An Accident Became a Calling

I was seven years old and home alone with my two older sisters when my oldest sister, Jennifer, who was 14 at the time, had her first grand mal seizure.

This is one of the many memories that stands out to me from my sister’s journey. Over the next couple of years, she spent a lot of time in hospitals, mostly in-patient. That meant my family spent a lot of time in hospitals, which also meant many long car rides to and from them.

In my family, long car rides meant singing at the top of our lungs. We also brought a Walkman and tapes, remember those, of Jennifer’s favorite artists because music was always something that brought us together. It offered a moment of joy, even if only for the length of a song.

As a young child reacting to my environment, I began finding different ways to stay occupied in those hospitals. I made sculptures and instruments using whatever I could find: feeding tubes, medical tape, plastic urine trays and bedpans. Unused, thankfully. They wouldn’t let me near the used ones.

I made up songs to the beeps and clicks of the monitors and machines. I was using art and creativity to transform my relationship to the space and bring new meaning to the materials and places we often associate with sickness and dying.

My sister died on July 8, 1989, after a two-and-a-half-year battle with lupus cerebritis.

As a young artist, I began making work with a medical theme inspired by my sister’s life, illness and death. I used X-rays and old photographs to create interactive multimedia work.

That’s a feeding tube.

I continued pursuing a career as an artist, eventually creating large-scale installations with photo transfers and sound. I made spaces where other people could connect with their own memories of loved ones who had died.

Flash-forward to 2002. I was working as an artist in New York City and felt like I was on my way to making it. I had been awarded a space grant, which gave me a subsidized studio on 42nd Street.

I was working late one night when I began hearing loud banging sounds, which isn’t unusual in New York City. But I soon realized that the banging was the floor giving way beneath me.

Before I had a chance to react or understand what was happening, I fell about 15 feet from my second-floor studio into the first floor.

The fall left me with a broken back in four places, extensive soft-tissue damage and temporary paralysis.

I spent about two weeks lying in a hospital bed on a morphine drip. Most of what I heard was, “You are so lucky. This is great. You’ll be just like Frida Kahlo.”

Let me tell you something: Pain and a broken back are not as glamorous as Salma Hayek makes them look.

There’s no slide here because I wouldn’t let anyone take pictures of me in the hospital. It was not one of my best moments.

I was released from the hospital wearing a brace that extended from my hips to my chin. I had prescriptions for morphine and Percocet, but no prescription for physical therapy and certainly none for psychotherapy.

My neurosurgeon said something I’ll never forget: “If it hurts, don’t do it.”

Okay. No sitting, standing, breathing or putting clothes on. I guess I’ll just lie naked for the rest of my life.

You can imagine my frustration. But this experience set me on a personal quest to heal my body and mind.

You name it, I tried it. It took a team of people, all of my determination and more than a decade for me to finally live a relatively pain-free life.

Every time I found relief, I needed to know more. I explored different modalities with openness and curiosity as a way to understand and make sense of what was happening. It allowed me to connect, just as seven-year-old Sara had connected by exploring the materials around her.

This was hard because I’m not really a woo-woo New Age person, says the woman sitting barefoot on the floor behind a collection of crystal bowls.

I spent more than a decade studying several kinds of massage therapy, bodywork, traditional Chinese medicine, yoga, meditation, psychoacoustics and sound therapy.

The more I worked with sound, the more I understood that if sound is vibration, and vibration touches every part of our bodies and our being, then sound is experienced through our entire bodies, not only through our ears. I have Dr. Mitchell Gaynor to thank for that. Look him up.

Sound became my medium, both as a form of creative expression and, more importantly, as a way to hold space for other people.

I began facilitating sound baths as a way to combine my life experience as an artist and survivor of trauma with my diverse studies in complementary and alternative medicine.

When I started facilitating sound baths, five to seven people would attend each time. Someone might return and bring his girlfriend because he thought it was cool. Another person brought a sister going through chemotherapy. Someone else brought a son living with anxiety or a best friend experiencing insomnia.

As the groups grew, I realized this was bigger than I had thought.

Sound brings us together. It allows us to connect through joy and happiness, as well as through pain and suffering. From those connections, we build bonds, togetherness and community.

A sound bath offers more than a moment of peace and rest. It creates a space for healing.

The groups continued to grow, taking me to some interesting places: the Oculus in my hometown of New York City, Madison Square Garden, the Museum of Modern Art, theaters, hospitals and public schools.

This is an alternative public high school in New York City.

The work has also taken me to Paris, Morocco, the Sahara Desert and boardrooms around the world. I just put my bowls on conference tables now.

And now we’re here.

Do you want to do it?

The only way it will work is if you put your things down. You already have a picture of the bowls and me onstage. There are about 20 cameras here, so you can check it out later. You’re all going to look beautiful.

Put your things down. Some of you already have your shoes off. Place both feet on the ground.

This is going to be relatively painless.

I invite you to close your eyes, when that feels available to you. Otherwise, just look down. Don’t look at me. I’m not performing, and this isn’t a concert. This is for you.

Let your hands rest wherever feels comfortable. Be comfortable. That is the only thing you have to do.

Everybody else has their eyes closed, so no one is looking at you. You can be comfortable without judgment.

We’re going to take three breaths together, but first, I want you to find your breath. Simply notice and become aware of the air moving in and out of your nostrils.

I’ll explain the breath before we begin. We’ll take a long inhale through the nose for four counts, followed by a long exhale through the teeth, making a “ts” sound.

Just listen. You don’t have to look at me.

Let’s do it.

Inhale. One, two, three, four.

Exhale.

Again, inhale. One, two, three, four.

Exhale.

One more time. Inhale. One, two, three, four.

Exhale.

Release back into your natural breath, moving in and out through your nose.

Any thoughts that arise, any remnants of the talks from this morning or any memories, simply allow them to come.

Soften and be receptive.

All you have to do here is listen, not only with your ears, but with your whole body.

[Sound bath]

Bring your awareness back to your breath.

Let’s take a full breath together as a group and exhale with a sigh.

We all have our eyes closed, so don’t worry about the sounds you make. Give me a real sigh, like you’ve been here all day.

Take a full breath in.

And sigh.

Oh my God, yes. That’s better.

On the next exhale, we’re going to release one long, extended hum together.

Choose any tone you like. It doesn’t have to match mine. Use whatever feels comfortable for your voice.

Take a breath in together.

Exhale with a hum.

Let’s do it again. Inhale.

And exhale with a hum.

You can continue humming, or you can stop completely. This is all optional. You can also open your mouth into an “ah” sound.

We’re not singing. We’re sending our voices.

Pause for a moment and think about someone you love.

Inhale.

And send your voice.

Let’s do that again. Inhale.

Now bring it back to a hum.

Take two more breaths at your own pace.

Gently place your left hand over your heart and your right hand on top of your left. Let your hands rest softly against your body.

Feel your breath.

Feel your heartbeat.

Keeping your hands over your heart, I’m going to ask you to do the hardest thing of all: Gently begin to open your eyes.

Keep your hands there when you can.

With your hands over your heart, look to one side and then the other. When you accidentally make eye contact with someone, try not to look away too quickly.

You can release your hands.

Thank you.

I offer this as a moment of gratitude for all the ways you show up, everything you offer and how you move through this world. I’m very grateful.

Listening facilitates connection within us as individuals, but it also has the ability to bring us closer in our relationships.

Like everyone else here, my hope is that we don’t wait until the end to experience this sense of connection and quiet.

I hope we continue exploring with openness and curiosity, and that we continue this exploration together.

Thank you for listening.