‘A new wave of the ancient’: Sound therapy heals body and soul and ‘drops you into place’
Jea’nah Jens takes a deep breath and exhales as she beats the horse-hide drum cradled in her arms. The deep vibration fills the room like it’s new air. The rhythm continues.
To Jens, a mystic shaman living on Spokane’s South Hill, the sound is a way to detox, to cleanse, to bring in healing and renewed energy.
Bells, rattles, crystal and metal bowls, tuning forks, chimes and other resonating instruments fill Jens’ medicine room where she performs various ceremonies, including tarot card readings and life coaching. Sound is always a key part no matter the reason for a client’s visit.
“Each sound has a different vibration and a different emotional content to support your journey,” said Jens, who began her work 40 years ago as an esthetician giving facials. She soon embraced shamanic works and the ancient use of sound for healing.
Jens studied with Tom Kenyon, a psychotherapist and musician who researches the effects of sound and music on the brain and behavior.
Sounds fills history: Om, the mantra of the universe. Tibetan singing bowls. Tribal chants and drums. Aboriginal digeridoos. Ancient Greeks using vibration to heal. Aristotle’s De Anima written in 350 BC detailed how flute music could arouse strong emotions and purify the soul.
Today science backs what healers have known for centuries: Sound has a direct influence on human brain waves.
“The body already has tools within it for healing, and we use sound to drop you into that place,” said Stefani VanDeest, who uses sound in the various modalities she offers.
VanDeest is a yoga instructor who recently completed a three-year training course in Hanna Somatic Education and opened Soulful Somatics at the Main Touch Wellness Co-Op in Spokane.
She specializes in a type of bodywork that focuses on neuromuscular retraining, helping people re-create a more organized pattern of motion in their bodies to relieve chronic pain and enhance athletic performance.
She uses sound in her somatic practice and is learning to incorporate tuning forks, which entrain the body’s vibration and restore its balance. Sound also is part of her yoga, usually in the form of a crystal bowl, and she offers sound baths to help people relax, meditate and heal.
Often, she follows the seven chakra frequencies that correspond to various areas of the body such as the heart chakra and the throat chakra. Seven crystal bowls match those frequencies. For example, the throat chakra is a G note. It is considered a bridge between the physical body to the spiritual.
“Sound healing has so many threads you can follow,” she said. “It’s all the power of sound and music.”
It excites her that science and the study of the brain are quantifying what mystics have been practicing for thousands of years. She said that will help sound therapy reach a larger range of people.
VanDeest bought her first crystal bowl six years ago on her 30th birthday. She wanted the throat chakra frequency to help find her voice and confidence to sing in public. VanDeest is in a local three-person ukulele band, Merry Makers.
When she attempted to ring the crystal throat bowl, it wouldn’t sound. Instead, she gravitated toward the B note, the crown chakra.
“It just started singing, this giant pulsating sound,” VanDeest said, recalling her awe and frustration because she really wanted the throat bowl. “It was really unexpected, but that’s just where energy and frequency took me.”
It took her five years of working with sound before she could get the throat bowl to play. That’s why every sound session is different. Jens said nothing stays the same, so frequencies are always varying, especially for your body’s needs.
Humans are connected to sound. We all know music can trigger vivid memories and transport us in time. Music therapy has been in the news lately with how it can help mitigate effects of memory loss due to dementia and Alzheimer’s. Sound helps people combat stress, improve learning and produce feel-good brain chemicals like dopamine and serotonin.
In Jens’ ceremonies, music helps ground people and prepare them for the session. Usually, she invites people to actively participate – pick up and play an instrument that grabs their attention. It makes no difference if the client has experience or talent.
She also uses sound to end the ceremony, sealing in the healing. “It goes to the cellular level and detoxifies what you store in there,” she said. “Whatever doesn’t serve you any longer leaves in the sound.”
Jeremiah Johnson is a longtime client of Jens booking sessions when he feels “stuck” or needs guidance running a couple of his businesses in Spokane.
“It drastically helps out my businesses,” Johnson said. “She’s a pretty incredible human being. She’s the real deal.”
Johnson’s ceremonies with Jens involve sound, most often her crystal bowls along with drums and sometimes bells. He said the sounds help set the tone, or intent, of the session.
“When I hear the crystal bowl, it definitely puts my mind in a different state,” Johnson said. “The vibration of the bowl I can feel all throughout my body. I couldn’t imagine doing it without sound.”
Jens has made many of her instruments, which increases the power and love of each because of the energy Jens puts into the instrument. One of Jens’ rattles is made of pheasant feathers, another of bobcat pelt and one of tortoise shell. Each has a different purpose.
After an ocean visit, Jens crafted a rattle of driftwood and shells, which matches the water emotion. The tortoise rattle is used for grounding and honoring Mother Earth and the bobcat to honor the Divine Feminine.
The horse-hide drum Jens gently beats is from a journey to Chile where she learned from the Machis, who are the traditional healers in the Manpuchi culture. She painted the four moon phases on the skin using horse blood from a Machi ceremony. The drumbeat represents the heart.
Jens said more people should embrace sound healing, especially in a chaotic world that’s moving too fast. “It’s a new wave of the ancient,” Jens said.