The Music that Healers Hear
with Silvia Nakkach

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
Everything sings: plants, animals, waterfalls, bones, people, stars, rain-even silence. The shaman hears hidden music and sings it back through "medicine melodies," simple tonal configurations that reflect a sacred unity with nature and have the power to heal body, mind, and spirit. Many people are visited by such melodies-as if spontaneous transmissions from the spirit world are "singing in" to the person rather than the person "singing out." Medicine melodies can be found in all traditions and on all continents. In this workshop, we take a musical journey through many cultures, from Tibetan prayers to the icaros of the Amazon basin, exploring how spiritual melodies and rhythms make potent medicine. This workshop is for anyone who longs to work more knowingly with music and the voice. You bring home a repertoire of medicine melodies, as well as guidance for developing your practice of "singing in." Bring an instrument if you have one, and a journal. ABOUT THE PRESENTER

Bring your own Lunch

READ MORE:
http://www.voxmundiproject.com/medicine_melodies.htm

Click to Download our specially beautiful flyer

Silvia Nakkach, MA, MMT, is an award-winning composer, music healer, and pioneer in the field of sound and transformation of consciousness. She is the founding director of Vox Mundi School of the Voice, dedicated to teaching and preserving sacred musical traditions. Silvia has collaborated with shaman and cosmology centered practices from many traditions since early age. She is a professor at the Integrative Health Studies, and the academic advisor for the Sound, Voice, and Music Healing Certificate at CIIS, and studied Hindustani music for more than twenty-seven years with the late maestro Ali Akbar Khan.

- Admission Interview is Required -

The Yoga of the Voice
TRAINING SEMINARS
at The Voice Loft, Emeryville

April 6-8

Focus on: Song Writing, Vocal Impediments, Spontaneity in Performance
Repertoire Development and Self-Confidence& Recording

Focus on: Embracing the Shamanic Power of the Voice
Where is your longing....
How can be explored and vocalized....
How you can selflessly craft your capacity to service others through sound and song....

Silvia in Bahia by Meridian
master photographer Meridian can be reached at travellygirl@yahoo.com

Weekend also includes:

Freeing your Voice: techniques to overcome impediments
Learn Shamanic Chanting & Medicine Melodies accompany yourself by drums and percussion
Open your Heart through Devotional Singing
The Art of Vocal Meditation and Divination
Reviewing of the 108 Vocal Strategies for Improvisation -
Building a repertoire of Shamanic Chants, Incantations & Icaros

Yoga of the Voice™ Certificate

This weekend is a module that applies for 20 hours towards the Yoga of the Voice Certificate

• Certificate Students are highly recommended to attend to this class

• Students can chose to take each module independently or towards the Certificate.

* Everyone is welcome to attend any of the modules. No experience is required.

* Advanced Registration is recommended and required

Yoga of the Voice Certificate
100- hour __(Level 1)__
From The International Vox Mundi School

ADMISSION & REGISTRATION FEE for the CERTIFICATE (one time only): $300

Admission interview is required, the interview can be processed by phone.
To complete the Certificate students must complete 3 weekend seminars and a week-long retreat.
Each weekend offers 20 hours towards the Certificate
Student accrue 30 hours during the week long retreat in Santa Cruz
and students can also accrue or accumulate HOURS by taking:
~ Study Abroad travels - accrue 30 hours - to Japon, India, Brazil, Morocco, or any group study offered by Vox Mundi Project
~ Taking four weekends and a special individual project - this is a special option for international students, or students from out of town.
~ Students from out of town may apply for a customized schedule of classes that includes special individual projects.

