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Sound, Healing, and Consciousness 
A Study of the Nature of Reality and How We Shape It.
And, how this body of work, interweaves with it
 
One of an ongoing series of Articles  
                       ~~Zacciah Blackburn, PhD
                                            
05.21.14
   
This article is a partial outline of principles embodied in this field of work, and areas we explore within it.   It discusses my work, in ways I often do not express, as well as principles of sound, healing and consciousness, and the Greater Mystery of Life.
  
  
Through decades of conscious evolution, our work has come to encompass the broad origins and inter-relationships of, the use of sound, the nature of consciousness, and healing, and, indeed, the very fabric of reality.  From the fundamental indigenous perspective of the Living Earth and Cosmos, and our relationship with it, to the very nature of healing, and what it is, as well as the fundamental inquiries into human existence, ‘Who am I?’, and ‘Why am I here?,’ through this work, we explore and discover the nature of self-realization, the pathway to wholeness, and healing, and our relationship to All Life. 
  
With the very nature of sound, we come to understand the multi-dimensionality of human existence, and the methods to define, translate, and transcribe our journey within the fabric of that existence. 
We come to understand that sound is a gateway to consciousness, and a bridge to experience our greater existence within the Greater Mysteries of Life.  There are few, if any, maps to where we journey.  
  
The Shaman does not necessarily know how he or she sees into the dark.  It is a skill, or gift, of luminous wisdom.  For some, it is a skill developed over time.  For others, the veils simply disappear, or recede; or, the luminous worlds are seen, heard, felt, or, become tangible for reasons which may not be immediately understood, and, even, take a lifetime to unfold.  To him, or her, one does not necessarily perceive a differentiation in shadow and light.  They may become various tones or textures in the fabric of existence, but not tangible in the sense of something considered ‘harmful,’ or, ‘negative’, or something to avoid, by the common mind.  This allows him or her to navigate the waters of the lucid soul more vividly.  He (or she) does not need a map, or permission, in the contemporary form.  He or she does not seek validation.  For the true shaman, mystic, or spiritual warrior, the experience perceives beyond the mysteries of the common soul, and enters realities unknown to modern mind, or, science.   The mystical is beyond the realm of the normal perceptual.  This is what makes it mystical.  The mystic journeys beyond the boundaries of our common society, therefore does not seek nor need the approval, permission, or understanding of that society.  Rather, he, or she, seeks to lay the ground work for further exploration.  Even where it has been framed before. 
  
It turns out, that some of our greater explorers journeyed to and discovered lands that were already inhabited.  And yet, to this day, we revere them as heroes, only because they visioned, and dared to go, beyond the boundaries of societal convention. 
The earth is flat, and the center of our existence, for instance.  And, still, today, there are those who embrace these views.  Not that the Earth is flat, but that the mind is a continuum of existence beyond the paranormal, that global warming is not contributed to by human intervention, or, that compassion is not the braver and more courageous path for the warrior to go, nor that it produces results considered fruitful, or that it hold greater value than the prejudice that war or veracity might bring.  
And yet, to this day, where those explorers landed, we refuse to acknowledge or honor the wisdom or the methods of indigenous understanding, which hold world views only barely upon our horizon.  Should we choose to honor the origins of our very own cultures, every culture upon the planet arises from such indigenous understanding.  What we view as primitive, we come to find holds great value and wisdom in relationship to the greater Whole, and the greater good.  This does not begin to mention the peoples who built the societies of Athens, of Heliopolis, and Teotihuaca, whom all understood things many in modern culture believe primitive, yet they hold wisdom beyond our wildest imagination.  The sound (and healing) schools of Plato and Pythagoras alone would dampen our wisdom.  The geometries of Tiawanaka and Puma Punku baffle scientists to this day.  Not to mention the art of stone cutting portrayed there, beyond even our laser guided engineering.  How is it possible?  Yet, we continue to pervade myths of primitive stone cutters and their tools.  And, we ignore the lessons of mystics who walked the Earth, while supposedly revering them as gods among us.  “Greater things than these shall be shown.” 
  
About Sound
Within the qualities and use of sound, as a tool for the exploration of consciousness, the nature of the Cosmos, and our place within it, there resides a greater mystery than most of us are understanding.  Every culture on this planet utilized sound to access, explore, and cultivate (integrate) its wisdom.  With simple understanding, we can come to witness and understand these basic questions:
What is healing?
Who am I?
and 
Why am I here? 
  
Part II
The nature of healing. 
The nature of healing with sound. 
  
While our work goes more into the esoteric nature and origin of healing, we will begin with these two basic premises: 
1) Sound moves energy 
2) Consciousness fashions our perception of reality. 
  
