Large Bridging Bowl in Sycamore

Description

We have only ever made three of these 22-string Bridging Bowls. The first is with an orchestra in New Zealand. Another is with a Shamanic sound healer in Snowdonia. This one has the richest, most powerful bass-notes of any bowl we have ever made.

The Bridging Bowl is an exceptionally powerful sound-healing tool. The great depth gives them extraordinary richness of sound, while the cross-strung pattern raises vibrant harmonics in the upper ranges.

The pattern of dark pegging on one side and light on the other means that strings played on the light side are rooted in the dark – and the other way around, emphasizing how music, like health and harmony in the soul, is only possible where dark and light work together.

The wide variety of notes, from basso-profundo to soprano, touches all the innate harmonies of the human body. Tuned to the full diatonic Mixolydian mode, it reminds our subtle energies, the etheric or sound-body of their full range of expression, in both dissonant pain and joyful harmony, restoring our capacity to live a full life where unresolved trauma has shut us down.

Everyone who hears this instrument is moved to wonder. Many are quite literally moved to tears as their heart opens in ways they had almost forgotten it could.

Sycamore-Maple is the Mother Goddess of trees. This tree more than most. Though Sycamores generally survive less than a century, this one is going on two centuries. Yes, this tree is still alive.  She dropped a major limb in 2013, due to fungus getting into the joint. This allowed me to harvest over a dozen pieces without cutting into the tree.  This event also alerted the owners, (Hawkwood College in Stroud, a centre for new thinking since the 1950s!) to take special and particular care of this loving elder in their midst. She has been danced around, sung to and prayed over for generations. Further, she has always had a spring emerging from between her roots, an image of constant giving of vitality as only a mother can. We took this bowl back to the Mother and played her. The response was touching and deep, everyone there felt it.

The original client is no longer able to handle such a large instrument and has exchanged it for a smaller one. He has cared for it with love and reverence, leaving it in as-new, condition. We replaced strings, touched up the polish and, as you may hear from the sound attached below, offer it in full and radiant voice.

You can also see this one being played here

This is a very large instrument, and not for everyone. At 77cm wide by 22 deep with a flight-proof case 5cm larger all round it is heavy enough to have wheels on the corners, as shown.

Beyond any doubt, this one is, most fully, a Cathedral Bowl. Outstanding amongst its kin.