SALUS PER SONUM

Ch’ien - Humility (Hexagram 15)

Let me start with good news: I am not going to give you now a lecture neither on acoustics nor on quantum physics or harmony or to take Yellow Emperor Treatise to pieces for you - although it would be quite in order when one talks about the In-Depth Cellular Music Therapy, which involves the use of specific sound frequencies and their spreading within a human body, and in addition is underpinned with the Traditional Chinese Medicine.

I think it would be a waste of time to get stuck in some redundant erudition show-off at this point. I care much more about giving you a general idea and a foretaste of how the work with both of these methods looks like. Besides, when we meet, we can talk as much as we please about the sound and the Chinese medicine and the understanding of various health conditions according to them (given that someone wants to talk instead of plunging into contemplation of her/his inner world or simply dozing off) – so there is plenty of time for elaborations during our individual contacts.

Kuan ─ Observation (Hexagram 20)

Generally speaking, my methodics of work is simple: first we talk, I examine your pulse and tongue, then I select a set of appropriate tuning forks . When I work with them, I let my patient dive into the sound, to deepen in himself, to sleep or to talk or to tell stories; in addition I give dietetic advices and when needed, I include appropriate elements of particular therapeutic methods used by the Traditional Chinese Medicine (talking about it I will also use a “TCM” acronym).

This short description of my methodics of work is in fact quite distant from the actual individual experience, related with the perception of sound – and this very experience is a central point of the method I use.

Chien ─ Gradual progress (Hexagram 53)

So, in the methodics of my work sound is paramount: the very sound that slowly comes to the surface from the nothingness, when we start to emerge as a life form. Maybe it can be heard as the murmur of flowing blood, maybe as a rattling of that tiny drum of our pulse that gradually grows louder and louder, or as a deep rhythm of our mother’s heart, or maybe finally as muffled sounds coming from outside and then their cascade at the moment of our birth, when we start to tune ourselves to all that surrounds us.

Pi ─ Union (Hexagram 8)

Curious that even when we are not musicians, somehow we know what a harmony and what a dissonance means. When we are children, we listen open-mouthed again and again to the beautiful consonance of two sounds, played by a spinning top or we jerk a stick over the fence, feeding our ears with the grinding dissonance we produce and feeling internally its destructive action. Then, as our cognitive skills develop, we obtain the ability to organize sounds into systems – music scales, tonalities, vertical and horizontal consonances. Yet no matter which grade of our individual development we are on, we have a continuous feeling that the sound is an omnipresent part of all things around us.

It is interesting how music consonants are related with mathematical proportion. Pythagoras, probably as first mathematician ever, noticed a relation between the structure of universe and a sequence or a configuration of sounds. Using his self-made one-string instrument - monochord, he was able to express a mathematical division with sounds. Through a very simple action: placing a moving plank exactly in the center of a tightened string, he obtained its mathematical division by two, in other words – a 2:1 ratio (proportion), and musically – a sound an octave higher than the basic sound, played by the empty, freely vibrating string. A 3:2 ratio gave in its turn another interval (distance between two sounds): a perfect fifth and a subsequent one – a 4:3 – a perfect forth- and a 9:8 – a major second (i.e a full tone). According to the Pythagorean system of concepts and the philosophical and mathematic school he created (also known as the Pythagorean Brotherhood), there exist three categories of music: : musica instrumentalis, played on instruments, musica humana, representing a constant musical dialog between human’s body and spirit and musica mundana, which is the music of heavenly spheres and is created by the planets revolving on the firmament.

It is relevant to mention Pythagoras, because the In-Depth Cellular Music Therapy method, also called the „pitchfork technique”, which I use, is based on the Pythagorean scale of sounds, not on the present orchestra tuning, with A=440 Hz as a commonly used pitch frequency. Pythagoras was using those particular frequencies -which differ so distinctly from the contemporary pitch - in his practice of a healer– for he was not only a mathematician but also a doctor.

Many centuries later, based on Pythagorean “golden proportion” an Italian mathematician, named Leonardo Fibonacci built his sequence of number (looks familiar? - 1,1,2,3,5,8,13 and so on) – it is a so called “recurrent sequence”, in which a sum of two subsequent numbers gives the next one. It is fascinating that with this sequence it is possible to describe many regularities present in the world of nature: a spiral layout of the sunflower seeds, configuration of branches on the plant stems, curvature of a snail shell, a form of the double DNA helix.

