The Healing Harp Blog

Martin Luther King and I share the same birth day… I don’t mean the day we celebrate his birthday, but the actual birth date of January 15. Only more recently have I come to appreciate what an amazing man he was… for those of you of a more metaphysical bent, from pretty reliable sources I’ve understood him to be an initiate, which gives even more emphasis to the gifts he gave. While I’m not completely in agreement with all of his philosophies nor all of his practices, I respect his depth of thought, his vast attempts to advance civil rights through non-violent resistance, his holding close to his Christian beliefs.

When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument.
~Martin Luther King Jr. ~

Yesterday I had a mini-concert to present for an Assisted Living group, for whom I perform monthly. I decided to dedicate my music to ML King by finding all the harp arrangements I could of spirituals, a couple of gospel hymns, and some excerpts from Roger Miller’s musical, Big River.

Roger Miller you ask? Really? The guy who wrote “King of the Road” wrote the lyrics and music for an on- and off-Broadway musical? Yup, and a really good one at that, garnering many Tony awards including for Best Score. 🙂

The program was a lot of fun to present – on my white DeLight lever harp – and felt to be a success, since most people didn’t know the history of the many tunes I presented, nor in particular did they know Big River.

Continue reading Happy Birthday, ML King

A little Ray of Sunshine left my life today. Trite, I know. Yet oh so true. I learned from his daughter that he transitioned last night. How glad I am that I got to play harp music (via Providence Hospice) for him one more time on Monday afternoon. Here’s Ray when he was younger. 🙂
(Photo and permission to use given by daughter)

I’ve played for over 50 individual hospice patients so far this year, some several different sessions. I played for Ray seventeen times since I first started with him in February of this year. I rarely have an opportunity to become attached to my hospice harp patients because I might only see them once, or maybe several times and they’ve not been communicative.

From the very first, Ray was a delight: “What’s THIS???” as I uncovered my white harp. The first notes sounded and he would exclaim almost every time, “OH! … OH! … OH!” as if in ecstasy from the sounds penetrating his slight form. At 94, he wasn’t much for lengthy conversations, but he was sure an appreciative listener. Often, I would lull him to sleep, which for me is always such a compliment.

Once, back in March, I’d put him to sleep and was super quietly packing up. Suddenly, I was startled to hear, “WHERE’S THE MUSIC???” He almost seemed to be hollering.

I responded that I had to go. “Shall I come back next week?”

“You can come back EVERY day!” Ahhhh, now that’s a heart-melter for someone doing what I do…. so many times, my clients are asleep – perhaps never knowing I’ve been there, or dementia has consumed their conscious awareness. Ray just loved to listen and sleep.

Even last week, when I played for him for the sixteenth time, he’d been more awake more consistently than usual and when I was getting ready to go he asked if I had to leave and I told him it was time. “Shall I come back?”

“YES!!! WHEEEEN?”

“I can come back next week if you’d like.”

“YEEEES! You’ll come back???” He almost seemed to need me to promise I’d be back.

“Alright, I’ll see you next week.” I sensed he was fading, but didn’t know it was SO imminent until his daughter called me on the weekend and asked if I could come soon…

He was one of the two people dear to me whom I’ve lost this week who always called me “Sweetheart.” Both dear people meant it… that was what made the sound of their saying it so extra special.

Honestly, I worry a bit about how hard this is going to be on his doting and loving caregivers. They were absolutely amazing with him and he adored them, it was obvious to me. Ali always called him “Handsome” and he responded with all sorts of loving statements to her. Often, their humorous repartee would give me a giggle or a smile. Leo always called him “General” and he called Leo “Chief” – because Leo actually IS a Chief from his Samoan tribe and Ray was a Corporal during WWII, doing combat in North Africa for over a year. The respect these two strong men expressed to each other was touching.

How blessed I was to play for this wonderful man in this loving adult foster care home here in Southern Oregon. Now I’m going to go wipe away more tears.