1) Sound moves energy. 
Indeed, sound is moving energy.  It is energy in motion.  
Some would say, it is energy itself.
It heals through two fundamental precepts 
1)      It dissolves binding aspects of our consciousness, or assists in allowing us to release those agents and appearances of binding, or obscurations. 
2)      It aligns us with higher aspects of our consciousness, or existence, or attunes us to that. 
If we understand the nature of these two things, and the fundamental nature of the sound we are going to use, we can extract healing at its optimal level. 
Just at one small level of this expression, we look at the human emotional field.  The meaning of emotion is to move out.  By taking this fundamental understanding, we can ally with tools of sound generation to create impetus for that movement, such that stagnant emotions are finally discovered, touched, felt, and moved out, accepted, and realized the importance of their worth, rather than remaining hidden in some dormant or stagnant aspect of our biosphere, denied their existence or importance to our rational growth.  And yet, once experienced, we lose all attachment to their hidden fears, loss, abandonment, or lack of worth, and free ourselves to experience life, in this moment, to a far more full, complete, and fulfilling experience, with a greater voice of clarity and insight, far more able to choose better options in the next cycles of our lives. 
In the sound practice, we constantly monitor these two aspects of lucidity, dissolving that which binds, and aligning with that more ideal state of well-being, our highest and most essential nature of being. Indeed, if we are going to speak about healing, we need to discuss, at least for a moment, the very nature of healing.  For many, it is an obscure, or subjective experience, or reality.  I find many of us, even healing practitioners, have never truly, fully considered, or, defined the very nature of healing.  And, if we are to facilitate our own or another’s healing, it is of great benefit to have at least a fundamental understanding of this, for this creates the very road map through the process of healing.  Indeed, I tell my students, the pathway to becoming a healer is the pathway through one’s own healing; for, this allows us to understand, embody, and facilitate the guideposts on this great journey.  If we have not gone there ourselves, how can we possibly escort another (especially, as a professional service?)  But, what is the end result of the healing process?  When are we healed?  And, who determines this?  The full exploration of this is much greater than I am going to enter at this time.  But, in its essence, ‘healing’ means, ‘wholeness.’  This is the very root derivation of the word.  This gives us a perspective on our pathway to healing.  Our ‘healing’ resides within our ‘wholeness.’  The term ‘holistic,’as in the prhase‘holistic healing,’ is derived from this understanding of ‘wholeness,’ and the interconnection between body, mind and spirit, offering a more complete picture of our nature than the allopathic model of parts of a system.  All is interconnected.  One effects the other.  
  
But, moreso, ‘wholeness’ is derived from ‘holiness.’  Now this takes us an incredible step closer to the true essence of ‘healing,’ indeed, by the very definition of the word.  Healing means wholeness.  Yet, if ‘wholeness’ means ‘holiness,’ then it is through discovering and embodying our holiness, our divinity, that true and complete healing occurs.  We come a step closer to discerning, claiming and embodying our inherent birthright as children of the Divine, children of the Cosmos, and the co-creators that we are.   Indeed, when we discover this in its fullness, we discover that we already are whole, we never lost our inherent divine nature, and it is waiting for us, at all times, simply to discern and to claim as our own.  This indeed aligns with the principles of Tibetan Buddhism, which claims we are already ‘awake,’ we are already ‘a Buddha,’ and it is simply our imagination, or an illusion, if we believe we are separate from the inherent nature of One Mind, or Pure Consciousness, from which we all spring, and are all a part.  It already is so.  There is nothing to do.  We already are.  Hindu and Yogic mysticism is filled with equal self-realization, as is much indigenous wisdom, such as the Peruvian “Seed of Enlightenment,” we carry within us, our inherent nature, waiting to blossom.  Or, if we prefer the Judaic/Christian perspective, we can look at numerous phrases, such as, “I have said, ye are gods…” (Psalms 82:6; John 10:34); and, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (Corinthian 3:16.) 

We shall go much more deeply into this at a later time. 
  
I am speaking to this now, for it embodies the very heart of the second principle of working with sound:  attuning to, aligning with, awakening and embodying the higher pristine potential of our nature.   We learn and work with principles of these higher realizations and potential, of the very nature of consciousness, energy, and our relationship to these:  our higher dimensional access to utilize these principles, for our own growth and evolution, or with the collaboration of our clients, and, with the instruments we use to generate sound, whether that is voice, a crystal bowl, rattle, drum, or other musical instrument.   Principles of entrainment, resonant harmonies, and divine proportions, or relationships, are areas we have already explored, and will explore in more detail in the future, which are primary to this conversation.  How we weave these principles of sound, with the threads of intention, awareness, mantra, intuition, ‘seeing’, ‘hearing,’ prayer, and other tools of conscious interaction with the fabric of life, all will be explored in depth in later chapters. 
  
