Hey Friend--
You're intrigued or enchanted by singing bowls. They speak to you in a way that's visceral.
Perhaps you have a dedicated practice with them as a home-based contemplative quiet time, or even as one who practices in service of other people (or aspires to).
Their usage is not the norm in our society, and that's okay!
In this short e-mail, I want to answer the question:
How do you explain singing bowl to your friends and family, assuming they don't really get them yet?
I'll also mention here why I think this is important. One of our core drivers as human beings is to feel understood, especially by those closest to it. If you have a new pursuit, it can be so nurturing to be understood by your loved ones.
A singing bowl, simply is a type of inverted bell.
The ones we focus on here, are made from a combination of copper and tin known as bell metal bronze.
It's the right balance of copper that brings warmth to the sound, and just the right amount of tin that brings "hardness" of the metal that allow the bowls sounds to sustain.
They start as an ingot of bell metal bronze, and are heated in a large, open forge. Typically outside of the city-center in Kathmandu, Nepal or Moradabad, India. Once heated, the alloy becomes malleable and is hammered by a team of 3-5 people in a "waterfall" style hammering pattern.
The process is repeated 3-4 times until we have our raw, but now shaped bowl.
It then undergoes any number of aesthetic upgrades -- polishing, hand-painted, burnished patina relief, etching, deep carving, chemical applications to create new and unique colors.
The bowl, formed through hand hammering, is asymmetrical.
This imperfection is the most important feature of the bowl.
Because it's not "perfect" it creates imperfect and inharmonic overtone patterns that are not predictable by the human mind.
When we hear things that are "musical or melodious" our brains search for the pattern. Where do I know this from? How does the melody resolve?
It's keeps our mind turning.
Because these bowls --- while sounding incredible beautiful, are not precisely melodious, they are NOT predictable.
So our brains can simply relax, unwind not needing to predict.
And this is their special nature, explained in the simplest possible way.
....How do you explain their impact on you? Why did you feel called to them initially? What about them? Can you articulate it?
Curious, you can always reply here and share with me personally.
Warm Regards,
Frank
