Crystal Bowls at 889

By Nicky Poole, Yoga Community Leader

I would like to thank all the people who came out to our special crystal bowl yoga classes tonight at 889.

Our friend Darren Hall, an accomplished and soulful yogi and sound healer joined us this evening in Lisa Barkin`s 6pm Yin yoga class, and in my 7:15 Slow Flow yoga class. Darren set his magnificent quartz crystal bowls in the middle of the studio illuminated by candles and artfully made these sacred bowls sing. The vibration from these bowls coccooned the entire studio (actually felt throughout the entire building) into a soundscape unlike anything you have ever heard before.

Lisa brought her students into healing Yin postures and let the bowls speak for themselves. I guided people through a gentle but deep flow yoga class with rythmic fluid movements, allowing people to move intuitively in sync with the natural peaks of troughs of sound. Crystal bowls can be felt throughout the fluid tissues of the body, in the pulsation of blood, echoing throughout the spaciousness of the body, through the cerebrospinal fluid, and deeply into the denser tissues including muscle, connective tissue and bone. One can actually feel the sound on a cellular level, as it reorganises and shifts accumulated toxins, trauma and emotions held in the energetic body.

In what might well be the very best savasana`s ever experienced at 889 (!), Darren added yet another layer of experience as he chanted, beginning with tribal sounds reminiscent of our common ancestors, and ending with Om Namah Shivaya, one of my favorite Sanskrit chants, which I sung too. We offered our collective sound back to Darren in appreciation, sounding three generous waves of OM and then all sat in peaceful silence to close.

It`s hard to put this experience into words. There was a lot of deep release in the classes, a restoration of energy, of faith, and trust in the more primal wisdom that we all possess, but rarely access. People left the room in slooooow motion, and sat quietly in the tea garden sharing their experiences with each other. I overheard people saying that their teeth were vibrating, that they felt like they were moving in water, that they lost track of time, and that they left the class feeling nourished like never before.

If you missed these wonderful classes, don`t worry. Darren will be back at 889 soon, (and regularly … hooray!), so you will all have the opportunity to experience yoga the way it should be felt, at the level of the heart. Keep your eyes open for announcements coming soon about our next collaboration with this gifted healer and artist. You can view an interesting video of Darren talking about his incredible work here.