Choosing the Instrument 
In choosing the sound instrument, we first come into relationship with its fundamental nature.  
A drum moves, and calls, and we respond. 
                Who has not heard a drum in the distance, and felt compelled to follow the sound to its origins? 
A bell calls, intones, and aligns 
                It elevates our spirit to its highest singular proportions. 
                It harmonizes and energizes us with that higher vital proportion, or relationship
                It readily creates an atmosphere of spaciousness, which allows for our own lucid clarity to unfold from our higher potentials. 
A rattle shakes up, dispels, distorts, distends, or extracts.  Though, depending on the quality of its voice, it may bring forward a soothing rain of nourishment. 
It propels energy to move out of our body, or asks it to cascade down upon us. 
A crystal bowl emanates pure intention, and harmonizes our field with its subtle awareness. 
A didgeridoo calls upon our ancestors to give voice to the songs of Creation, and honor the ancient myths from which life arises.  We walk the song-lines of creation, and honor the ancestors, and, sing with its voice at their every intersection. 
The Tibetan cymbal or horn clears away the obscurations of our perception, and calls the vital essence of subtle reality into manifest form. 
  
The wise practitioner will develop his or her relationship to each of these instruments, or, the ones of his/her choosing.  And develop relationship with the fundamental nature and essence of creation and his/her place in it.  We develop skills in understanding the basic nature of the components of our human bio field, and how to build alliance and harmonious relationship with their elemental nature. 
We grow strong in this. 

The Infinite Mystery 
Our greatest ally is our own journey within the greater mystery of life. 
The pathway of becoming a healer is the pathway of healing, itself.  Or, the pathway of becoming a healer, is the pathway through one’s own healing.
It is important to understand and embrace this.  We are our greatest teacher.  While it is of great benefit to find a facilitator, or teacher, to guide us in our initial, primary journey, if we invest in the teachings outside of our own heart space, we can lose sight of our own gifts, knowing, and empowerments.  We have all we need within us.  The true teacher knows this, will deeply embrace this, and shall guide the student back into the path of self-realization, and empowerment.  As is the nature of education, which means, ‘to draw out of,’ so too the true teacher will guide one back unto their own inner knowing and wisdom, and empower each with the precious gift of self-seeing and being.
By understanding the nature of reality, and our place, and relationship, within it, we awaken our fundamental ability to assist others in their own evolutionary journey. 
What is healing?
What is the nature of reality, and what is my place in it?
Who Am I?
And, Why Am I here?

I cannot fully answer these questions for you, though I have my own experiences and perceptions that may be beneficial in your own pathway of self-discovery, and often has been for those whom have worked with me.  Yet, these questions are ones which each of us must explore and discover the depth of answers for ourselves.  I can share my experiences with you, be a facilitator and guide, a way shower, and gatekeeper (to the Greater Mystery.)  Indeed, this work has taught me very in depth realities about the Gateways of Consciousness, and the Gatekeepers whom hold vital relationship to those Gateways.  Be developing right relationship with those Gatekeepers, and understanding the principles of aligning with, and open the Gateways themselves, deep, crystalline understanding can arise from within that Great Mystery, for all of us in the experience. 
I, also, can, and have, devoted my awareness to explicitly comprehending the experiential pathways of the great masters, and steady my own feet upon the course.  For they have shown us, time and again, there is but one path to the Great Mystery.  And, that is through the journey through the Self.  And, I can deliberately set my journey, not only upon the one of self-discovery, but of service to others seeking the path.  The Great Teachings tell us, over and over, that the medicine, the healing, the path, and the perception are all One and the Same, that it is a pathway of Pure Perception and Pure Action, or Pure Awareness and Pure Joy, depending upon the tradition we are honoring.  Either way, it is the perfect union of Life itself, and Consciousness, Mother and Father, the Divine Masculine and Feminine, within us, as without. 
  
It is extremely beneficial for the Western Observer to understand, we cannot experience the Great Mystery by simply observing it.  Modern Science has understood this quirk (or quark,) of nature, since at least the time of Einstein.  In mystical, or esoteric terms, it is the very heart of the journey.  We cannot simply observe it, because we cannot remove ourselves from the experience.  We cannot remove ourselves from it!  We are part of it. 
And, the Great Mystery goes beyond the boundaries of common or cognitive understanding and knowing.  It cannot be explored by standard science.  It requires a deeper way of knowing, which happens to be the very origin and essence of the word.  It is the way of the Gnostic, the path of direct perception.  It is the Feminine pathway of direct knowing, intuitive perception.  Knowing is that which is directly perceived.  And, it cannot be translated or transferred in cognitive terms.  This is because it moves our consciousness beyond the realms, beyond the boundaries, of cognition.


