Soul Sounds

Soul Sounds

“We connect to the world through the sound: the chatter of people, the hum of the traffic, the whisper of touch, the percussion of a heartbeat.”
- Caro Ness  - A Space for Silence  

I’m having some absolutely amazing adventures with sound at the moment and just wanted to share my excitement with you.

This week I read an article that suggested that our nerves communicate by sound rather than electricity.  This correlates with the profound experiences of sound I have witnessed with clients with chronic illnesses such as MS and Cancer.  Release from pain and tension becomes available when our nervous systems are soothed and nourished by experiences of sonic relaxation.  The caress of beautiful music goes way deeper than the skin, massaging our inner awareness and giving space for our body systems to breathe, rejuvenate and rebalance.  Author Caro Ness describes her experience of our sessions in this beautiful poem:

Sound Therapy

Lie back on your bed, and close your eyes,

Time to shut out the world, re-energise.

Watch your breath, yes, contemplate,

What it is to be still, then meditate.

Now the therapy begins and the sound starts to grow,

And you’re washed in pure music from your head to your toe.

A brush on a gong that reverberates,

And every bone in your body melts and disintegrates…

The melodious tone of a singing bowl,

That speaks to the mind, the heart, the soul.

A chord on marimba, some notes on the flute,

Arpeggios played on the sitar or lute.

Unaccompanied chants, a roll on a snare drum,

A tip from a rain stick so your sinews hum.

Your body is washed with a beautiful noise,

That gives you a feeling of well-being and poise,

A thrum of unique notes that creates a beautiful sound,

That is loving and giving and very profound.

Caro Ness


 

There is in every ancient civilisation, a deep acknowledgement of the healing power of sound. The indigenous peoples of the earth have a profound understanding of the way in which sound connects every living being.  In the film The Weeping Camel modern day Mongolians use this ancient understanding to heal the relationship between a mother camel and her calf.  Early hospitals in ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt and Persia all used music for the treatment of illness.  Traditional Chinese Medicine, first documented in 440BCE, still uses vocal tones as part of their diagnosis and treatment.  In both the Middle East and India we find advanced systems in which pieces of music (Makams/Raags) were prescribed to be played at specific times of the day to assist with different conditions.  Centuries later Western composers would debate the effect of different musical modes and intervals on the emotional states of their listeners - something which modern day marketers put to full effect.

In our cells, we know and remember that sound is the essence of our existence and that we hum and vibrate at the frequencies of our longings, dreams, emotions, thoughts and visions.  Sound has the capacity to shake and remake us, to reconnect and regenerate every nerve in our body and to enable us to communicate radiantly and radically in the world.

This means when we fine tune the instrument of our expression, our voice - our whole world begins to change.  The ancients across all cultures understood that each individual was a microcosm of the whole, so when just one person reclaims their voice, we are all liberated by their expanded presence.   In recent workshops and sessions, I’ve been honoured to witness lions and lionnesses reclaiming their roar and enjoying all the subtle nuances of their expression.

It's a beautiful thing when you know exactly when to purr and when to roar.... Nikki King

We become so creative and courageous when we Roar for those things which matter to us.   The Commons have Roared a NO to military action against Syria this week and inspirational campaigners are roaring against fracking across the UK.

I shall be roaring for WaterAid with 800 singers at Sing for Water at the Thames Festival this month. I’ve done a virtual busk and will be busking at a mainline station very soon - it's so amazing to see what happens when I get in action for my passion and let the sound current take me where it will.  Please do throw some pennies in my virtual bucket! :)

Thank you so much for listening
I look forward to singing and sharing sound magic with you soon!
Wishing you a super soulful sonic September.

Folk Got Soul

Folk Got Soul

Dear <>

I’ve just landed back in town for a few days in between festies, emerging from what felt step back into an ancient world of music at at Sidmouth Folk Week.

Watching clusters of singers, fiddle and melodeon players, bards, storytellers and morris dancers gathering in every corner they could find was just so enlivening.  Music flowed like a pulsing, resonant river through every vein and chamber of the seaside town. 
 

It prompted me to ask again what’s at the core of traditional songs - why do they sing on? what do they have to teach us?