To obtain the Certificate all students must complete an midterm integration paper and CD, and a final individual project.
The 100 hours Certificate must be completed in no more than 18 months for local students and up to 24 months for international students

For Inquires about the Certificate please contact our office at 510- 595 0819

(*) Tuition for Santa Cruz Week-Long Retreat please check further details on the Program Page

“I invite you to the great adventure..” The Mother
THE YOGA of the VOICE
The most accomplished Program of its kind

Integral approach engaging
Body-Mind-Spirit
East/West/ North & South Wisdom
Sound Science
Spirituality
Sacred & Unusual Vocal Arts
Devotional Chanting
Healing Power of Music
Cross-cultural Music Therapy
Shamanic Wisdom
Transformation of Consciousness
Repertoire Development
Improvisation
Cutting-edge Faculty

What is the Yoga of the Voice?

Unlike any other program, the yoga of the voice™ integrates the transformative discipline of yoga with contemporary techniques of chanting, sound healing, music therapy, improvisation, and voice development as a gateway to connect with our true energetic nature. Students discover scientific, intuitive, and creative ways to address any voice impediment while learning new skills to build a solid sound healing practice.

The 100-hour Yoga of the Voice Certificate program is nurtured by a powerful musical lineages providing cross-cultural and stimulating education on the therapeutic, artistic, and transcendental uses of sound, with a renewed spiritual emphasis.

The seminars offer an in-depth study of the different dimensions of the healing voice: the contemplative, the expressive, the shamanic, and the ecstatic. Students learn to embody the quality of singing that transforms energy patterns and emotions, affecting consciousness more efficiently than any other form of sound. Participants become familiar with uses of sound and the voice in yoga, complementary medicine, energy healing, education, performance, and as spiritual practice. The experience supports the aspirant creative and professional path, inspiring deep healing and compassionate insight.

What I will be studying?
Areas of Study

• Sacred Music of The World
• Devotional Chanting & Mantra Medicine
• Shamanic Voices
• The Art of Melodic movement, modes, raga & rasa
• Voice development & The Art of Improvisation
• Sound, Chant, & Music in Healing/ Therapeutic modalities
• Professional Applications
• Repertoire Development
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• Nada Yoga, Kirtan, Bhakti Yoga and Tibetan spiritual music
• Afro-Brazilian healing songs • Deity invocations • Chants from the Amazon • Sufi Chants • Sonorous & melodious Yogic Practices • Magic seed-syllables • Tuning • Vocal Embellishments • Toning • Resonance • Ancient breathing techniques• Chakras and Subtle Energy Systems • Body postures and Sonorous Mudras • Vocal Meditation • Overtone singing • Contemporary extended vocal techniques • Mystical uses of sound • The effect of sound on the body, the brain, and the mind • Sound Tools as Drones, Tuning forks, bells, and drumming, and digirideu • Intuitive playing skills with simple instruments • Sound and Movement • Conducting sound rituals • Ongoing chanting groups & Music and Sound Healing circles

What can you expect to obtain from this program?

• Personal transformation through a sound
• Practice chanting & music as a sacred art
• Conduct rituals & chanting and study groups
• Access higher states of creativity and liberation through sound
• Learn innovative healing modalities to ‘open’ your voice through ancient breathing and sonorous yogic practices.
• Discover how certain sounds, musical intervals, scales, rhythms, and chants impact specific areas of the brain and the body
• Free oneself from any personal memory of vocal constraint empowering one’s confidence and the readiness to sing.
• Build a practice of chants and sounds that clear, tune, and stimulate the brain and the energy of the charkas.
• Identify ways to transform energy patters and emotional states.
• Learn how to employ musical instruments as healing tools,
• Realize which musical culture awakens your ancestral musical lineage
• Build professional collaborations/networking/ guidance/ tutoring
• Embody divinity through sound, enhancing vitality, and fostering a sense of well-being, openness, and love.
• Become a Certified Sound & Voice Practitioner

Who Should apply?
Musicians & singers, yoga practitioners, health care professionals, clinicians, singers, sound healers, somatic and music therapists, body workers and spiritual seekers

How can you apply this Program?
E-mail or Call to request a phone or personal interview
voxmundi@yahoo.com & (510) 595 0819

About the Program:

Like shamans, yogis, and mystics, today’s sound healing practitioners use sound, music, and the voice as gateways to transcendence and the exploration of consciousness. Integrating science with the wisdom of sacred and aboriginal sound practices, Silvia Nakkach and the Vox Mundi faculty lead participants in an exploration of the role of sound, voice, music, and intention in assisting psycho-spiritual insight and healing.

