Sound Healing, Energy Healing, Meditation, Spiritual Healing, Personal Growth.

Sound Healing: Interview with Sound Healer Margy Henderson

By: by David Ian Miller
News Source: SF Gate

For thousands of years, indigenous cultures around the world have used sound -- chanting, drumming and singing -- to induce altered states of consciousness. Shamanic practitioners and their followers believe this process opens the door to the spirit world, where a kind of sacred transformation, or healing, can take place.

Margy Henderson, who lives in the town of Sonoma, follows in this tradition. Henderson, 56, is a modern-day sound healer who learned her craft from a shaman she met while traveling in Peru. She is also a longtime member of the Threshold Choir, a group of Bay Area women who give comfort to patients dying of terminal illnesses by singing at their bedsides in hospices and hospitals. I spoke with her recently by phone.

How did you get into sound healing?
It started when I joined a charismatic prayer community in Cincinnati. I was 22, my sister-in-law had just died of cancer and I was taking care of her six kids.

Six kids? That's a handful.
Yeah, ages 2 to 7. I was pretty lonesome and I didn't know anything about parenting. I started going to this prayer group mainly for the company. But it turned into something more than that.

What do you mean?
When I was really young, I didn't believe in God. My family was Catholic -- but not in the spiritual sense. We were Catholic Workers, committed to social action. But then I joined this little prayer community, and I had the experience of feeling God's presence. I surrendered myself to the Holy Spirit, and I've done that ever since.

What kinds of rituals did you do?
There was a lot of praying in tongues -- things like that.

Is that like speaking in tongues?
Yes. It's really about speaking in a language that is expressed through your heart and bypasses your brain. [She makes gibberish sounds.] It didn't matter to me that the words didn't mean anything. It was an act of surrender to sound -- sound that created altered states of consciousness and ecstasy. I believe these states of being get us closer to who we really are as disembodied spirits. I've heard other sound healers at classes talk about getting their start in this way, although we're all ashamed of it.

Why are you ashamed?
Because the charismatic movement has become such a part of right-wing Christian fundamentalism. That outcome was really sad for a lot of us.

At what point did you decide to become a sound healer?
About 10 years ago I was at a big meditation conference. I was swimming in the pool before the meditation got started, and I kind of heard an interior voice that said, "It's time to tell people that you are a sound healer."

That morning we were paired up with a partner during the meditation. Without my saying anything about sound healing, she told me that she was looking for someone to help her "find her voice." I said, "I can do that." So we went into the locker room of the pool where the acoustics are good, and I taught her how to do overtoning. And that's how I got started.

You've been studying sound healing with a Peruvian musician named Tito La Rosa. How did you meet?
I met someone a few years ago at a gathering of sound healers, who had learned how to make replicas of Peruvian whistling vessels. He brought a few for us to play, and I just loved them! So when a friend of mine was in Peru visiting her relatives, I decided to go learn more about them.

The first night I got there, my friend took me to a concert in Lima and it happened to be Tito La Rosa. He was playing these ancient instruments and resurrecting rituals that existed before the Spanish came to Peru 500 years ago. He and his wife were also sound healers. I was very impressed and so I got his phone number.

The next day I went to Cuzco, and I met some shamans on the airplane. They took me to another shaman's ritual space, which was full of Peruvian whistling vessels. And when I asked him how I could learn more about these instruments, he said, "The only one in Peru who would know is Tito La Rosa in Lima," and he gave me his phone number. And I said, "I just got it from himself last night!"

So before I left, I went to see Tito and his wife. They are very simple, poor people, totally committed to educating the native population about their ancient culture. We had a four-and-a-half-hour sound healing ritual together.

What does a Peruvian whistling vessel look and sound like?
Well, it is made out of clay and comes in a variety of shapes. Some of them look like animals or people or shells. Each one is made with a specific frequency of sound.

How are they used in sound healing?
When you blow a group of them tuned to similar frequencies, they create binaural beats. Binaural beats are used to balance the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and they create a wonderful sense of well-being. It's a sound-healing technology that people have been using for 2,500 years -- can you imagine!

So what exactly is sound healing?
The best way I can explain it is to say that our bodies are vibrating at different frequencies. The most obvious example is your heartbeat, but really every system in your body gives off a sound. And when you're not feeling well, those frequencies can get out of alignment. Sound healing is a technique for retuning those frequencies and reestablishing inner harmony.

And you use your voice to do that?
Primarily. I also use Tibetan bowls and Peruvian whistling vessels, and sometimes I play a panpipe made of condor feather quills that my teacher made for me. There's something about that pipe that lights up people's eyes when they hear it.

Tell me about the process when someone comes to see you. How does it work?
After welcoming them into my home. I begin by lighting a candle and some sage or what the Peruvians call palosanto -- it's a centuries-old tradition of using sacred wood that is like incense. Then I bless myself, and I start singing right away because as I'm singing I get myself into the right vibration for helping others. Usually, I do that for about 45 minutes.

What do you sing?
Sometimes it's words or songs that I know, but usually it's just tones and overtones and then sometimes drumming. I let the song go on as long as it wants to, and then I pause and wait for what's next. It's different from doing a performance, where you're listening to what comes out of your mouth so that it turns into a beautiful song. It's more like I'm listening to the impulse of where it's going.

How do you know that you are really helping people, and what is the impact?
I always look for people's responses, and if they tell me they feel better or if they come back again, then I know I am doing something for them. Often, they are deeply moved in some way by the experience. It's clear to me they are going into a spiritual realm.

Some people might say that the work you do is all fantasy, that it's not really doing anything for the person you're trying to help. How do you respond to that?

It doesn't bother me that people call it a fantasy. I think fantasy is very, very powerful. I think we should have more of it! The pretending and play that we do invite something new and creative into the world.

You're a member of an all-woman singing group called the Threshold Choir that sings to people who are dying of terminal illnesses. How do they react when you sing to them?

A lot of times they're in a very precarious state, and sometimes they're even in a coma. They usually just lie in their bed with their eyes closed. Some smile, some sing along. Some are just very grateful.

What is the most important thing you have learned from working with sound?
I've learned that the qualities of the divine that are constant are beauty, joy, wisdom, interconnection and love. They are available to us at all times. And there is some way in which those qualities are vibrating through us. They have created us -- we are them.

What sound healing actually does is bring those qualities to me so that I help others in the world. And if I am out of harmony with myself, that's when it really counts. That's when your religion is most useful -- when you are at your worst. Instead of being mean to myself, I try to love the personality who's in distress. I let myself be aware that I am the observer. I am the lover of the personality, rather than identifying with the poor little mind. That's what I do..
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David Ian Miller
During his far-flung career in journalism, Bay Area writer and editor David Ian Miller has worked as a city hall reporter, personal finance writer, cable television executive and managing editor of a technology news site. His writing credits include Salon.com, Wired News and The New York Observer.