1. Oral history

In times gone by before TVs and radios, singing and storytelling was the way people would have processed the events of their day.  I am aware that this is the case for many cultures, and use English songs here only because I am more familiar with them.  Many traditional songs are based on real life goings on - Molly Bawn is based on ‘The shooting of his dear’ a true story of an accidental shooting, The Water is Wide grew out of the tale of a unhappy aristocratic marriage. Folk Songs were olden days newsreels and celebrity gossip.  Their themes are still relevant today - people are still shooting, leaving and loving one another everyday.

2.  Love

‘Come all you young men, who go a courting, pray you give attention to what I say’ - so says the words of The Sweet Primroses.  The endless tales of Love’s merry and maddening dance fill the folk ballads of yesteryear.  Songs like The Foggy Dew would have been sex education for many a youngster.  Like almost every song in the current mainstream pop charts, there are songs that teach, warn, moralize, eroticize, celebrate, commiserate and commemorate every possible convolution of romance.

3. Protest

Whether its the song of a woman wronged by her lover, a man taken off to sea against his will or the more obviously politicized songs which accompany uprisings throughout history, singing empowers people to raise their voices and right their wrongs.

4. Work Songs

The rhythm of labour is built into many folk songs - the choruses of sea shanties like Way Haul Away contain the motion of rowing.   Like the spirituals that emerged from slavery, songs arose from people immersed in the routines of work, helping them survive.  Many folk songs were collected from working class communities by upper class song collectors, who received accolades, memorials, libraries etc but the rhythm of the songs remind us of the very real conditions they emerged from and resonate with the memory of many an unnamed heroine/hero.

5. Death

Folk songs can seem incredibly morbid at times, written as they were in times when life expectancy was shorter and death walked hand in hand with life.  They can be a refreshing antidote to the sanitized denial of death that often occurs in modern day life.  

6. Violence

Whether it’s jealous sisters, ugly uncles, spiteful stepmothers, fearsome fathers, betrayed lovers or dastardly womanisers, the characters of folk songs come armed with guns, axes, swords, bottles, knives, ropes, poison or simply their own fair hands.  In harder times, a quick push into the river or over a cliff would settle the issue of feeding another hungry child or supporting a pregnant woman.  Scores are settled with a very rough justice - a man who has eloped with a woman on false pretences finds the tables turned when he tries to push her in the sea (Lady Isabel).  The very bottom of the barrel of human behaviour is excavated unflinchingly in songful catharsis.

7. Supernatural

In folk songs, ghosts return from the grave, the heads of the beheaded speak and strange signs, omens, riddles punctuate the tellings of tall tales.   Whatever our beliefs about the afterlife, the ancestors definitely make their presence felt in the often eerie breeze of these melodies.  My father has excavated our ancestral connection to Thomas Hardy’s grandfather (also called Thomas Hardy) who ran the Stinsford String Choir which played weekly in the West Gallery of his village church, at a time when I am feeling the urge to pick up my violin bow again, so I certainly felt mine whispering to me this week.

If you'd like to venture further down the twisting lanes of folk songs, do join me for two special Summer workshops Folk Got Soul Singing Workshops.

Katie Rose’s Virtual Busk for WaterAid
As I am once again joining Sing for Water - a momentuous gathering of 800 singers at the Thames Festival raising funds for WaterAid - where I busk ‘Maid on the Shore’ from my album Empty Cup -  please do have a listen and throw some pennies in my virtual bucket.

Wishing you wonderful songful summer times

37 Things

Dear Friend

In honour of being alive for 37 years, here’s 37 Things I feel immensely grateful for.

1. YOU!!! - and my human family - I feel so incredibly blessed to exist amongst such a wonderful community of friends. Thank you for being alive at this time with me!

2. My birth family - for their endless patience with my weird and wonderful ways.

3. Life -  thankful for being here and inhabiting this crazy body vehicle and for the basic fuels that enable it to stay on the road - breath, food, warmth, shelter and, of course, tea.

4. This AMAZING Planet - and the infinite beauty of Nature - particularly Trees, Water, big Cats and Roses :)  My little spot of earth that I rustle about in here in Crystal Palace.

5. My senses - having grown up with a grandmother who was deaf and having worked with those with sensory impairments for over 20 years, I am acutely aware that being able to experience all the tastes, touches, sights, scents and sounds of life is very precious.