Merging sound and music therapy practices with the traditions of Indian, Tibetan, and Afro-Brazilian devotional chanting, students learn innovative forms of vocal improvisation, shamanic songs, and divine utterances. Participants will experience an innovative and unique cross-cultural model for using sound, voice, and music in contemporary therapies, with an emphasis on integration and spiritual renewal. In this fascinating seminars information meets inspiration towards a precise and powerful integration in the practitioner personal and professional practice.

With the fast emerging field of Sound and Music in Healing it becomes increasingly important to understand more about how sound and chanting can support therapeutic and growth processes. This program offers an in-depth study of the use of the voice, chanting, and the music of cultures that use sound to transform consciousness and realize healing. The Intensive Certificate is the only of this kind, providing the students with mindful, integral, and stimulating education in an optimum intimate environment for personal and professional development, learning about both practical and transcendental uses of sound, students will be able to go deeper into the experience of the transformative power of sound and the voice.

Using the voice to transform consciousness and promote healing, students will learn a selected repertoire of chants focus on distinct uses of sacred sound from Afro-Brazilian chant, Amazon healing songs, Indian ragas and mantras, and sonorous yogas (ancient yogic practices involving sound). Vocal improvisation, voice range and tone quality are also part of the curriculum of the intensive.

Discovering how through the practice and application of certain sounds, musical intervals and scales, rhythms and chants is possible to impact specific areas of the mind and the body, recognizing immediate ways to transform energy patters and emotional states.

Learning to cultivate familiarity with shamanic forms of vocal expressions and sonorous yogas, such as toning, tuning to the divine energy of seed syllables, invocation, mantras, medicine melodies and vocal meditation and to be able to incorporate these therapeutic practices in daily life and professional practice. Being the finest objective to experience divinity through sound and the devotional nature of sacred chant.

Providing an in-depth understanding of how the integration of chanting, movement and shamanic cosmology becomes a practice of personal empowering and inspiration, realizing improved vitality and spiritual liberation through sound.

Students will discover which musical culture opens personal doorways to open the voice and sing more, experiencing how group chanting encourages kindness and respect for other cultures, traditions and life.

Course Format and Activities

Lecture, discussion, experiential chanting, audition of selected discography, video and digital recording projects, written questionnaire reviews, home assignments and supervision, individual projects, including optional tutoring and internships.

Limited Space Available

- Admission Interview is Required -

Conscious Living Workshop

Medicine Melodies

Music as Spiritual Medium

with Silvia Nakkach

Medicine melodies are simple tonal configurations that reflect a sacred unity with nature and have the power to heal body, mind, and spirit.

Empower your shamanic, psychotherapy, and sound healing practice while embarking on a magical musical journey. Like the shaman that hears the hidden music of the Universe and sings it back through medicine melodies, many people in our own culture today are visited by such melodies—as if spontaneous transmissions from nature or the spirit world are “singing in” to the person rather than the person “singing out.” Experience the emotional magic that comes from singing the Icaros of the Peruvian Amazon and indigenous traditions from India, Brazil, and beyond. Feel how this music clears and opens energetic channels, becoming a gateway for divination and love. Through guided trance states, drumming, and chanting you’ll gather a fantastic repertoire of medicine melodies to use in your healing sessions, as well as guidance for developing your spiritual practice of “singing in.” Master drummer Val Serrant (Trinidad Tobago) will provide instruction and percussion accompaniment. READ MORE

Participants in this weekend workshop will:

Audience:  Musicians, spiritual seekers, sound and music healers, music therapists, psychotherapists, shamanic practitioners, yoga teachers, wellness practitioners, and singers.