Currently I have the most heart-warming opportunities to play for such a wide variety of people. Janet is one of those amazing people…

The Music!!! ... It comes down from Heaven & goes back again! 
~J.A. Adult Foster Care Home Owner/Caregiver~

In December 2015 she hired me to play on a weekly basis for her adult foster care home! I was impressed that anyone would consider harp music weekly. I was gratified, too, as I’d been thinking for some time now that people are waiting too long to indulge in the specialness that is harp music, if they’re only just getting to it as they’re dying. I mean, I’m grateful they’re getting it at all, I’m grateful that it offers the gifts it does to the dying… yet there are many qualities those of us still living – ill or healthy – might receive from having the harp played for us. And Janet is wise enough to figure this out.

She came from Romania to this country 30 years ago and gives of herself as a caregiver in a most remarkable way. What I particularly appreciate about her is that she, along with her assistants, all stop and indulge in the music, the singing, the gift the harp is to the soul. The title of my blog is straight from the lips of Janet.

Just yesterday when I played for her and her “house guests,” she exclaimed after we’d finished singing and one of the gentlemen apologized for his voice, “We hear the voice, God hears our hearts.” Helloooo…. how beautiful and true is that?

At the other foster care home I play for on Tuesday, a couple of the women, forgetting I come regularly, wandered in wondering what was up… one rather disgruntled, the other with a question mark on her face. As soon as I started the music, they both melted, along with the rest of the folks. The disgruntled one said to me, “I could listen to this all day long.” The other expressed delight by smiling the entire time I was there. That is simply rewarding beyond words. Thanks, God!

You know, I told a doctor visiting me the other day: 
You doctors have it all wrong. We don't need medicine. You should put the [hospice] harpist in your pocket instead. ~S. T., Hospice Patient~

Today I played for a lovely woman who, until I started playing for her a couple of months ago on a semi-regular basis, had a very poor impression of harp music. It seems her impression was derived from only hearing an occasional “plunk-plunk,” as she called it, at symphony concerts. She didn’t seem to know it was capable of playing a fluid, beautiful melody, and so, when I landed in her room with my hospice harp, I was able to completely change her mind! What a joy! She was totally startled by her experience the first time and is now so grateful when I arrive in her room to play for her every couple of weeks. She prefers to meditate quietly and “get right with God” she told me today, than to have a lot of hub-bub going on around her.

I love how it's all of everything and it all blends into one remarkable sound: harmony, rhythm, flowing melody. ~S.T., Hospice Patient~

Each time I visit she has one or more profound observations to share and today was no exception. I decided to write them down before I forget:

The music encircles you... it's better than medicine! I think the doctors are catching on...
It creates a breakthrough for my mind, body, and spirit. 
~S. T., Hospice Patient~

On Joy and Sorrow
 The Prophet
 by Khalil Gibran

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
 And he answered:
 Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
 And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
 And how else can it be?
 The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
 Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
 And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
 When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
 When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
 Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
 But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
 Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
 Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
 When the reassure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

In early September, for the first time I played someone out while playing harp for hospice. It was a profound time and it has taken me awhile to process and feel ready to write about it.

It was God’s doing for sure, as I’d called the daughter of the dying woman a day earlier and suggested I could come that day and she’d suggested it might be too busy with the nurse also coming. I suggested 10 a.m. the next morning and she readily agreed. I was a bit surprised since I knew this was an “actively dying” woman. I’d had the impression she might not make it through the night; still, this is what the daughter wanted.

Next day, I went at 10 a.m. to find the dying woman’s room filled with family members. It became obvious as I greeted the husband that the woman wasn’t terribly old; I would later learn she was only 62. I played for 45 minutes, attempting to improvise appropriate music that timed with her breathing and that matched the feeling in the room. However, this was difficult as there could be up to two measures of music between each raspy breath. Indeed, I sensed she was trying to make the decision to depart this world for the next. One of her three children, a daughter possibly in her later 20s, was curled up on the bed beside her mother, stroking her head, kissing her cheek, holding her hand.

Continue reading Joy & Sorrow – from the Same Well

Twinkle, twinkle little star
 How I wonder what you are.
 Up above the world so high,
 Like a Diamond in the sky...

