 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. I'm Marcia Joyner and we are navigating the journey. Navigating the journey is dedicated to exploring the options and choices for the end of life care. Today we are doing a very special thing about four people, about people, dedicated to those at the end of life. Or think of their family or someone that's at the end of life. Something totally different than we've ever done before. And I also want to dedicate this show to my dear, dear friend, John Ratcliffe, who is in the process of this 60th chemo treatment. It's beyond anything you can imagine. So this is a special day, a special treatment for John and for everyone that's watching. My guest today is Leanne Phillips. And Leanne is the Executive Director of the Shimmering Sound Foundation. Is that correct? That's right. Let me tell you about Leanne. I don't remember when I first met Leanne. I don't remember the day. I remember she was sitting on this beautiful Persian rug with all these bowls spread around. And I'm trying to tiptoe around, trying to think, now I don't step here and I don't do this. And I had so many questions about the bowls. But once she started playing, everything just melted away, just the sound. So tell us about Leanne. What are bowls? I got so many questions. Let's start with, tell us about Leanne. Hello, Marcia. Thank you, Mahalo, for allowing me to be here to share the sound. So probably the most important thing to share is that we view sound for healing as long as humanity's been here. But if you go back 4,000 years back to ancient Egypt, that was where the first quartz crystal singing bowl was. And it was actually made of fashions, which is a type of glass. And it had hieroglyphics on it. Which I didn't know about that until I started developing a line of bowls that had mandalas on it. Because it amplifies the power of the sound. Is this what you call a mandala? Yes. And this used to be in hieroglyphics. And now it's an ancient Egypt that was in hieroglyphics. And now this is your design? Well, this is actually Tibetan in origin. I was just sharing about Egypt, because it's really the first documented bowl that was created for sound. So, but based on the research of Hans Yenny in the 1940s, he discovered that if you played a certain pitch, it would create a certain geometric pattern. And that sound was literally frozen music. So that when you place a mandala on a bowl, it amplifies the power of the sound. So that particular mandala is in, you could say it's in an Asian tradition, either Taoist or Buddhist. And it creates a field of consciousness, which is very close to healing, to support healing. So, do all of the bowls have different sounds? They all have a root sound. It's indigenous to this bowl and not this one. The sound is different. The sound is different based on the size of the bowl. And the timbre is different based on the material that the bowl is made with. So a small bowl will tend to be a higher note. A larger bowl will tend to be a lower note. But each note or each bowl, besides having one root note, like if you had a piano, then each of the piano keys has a note, but each one also has harmonic overtones. And that's where the sound healing really comes in. So each bowl has 16 harmonic overtones that the human ear can hear. So you're not just hearing a note per bowl, but the harmonic overtones are kind of dancing with each other. How beautiful. So with a person that we're talking about healing, do they just lay back, close their eyes, and absorb this? How does that work? How do they absorb this sound, this feeling, this power? Right. Well, that's a great question, because they do absorb some of the sound through their eardrums because each hertz or wave of sound equals the hertz. So if we have an 8 equals 440, then those vibrations are going back and forth 440 times per second. But the beautiful thing about the bowls, besides their sounds, is the largest organ that listens. It's your skin. So I had a regular participant at one of our sound healing meditations in Makaha say, I thought I'd try sitting in the back of the room and see if I could still feel the bowls. And I could. So it's a combination of sound, frequency, and also vibration. Music. It's music. It's music. It's music. Yes, yes. And so I read somewhere that music is, music is or the whispers of God. Would that fit with this one also? It fits with my experience of the bowls, because like anything, we have what's moving through physically, but we also have a prana or an energetic. And so I find that with the sound, the sound tends to go where people need it. Oh, okay. So it's everybody has a different experience based on their intellect, their own history, their emotions, their health issues, or the well-being of them. So tell me now, you have been, how long have you been playing? Do you play the bowls? What's the right word? Playing the bowls is great. Okay. Yes. How long have you been doing that? You know, I've been doing music for over 45 years. I'd say I've been doing the