Includes Special Event Friday evening:

Silvia Nakkach, MA, MMT, award-winning composer, former psychologist, author, and pioneer in the field of sound transforming consciousness and music shamanism, is the founding director of Vox Mundi School of the Voice, and assistant professor of the Sound, Voice, and Music in Healing studies at CIIS. Her interest in indigenous music cosmology and spirituality has led her to collaborate with renowned shamans from Indian and South American shamanic traditions. For more than 27 years, Silvia has studied classical Indian music with the late maestro Ali Akbar Khan. A new album (Medicine Melodies) and her new book (Free Your Voice) will be available this summer by Sounds True.

Val Serrant is a steel pan/traditional drummer from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Serrant frequently performs and teaches about Caribbean music in schools and is also a member of Afrika Heartbeat, founded by Sikiru Adepoju. A great friend of the late Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji and culture worker Constance Williams, Serrant believes in being a positive force for change in the community.

Registration

http://www.noetic.org/events/2012/3/medicine-melodies/

MORNING RAGA 
with Silvia Nakkach

Master Series for Advanced Practitioners 
Includes Nada Yoga - Refine tuning Practices
Dhrupad & Light Classical styles. 

Vocal Improvisation &
Yoga of the Voice Practice
Includes: Dhrupad style and Raga Singing

with Silvia Nakkach

and Vox Mundi School Faculty

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:

Vocal Improvisation based on the 108 Strategies To Free Your Voice Into The Core of The Raga & Rasa System

Into The Core of The Raga & Rasa System,
We explore the architecture of music and emotions through the Art of Melodic Movement and through deepen the healing power of Mantra Chanting.

The ragas are the most important link to the essence of Indian classical music. The appreciation and experience of the raga becomes profoundly meaningful to spiritual seekers as well as to the trained musician. The word “rag” is derived from the Sanskrit “raga” which means “color,” or “passion.” Ragas, therefore, may be thought of as an acoustic method of coloring the mind of the listener with an emotion. Ragas are not just musical scales or modes, they are described by master musicians as divinely inspired melodic entities.

This class focuses on the main characteristics of several ragas by cultivating familiarity with the pitches and tonal movement of the alap or their introductory melodic phrases. We will discover the beauty of the shrutis (micro-tones that are revealed in the space between the notes), and the transformational power of the rasas (a rasa is that which gives “taste” to the mind), which relates to aesthetic sentiments such as love, joy, devotion, wonder, heroism, peace, and detachment evoked by the rendering of the ragas.

We will experience raga-based styles of devotional chanting: Dhrupad singing, Saregam, Khyal and Kirtan. Students will be able to appreciate different ragas, create a vocal practice, learn about vocal technique, and get acquainted with various modalities of music healing applications informed by devotional chanting. Ragas are the greatest music teachers, because through the traditional practice of call and response, these awakening melodies stimulate our memory, while refining our senses deeply and delightfully.

Ragas are not just scales, ragas are inspiring melodies that have the power to refine your voice quality, balancing our nervous system, shifting our emotions, and transform consciousness
immediately, deeply and delightfully. Ragas are "alive", have no history since they are renewed each time they are performed, becoming the best music teachers.

Musically, Ragas may be thought and referred of as an acoustic method of colouring the mind of the listener with an emotion. The ragas are melodic arrangements. Their origins is ancient and sacred, they were composed by celestial beings (the Gandharvas) and channeled by Shiva to Indian Masters and lineages of musicianship through oral transmission. There are 75.000 ragas and they developed through a modal structure. The slow development of the melody is the heart of this music. The haunting melodies an the microtonal intervalic logic are regarded as the “color of the mind” , being the result of tonal arrangements ruled by cosmological and aesthetic laws related with dimensions of light ( i.e.: night and day ). A raga is complete when it achieves its tonal taste or “rasa” (savour, feeling, essence or juice) which is another element in classical Indian music.