Medieval age was a period of a particularly vivid interest in proportions and systems of numbers, especially of the golden proportion, nevertheless that interest is also present in other eras – they are reflected in the paintings of Sandro Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci or in the 16 th century treatise of Johannes Kepler, an astronomer and astrologist. In 20 th century , together with the construction of radio telescopes, development of photoacoustic spectroscopy, quantum physics and ultimately as the effect of research on the zero point field, the concept of “sound of heavenly spheres” gained a new meaning – and moreover – it was put into mathematic formulas . Inspirations by the concept of the „Universal Equation” obviously has proliferated into the fine arts – and is present for example in the music piece based on Fibonacci numbers – the Clarinet Trio of Polish contemporary composer Krzysztof Mayer or in „” – an intriguing and beautiful in its monochromatic austerity Darren Aronofsky’s movie.

Ta Yu ─ Abundance (Hexagram 14)

In the In-Depth Cellular Music Therapy, designed and implemented on Polish ground by my teacher, dr Barbara Romanowska, pitchforks are used either organized into sets related to specific techniques (such as a perfect fifth technique, cleansing and regulating technique, interval, bioresonance and bioelements techniques and others) or used as single instrument, designed for use of specific sound frequency in the vibrating acupressure technique on feet or for work on acupuncture points, distributed on our body, in accordance with the Traditional Chinese Medicine or for treating specific organs with sound by tuning them to their physiological frequency.

Briefly speaking, when I work using the In-Depth Cellular Music Therapy, I choose specific technique of sound application and I pick up the set of tuning forks according to the needs of specific individual, based on TCM diagnose and on listening carefully to the messages coming from her/his body both before and during the procedure.

The In-Depth Cellular Music Therapy incorporates elements of Traditional Chinese Medicine – it includes its technique of diagnosing the imbalances in the body, map of acupuncture points and reflexology zones, Chinese dietetics, elements of qi gong and of course, parallel to them, it applies the necessary knowledge based on „Western” anatomy and physiology.

Since I mention again the Traditional Chinese Medicine, I have to (without going deep into the theory), address the Yellow Emperor, because in the Chinese medical system he was someone resembling more culturally familiar to us Hippocrates or Galen – for he, just as they did, synthesized and codified certain medical practice that had been functioning for many centuries before his times. The Huang Di Nei Jing (Treatise of Yellow Emperor), attributed to him, had been written down more than 2000 years ago, in two volumes. Each of them contains 81 chapters, written in the form of a dialogue between the Emperor and his six ministers. One can find in them all concepts related with types of vital qi energy that circulates in the body, the Five-Elements Theory, physiology of the Zang-Fu organs, and last but not least – the foundations of Chinese Pharmacopoeia and acupuncture map, broadened by his successors: outstanding doctors of Chinese medicine and containing the specific description of influence each single point has on the level of body and spirit, in specific states of the organism imbalance, described in TCM as „syndromes”. Besides that the Treatise contains also multitude of other information, presented either as theorems or given in philosophical and poetic form which inspire to think through thoroughly every concept introduced by the Treatise.

Everyone, who has ever dealt with the Traditional Chinese Medicine, is fascinated by the logic and beauty of that system’s construction and also by the fact that as you move within its range of concepts, you start to feel that as human beings we are not beyond the pale but are part of all that surrounds us. It is astonishing to perceive that – whether we like it or not – we are functioning in accordance with years’ seasons, that our lives have some cyclic pattern, that as individuals we manifest some treats characteristic for one of the five elements. Understanding such truths makes a tremendous change in our life: each of us shall understand it his/her way, but I think one thing will be common – namely the general feeling of being „relevant”, also a deeper understanding of ourselves, of physical and mental conditions both our own and those belonging to other people, which in consequence causes that we start to treat better not only ourselves but also the surrounding people.

Ku ─ Restoration (Hexagram 18)

Dietetics is an important element of TCM, being one of its pillars, along with acupuncture, phytotherapy and Qi Gong (Chi Kung) or Taiji (Tai Chi) practice.

The majority of our health problems stems from our inappropriate nutrition and false convictions about what is healthy for us, on which we anchor ourselves for years, ignoring messages coming from our body, mind and spirit. It is impossible to restore balance if we do not start with a proper nutrition, because eating junk, alternating with starving ourselves will neutralize any corrective measure we take – this is why I pay a lot of attention to the nutrition issues.

Yu, Enthusiasm (Hexagram 16)

The Yellow Emperor says that when someone announces that he knows all about medicine (having in mind the Traditional Chinese Medicine) , he is as insolent as if he claimed he knew the whole ocean. When I started to learn TCM, I begun with trotting in the shallow waters at the seaside, now I am able to go further – to the more vast and deeper waters. I think with pleasure about the years to come of studying and getting familiar with new areas of this knowledge. Clearly not everyone needs to feel urge for roaming the ocean but at least it is worth to have a bath in it – and I eagerly encourage and invite you to do so!