Another level of healing with sound assists the development of personal power and self-esteem. Many of us have been distanced from our expressive or singing voice by life's sometimes rocky road. When we start to nurture our own voice, we are developing our own inner strength, power and will. This strongly influences a person's destiny because they are removing themselves from 'victim consciousness' and becoming empowered. This level also deals with past traumas such as physical or sexual childhood abuse. Working with your voice allows an openness and trust to develop. This can be used to actually meet and heal the issues and experiences that may have closed us off. This is an extremely safe way of uncovering and healing those painful aspects of our experience.

As we work with power and self esteem issues we are developing a new paradigm awareness that enables us continually to refine the steps we take on our life path. We evolve out of shoring up the rifts from our past into creating a new and lighter life.

A further level of sound healing involves learning to heal others. Consciously directed sound can restore harmony and balance on a cellular level, and also within the chakras and the etheric bodies. Used with intent, focused sound removes pain by resonating inside the brain and stimulating and healing molecules in the system, which in turn raises the vibration of the human body and the spirit. Physical healing is accelerated remarkably by the application of resonant sound.

High frequency sound assists transpersonal journeys and healings. The sound creates bridges enabling our spirit to journey from the old to the new. We can generate these high frequency sounds with our own voice using toning and over-toning.

A very deep level of healing takes place when people gather together with the conscious intent to sing, meditate and share. In other words, when we create rituals. Ritual is a doorway, a rite of passage. Sound is an essential part of ritual. When we focus our sound, and refine it to a pure resonant flow, our spirits will naturally fly to a realm of true togetherness and majesty of spirit. Sacred sites have been used for millennia as places to honor and create ritual. Uluru, and Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges, Australia, and Glastonbury and Stonehenge in the United Kingdom, are four such special places for ritual gatherings.

Often, when we come together for these sorts of rituals, we are focusing on the healing and transformation of the planet and ourselves. Sound helps to open the portals of the heightened energetic vortexes of sacred sites allowing energy and healing to flow.

The key to sound healing with the voice is resonance. This allows us to access energetically the forces that interact with people and nature in ritual. We learn at the very start of sound healing to develop resonant tones with the voice. Unforced, soft sound develops power, not by effort or will, but by sculpting, structuring and surrendering. From this awareness of resonance we can learn to tune into the frequencies of sounds that will resonate with the object of our focus, be it a wound (physical or metaphysical), a chakra, or a sacred or power place on the planet. We learn to trust our intuition to produce the tone frequency that will resonate exactly with the object and with our intent. This is a tangible experience, for when the right note is sung its resonance manifests as a spherical field in space that sounds different to its surrounds. And you don't have to believe in it to be able to hear it, either.

Our voice is a natural resonator. We were all born with a beautiful voice. Let's make full use of this natural and beautiful gift. I was demonstrating resonating the throat chakra on my partner, Jenny, and she said she felt it was like a starburst in her throat. For my part, I actually saw my first Chakra as a spinning wheel of light.

This poem was the result of this experience.

IMAGINE

I have seen whirling wheels of light drawn into visible manifestation in this reality, by a soft pure tone.

What is there, is there.

New sounds create new waves of energy, coursing through the holographic universe that exists within us. New pathways through opened doors, veils lifted, new perceptions, new visions, there in us all, usually as faint, faint echoes, and a longing for the mysterious.

Just imagine.

When human beings understand life more and lift their perception of the known universe, they emit light. This shimmering emission of self-effulgent light is the etheric body manifesting the new consciousness; every tone reflecting one's conscious choice to change. Every beautiful new sound that we make creates light.

When we sing with all our being, we are a whirling luminescence; gold, amethyst, and white, that creates spontaneous applause from the gathering of devas, spirit guides, and angels drawn to such a creation of beauty, that shines in a universe just under your breath. An eternal, glowing,tribute to the sound foundation of the universe.

Ancient Sufi Masters would hint at this ascension and beckon acolytes onto a path of sculpted sounds that they knew would create a stairway to Paradise. Monks flying, old dreamtime masters slipping easily around, through, under and over restraints of time and place. Soaring sounds creating bridges to the unknown.

Just imagine.

Chris and Jenny James

from 'Sound Wisdom for the new Millennium' published by Sounds Wonderful 1999

Chris's own recordings (which currently number seven) of original songs, chants and arrangements continue to enjoy outstanding reviews and sales.

Chris has also written numerous articles on sound and sound healing, which have appeared in magazines and newspapers around the world, and is a regular guest on radio and television. His long-awaited book of poetry, Sound Wisdom for the New Millennium, was published by Sounds Wonderful Publishing in 1999.

In addition to his musical talents, Chris is regularly asked to perform Master of Ceremony duties and coordinate and organize stage performances at major festivals, including Sound Festivals, and Mind, Body, Spirit festivals in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and throughout Europe.