bowls for probably about 15. Has it been that long? Have I known you that long? Well, we've known each other about six years. Yes. Longer. Yes. So now the colors of the bowls. These are clear, but these colors, what does that mean by the color? Well, based on the research, we reverberate differently. No, it's a great question, because based on the research, when a bowl has either gold, titanium, platinum, or rhodium, because we have those elements in our brain, there seems to be a deeper sense of healing when the bowls are played. So this deeper color here is rainbow titanium, and that one's gold, 24 karat, glittery gold. This one is actually clear, and then the one that looks clear is actually platinum. This one? You can see that kind of rainbow timbre, rainbow, just a whisper of color in that one. And this one is which? That one's platinum. So I've just found that in general, when the bowls are made with those materials, people seem to have a deeper experience, a deeper positive experience. So that's the brain absorbs those elements that it already has, it kind of melts. It makes a connection, and I can give you an example. Many years ago, I played the bowls at the Smithsonian Institute in their gem exhibit, and we were asked to come in there and play the bowls for a few hours, because they had literally had a million people in that museum since 1860 something. And they wanted, the curator said, we want to clear the space. So at the time I had a ruby bowl, and so I went up to a ruby gemstone. And as I played that ruby bowl, the gemstone, the ruby gemstone lit up. It literally lit up. We played it to the topaz, the topaz lit up. So it seems to amplify the connection. So you can think of, we have quartz in a watch. Right? So quartz is actually making the watch run. So quartz is a conductor of energy. So we have the quartz, and then we have the different minerals or metals, and then they literally amplify the power of the sound. How did you get started in this? This is a thousand years of knowledge. Where did you get all of this? Marsha, my passion is music. I love music. And I stumbled upon these at a workshop in Colorado many years ago. And I just literally within a week of hearing when I had seven. And I remember a friend of mine saying, you can't just pick up anything as a hobby. And I remember thinking, this is not a hobby. This is something I just have to do. And then I just started playing with people and developing this method to help people entrain their brain states to slow their brain states so that they could actually go into more of an alpha-theta brain state, which is where we self heal. That's where we go inside and we do the work. Now you mentioned that you had played at a cancer center. How did that work? Well, I was initially brought in for pain management. So there's something about the bowls that when people do chemo or radiation, which is actually pretty painful. It is. I don't know. I think it is. No, it is. And so it was almost like an anecdotal study because I could see where they were at before they received the sound. And in this case, I placed the bowls on their person. I don't always do that. I can play them just like this and they're just as effective. But watching them let go through what we call the ascentic wave. So if you can think of if you injure yourself and say you injure your elbow, that cortisol will mostly go where your elbow is. So when somebody has something stressful like chemo, they are literally releasing stress hormones in that area. So what the sound can do is it can help release that cortisol and the body doesn't say I'm sad or I'm angry. The body says I'm hot, I'm cold, I'm prickly, I'm in pain. So when the body can be felt, literally feel itself through the sound. It can let go of that cortisol and it can let go of the pain. So it was just beautiful to see how people would respond so quickly and they would be out of pain. Wow. Now, because we are on the air, we're through all of this technology, through the internet, through YouTube, through all of this iTunes, all of these wonderful things, will that transfer? Yes. Wonderful. It does. It does. I do remote sessions in Taiwan, Canada. I teach through Skype in six different time zones and it's just like when somebody shares something that's so touching on TV, you feel it. Right. You feel it. It makes it through that. It's kind of like a matrix of consciousness. That's what's so beautiful about what's happening. So, well, we are going to go to break. You know, it's like all of these kinds of things. Everybody has a break. And then we will be back and Leanne is going to play. Is that the right word? Yes. Leanne is going to play the bowl. So we will be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. You can be the greatest. You can be the best. You can be the king. Come play and now your chest. You can be good. Talk to God. Go baby. I'm Marcia Joyner. We are visiting with Leanne Phillips, who is a sound. No, that's not the right word. How about educator? A sound educator. Okay. Now you