Today we’d like to introduce you to Greg Burns.
Hi Greg, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My current work practicing the Art of Sound Healing and hosting Sound Baths is a culmination of several aspects of me finding a convergent path. My work background has been quite varied during my adult life. An instinct to serve and help people landed me in a position at a therapy hospital for over 15 years, where I was exposed to things like music therapy, art, therapy, and recreation therapy. One of my personal passions has always been consuming music, and as a young adult that meant attending lots and lots of concerts and music festivals. These experiences showed me first hand through direct experience how music can positively effect us in many ways. I had started to feel an initial pull into music in the form of a desire to drum with my hands, African style drumming. After hearing me say this enough times, a group of my close friends bought me a djembe drum as a gift and said “you keep talking about drumming…go drum!” Some kind folks gave me opportunity to develop my drumming skills and i eventually joined a couple spiritually focused music groups as a percussionist. Then, at some point about 20 years ago now, I heard and felt a singing bowl in person for the first time. In a small shop in downtown Asheville, NC the experience of this singing bowl seemed to awaken something in me and I didn’t stop thinking about the bowl and experience for the next couple days. Finally before leaving Asheville I rushed back to the shop to buy the singing bowl and bring it home with me. Now this was the earlier days of online information, so there was not much to be found about singing bowls at that time. No one was talking about them or sound baths, and things like Facebook were in their infancy. Slowly as I traveled I woukd occasionally find a singing bowl for sale in a random shop and had collected a handful of them. While spending lots of time alone at home with my growing collection of bowls, the internet continued expanding and I started to hear about sound healing and sound baths. Here and there I started to incorporate little bits of singing bowls into my role as percussionist, and finally the pull was so strong to dive into this world completely that I followed my intuition and did just that! As I started to host my first Sound Bath events I realized it also pulled on another aspect of my adult work life. I have also done a considerable amount of catering, and one thing thus taught me was the importance of creating an environment and the many aspects that effect how a space feels. Fast forward over 10 years and I’ve now hosted over 1,000 sound bath events and still love this path. There are times it definitely feels like a calling to be doing this. It most certainly allows me to weave many threads from my life together in a serving capacity.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been interesting but not always smooth. When I first started offering these sound bath sessions, well and honestly even still today….many people have zero idea what I’m referencing. Many people have never heard of a singing bowl much less experienced one in person. People do know what a gong is but primarily tge only knowledge of its sound is the big gong splash sound, like you might have heard on The Gong Show many years ago. So one of my biggest challenges (but ironically also one of my opportunities) has been the need to educate most people about what I do, and how it might help them. There’s been other challenges too, such as lots of traveling to other communities for opportunities to share my craft. Lots of carrying and loading heavy equipment, sometimes up and down multiple flights of stairs. It’s a labor of love, but there is definitely labor involved. And educating folks has been far and away the biggest challenge, but I’ve embraced it as an opportunity to be an ambassador for this emerging field most commonly called sound healing.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
The field that I work in might be called many different names depending where you look. Personally I call it the Art of Sound Healing. It is an art, but it also has therapeutic components so I feel that name tries to capture that full spectrum. Mostly I host lots of Sound Bath events, both publicly and privately. If youre not familiar with the term Sound Bath, a short description would be that its a meditative type of music experience thats intended to provide rest and reflection, essentially. Though not as often I also do personal 1:1 Sound sessions too, which is a deeper and more intimate use of sound. Some of these individual sessions have been so powerful as I’m often doing them with folks who are facing serious health issues, such as late stage cancer. As for what sets me apart…I feel like my background of 15 years in a therapy hospital setting gives me a unique skillset compared to most who enter this field of work. That and working with my instruments privately for almost 10 years before doing that with or for others allowed me to develop a rich understanding of my instruments, both in their use and in their effect.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
My field is still emerging, still growing. I’m still educating folks regularly about singing bowls and sound baths. The field is going through some growing pains too, if I’m honest. As an unregulated field it doesn’t currently have any barriers to starting. And while the hope is that anyone interested in doing this would take the time to do research and lots of practice before starting, humans will be humans. So at this time when the field is growing and kind of “hot” it attracts some who don’t start for the right reasons, such as to make money or be seen. It’s an art and practice of service primarily, and hopefully that service gets valued adequately. And even though the field is working through those growing pains, the field is strong and I feel like we’ve only just begun to understand how impactful this can be. The scientific knowledge is young and slowly emerging, but the science will remain challenging because humans are unique and complicated creatures. But those of us who have been drawn to this field with a heart ahd mind to help others have absolutely seen first hand the power in this type of experience when done right. It can effect us on many levels simultaneously- mental, physical, emotional and spiritual- and for that reason can be tremendously helpful.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mettavibrations.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/metta.vibrations.gb?mibextid=ZbWKwL
