I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. With this intention set and said aloud three times the sound healing began.
Visualising the walk across a field, carrying the heavy backpack that was put down at the edge of the forest, then wandering along the path before lying down in a shady spot near a stream was easy; I’ve started relaxation workshops like that before. It felt safe and familiar. Once the practitioner stopped speaking and started using the musical instruments the visuals kicked in and an amazing trip began. I was Alice in Wonderland, asleep in the forest, wearing her summer frock, on her side with an arm flung out. All through the experience I returned to check on her, looking down from above. I have synaesthesia (experiencing one sense as another; in my case seeing sound as pictures) which led to this astonishing journey.
I was 19-year-old me, striding down Elizabeth St Melbourne, arms swinging, loose and comfortable, off to meet a boyfriend. That confident, relaxed person was grounded in her world.
Then, behind my head, was a giant image of the Arthur Rackham illustration of the caterpillar, smoking a hookah, with mushrooms around, in vivid greens and browns. I was tripping.
From the humid forest world of Alice in wonderland I became part of a shimmering, rippling aurora borealis. I was part of the light, moving freely.
I was in deep space, vast, with pricks of light in the distance, feeling part of the cosmos. Again, there was the sense of moving freely, feeling comfortable, confident with where I was. There was some brief time on a space ship, just to check it out, yet the wide open spaces were what felt best.
Still Alice-me slept on. In her body I was aware that the music was inviting ethereal beings to come out of the forest to dance around me with their protective energy. Some discordant sounds—was it a threat—no, a different kind of grounded energy that was safe, and more beings kept me company in different dimensions.
I was in my brain at a cellular level. The cells were shifting from disorder, lining up in regular, evenly-spaced lines. The spaces in-between allowed the energy blocks to escape, freeing me up to do what I wanted unfettered by obstruction. I breathed into those spaces to help the blocks to dissipate.
The sound stopped and the practitioner, as she’d said she would, left the room, leaving me to return to my position on a mattress, warm under a doona, and amazed by what had happened. I’d been tripping, as if on hallucinogenic drugs, for 45 minutes, having wonderful adventures. The final images, of my neural pathways realigning, I will work on maintaining, to keep more order and productivity in my life. Synaesthesia is an astonishing gift that is only emerging in later life and it gives me joy.
Sound healing session by Nat from Wander into Wilderness https://www.wanderintowildness.com.au/