Your Ah Haa Moment: Healing with sound
[click "Play" for Susan's conversation with Jane Del Piero]February 18 and again on February 25, 6 – 8 p.m. at the Ah Haa School for the Arts, acupuncturist Jane Del Piero teaches a very special class about how to heal using sound.
Sound as a means of healing is a technique – or a variety of techniques – recorded in the ancient Americas, Africa, Greece, China and Rome and dates back at least to 5,000 B.C. In the Yoga tradition, which dates back roughly 4,000 years, it is common knowledge that sound technique used in combination with postures intensifies practice, helps focus attention, deepens exhalation, increases circulation to the organs and balances the emotions. Vowels and consonants (varna), pitch (svara) and volume (bala) are the variables to be manipulated to achieve different physical and emotional effects. Higher pitched sounds tend to resonate higher in the body and energize the system, while lower pitches resonate in the lower part of the body and calm. Louder sounds tend to awaken energy and direct attention outward, while softer sounds pacifiy and internalize.