Rasa is perceived as a sentiment, which could be described as an aesthetic emotional experience. Although rasa is unique, in practice we distinguish several “savors” according to the emotion which colors it : erotic love, pathetic, devotional, comic, fearful, repugnant, horrific, heroic, fantastic, furious, peaceful. The individual feels immersed in that mood to the exclusion of all else including himself. Thus, aesthetic experience is a transformation of not merely feeling, but equally of cognition, “ a condensed understanding in the mode of ecstasy “; the ecstasy of the intellect, an ecstasy itself inscrutable and illuminating. In the Vedas the experience of rasa is described as a flash of super-worldly blinding light, which appears to whom the knowledge of ideal beauty is innate and intuitive. It is an experience impossible to analyze.

We will explore the meaning of rasa through images of taste, relish, essence, something like the nectar of the fruit, the best or finest part of it. It is like perfume, which comes from matter but it is not easy to describe or comprehend, since has non-physical properties, often yielding pleasure. In its subtlest sense, rasa comes to signify a state of heightened delight, the kind of bliss that can be experienced only by the spirit ( “ananda”). It is a pure delight that only the presence of a work of art can make as feel. It is perceived as an emotional pleasure, which Hindus refer to as the “taste of the mind”, or the delight of reason, an inspiring energy which is experienced by sharing a feeling and suddenly understanding the essence of a work of art. Therefore, rasa describes a state of enhanced emotional perception produced by the presence of musical energy and is applicable to all creative expression, being particularly powerful in the art of healing with sound and music.

Through the system of raga/rasa practice as one experience, musicians and students at diverse stages of musicianship are able to connect with their creative expression in a deeper and most comprehensive level, because the music is felt deeply in the body and mind as it is played. If the teacher is well trained by direct lineage of raga masters, the ancient and healing energy within each raga is transmitted and permeates the room as a musical entity. Students develop enhanced intellectual focus when approaching each note, and each sustained note is felt as a universe of meaning, tone, and feeling. There is an inner relation that becomes always anew and revealed between two notes (swaras), and the way we connect and ornament them through the performance of shrutis or micro-tones. Raga singing brings vocal music and the voice to a higher level of refinement, tuning and appreciation.

Ragas are -without doubt - the Guests of Honor in the Feast of Inspired musical expression. Don't miss this opportunity to be nurtured by the most precise cosmic music available to humans.

(We will offer four -classes series resuming in June and July - and ongoing practice series for returning students.)

Silvia Nakkach, have studied Hindustani music and raga singing under the direction of maestro Ali Akbar Khan since 1982. Among other masters, she has also studied Dhrupad singing for many years with Dr. Ritwick Sanyal in Benares, India, and with Yvan Trunzler. She have developed special qualities for the teaching and the interpretation of the alap (invocation or introduction to the picture of the raga with still no rhythm), as well as in the distinctive tonal characteristic of each raga, and its relation with rasa and consciousness transformation. She helps students to cultivate and sustain a devotional music practice.

To read more about this topic go to RECOMMENDED READINGS in this site to:

• RAGA YOGA
• RASA, INTO THE CORE OF MUSIC HEALING, by Silvia Nakkach, M.A., M.M.T.

Bibliography:
• The Classical Music of North India, by Ali Akbar Khan, edited by George Ruckert
• My Music, by Ravi Shankar

ALL PROGRAMS REQUIRE PRE-PAID REGISTRATIONS

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The Sruti Box Essential Workshop

Introduction & Instruction on:
How to Set the Drones and Use it (Tonic, Tone & Tuning)
How to Sing with it (Techniques)
What to Sing with it (Repertoire)
How to become familiar with at least Three Ragas (Raga Singing)
How to Listen and Sing the “srutis” (microtones) with it (Ornamentation)
How to accompany other Instruments with it (Orchestration)
How to Create Music with it (Composition)
How to Improvise with it (Improvisation)
How to Listen and nurture Silence with it (Meditation)

Please Bring YOUR sruti box – if you have it
It will make a huge difference to your learning process


This Sruti Box 3-hour workshop has been set as a request of many students and musicians that had the privilege to purchase a sruti box. It is also especially addressed and beneficial for our Yoga of the Voice Certificate students and teachers in training. The design of the workshop is focused on getting the most of your simple and divine instrument, and being able to go beyond just ‘toning” with the sruti. You’ll learn the basic of Indian Music which is the lineage of the instrument, and when the instrument is approached within and from its lineage and tradition, then…Magic happens! and you will create many other musics with it.

