Is there a link between
Sounding Bowls and Christmas?

The truly touching sound of a Sounding Bowl works deep into almost anyone. Their success in therapy, in hospice work, in neonatal intensive care has shown how powerfully they touch and open hearts. In people’s darkest moments there is a warmth and light in the sound that reaches where words have not, touching and releasing pains locked away for too long.
Christmas is about light in the darkest time of the year. For six months the sun got lower. For three days of solstice the sun stood still. Now on the 25th it begins to rise. The perfect moment to celebrate the unknown birthday of the God who showed by his deeds that Love is stronger than death.

Each human heart is the manger. We all are innkeepers who have not found room in our busy lives to accept those appearing as fools in need of help. Every day our lives are filled with so many things that need our attention, things that will pay us to attend to. Payments that Caesar will seize his share of. Sometimes we have been able to find a little stable to lend. Sometimes we have slowed down enough to notice the human need in the person asking us a favour, to notice that we can, on this occasion offer something simple, something almost too lowly to be of value, yet on this occasion needed. Now in this darkest moment light is born in that place. Love floods silently through our lives from this birth. We have the option to notice, to bow down to this miracle: That in the darkest moment love is born anew.

For some people turning aside from the pressing needs of daily struggles to make a tiny moment to play rich and gentle music, not a skilled performance, just glowing tones for now, for some people that has been a moment like Christmas. New births have been numerous among Sounding Bowl users this year. Hearing that sound hearts have overflowed as the recognition of Love within them has mysteriously been confirmed by the sound of a Sounding Bowl.
Amazingly this has happened more times than I can say. I have witnessed a few, have heard of more. I have letters describing Grail experiences, describing how profoundly important that moment was. I remember voices telling me of changes in health, of the rebirth of hope, of moments of joy in a wasteland of pain. People discovering regular play becoming a doorway to that place where love, hope, joy are born again. In a year of frightening news these little miracles are truly happening. It is in the moments of darkness that the heart awakens. Love is born again, today, any day, Especially on that day when the light begins to return.

Sounding Bowl number 1

Sounding Bowls bring joy, love, hope into individual lives because their very existence is a miracle. I had given up doing anything with the remarkable acoustic curve I had accidentally discovered and had to be prompted by an image occurring in my meditation. There began a journey to follow this star and to be present at the birth of the first Sounding Bowl and from there the travail went on as each new Sounding Bowl became just a staging post in my desire to kneel at the cradle. Bit by bit the love began to flow through and to reach others. A hospice bought a Sounding Bowl, another went to work with children with special needs, slowly more and more places of need in human life discovered the strange transformative nature of Sounding Bowls.

This year Sounding Bowls have journeyed and been played world wide. Burma, Canada, Australia, Japan, France, Scotland, Pennsylvania, Germany. Workshops for discovering just what is flowing through here have been held in many places. Next year there will be even more.

Turning towards Love is a daily work. How often is the knock on our door a request for help? How often do we need to choose between providing what is required for our lives and helping someone who may be a hidden bringer of Love into our lives. How do we choose to balance all the competing demands of being human? * Caring for the daily birth of Love in our own hearts, *Celebrating those moments with others, *Practising gratitude for the bounty we personally have. All these are aspects of Christmas that we can spread into daily life. This moment of birth is a moment of glory, a moment too easy to miss in our worldly wisdom of cynicism at the errors of others. Accepting this moment of birth can lead us to an inner Easter experience as well, but that is another story. Enough for now to celebrate the Beauty, the Joy, the Love. Three things that can transform. Three things that we strive to serve in the work we do here making Sounding Bowls.

Sounding Bowl 500

We chose a piece of Wonderful Walnut with Wings for our 500th Sounding Bowl. Joe Hornby has been turning, sanding and fitting copper tubes ready to create a 15 string Lyre Bowl that will stun you with its dramatic grace. You can get some idea of the winged figure that graces this piece from the photo at top where Joe is applying the first coat of oil or here just before second coat. There are many stages still to complete, but I invite you to imagine the full glory of the figuring and colour from these initial glimpses. This will be a memorable classic among Sounding Bowls, half our first century as well as stunning grain and that rich Walnut sound making a splendid present for someone with taste.

Bowl 503

           May your Christmas be a new birth of Love
in every aspect of your life