A few days after I wrote my post about our 8/9 visit in the healing garden at Dream Inn, Mt. Shasta City, my husband carried Diamond into the vet’s office, cradled him in his arms, and I played my hospice harp while he received the chemical that would grant him permission to leave his cancer-ridden and failing body and nudge him into the next world. I placed my bare foot on Lloyd’s leg and Diamond’s back while I played. As the vet announced that his heart had stopped, I was so overcome with the absolute power of the moment, I swooshed a strong and energetic glissando on my harp, praised God aloud, then stopped, awed by the transition of life energy from physical to spiritual.

Diamond went to his rest and peace on the strains of “Amazing Grace” and a pentatonic tune I’d composed for his healing after his last surgery. He’d always loved to lie under the piano – while I practiced it or the harp – so it was only right that music carry him into the next world.

The vet on duty seemed somewhat surprised…. yet, to my thinking, if I can play Hospice Harp for those humans dying and they & their families feel noticeably soothed, why not for our “younger brothers” in the animal life-wave?
Continue reading Diamond in the Sky

Our dear dog of 13 years, Diamond, is in the final stages of his life due to cancer that has gone from one place to another over the last several years. He has endured, gracefully, 8 operations! As of a few weeks ago, the cancer has gone into his lymph glands and is progressing very rapidly. We took him on a road trip down to Mount Shasta this past weekend, guessing that it may well be his last road trip with us as a “family of four,” which family includes his litter-mate-brother, Ginjo. On Friday his jaw and neck were swelled horribly; still we went on the short trip as he loves to ride!

We took Diamond up onto Mount Shasta to the Ski Bowl for a love-fest ceremony on Saturday evening. Lloyd had hiked and/or camped with “the boys” several times on the mountain and Diamond always seemed to find peace there. Saturday eve he enjoyed the coolness of the evening as the sun set and he had Lloyd’s arms around him.

I’d played harp for a memorial service on Saturday and since I had my harp with me, I wanted to play for our B&B hosts at the Dream Inn in Mount Shasta City. It’s a delightful place with a magical, healing garden. So Sunday morning, I took my harp out into the garden after breakfast and Lloyd brought out our two dogs.

Did Diamond expect something? He turned his awfully swollen side of his face toward the harp and kept it there the whole time I played. Our wonderful host, Lonna, took this very special to-be-cherished Diamond Video.

On Monday and to today, the swelling has gone down significantly. He is still transitioning, but perhaps Peace prevailed for awhile.

The power of The Mountain,
the power of Music.

Recently, (July, 2015) I offered a Private Music Bath to someone from Stockton, California. Afterward, I received this “review” of the service in email form. It offers a first-hand impression of the session and experience.

A Music Bath. Why not? Many people use massage and spa treatments not just to relax the body, but to send wellness to the brain. Often, the desired end-result is to increase productivity and creativity.

Listen, children, the ears also send signals to the brain. What Celia Canty has made available to you is a unique experience. And, dare I say, a privilege?

Please allow me to share my own Music Bath experience.

Pre-music bath, we worked together to verify my astrological signs.  From those, Celia determined the specific tonalities that corresponded to me. Vibrations designed for my ears only. It gets better!

She double-checked that I had an intention for my life set firmly in my mind. The intention became the focal point during the experience.  How brilliant. Music that reinforces the vision.

I then made some choices, thus making this individualized experience even more personal. Inspired by my view of Mount Ashland, I chose a place to sit in her comfortable room. Celia told me I could change places, walk about, lie on the floor, or change my mind mid-stream. I enjoyed the freedom of making this experience all about me.

Continue reading Private Music Bath – Review

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.
 ~Oliver Wendell Holmes~

I’m very excited about offering a Music Bath to individuals as well as groups. I’ve done several Group Music Baths at The Haven, here in Ashland, during the first half of 2015. I’m taking a break from that for two months this summer, but already have my schedule set for September thru December for the Group Music Baths.
Connect with me to be on the email list for this.

I’ve also started offering Private Music Baths. On the page specifically about Private Music Baths, you can find details about both the Group and Private offerings. I look forward to offering you a soaking in music very soon!

Last evening I offered a Private Music Bath to a woman who afterward exclaimed, “I didn’t know it would be so personalized, that the music would be so intimate! It went right here,” and she pointed to her heart. What a privilege to offer music that can do that.