Back in December, I wanted to find some special Christmas gift for Rob and after seeing a Tibetan singing bowl on Butternut squash’s website – aka Jeri Gerard – I emailed her. Then we spoke by phone. She wanted to find exactly the right bowl for him and asked me some questions about Rob – how he looked, his interests and so on. We agreed on a price and a week later, Butternut had tested dozens of bowls and found what she felt was the perfect singing bowl for him.
She only sells the genuine McCoy, bowls once owned by Tibetan monks who used the bowls for everything – for eating, begging, for the tone they produced. I knew the bowl she had selected would be the real deal because once a year or so, Jeri travels to Nepal to buy jewelry from the local people that she sells on her website and at shows. She also gets involved in the lives of these people, bringing supplies and books for the schools, meeting and living among the people. She recently started raising money for a school library in Nepal and reports that construction on the library has begun. She walks her talk.
Rob uses this bowl in his meditation classes, a particular tone to end each class, and every time, the tone is different and somehow fits the texture of that class.
A few days ago, eight months after I purchased the bowl, I received an intriguing email from Butternut. She had come across something in a book on singing bowls that she thought we might find of interest. The book: Singing Bowls: A Practical Handbook of Instruction and Use by Eva Rudy Jansen.
The quote:
Sound creates and sound arranges. There is a third aspect which is just as important for understanding singing bowls and why they are increasingly being used therapeutically.
This aspect relates to the tendency of objects which make almost identical movements, to move completely synchronistically. Christian Huygens, the 17th century Dutch scientist, noticed that when two pendulums were placed next to each other, they eventually started to swing in the same tempo. Similarly, after a while, two wave movements which are almost but not quite the same, change and become increasingly similar until they are exactly the same.
This is called ‘the collective arrangement of phases’ or synchronization. Women are familiar with this phenomenon in their menstrual cycle. Friends or sisters who live in the same house often menstruate at the same time.
The chapter, Butternut said, talks about how “the soothing waves that emanate from the singing bowl can help the body to resonate more harmoniously by working on the waves of water within one’s own body.”
She was struck by the implication of this passage’s global impact. “It seems to indicate that the waves of energy or emotion, whether positive or negative, that we put out will resonate in everything around us. In effect, it is our own actions that cause the synchronicities around us. To me, it points to the same thing that many religious leaders have talked about: we must become the change that we hope to see.”
She notes that negative emotions can also multiply. “A single tweet can cause enormous ripples. With the technology we have now, it is even more important to keep ourselves in the proper frame of mind.”
So in this era of instantaneous connections and communications, how can we each become the change we want to see?
( 28 years ago today, Rob and I got married at my parents’ home. Happy anniversary, Rob!)
Aww! I am sorry i missed this one. Happy Anniversary Trish and Rob!
I adore singing bowls and love toning as well, I always always feel great after singing, toning and playing with the bowls at work. 🙂
Thanks, Nat! Lucky you, working in a place that has singing bowls. A different tone for different mood?
Happy anniversary for yesterday (I had a none computer day). May the bowl and life fill your lives with synchronicity.
Thanks, Mike! i need one of those no computer days.
Happy 28 you two.
I’ve been toying with the idea of getting one myself.I have a CD called
“The Purity of Sound” which is an acoustic recording of singing bowls for meditation,that I bought from my mates at this sight;
https://www.abearsoldwares.com/Buddhist.music.cds.htm
If you scroll down you’ll see it near the bottom of the page.It has a picture of gold bowls against a purple backdrop.I love listening to this CD.I often play it in the background when I’m working on the computer.
These guys (there’s a picture of them here…and the goods that they sell) ;
https://www.abearsoldwares.com/Site.Map.htm
sell singing bowls,too.And I’ve been thinking of buying one from them.
Just take a look at all the lovely bowls they have to choose from.
https://www.abearsoldwares.com/Singing.bowls.htm
There is even a YouTube of one of them demonstrating how to use one….and what is the title of the book that they are selling on this page???
Coincidence ??? Maybe?-)
P.S. The pewter skull you see on my blog here;
https://brizdazz.blogspot.com/2011/07/sychronistic-sunday-surprizes-in.html
was purchased from these guys as well.
Here’s what I know about butternut. She tests her bowls. She only buys the genuine stuff. And honestly, I have never gotten a personal note about anything I’ve bought on the internet
that furthered my knowledge about what I’d bought. If business were conduced the way butternut does it, wouldn’t commerce be in a much better place? Now: off to check your links, Daz.
Hope your mom is doing better.
We here are still waiting for our synchro books to arrive. Grrrrrr.
Happy Anniversary!
Thank you for letting us share it with you, and thank you for the endorsement.
Peace.
have to tell you, the singing bowls helps creatively, in writing!
Loved this post. I’ve been doing some reasearch on sound and how the Big Bang may have been sound frequencies. Anyway, Happy Anniversary!!
Nancy – I like that idea, the big bang as sound frequencies. Any particular book?
Twenty eight years….wonderful! Happy Anniversary you two…and many more happy years are wished for you today.
Thanks!!
HAPPY HAPPY u 2 and many congratulations! i love the implications of this little flowing tidbit – all the implications – and, as most of can attest, so true, as we have experienced in one way or another this magical “collective of arrangement of phases” – and i really really DO need to get a singing bowl – my own internal collective arrangement of phases seems to be out of kilter of late!!!
thanks to butternut for sharing with you guys!
and happy happy again, macgregors!
Thanks, Gypsy. The singing bowl is perfect for those times when you feel stuck or out of kilter. You run that little wooden thing around the edges, and the tone touches you inside.
Happy Anniversary! Here’s to many more years of harmonic resonance!
Thanks, Debra!