were telling us about visiting with the cancer center and all of the things Well, not all of the things, but some of the things you've witnessed while you were there. People at the early stages of cancer, at the late stages of cancer and everything in between. Yes. Tell us if it's anything that really stands out for you with the bowls. I had one situation in Chicago at the cancer treatment center of America. And there was a woman who was really close to passing. And so I could tell she was in pain, but it was really more, she was very emotional before we started. So I just sat there with her, started playing the bowls on her. And as we started to journey together, I literally, Marcia, saw episodes of her life. I saw her on a swing as a little girl. I saw her graduating from high school. I saw her meeting her husband. I saw her with her children. And I'd never, I'd never been invited in like that on such an intimate level. And I realized after it happened that on a subconscious level, our soul is trying to remember the happiest moments of our life so that we can raise our consciousness. At the end of life, so that when we do transition, we go to a higher astral world instead of a lower one where we can have feelings of fear or feeling guilty or being hard on ourselves or judging ourselves. Well, at the end of, or near the end of the anxiety that so many patients go through, will that relieve the anxiety? I watched that with my mother, who was at hospice at home with us, the anxiety. And once we were able to relieve the anxiety, she went very calmly, very, very peacefully. Does this relieve that anxiety? It does, it does. With this one woman, I asked her if she had a swing in her yard because I just wanted to make sure what I was seeing was really her and she smiled at me. And she said, yes, thank you, I really needed that. So the other thing that we do that's also connected to sound to help relieve anxiety is reciting what we call a divine world prayer. And there are a few of them. One is in Japanese, one is in Sanskrit, one is in ancient Aramaic. And so with a combination of mantra, the mandala and the bowls, it can just help bring somebody peace. They need the peace because we came from somewhere else before we entered this body and we're going somewhere else when we leave this body. So we want to leave in a way that we have the joy and the appreciation and at least the peace and contentment that our life meant something and we have that love. Well, I would love to have you demonstrate for us the sounds of these gorgeous, gorgeous bowls. They say thank you. Please. Thank you. You have them placed just right, I noticed. Are they like the keys on the piano? Do they certain bowls go in certain places? Yeah, so each one has a space. Everyone has a place where it belongs and the sound. C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. So we have like a do-re-ni. Yes. But I have it in the pentatonic scale, which is more, it's the universal scale. In Western music, we tend to use the white keys of a piano. These are more the black keys, which actually most cultures feel the resonance with. Oh, this is just fantastic, especially this one. I noticed you. It is. Yes, I noticed that. Yes, oh, this is wonderful. Now, Leanne, do you teach people to play the bowls? Do you go to places for healing? Do people come to you? What are all the different things you do with these bowls? Well, I do teach. I teach people how to play their own bowls. I teach people how to play the bowls. And I do go to different places, China, Taiwan, and there they've incorporated sound as a form of meditation. Oh, of course. So I give a small teaching and mostly play the bowls to support the Buddhist meditation practitioners, find the spaciousness, and be able to sit for hours and hours and hours a day, which is actually a real honor because you can see people releasing so much so quickly so that they can enjoy their meditation. So, and then you said you would do a retreat in Makaha? I have a Thursday evening sound meditation that I do. I teach privately as well. And then I do different events depending on where I'm being called. I have a real mission, especially since the missile alert, to have people realize that sound is a profound tool to stay centered, no matter what is happening in your external world. Okay, so if someone wants to contact you to do the meditation, to the retreat, whatever, how do they reach you? I would say my email address, which is la at leandphilips.com, L-E-I-G-H-A-N-N-P-H-I-L-L-I-P-S.com. Do you have a telephone number? I do. Okay. 808-445-1296. Thank you. Wonderful. Well, Leanne, this has been a really special, special day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This is a real treat for navigating the journey. We have, this is week 67, and we have met all kinds of people from different cultures, religions, different traditions, and this is truly a new one for us. Thank you so much for driving all the way into town for this. Thank you. I love it. And we'll see you next time.