From Frequencies to Flow

I spent the weekend with a group of free-spirited individuals in Woodstock. Not the most conventional retreat choice for my first solo kid free adventure, but finding a live class on tuning forks had proven challenging. So, off to Woodstock I went.

I arrived eager to learn. The last five years of studying physics had led me to a passion for sound. The importance of sound became clear in my studies as I learned that every cell in the body has a unique frequency signature. A liver cell vibrates differently than a stomach cell. My thinking was: if we decode these frequencies, we may be able to communicate with cells, potentially influencing healing processes—even tackling diseases like cancer. We could stimulate neurotransmitters and communicate directly to the body.

Tuning forks, which produce precise frequencies, seemed the perfect tool. So if that meant sitting in a drumming circle with a bunch of hippies, so be it. I was a woman on a mission. 

I came in bursting with questions. I wanted to know what frequencies correspond to different parts of the body, the instructors shrugged. "We don't really know," they said, and went back to banging on drums. And even said “it's different for every person.” 

This was frustrating, to say the least. Aren’t you guys the teachers? It became clear that I had more knowledge on physics than anyone in the room. What a waste of time and money. 

Sensing my growing frustration, a teacher approached me and said, “You aren’t listening.” That did not make things better. Now I was frustrated and angry and the affront to this educator didn’t stop there. The teacher informed me I was not “asking the right questions.” Well, nothing is more insulting than that. Of course, I’m asking the right questions! I am a scientist and educator; I’ve been studying this for five years, while you have been playing drums and burning sage. All said in my head of course. 

But the teacher pressed on…

"You're approaching this with a reductionist mindset, trying to isolate and pinpoint. But the body isn't a collection of isolated parts; it's an interconnected whole. You're seeking notes, but it's really about the chords."

And bang. Worth every penny of that class.

I was asking the wrong questions and definitely not listening. I forgot the very core of my learnings: N=1. The environment, the genetic makeup of a person—everything is unique, and every sound comes together to create a cacophony of frequencies dancing as a symphony in their body. To understand the body, you can’t look at its parts, only its whole.

I spent the rest of the course learning about the perfect fifth—the combination of notes that makes a harmony. Research has found it helps relax the body and put it into self-healing mode. The perfect fifth can be found everywhere. This interval appears throughout nature, from the Fibonacci sequence to the spirals of galaxies.

The key takeaway? Healing isn't about isolating and targeting individual components. It's about understanding and harmonizing the body's entire symphony. Sound therapy, through instruments like tuning forks, offers a pathway to achieve this harmony, promoting holistic well-being.

So how did it end? With this scientist becoming a hippie:)