This is very uncomfortable to the cognitive mind.  It wants to grasp, to have, and to hold.  It, also, wants to be the master, to be in control, of the experiential, which simply can’t happen if we are exploring beyond the realms of the common experience.  This may create the misperception of avoidance of science, even of some form of disrespect or aloofness.  I humbly put to you, that it is the scientific mind which more often does not recognize, honor or value the mystical approach.  This requires the intuitive mind, the mind of space, and the elemental potentials of space and ether in which the experience unfolds.  In modern terms, it is the Feminine mind.  And, again, the cognitive may not be appreciative of its inability to grasp that which is beyond its nature.  Its greatest service may be to surrender to the Greater Ocean, the Mother of Life.  Indeed, if we are speaking about understanding the very nature of the Infinite Mystery, it makes perfect, logical sense, that the logical, rational, cognitive mind cannot grasp it, for it must wrap itself around something, in order to understand it.  It must put boundaries around it to observe and ‘define’ it.  Indeed, to ‘define’ is to put boundaries around.  Thus, the cognitive can never understand or grasp the Infinite mystery of All Life.  It, simply, must surrender to the Great Mystery, if it has any hope of experiencing or understanding it. 
  
This has been shown, time and time again, in the realms of the mystical journey and esoteric wisdom.  It is not something new.  It is based in our oldest yearnings and wisdom. 
The Schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Vedic Yoga, and indigenous shamanism carry on these traditions and studies of that beyond our normal constructs of time and space, today. 
  
It requires grasping, or relinquishing, the understanding, that, while our perceptions of 3D science appear tangible and real, there are quantum ways of viewing and experiencing reality that move beyond its mold.  The human biofield and electric universe are but two aspects of that equation.  The infinite nature and potential of an infinite universe simply cannot fit into the binary view of a fixed or finite universe. 
The subtle chakras as components of the human energetics, and the rainbow body are subtle expressions of those quantum realities which have been expressed and realized in absolute terms of self-realization for eons, within self-perpetuating schools of wisdom, which mystify science.  And unfortunately, to the limited mind, when it faces something it cannot grasp, too often it claims, in terms of self-preservation, that it simply is not real.
In simpler terms, it has not, and cannot, experience it.
It requires absolute spaciousness to comprehend an absolutely spacious universe.
That which views itself as finite simply cannot comprehend the nature of that which is infinite. 
  
We must continue to explore the subtle nature of reality, until we can grasp, again, no, until we can experience again, that we are part of a greater and equally tangible universe.  That is, and has been, our quest since time immemorial, and remains, to this day, our greatest yearning.  
  
Discovery of Our Self is the single most obstacle to our greatest realization, and potential, as an individual, and collective humanity.  Our greatest adversity is the illusion that we are not part of the Greater Whole.  And yet, that very illusion is what keeps us from grasping that Greater Reality.

We are part of the Whole.
This is the single most part of this discovery. 
Consciousness is a tool far greater than knowledge. 
It is our consciousness that drives and creates our very perception of reality. 
Unfounded, it is a very fragile tool.
Fully focused, it has the power to create more than most of us can even imagine.

Indeed, we are far greater beings in the realms of luminosity than most of us have been told. 
We are far greater beings than most of us can imagine.
What is about to happen is far greater (and more joyous) than most of us can imagine.
 
--Maya High Elder 
 Greater works than these shall be done by you. 
Do you not know that you are Gods?
                --
Jesus 
You are the Buddha (Awakened One) 
--Gautama, the Buddha 
  
We have vast potential and wisdom.  Yet, most of it has not been tapped in this 3 dimensional hologram.
Many of us do not believe it, and yet belief is the very force which can make it so!

We have far to go in this journey of self-realization. 
And, yet it begins, and ends here. 
There is no further realization or necessity to dismiss this place for another, nor this self for another. 
We are here.
We are all that is.
We have all we need.
We are filled with the abundance, and are the purveyors, of all creation. 
 
We love you with great grandeur and illumination. 
We send great peace and blessings to you, and to your lives. 
May you discover, and re-affirm, your own grandeur, and beauty of abundance. 
May you come into the resonant core of your own truth, and being.
And, discover that there is nothing more to do.
 
Many blessings,
Zacciah