Healing Yourself With The Sounds Of Nature

The music of nature comprises many sounds.  We only need to read these words to experience different emotions. The words such as the murmur of a river, the gush of a waterfall, a buzzing bee or chirping crickets. Many of these words alone can elicit powerful emotions. As you read these make note of your emotions when thinking about them.  While babbling brooks may induce a state of peacefulness, barking dogs make create anger and frustration. For some the buzzing of a bee can elicit fear. The fear of getting stung by the bee.

The beneficial effects of music in nature are legendary especially in the ancient East. Many folk traditions promote fertility and rich harvests. In southern India, the natural music of humming and buzzing insects is believed to ensure the healthy sprouting of the sugar cane.

Modern science supports this fact. Plants are known to grow faster when music is piped in over fields. or into greenhouses. Many carefully conducted experiments prove that germination, growth, flowering, fruiting, and seed yield are affected by sound waves.  Farm animals and pets show response to music, cows give more milk when music is relayed to the barn.  Some racehorses have been aggravated if their radio is removed from their stable. Just as plants and animals are affected by sound so are humans.

The Healing Powers Of Sound

Mantras, chants and incantation have their origin in ancient history and have survived for centuries. Egyptian papyri from 2,600 years ago refer to incantations for curing everything from infertility, rheumatic pain to insect bites.  It is said that the music of the lyre restored Alexander the Great to sanity around 324 B.C.  The old Testament records that David played his harp and lifted King Saul’s depression. And in other cultures, flute playing was said to ease the pain of sciatica and gout.

Great composers were aware of the link between sound, music and health. George Handel stated that he did not just want to amuse his audiences by his compositions………he wanted to make them better.

Sound is an integral part of life, from the earliest times, human have used sounds to communicate with each other. We live in a world of sounds, heard and unheard, musical and chaotic, strange and familiar, stressful and relaxing and sounds that can heal. At the fundamental level sound is the motion of atoms and molecules.

How Sounds Can Help Us.

If you want to relax there can be no better prescription than listening to the sound of bird’s singing. Some songbirds sing from repertoires of hundreds of songs which use the same rhythms and note combinations as modern composers.  For example, the canyon wren also uses a 12-tone scale. The hermit thrush, on the other hand, sings in a five tone penta scale which is common in Asian music.

To learn more how sound therapy can help you heal, you may find the following books of some interest.