This Workshop is Open to All.
Please e-mail voxmundi@yahoo.com to Pre-Register

ALL PROGRAMS REQUIRE PRE-PAID REGISTRATIONS

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Recording & Producing Music at Home:
Using GarageBand/Logic Express/Logic Pro on a Mac

Instructor: Christopher Eickmann

   Visit this site for detailed information & registration

http://createmusic.eventbrite.com/

In just six weeks you will learn a combination of recording, engineering, and production techniques that will give you the ability to create your own music at home ready for digital distribution. You'll start by learning how to configure your home studio for optimal results, work with audio loops, and sequence MIDI tracks. You’ll then learn the ins and outs of recording vocals and instruments, editing multi-track digital audio, mixing using digital signal processing with automation, and basic mastering. By the end of this six week course you will have a solid foundation of basic audio production craft and be able to apply it using GarageBand, Logic Express, and/or Logic Pro on a Mac computer. If you have ever wanted to create your own professional sounding music at home this is the class for you!

Required Equipment (Not provided)
Apple Laptop Computer (OSX Leopard or Snow Leopard)
GarageBand (part of iLife - included software with Mac)
Stereo Headphones

Optional Equipment (Not provided)
Logic Express or Logic Pro (included in Logic Studio)
MIDI Keyboard and External Mouse

Instructor Bio

Christopher Eickmann is an award-winning composer, producer, engineer, and sound designer. He currently owns and operates his music production company, Creative Scores, where he creates music for contemporary media and live events. His projects include scoring films, videos and animations, producing recording artists, recording, editing, mixing and mastering audio, as well as commissions for theatre, dance, and the concert hall. Clients include: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Sketchers, Silvia Nakkach, and many others. Before launching his music production company, Christopher worked for Creativity, Inc. as a staff composer/sound designer where he created original music and sound designs for a number of games, toys and electronic products. In addition, early in his career he worked for the Walt Disney Company as a sound engineer on several live productions including The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Beauty and the Beast. He is a co-founder of the Bay Area Sound Healing Alliance (BAYSHA) as well as a faculty member at the Academy of Art University and at the Art Institute of San Francisco where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in music and audio. Christopher graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts from the famous Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and holds a certificate in Sound, Voice, and Music Healing from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Course description

ALL PROGRAMS REQUIRE PRE-PAID REGISTRATIONS

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A Weeklong Creative Expression Retreat
And Chanting Journey

An inspiring way to revitalize your Spring break With extraordinary artist and meditation teacher Mayumi Oda, & Silvia Nakkach, musician

ANNUAL MUSIC RETREAT
THE X SUMMER INTENSIVE
In the Santa Cruz Mountains, Ca

Sacred Chant meets Sacred Nature
Vocal Improvisation & Chanting as a Spiritual Path

Our Guide Saraswati at Pema

Vox Mundi Faculty:

Silvia Nakkach, Vox Mundi School International & Artistic Director, voice and song writing, devotional chant and raga singing, kirtan, and loving mentoring
Val Serrant & African Drummers, percussion, spiritual music, and guardian of peace and harmony
Michael Knapp, cello, bass, and one-on-one music support, music theory
Heather Houston, voice session, two-three harmony divine group chanting
Rosa Figuereido, music theory and accompaniment
Jass Jaffe, tabla, teka, rhythm classes, music theory and song writing (will be available for private sessions by appointment only)
Tania Bedford, tarot, magic and Chi Qon
Hilary Reed, M.C., deep listening, songwriting, sound Spa 
Valerie Jose Carpenter, sound healing, tuning forks, sound Spa

Special Guests to Awaken all our body senses:

