Healing With Wah!
Cover Photo by Robert Sturman
By Nikita Mehta
When I was a little girl, my father read The Little Prince to me every night. He made the same silly voices and paused in the same dramatic way each time, and inevitably we fell asleep before the Little Prince ever met his rose. And yet the next night, we started again from the beginning, as if our memories couldn’t contain new pieces of the story without a full retelling from the start. I am not sure if we ever finished the story together, but I have had a copy of the book tucked away in a safe but accessible pocket, in all the iterations of my adult life. When I dream of moksha, I am in a galaxy that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry has created. I am skipping from star to star, watching 10 moon rises in an hour, lying on my back and listening to the sounds of the universe. And this image, this dream within a dream, is what Wah! brought to life at her Healing Concert on December 16th.
The main yoga room at Yoga Flow SF - Ocean was transformed into a space ship ready to transport us to nirvana. The columns were lit in green light and images of nature projected behind the stage. The lofty ceilings held a blank canvas for a laser light show that played throughout the concert. The lasers, built by Randy Johnson, the same man responsible for the Emerald City light show featured at Burning Man, used frequencies of 400-600 nanometers which apparently help slow brain waves and heal skin tissue. Randy, who was once an engineer of atom bombs, decided to reframe his scientific acumen after an experience with Wah!’s music. Sit through the Healing Concert and you will understand why.
The most powerful indicator of the presence that Wah! embodies is the fact that it was just her on the stage. No band, no sound engineer, no backup singer to bring her respite during the 2-hour show. She is alone, on stage, in all her radiance, singing, chanting, playing the harmonium, responsible for her own key changes and backing tracks. And when you ask her about how she manages all of this, she states that to her, this feels like breathing.
Breathing is all you are responsible for as you lie on the ground, surrounded by lights, bathed in the vibration of her voice and harmonium. The first 20 minutes of the concert drew me into a deep state of meditation where time and space ceased to exist. But my thinking mind was greedy. It wanted to experience the light show, to remember the sounds of her voice. At first the images projected behind Wah! were from nature, meant to get you into the frequency of the physical planet. But as the concert progressed, the images morphed into images of the universe. Snapshots of the galaxy and of our planet from space evoked what in Sanskrit is known as Sakshi. Sakshi is an overview, a withdrawal from self in which you begin to see yourself from above and slowly descend into a state of deep meditation. The galactic images and laser show projected on walls and ceilings and bathed the audience on the floor. The lasers had a life of their own. The algorithms were set so the same pattern never repeated. I was in the presence of a moving organism of light. Galaxies and shooting stars whizzed by as I stared in wonder. Wah! told me later that the Healing Concert is usually performed in planetariums where the cinematic dome and reclining chairs allow the best possible experience. She makes an exception for Yoga Flow SF - Ocean because this repurposed Masonic temple offers high ceilings and a sacred vibe.
I wanted to be physically present for all of it, but the sound of Wah!’s voice and the effect of the lasers were too powerful at times, and I drifted into the space between sleep and wake. My blood pressure dropped, my heart beat slowed, my brain waves began to entrain with the vibration that she set. And this is exactly what Wah! does during the concert; she entrains you to her vibration. Her voice has been tested by physicists (akin to Matsuru Emoto’s tests on water molecules) and has been shown to provide molecular change. Our energy comes into harmony with her energy. Wah states that in physics the effect can be seen through two pendulums swinging randomly in a room; through entrainment, the pendulums begin moving exactly left and right together at the same time. It is what we try to do in our own lives, entrain to the highest possible energy available to us. And it is what Wah! offers during the Healing Concert, an opportunity to entrain with her, to entrain to the devotion and knowledge that she embodies. Call it identification, meditation, healing or transcendence, it is palpable in that space.
Two hours passed by in what felt like one large inhale. Then Wah! walked around and distributed flower petals as a physical reminder of the sacred experience from which we had all returned. The evening left a deep imprint on my soul. It’s a memory I tapped into when the heightened emotions of the holidays became too much. It is a well of healing from which I continue to draw.
If you missed this experience, 2018 has plenty of opportunities for you to entrain with Wah! For a full lineup of all of the offerings visit: www.wahmusic.com.
To find more events at Yoga Flow SF - Ocean, visit www.yogaflowsf.com. Yoga Flow has two studios in San Francisco and they offer yoga classes everyday of the week.
