Retreat and Festival Offerings from Healing Song Vibrations:

 Sacred Cacao and Sacred Sound combine beautifully! In this fusion of the two, cacao is prepared and served to participants. They are instructed to meditate with it, smell it, and whisper to it while basking in the vibrations from the Root Chakra Singing Bowl. They are then instructed to drink it with intention and their full presence, to the tones of the Heart Chakra Singing Bowl. Once they’ve had time to finish their cacao, we will integrate with the Crown Chakra Singing Bowl as we sit with Mama Cacao. Following this, we will have a 10 minute meditation to the journey beat of the Shamanic frame drum, where participants can connect to their own inner wisdom and the wisdom coming from Mama Cacao. Because Cacao is a plant medicine with the energy of community, 30 minutes are left at the end for participants to connect, using authentic relating practices to start the conversation. This is a one hour workshop.

 This beautiful sound-based healing circle can be 60 or 90 minutes, depending on organizer  preferences. In the one hour version, Julia will introduce the healing Ra Ma Da Sa mantra. This leads into a 22 minute mantra practice. We follow the mantra practice with healing community: A time for participants to talk about the things they’re struggling with or their recent victories and support each other through it all. In the 90 minute version, we follow the mantra practice with a 30 minute sound meditation using instruments of your choosing, and then we sit in circle with a chance to express ourselves and support each other. This is a wonderful way to bond participants while providing nervous system regulation and deep inner healing!

 Everyone is born with innate healing energy, but many of us don’t know how to connect to it. We use it instinctually. When you bump your elbow, you immediately cover it with your other hand. When a child has a small injury, we kiss the booboo; this shows that we are aware on an instinctive level of our ability to generate healing for ourselves. This one hour workshop starts with a meditative mantra practice to awaken our innate healing energy and moves into a guided meditation to make us aware of the healing that flows through our own hands. Following this meditation, participants are instructed to experiment with healing touch on their own bodies, to experience their own power to calm and comfort themselves. The remainder of the hour is filled with a short crystal singing bowl meditation session while participants integrate their experience.

 Yogic practice has discovered that we can control our mental state using our breath. This one hour workshop experiments with breath to help us maintain the mental states that we desire. Yogic philosophy explains that we can affect our physical and mental state by isolating our breathing in our right or left nostril, or by alternating between nostrils. Using these techniques, we can warm or cool the body and signal the brain to enter a sharper or more restful state. This is hugely applicable to living a healthy life: Feeling foggy? Right nostril breathing can help you feel more awake and aware. Struggling to sleep at night, or to be receptive to the needs and opinions of those around you? Left nostril breathing can help you! Looking to achieve a balanced mental state? Alternate nostril breathing can do this! Over the course of an hour, we will practice 7 minutes each of right nostril (Sun) breathing, left nostril (moon) breathing, and alternate nostril breathing. We will stop between practices to note physical and mental changes and discuss the applicable philosophies. The goal of this workshop is to give participants a tool they can use to improve their wellness moving forward. 15-20 minutes will be left at the end of the session to integrate and meditate to the sound of crystal singing bowls or a healing instrument of your choice. 

 Self havening is a relatively new technique used for anxiety and trauma recovery. Doctors have found that specific types of self touch can place the brain in a Delta state. Delta brain states are most common during deep sleep. When we achieve this state while awake, we may see a variety of benefits including: enhanced creativity and problem solving, significant stress reduction and tranquility, a stronger mind-body connection, and improved quality of sleep. In this workshop, we begin by learning to use light touch on our own bodies to self soothe. Then we will move into two group practices to strengthen the effects of our self-havening practice. First, we will experiment with distracting our brains by creating lists while practicing the self-havening technique to distract the brain from present worries (for example, go around the room coming up with animal names that start with each letter of the alphabet). Next, we will experiment with self havening while singing or humming a mantra, explaining that this distracts the brain and stimulates the vagus nerve while signaling our brain to enter the deeply healing delta state. At the beginning of this workshop, participants will be asked to note their stress level on a scale of 1-10. At the end, they will note it a second time in order to really understand the level of benefit they have received. 15-20 minutes at the end of this workshop will be used to meditate and integrate to energy-balancing Crystal Singing Bowls or a healing instrument of your choice. 

 Sound baths are fantastic, but did you know that you can receive the same benefits on your own? In this one hour workshop, we explore the ways that we can calm and heal ourselves  using the vibration of our own voice. We begin with a segment exploring humming; we will learn to direct the vibration while humming to different parts of the body, with an explanation of the benefits of directing it to each area (for instance, did you know humming through your nose has been shown to be helpful in clearing congestion or healing a sinus infection?). Next, we will learn about mantra: What is it? Why does it work? After this, we will experience an 11 minute mantra practice that can be easily accessed on YouTube later for home use. We will end this practice with an exploration of group toning: An interesting group bonding experience of holding one continuous note together for an extended period that needs to be experienced to be understood! With the remaining time, participants will be given basic instructions on how to use himalayan singing bowls and tuning forks to treat pain and tension in the body on their own, before getting the chance to experiment with the instruments themselves to get a sense of what is most beneficial for them. After this workshop, participants should feel confident exploring the use of sound and vibration for their own personal benefit at home. 

 This one hour workshop is a great way to introduce your attendees to a variety of techniques that can regulate the nervous system, creating calm and mental well-being. Held at the beginning of a multi-day event, this is a great way to give event participants tools that they can use to integrate their experiences during the remainder of the retreat or festival In this session, we will explore box breathing for stress and pain relief, self havening for stress relief and trauma recovery, scanning the environment to make ourselves calmer and more present, and movement to release somatic blocks and achieve joy. In the category of movement, we include chi gong tapping to move energy through our meridians and basic intuitive dance (no prior skill necessary) to find our joy. Intuitive dance varies from the common experience of dance, in that participants are instructed to turn their attention inward, drop all concern of how they will be perceived, and simply move their bodies guided by pure intuition. After this workshop, participants will have a variety of tools that they can use and explore further, if so inclined.