Laura Fenoglio, Kundalini yoga, expressive movement
Tania Santiago, master dancer of the Afro-Brazilian Orixå tradition
Marsea Marquis, master of Brazilian movement, dance, and beyon

Marsea Marquis is a vibrant instructor with 25 years of experience in dance and music; studying and performing with native masters from Brazil, Haiti, Cuba, Trinidad, West and South Africa. She founded Dance of Brazil in Santa Cruz in 1995 and has been an instructor of ongoing weekly, Brazilian dance classes locally and nationally since that time. Additionally she has been an Instructor/Performance Artist (’90-’97) in the Spectra Program, a Santa Cruz City Schools based arts program supported by the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz county. She is also the founder and director of “Tropicalismo~Latin Dance Cabaret” a performance company specializing in dances from Brazil, Cuba and Trinidad.Marsea’s work has been honored by the Calabash Awards for Excellence in the Ethnic Arts in ’96 and ’02, produced by the S.C.E.A.N., Santa Cruz Ethnic Arts Network. As an avid salsa/folklorico dancer, she also travels frequently to Cuba to study and dance and music.

Jass Jaffe, our 2011 tabla player  

Participant testimony:

Santa Cruz Retreat turned out to be a life-changing experience that was so beautiful, as you can imagine, that is hard to put in words...If you can imagine five full days of waking up every morning to the sound of Tibetan chanting in the distance (as the retreat is held at the incredibly serene setting of Pema Osel Ling), eating breakfast with one big giant sound healing family, spending the day in multiple forms of chant/singing/drumming/healing/creative/and sometimes completely silent bliss - oh yeah, can't forget eating an even more delicious lunch and dinner (can't say enough about the superb chefs in the kitchen - no kidding!! - evening concerts (part by the group, sometimes complete with lots of humor and even a treat from outside performers - best energy ever!). At night, the stars seem so close you feel you can touch the universe and the mountain air has it's own way of cleansing the soul - and chakra energies :-)I hope anyone I know could participate in this year's retreat …Plus, you'll get to meet the amazing souls that come from Vox Mundi in Brazil that share their love of sound, music, and healing, offering their knowledge of ragas and chants from many different cultures. Adele Galvan, soung healer and CEO

Baixinha meets the Lamas and Rinpoches, photo by Alba Lirio

Learn and practice the ancient art of healing to awaken your aliveness, joy and fulfillment. In this afternoon offering Master Mingtong Gu will teach and lead you in meditation, movement, and sound healing for emotional transformation. You will learn and practice the spinal bone marrow method, which allows you to awaken your physical body to its energetic dimension. You will learn to activate the spiral blue print in your spine, and deeply improve your body structure, release pain and stress and enhance immune function. As a highlight, Mingtong will offer the teaching and practice of sound healing—effective technology to transform fearful or negative emotions into a healing gift, at this time of personal and social challenges. We will move our spines and tone healing sounds in a unified rhythm with hundreds of practitioners. This is a powerful opportunity to share this amplified resonance with a large group. By tapping into this ancient healing technology, you will obtain powerful tools for self-healing, strengthen your endocrine and immune systems, reduce stress, anxiety and depression. By achieving a deeper sense of wellbeing, emotional stability and balance, you are empowered to attract positive changes into your life.

Vox Mundi will handle the Registration, special diet requests, & accommodations - please don't call Pema Osel Ling to Register.

1. visit  www.polmountainretreat.com for directions, and http://www.polmountainretreat.com/accommodations.aspx
for accommodations and pictures of the land.
2. contact: voxmundi@yahoo.com and/or call 510- 595 0819 for all inquiries
Register early to get best choice of lodging and lower airline rates. It is very high season!

