is so wondrous and evocative and thought provoking .. I am often asked if I include music in my meditation classes .. and I rarely do. I LOVE music in my life and my iPod is my best ever friend.. she plays me music when I wake, as I roam around my home, as I drive and often as I sleep. But in my meditation practice I have always relished the silence .. one of my teachers said once .. "in silence we hear the soul whisper" .. But I have started to include music more at the start and end of my meditation classes .. like bookmarks that provide an energy or spirit to our coming together to meditate.

A gift from my sister Chakra Balancing : Body, Mind & Soul (Deepak Chopra - Soul of Healing) is in fact two CDs .. I have been listening to the first Sahaswara (Sanskrit for Lotus of One Thousand Petals) for the whole weekend. Sahawara is 'created for bodywork, yoga and for chilling out, a specially tuned sacred musical tour through the body's seven chakras'.

Today in Melbourne the sky is a crystal blue. There are just a few soft, tissue thin clouds hovering outside, the palms at my window rustle in the breeze, and the music is playing all around me .. it is really good to be here just now .. nothing to do ... nowhere to go.

Sweet Simple Pleasures ..

Be still.
Open your ears, close your eyes.
Be 'listening' ...

Todays meditation

After a wonderful spring weekend with the weather warm and balmy, green grass days and country driving.. today, back at the desk it is grey, raining and a little sad.

So I am listening to one of my absolute favourite artists on my ipod - you can listen on link below! Dustin O’Halloran will be supporting kd Lang (link kd Lang to flyer for event). kd Lang is another of my world fav. musicians.. unfortunately you will have to be in Long Beach, California on 22nd November, the performance will benefit Ari Bhod, the American Foundation for Tibetan Cultural Preservation - a non-profit dedicated to preserving the sacred cultural heritage of Tibet.



Consider this today's music meditation....

Enjoy

Sound Meditation at Simply Silence

It was a wonderful and inspiring Simply Silence meeting last Monday night …with Garth Stone from OneVibration (www.onevibration.com.au) taking the class.

Garth always brings great energy to the room and uses various instruments including didgeridoo and singing bowls, to introducing us to sound vibration and harmonics as a pathway to deeper states of meditation.

Being the end of a hot, long weekend I wasn’t sure how many people would venture out… and while it was smaller group than usual, it was such a lovely warm night and with the windows open to welcome the soft breeze in .. I imagined the people in the streets below hearing the moving sounds and wondering what magical gathering was happening in the room above!

Sound as a point of focus in found in many meditative techniques and traditions, and revered in many cultures and religions. The Hindus believe that the first movement in the universe created the mother tone of “AUM”. The power of music therapeutically is also found in many cultures and becoming more widely explored.

Garth’s crystal bowls are made of silicon quartz, come in a variety of sizes and different tones ~ and really produce this amazing ‘otherworldly’ sound. Relaxing in a chair or on the floor, you can really feel the vibration and energy moving deeply through your body... tingling my feet and seeming to both relax the body and leave me with a freshness of energy! The sound appears to move around and around the room; even when Garth has finished ‘playing’ the bowls the vibration lingers in the air for an amazingly long time.

Garth also worked with a couple of different didgeridoo’s. I was reading today that the didgeridoo produces an extremely broad range of harmonics (0-1000 hertz) that resonate to a similar frequency as the human brain wave, and the universal tone of OM. As everything that moves vibrates (from the smallest molecule to the universe itself).. if something is vibrating then it is making some kind of sound which we may or may not hear depending on the threshold of hearing.. but.. sound is also perceived by skin and bone conduction, ingesting and consuming. Studies have shown that sound can produce changes in the autonomic, immune, endocrine and neuropeptide systems.

The science of these special sound meditations is that during our normal waking state our brain wave frequency is normally that of Beta. But sound draws our brain into the deeper Alpha and Theta brain wave frequencies, which are the frequencies that induce deep meditative and peaceful states, clarity of mind and intuition.

Garth also facilitates BALANCE a fortnightly sound meditation event held at the Augustine Centre in Hawthorn. Each session has a special guest who adds to this unique sound meditation event. You can see the schedule of upcoming events at http://www.onevibration.com.au/.

"Let us …remember that although to all outward appearances, music seems to be over as soon as the last chord has sounded and the celebrants have dispersed, this is not the case. It has also been created on a subtle plane and remains like an exquisite flower hovering over the sanctuary. No musical vibrations are ever lost, even though they are dispersed, they will go on vibrating through the cosmos for eternity, because the subtle effects of sound linger after the audible sound has died out…." The Healing Tones of Crystal Bowls, Renee Brodie