6. Movement -  learning to understand my own physical backtofrontwardness has given me a huge appreciation of now being able to move, dance, cycle, yoga and shimmy.

7. Passion - the dynamic energy that propels us to create, birth, bond and unite.  The ability to feel deeply and feel for others - compassion.

8. Deep Connection - and the dance of intimacy.

9. Power - the sunshine of strength, courage, confidence, independence, individuality and self-determination within all of us.

10. Freedom - to make choices and the responsibility to make them wisely.

11. Money - as a form of exchange that saves a lot of time that would otherwise be spent doing the ‘how many beans for your cow?’ routine.

12. Challenges and conflicts - and what they teach me.

13. Difference - diversity brings so much colour, texture and spice to life.

14. Love - in all its magnificent manifold forms.

15. Play - the joy and delight of being very, very silly and laughing until its beyond silly.  

16. Community - I’ve had so much fun, work, play and party time with the most truly extraordinary creative people.  It was so amazing to celebrate the 4th Birthday of The Garden of Roses at Inspiral last week - 46 events featuring over 100 artists at InSpiral - all made possible by love and generous collaborative community spirit.

17. Communication and creative expression - in all its forms - writing, poetry, art, music, dance.  I am acutely aware of the power of words to reframe our perceptions and also conversely the limitation of words and the value of non-verbal communication.

18. Music - essential medicine which transforms the vibration of every aspect of our being.

19. Singing - for me, it’s the direct line to heaven (aka ecstatic meditative experiences).

20. Chanting - mantras could be described as the dial up code on the direct line to heaven.

21. The Big Om - the sonic big boOM of creation - huge Big Up for the beautiful Barefoot Doctor - and his truly life changing Big Om experiences.

22. Musical instruments - piano was my first love and I now have a family of sonic beings who travel around me - gong, singing bowls, flute, tampuri etc.

23. Composition - birthing pieces of music and albums is one of my life’s big adventures. I feel particularly honoured to have composed a piece for Road to Peace, a film about the Dalai Lama. Big shout out to my producer Scott Turner at Spiritual Studio.

24. Choirs - the exquisite sound of voices joining together in harmony gives me shivers, tingles and frequently brings me to tears.  Particular thanks to Croydon Intercultural Singing Project & my Forest Hill Singing Group.

25. Sing for Water - being part of this amazing project which features huge amounts of people singing together to raise funds for WaterAid has been so immensely life-enriching - the power of song in action.

26. Supporting others to sing and sound - I get such a huge buzz out of seeing people reclaim their voices - whether one to one or in groups - its so amazing!

27. Imagination - meditating and journeying with clients has revealed to me that our lives are beautiful tapestries with intricately perfect strands of meaning and symbolism.  Our imagination enables us to re-weave and re-vision our worlds and to create new pathways, choices and perspectives.

28. Learning - it goes on and on and on - I am forever grateful to my teachers, mentors and guides - and the amazing sources of wisdom and knowledge I have accessed.

29. Healing - so many amazing modalities exist for us to transform our awareness - my particular loves are coaching, reiki, massage, reflexology, tarot, kabbalah, meditation and acupuncture.

30. Travel - inner and outer voyages to places known and unknown.  It’s so important to keep stretching beyond the familiar.  I’ve experienced the grace of adventures to many far flung places, of which Turkey and New Zealand have impacted me most deeply.. so far...

31. Solitude - is the deep soil in which I grow my ideas, reflections, creations.

31. Silence - stillness, peace.

32. Darkness - the womb of creation.  Death and the space it creates for more life.

33. Miracles - they happen all the time!

34. The Ancestors - and their legacy of gifts and challenges.

35. Angels - we are all angels and angelic energy is always available.

36. Spirit - the effervescent energy that enervates the great symphony of existence.  The great numinous spirits that have inspired devotion throughout time across all spiritual practices.

37. Mystery - As Socrates said ‘As for me, all I know is that I know nothing’

It’s been magical writing this, thanks for reading - beaming over huge amounts of love, appreciation and gratitude to you!

Wishing you a wonderful August

Love

Garden of Roses 4th Birthday Party
Gayatri & Cate Mackenzie 

Mantra of the Month - THANKYOU How many truly madly deeply loving expressions of gratitude can we share this month? Let’s make August the Month of Augmented Appreciation!