Chanting for Peace in the Middle East: Can Sound Healing Help?
I attended a memorial for the victims of the October 7 Hamas attack last night, and it was REALLY good to be with community and feel the ripples of pain and prayers and hope for peace.
It’s easy to become numb and overwhelmed by the staggering numbers and each human being’s story is so… human. Shutting down is an evolutionary efficiency mechanism to enable us to survive, and I forgive myself that luxury sometimes.*
Right now I have friends, students, and friends of friends who died at Nova, who have fled Gaza, Northern Israel, and Lebanon, who are hopefully not getting bombed in downtown Beirut right now, and who are receiving refugees all over the world. Everyone’s needs are equally valid. All 3,000,000+ people who are directly suffering because of the terrorist acts and the war.
What can I do as a sound yoga therapist and a sound healer, except:
- bear witness,
- hold a note of hope for peace within the dissonance of the atrocities,
- and vote for leaders who have a capacity to see the big picture and try to move the needle towards a nuanced solution?
(A quick end to this conflict is not possible, without the decimation of one side or the other - they are both fighting for survival from their opposing points of view. I believe it is foolish to believe a candidate who claims it is easy.) - keep offering free sound healing and mantra training so the powerful therapeutic mantra and nāda yoga skills can help us on a very personal level stay sane and calm and nourished amidst the stressors of life, overwhelm, and burnout
- share the amazing interviews I've done over the years as part of the Mantras for Peace: A Wisdom Gathering project. Scientists, artists, musicians, spiritual leaders, and indigenous elders speak about how chanting and sound healing can help us wage peace.
That's the limit of my scope of practice, but I do believe in the transformative power of sound to help us de-escalate from violence (within ourselves) and foster connection in community. Chanting together is one of the oldest ways our human communities have healed, nurtured, and grown together. (Keep reading for an amazing peace mantra chant experience I had in Jerusalem in 1997!)
Last night as my island Jewish family, neighbors, Hawaiian, Filipino, Christian, atheist, and other diverse friends gathered to acknowledge the reality of the atrocities of war, my mind & heart practiced staying big enough to hold the “both/and” perspective that I often talk about here.
I chant for peace. I hope for peace. I pray for peace.
It IS simplistic, but I cling to my first impression as an outsider from the first time I went to Jerusalem in 1997:
That if only the fighters in this ages-long conflict could just move their felt sense of “my tribe” just ONE generation back to Abraham (not stop at Isaac (Jew) & Ishmael (Muslim))… there might be listening, connection, uncomfortable sticky familial disagreements, begrudging empathy, careful tentative negotiation instead of killing.**
The Chanting for Peace in the Middle East idea is not mine:
It is from the religious leaders and peace-minded community members I prayed with over my dozen or so visits to Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, & Dubai.
Many times I have stood in circle and chanted “Allah ho Akbar” with Rabbis and sung “Shemai Israel” with Sheikhs in Jerusalem. It is possible.
(For reasons beyond explanation here, my first trip outside of the US at 19 years old was to the heart of the old city of Jerusalem. We chanted these peace mantras in Hebrew and Arabic, with hundreds of people who all chanted and sang for peace together. Someone in the audience even got up out of their wheelchair to walk for the first time in years, it was so uplifting!)
I realize how naive it seems today, but again, as I am not an indigenous person of that hauntingly beautiful region between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea, a region I have visited a dozen times and loved with all of my heart… I give myself the luxury of unreasonable hope, too.
I shudder at the radicalization that comes with the justification of a “holy war” that is “God’s will.”
For Love(God)’s sake, can we all drop that façade?
(Anyone reading this leaning towards Hindu nationalism or Christian nationalism, I hope your ears are perking up here too. It’s not just Jews and Muslims.)
Hope lays in Humankind, the greater truth that we are all in this together.
And now for my own prophecy…
Climate change is a problem we’ll all need to solve together. The real darkness before the light for the next several generations is not these regional conflicts and human-caused wars, or the land ownership fights.
Our human family is being hobbled by mother Earth and we will need to work together to survive.
Human history shows that the measure of good outweighs the measure of evil, and that we DO thrive working together in times of crisis, more often than not (despite what the sensational news and clickbait algorithm feeds your mind).
🙏🏻 May all the beings in all the worlds feel the sweetness of peace. 🙏🏻
*Full disclosure: Teaching peacemaking skills such as empathetic listening, sound yoga therapy, and mantra meditation is how I deal with overwhelm. It gives me a sense of agency and meets my need for contribution to help one person at a time learn to de-escalate stress and regulate nervous system to the point that creative solutions are possible in their lives. I need that for myself too, and helping others keeps me practicing. That’s why I love (and I need) my job.
**Please read or listen to the wonderful audiobook of Humankind, a Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman. It’s a gamechanger!!
If you're looking for a soothing peace mantra Sound Bath...
Here's one from our archives: It's the finale of one of our Global Chant Circles (this one on a solstice) recorded on Kaua'i.
Uplift your soul with the sweet sounds of Mantras for Peace!! If you've ever wanted to try mantra chanting, this is a good place to start. Our wonderful Mantras for Peace volunteers put together an incredible FREE, online event for the Solstice Global Peace Chant; 15 chant leaders from around the world shared various Sāntipath (Sanskrit for peace) mantras to celebrate the turning point of the sun.
Sound is empowering medicine!
A little skills training, philosophical and scientific understanding, and sensitivity to cultural appropriation are necessary if we hope to develop its potential in our lives. That's why Anandra created the Heart of Sound courses! Many are totally free.
Learn more about sound healing yoga, mantra meditation, and nada yoga here:
- Discover FREE sound & mantra training
- Chant with us LIVE during our next FREE Online Yoga of Sound event
- Dive deep with the world's first and only online sound and mantra 200HR & 500HR Teacher Training
- More free sound baths and chant experiences of all different types are available at HeartofSound on YouTube / Sound Bath Playlist
☎️ Feel free to Book a discovery call if you're curious about any of the above! We look forward to chanting with you again soon. :)