The Art of improvisation
WORKSHOP
Finding Your Inner Musician
with
David Darling and Silvia Nakkach

TO REGISTER:

DETAILS
Saturday and Sunday
10:00AM-5:30PM
CIIS Main Building
$235
13 CEUs (MFT, LCSW, RN)
This course is also available for one unit of academic credit to CIIS students

We are all born with the innate ability to sing, to dance, and to live a celebratory creative lifestyle. Music is one of the most natural ways through which we can heal and celebrate our spirit. Singing, chanting, drumming, and playing the piano or any instrument allows us to nurture a loving relationship with ourselves through music.

This workshop provides a humorous and energetic environment for practicing exercises that will deepen our relationship with our own natural musical self. Through improvisational techniques and musical gestures from the music of India, Brazil, Africa, and the West, students discover how distant worlds of music complement and complete each other, engaging in optimally balanced left and right brain activity.

This all-levels workshop is designed to help you develop confidence through creating a positive musical experience and cultivating a balanced approach to a long-term musical journey.

David Darling, cellist, composer, and educator, has been opening hearts to the mystery of sound for four decades. He is celebrated for his energetic, loving, and accepting style in emancipating the musical soul in those he teaches. He has produced numerous recordings, as well as released eight solo albums and more than three dozen collaborative efforts with such diverse artists as Paul Winter and Jan Garbarek.

Silvia Nakkach, MA, MMT, is an award-winning composer and pioneer in the field of sound and transformation of consciousness. She is the founding director of Vox Mundi School of the Voice and a teacher and the academic advisor for the Sound, Voice and Music Healing Certificate at CIIS.

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Day and Evening of Qigong and Sound Healing

This evening will be lead by Qigong Master Mingtong Gu with special appearance by Silvia Nakkach, a pioneer in the field of sound and music shamanism. Linling will also join Mingtong in leading practice. It is a rare opportunity to be in a vibrational field with heart, mind, and cells—to join your voice with others to awaken simultaneous healing, tapping into ancient spiritual practices.

Scientific evidence is now pointing to the principle that all matter is energy vibrating at different frequency. If one organ in your body is out of tune, it affects your whole body. Resonant sound vibrations restore an innate frequency, and even rearrange molecular structure. Using sound, chant, and music we will transform our consciousness, support healing, and enhance the connection between mind-body-spirit. You will learn and tone the healing sounds for each organ in the presence of a thousand of practitioners—all supported and unified by the strong chi field organized by Master Mingtong Gu.

Together we will experience the unique vibration of energy in each organ, including our heart’s energy, to experience the aliveness, happiness and fulfillment of our whole being. We will accelerate and deepen our physical and emotional healing by releasing each organ’s cellular memories of suppressed emotions associated with our old contracted patterns. It is a true blessing to relax into this loving ocean of light and vibration as we “Heal Ourselves and Heal Our World.”

“The latest discoveries in neuroscience confirm the healing power of sound, of devotional singing in particular. Chanting awakens all the physical and energetic psychic centers, stimulates the immune system and the emotional body…”
—Sylvia Nakkach, MA, MMT, award-winning composer, music healer, and founding director of Vox Mundi School

Silvia Nakkach is the founding director of The Vox Mundi School, an organization devoted to research, education, preservation, and performance of sacred vocal arts.

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TEACHER TRAINING

Photo by Arlene Moscovitch.

Teacher Training is open to all new, regular students, and Teachers of the Yoga of the Voice in training.

The class focuses on empowering those who would like to teach and lead chanting groups, and supervises those who are already teaching Vox Mundi vocabulary of practices and techniques.

Sessions offer technique of group dynamics, keyboard, harmonium and simple instruments playing skills, voice development, and how to prepare and design group and individual session.

This class can be taken independently, and it is also offered as part of the Yoga of the Voice Certificate. Students accrue 15 hours.

To be continued in the Santa Cruz Retreat - as supervisions and classes

TUITION FEES: $250 before June 15 - $300 after

Certificate Students and Teachers-in-Training have the option to attend to this fantastic Training to improve chanting leading, and practice in small groups and all teaching tools, practices and instrument's skills. We will help you with accommodations in the Bay Area - but we need confirmation that you are attending to this Training in advanced. Please do it soon.

Limited Space Available

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