Who am I?

I am Zhaleh. A sound healing practitioner, a musician, a poetry circle facilitator, and a long-term meditator.

I have always been imaginative, and since childhood, I have had a love for sound, stories, and play. I learned to play the santur, a Persian instrument with a rich mystical and poetic tradition, from the age of five. As I grew older, my curiosity about the spiritual mysteries of sound also grew. This led me to explore various types of meditative modalities and practices, such as tai chi, Zen meditation, and whirling, among many others.

At first, these practices felt like independent skills that I was learning. But over time, I realised that they had all become woven together within me like a tapestry. As the patterns in the tapestry became clearer and its fruits ripened, I began to create and share new pieces of art in the form of written stories, creative workshops, stained glass art, and improvised music.

Becoming a musician, writer, and storyteller was not something I planned. It was as if life asked me to create and express the patterns of my inner tapestry through these artistic media. Or, well, maybe it's more accurate to say, “our co-created tapestry,” for life and I have co-created the tapestry. I performed as a musician on numerous big and small stages, learned different instruments, taught Persian music professionally. All of these came to me, rather than me searching for them, as though life had been planning something for me all along. The story of my relationship with sound healing unfolded in a very similar way.

I was on a retreat, at a time when I was wondering what the next step in my career would be, when I had a dream one night in which I heard the words “sound healing” very loudly and clearly. It was not really something I was thinking about or considering. It felt as though my soul was speaking to me.

I did a bit of research on sound healing and told myself it would probably take a long time before I actually began learning and practising it. A couple of weeks later, I visited a healer who happened to be a tuning fork practitioner, and I did not know that until I visited her practice.

I will never forget that day. Her tuning forks were sitting on a shelf, and I felt as though they greeted me and started jumping and skipping with happiness. They were happy that I was getting to meet them - or perhaps I was!

She worked with me using one of the forks, and I was so amazed by its work and its deeply grounding and centering vibration. I purchased my first tuning forks later that day. When they arrived a week later, I wept when I held them in my hands, before I had even heard their sound. I knew I was receiving some of the most precious, supportive, and dear friends I would ever have in my life: the tuning forks.

I trained to work with different sets of tuning forks, such as the Solfeggio and Fibonacci sets. I trained in sound healing facilitation with SomaEnergetics. Learning to work with each of those sets was like an initiation. An initiation that gave me access to a key to open a new gateway of communicating with my soul and heart, and also equipped me to create the foundations of sound that hold these open gateways through which others can enter and experience a deeper connection to themselves.

When I offered my first session to a friend of mine, I was surprised at how at ease I felt doing it, as if I had offered many sessions before. This was when I realised that my work as a sound healing practitioner was yet another expression of my inner tapestry, and another way through which life wants to express its flow of healing, wisdom, and harmony through me. As I continued working with the forks on myself, I began to be flooded with ideas and inspiration. I was also filled with the motivation and willpower to take action and create what wanted to be created, one step after another.

Within a few weeks, the forks and my intuition made it very clear to me that it was time for me to set up a practice and offer these sounds to others on a larger scale.

And now, the tuning forks have become very dear friends to me and to everyone who receives their sounds in Fargosha. They lift us up when we are down, they console us when we are in pain, and they uplift us and celebrate us when we want to share our joy with the world. They give voice to our love for life and our love for the people around us. They amplify the voice of our prayers; prayers for the well-being of ourselves and the people around us. They sing harmony and healing into our lives, they wash away old beliefs and stagnant energies like the waves of the ocean, they nourish us with the most soulful vibrations, they awaken and energise the unrealised potential we all carry within us, and they call our bodies, minds, and souls to create, to be healthy, joyful, and thriving.

And I notice time and time again that our bodies, minds, and souls love to hear these sounds, receive their messages, and respond to their calls.