In so many ways, I have the same life as everyone else. But I do keep changing what happens, reinventing myself, exploring. I haven’t had a real full-time job in 20 years. I’ve been a metalsmith, a writer in more businesses than I remember, an artist, a gardener, and those are just the jobs. What about the family, friends, relationships I’ve had and have?

What defines me? What do you think is most significant about me? And the answer to that is nothing. Nothing is significant about me. Nothing exists, nothing lives, nothing is; whereas comparison wears itself out leading us on a wild goose chase — who’s smarter, more loved, better looking, richer?

But if I cling to nothing, then I am fine. No comparisons, no fear. Nothing to be attached to, nothing to avoid. Nothing, but freedom.

Join me in freedom. Let’s make it this year’s resolution to live there. Because, like you, I’ve known it. And since we do know it, we’ve obviously got the blueprint. We just have to build it by living it — offering it to ourselves and others. Doing so together would work well, don’t you think?

But this morning was one of those times when I did get to play them , and that is always great fun.

I was trying to re-learn some sound mandalas I had created weeks or even months ago. I have about 35 written down. Now, as some of you know, I have no musical background. So I create a shorthand of the bowls’ names in the order I play them and write the mandala (musical sequence) in a vertical list.  Don’t ask me why it’s vertical and not horizontal; it seems easy to follow it this way.

So, a mandala may look like this:
GF
RO
BB
RG
RP
Car
GF
RO

Well, today I couldn’t remember all of one that I really liked, and I didn’t see it written down. This particular mandala had shown up the day I was to play for a cancer group’s retreat. I don’t recall a mandala appearing like that before, but when it did I knew it was for the group. The mandala begins with a sort of a soothing melody like a lullaby of three notes that repeat three times. That much I could remember, then it moves into another sequence, which was the part that stumped me. Well, I kept playing until I really liked it.

Then I looked at this one page that had all of these notations and I realized that those were the configurations for this second part that I had been working through all over again!

It was pretty delightful to see that history before me. The results were somewhat different, and I wouldn’t have changed the exploration for anything.

I sell both, and I have my reasons. Let me tell you a few.

Mostly, I love the old bowls because they’ve been handled and used. I love them because they were made over a hundred years ago and they’ve been carried forward. I love them because they generally have more complex sound quality, which is likely derived from their having more metals.

I am grateful for the new bowls, because they cost less and so I can offer an affordable alternative for people to purchase. I am often delighted by the clarity of the new bowls (I keep two myself for this reason), likely because they have fewer metals. I am also always a little in awe of new bowls because they haven’t been handled and played and so they will develop their first voice with their new steward.

So when we get to qualifiers like better and best, it’s good to take a step back. Ask yourself which kind of bowl are you attracted to — new or old? And why do you want a bowl? What do you hope to glean from being in the bowl’s presence and playing it or meditating with it? Then let yourself relax and see if you are drawn to a particular bowl or two. See if you can play it (some bowls will play for some people, but others will not). Experience and note how you feel when you do play it. Listen to both the gonging and rimming arias.

If the bowl is for you, you’ll know it. And often enough, the bowl chooses you, not the other way around. New or old, you’ll find what’s right for you.

At some point, I realized that if I was a receiver I must also be a transmitter. Otherwise, how could the sounds locate me?

But I wondered what was I transmitting?

People who work with light, talk about surrounding themselves with white light or golden light or working with the violet ray. I don’t know many people who work with sound, but we talk about “attuning.”

For me, that doesn’t mean I hum or attune to “middle C,” it means I somehow launch a part of my consciousness into space feeling its flightpath. And, as inexplicable as the trajectory is, that dispatch always seems to find its target. I don’t know how, but it does. I don’t second-guess myself on this.

I also attune to a group or an individual when I play the bowls. Somehow, I get a “read” on my audience or client – nothing verbal, just a felt sense, and then my core and the bowls know just what to do. I let myself be guided, and try not to insert my preferences or will. This trust seems to work, so the fact that I don’t have more information or analysis or interpretation I just have to let go of all that reasoning,. And so does my audience when they ask me how it works, and I say with all honesty, “I don’t know.”

So, as I explore this quality of attunement, in meditation the other day, I noticed that sound was emanating from me. Not that anyone else could have heard it, and not that even I really “heard” it, but I knew sound was moving from inside me to outside me. This was yet another development.

