Sing Love into Being, a Lyre Bowl in Red-Sycamore

Description

Sing Love into Being is a totally unique instrument.
Her name was given by the healer, teacher and speaker, Edwin Courtenay, who commissioned her back when I was young, reflecting for both of us the deep meaning of our work in this world. Edwin witnessed wonderful events with this bowl, white light pouring out of her into many hearts. Life moves on and Edwin has now released her to sing in other lives.

The Ogham lettering carved into her rim speaks her name in this ancient Irish-Celtic carved-alphabet in which each letter also bears the name of a tree and, like runes, has specific meanings of its own.

Sing Love into Being is made from Red-Sycamore. This extremely rare condition occurred in a stand of Acer Pseudoplatanus trees in a valley on Dartmoor’s western edge. It is not fully understood what causes the timber to produce pinkish bands, but its spread through a whole stand suggests the cause is either fungal hyphae or mineral deposits. As far as I recall this is the only Sounding Bowl in this timber. Mellowed with love-in-use and fully restored and upgraded with the latest strings Sing Love into Being is in better than new condition.

Sycamore is a Jovial tree. The sound of Sycamore, if one listens inwardly to one’s own soul-response, embraces one in goodwill, comparable to the wide leaves and long limbs of her spreading nature. The ‘red’ condition gives this an extra gentleness.

Larger than other 7-string lyre bowls. she has a strong and open voice, as you can hear below. The Hebridean Pentatonic scale is the one used by those who developed the Ogham script. For thousands of years these five notes guided much of western European culture and survived in the work-music of the Scottish and western isles right up to the end of the C20^th.

Today the absence of dissonance in this scale means that anyone can make this bowl sound good, with no fear of ‘hitting a wrong note’ There are no wrong notes in this scale, everything sounds harmonious. Many Sounding Bowl owners, before they chose one, used to say “I’m just not musical.” The expressions of Joy when they find that such a bowl as this one sounds good in their hands litter my career like jewels.