Prior to this genesis, I had noticed that sound had become veil-like, moving into and out of my physical body in these curtain waves that reminded me of the aurora borealis. And since the sounds I experience have evolved from a high-pitched straight line through my head to bell-like spheres several feet away and then to clouds surrounding me, this veil-like quality simply seemed like the latest version. Until now, and these sounds that emerge from within me to outside of me.

I’ll continue to explore what these emanations bring and whether I am able to hear them, or others are, and what they may sound like.  Stay tuned.

He loved the sound of the bowls and their vibration. He handled them reverently and listened closely to them. Clearly, he was tuning in to them. When I see that, I also believe that the person is being attuned. We gain a reflection of ourselves when we listen well, or perhaps we are just expanding our experience of awareness, which is limitless.

I have watched other people pick up shiny bowls, attracted by their looks. Sometimes, I encourage people to try the older, not so pretty ones with their deep resonance and complex tones. I didn’t have to say a word to this guy. It was all about listening for him.

Sight was dimming for him, but sound was not. And he was a great listener. When I spoke with him, I felt he was fully engaged. I had a sense that all of him was listening, like a radar dish, not just his ears. Clearly he was drinking in the conversation, unconcerned with visual distractions. But something more was occurring. Hearing and listening was in a different dimension for him.

The bowls always take me to other dimensions of myself and elsewhere it seems. I am exploring simply being aware these days. Resting in awareness and being active in it. But sometimes it’s easier to just close my eyes and experience what I feel or sense. I think this guy has already learned that lesson. I’m taking notes.

I think of how these bowls are never empty, even when they appear to be. Sound emerges from their seeming emptiness, and, even without sound, they are not empty. Just try sitting with one quietly, holding it in your hands, you’ll see what I mean. Remain open yourself. The more quiet and relaxed you become, the more you may realize from the bowl. Or the bowl may become quiet and still as well, inviting you further into the peace and spaciousness of stillness. You don’t have to believe me, just try it.

The bowls are open. They are always in the mode to receive, and, if filled, to pour forth. Are we as open and ready to receive?

And sacred, because they hold a form of consciousness, which is conveyed when they are played.The singing bowls produce amazing sounds which extend into the Universe. Their exteriors can’t contain them. We tend to forget that our own harmonies and dissonances have similar far-reaching effects. Our thoughts, our words, our actions are not contained in our minds, bodies or time. All have the possibility to enhance the Universe or not. How are we sounding today?

Since I began playing the bowls, little musical sequences of say 3 or 7 bowls emerged. The first ones were 2 or 3 bowls, blending sometimes to a chord, sometimes maintaining their own identity or creating a harmony. I remember when 5 bowls joined together to create a melody. I would gong or rim this combination or play both ways. This particular mandala remains a favorite of mine. Later, by adding a 6th bowl and playing the order backwards, I found a whole new pattern.

At some point I worked with 5 bowls, playing both forward and backward, pivoting on the same 3rd bowl. That particular mandala seems to open a portal for people.

Then came my playing a set pattern, followed by “random” notes, resolving to another set pattern. This mandala is one of the more complex ones so far. The colors of the bowls as well as the notes are gorgeous in this one.

In the last two months, a new mandala requires that a pair of bowls be gonged simulataneously and then another pair and another. The mandala begins with playing the rims of two gem crystal bowls (a rose quartz clear and a rose quartz opaque) and an old metal Himalayan bowl. Before this mandala, the gem crystal and metal bowls played separately. The Himalayan bowl leaves at some point, and a deep carnelian bowl joins the trio. Then a shift occurs to a sweet pattern of gonging the two rose quartz bowls and three additional bowls. After all this, I begin to gong a pair of bowls, then another pair, etc. The sound resembles the Bali gamelan. To me, an effervescence occurs.

Within the last two weeks I have started playing 5 gem crystal bowls as though they were a percussion section. Two gongs on a bowl here, then one gong, then one again, then two or three. The Himalayan bowls have often served in this way, but these 5 gem bowls are insisting on this.

I do sit with the bowls, and, together, we create these mandalas. When something arises that speaks to me, I try to write down the pattern. Sometimes the mandala changes as I work with it. Eventually tho, a particular set of notes and rhythms will evolve, and I memorize it with my body as well as my eyes and ears. I repeat it over and over until it comes naturally to me. Then, in concerts, when I’m in my semi-trance state playing and come to one bowl which directs me to another, the mandala releases in a beautiful pattern for you.

Other people can have the best job too. There’s more than one. It’s superlative, not comparative.

When I was a metalsmith jeweler, I had the best job. I was often surprised by the whimsical creations or beautiful ones that would come from my hands. The fact that an idea in my head could be translated by my sawing, soldering and polishing metal into a reality of its own amazed me. After a while, I learned that the chemicals involved didn’t agree with me, and I needed to move on. At about that time, I began to explore energy and spirituality and move into new areas. Luckily I had never given up my freelance writing business either, something I enjoy as well.

So when I met the gem crystal bowls I knew I had to play them. I had no choice, and I wanted to play them all the time. It was that simple. Call it what you will. It’s still that way.

At first, I would play the rims of two bowls blending their sounds together. That clearly helped people relax. Then I began to create what I call sequences (you can call them melodies/movements or even mantras if you like).  At first, the sequences involved as few as three bowls — rimming or gonging them. Soon I was incorporating five bowls in a pattern, and then making reversals in the order played. After that development evolved, once I finished a particular sequence, I felt called to gong various bowls as I was guided to do so. I would incorporate bowls that were not even part of the preceding mantra. That surprised me.

If you haven’t been to one of my concert meditations, the order of the sequences or mantras in a program is never the same twice. I don’t even know what bowl I’m going to play first until the audience and I get settled for the concert. Once the first bowl presents itself, the flow begins, and I rarely have a hesitation as I play. All the bowls need to know is how long they get to play. They take care of the order. I move into a trance state and simply flow with what I’m given. I try to stay out of the way.

Recently, another evolution has occurred. After I play a sequence, I may start gonging two bowls simultaneously. The sound is efffervescent, like bubbles emerging from the mantra. As a listener, you don’t have to continue to follow a particular sound, you can find added space instead. Pauses, as we know, can be as effective as any word or musical beat.   

I actually first started gonging two bowls together last summer, but it was for emphasis. I would only do it a maximum of once or twice in the whole program. Often it allowed dissonant notes to be combined, or it introduced a shift. This  evolution of the double gonging adds dimensions.

I am now a scuba diver moving into deeper waters. This reef is not dangerous, it’s beautiful as any in its complexity. Color, timbre, rhythm and melody all contribute to educating my awareness. My explorations continue further into resonance, frequencies and vibration. What could be behind this curve?

Come take a dive. The water’s inviting.

So when Duane says he has a ”box,” it means singing bowls are here! And it’s holidays all over again.

While I see photos of the bowls I buy and hear clips of them, meeting them in person is another experience. Usually, they exceed my expectations. Sometimes, they are all cleaned up, sometimes a bit dirty from their age and sitting in a warehouse or the shipping crates. Then I play them to hear their voices, and they are transformed.

It’s like walking in a forest and wondering who else has seen this trail, this bowl? Who else has heard its voice? And then I start to wonder who will meet this bowl and fall in love with it?

People often ask me how they will know which bowl is right for them? Should they select it by note? Buy a new bowl, an old bowl, a manipuri or a thadobadi? I often laugh, because it’s unmistakable when you meet the bowl that is yours. As a friend says, “You don’t choose the bowl. The bowl chooses you.” 

Twelve bowls have arrived. Now the fun begins all over again.

This task is one that requires me to pay attention, do it in any way that I like, but get it done. I often make the drive really clean — not just two tracks for my tires to follow. It’s very satisfying to have a clean drive, like sweeping the walk, much can be said about the detail to clear space.

Clear space and going within is where all this talk of snow leads to. A heavy can keep you indoors, especially if you’re not required to be somewhere.  And clear space is what the bowls offer. The sound they create sweeps away the extraneous. We can focus, not in an intellectual way perhaps, yet wholly engaged, we find our way to new discoveries, unexpected openings in our consciousness.  

When we can, it’s good to make the time to find some clear space. It may be with bowls or it may be a walk in Nature. Anything that allows our mind and emotions to expand and feel that sense of freedom. Try sweeping the walk to your house or its steps. It all works.