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Updated: Apr 27, 2023
In February, I had a zoom call with Jaime Allen Poyant and he explained the background of how he and Alan Stonewolf began their journey together with Sonic Field. We were honored to host Sonic Field for our first weekend open on March 11th! We plan to have many more sacred sound events including Jaime and Sonic Field. Please check out the recording below, as Jaime tells of the process of the Sacred Sound Immersion, and speaks to the future events and offerings happening all over! Definitely click on their link to learn of their upcoming events. You can also find Jaime and Sonic Field on social media:
Website: sonicfield.us
Facebook: Sonic Field & Jaime Allen Poyant Sacred Sound & Space
Instagram: Sonic Field & Jaime
You Tube: Jaime
Sonic Field and Jaime Allen Poyant Sound make appearances all over New England, so if you can't catch them at The Current, you can be sure to catch them elsewhere!
Updated from original post on 26Feb on 27April2023
Updated: Feb 26, 2023
Last Saturday was a beautiful, breezy early June evening, with clear skies. I was the first one there, and I saw Jaime first, as I drove up up the long driveway, and then Alan. They were sitting across from each other, two opposing points at either side of the grassy clearing. Alan's yard is beautiful, and the perfect setting for an outdoor event. Many trees shelter the area which in Rehoboth, Ma. I was 30 minutes early, which would make everyone who knows me laugh, because I am notoriously 20 minutes late for everything. I was excited about attending this event, as it was the first outdoor sound event that I could attend in 2022. I parked my car and found the perfect spot in the yard for me to unpack my bag of fun. I laid out my yoga mat, put on my lightweight hoody, took my drum and rattle out and carefully propped them against a tree that was perfectly situated, in the yard. The rest of the attendees started trickling in over the next half hour, making the circle complete. Some I knew from other Sonic Field events, and others were faces I hadn't met before.
The Process
Sonic Field offers a signature Sound Immersion. The event typically starts out with Jaime or Alan giving a descriptive introduction and welcome to folks, as well as the itinerary for our time together. We are warmly greeted, and invited into the space. We find a seat or spot to lay down in. We are asked to set an intention, which could be a prayer for someone else or an affirmation of our own need. Alan will then start us off in the sounding. The tones are relaxing to start and really allow for participants to allow rest into the space. After we are literally transformed in our bodies from this frequency of instrumental and voice sounding offered and that is unique every time I participate, we are then invited to join in. There are handmade spare drums and rattles available for use, and for purchase if anyone feels inclined.
Sharing the Love
We are invited to drum and rattle and sing and dance, with Alan starting us with a simple beat. It isn’t about how well someone sings or whether or not we carry the beat well on the drum. We begin to express ourselves. It is here where the intentions and prayers that we each brought, that were baked into our hearts and bodies as we passively rested in the sacred sound frequencies at the beginning, are brought down to our fiery bellies, as we power the collective intentions in community in the form of drumming, voicing, dancing and expressing ourselves in the community. After we have the opportunity to beat our drums, shake our rattles, dance and sound our voices like a pack of wild wolves, howling at the moon (at least, that's how I felt on Saturday night!!), Alan and Jaime bring out 1 or 2 large gathering drums, where we stand in 1 or 2 circles, depending on the group, venue and vibe. We pause for a moment, as we are again asked to bring our intentions or prayers back to our awareness. From there, either or both of our hosts will begin with a beat, and we continue to play, dance, beat and use our voices In sacred circle around this large, hand made, gathering drum life force. We continue to express ourselves in this beautiful heart thumping way, sending our intentions, emotions, healing vibes up and out. Letting go of whatever we need to, back to the Earth. Releasing with every collective beat of the drum, pounding our feet into the Earth. Sending the prayers and intentions to wherever they need to go.
We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music. -Albert Einstein
The Journey of Feeling
Typically, the only words I have at the end of these events to verbalize my gratitude are “wow, that was totally awesome”. Pretty weak for such a profound experience. I am literally dumbfounded after each event. Tongue tied because the energy of my body is vibrating to the point that I am distracted and overwhelmed by how good I feel. The peace that these experiences instill in my heart and bones is beyond any vocabulary I have. There is something about this entire experience - from the passive immersion, to the group beating and rattling, to the heated sacred circle of drumming together, it truly can’t get dumbed down to words. I will keep trying!
This past Saturday night, during the Immersion segment, I had propped myself up against Alan’s tree, legs were out in front of me, eyes closed and I was wrapped in my blanket. I felt the vibration of the Earth, and the wind moving the trees in a subtle chorus. Alan began playing the digeridoo. My hips trembled and my bottom and my legs seemed to soften in a pretty dramatic way, as if I was growing roots and becoming one with the ground beneath my yoga mat. Although it felt like I wasn't, when I finally opened my eyes, I was in fact still sitting there with others. I had not grown physical roots, after all. I definitely went somewhere else as I listened to the sounds. At another point, when I heard the flute, and the guitar, I felt strong emotion, like I remembered something, and I let tears flow. Again, this doesn't happen every time, but those tears needed to flow. When Alan began to share his wide ranging voice, and Jaime shared his, it softened me even more. Their voices hold a power that must be experienced in person. At that point of almost sleep, it truly felt like an ensemble of hundreds joined them with the tremendous and resonating ranges of sounds that they emitted. I kept my eyes closed and just rested in it all.
Last Saturday was a special night, because we were outside, and because there were so many really beautiful people there experiencing the magic of this event. The sharing that happened at the end of the night by many, especially the newcomers was deep and beautiful. Not everyone shared, and there is really no pressure to say a single word, but we all stood their together and held space for each other. I can't say that I know what everyone was feeling, but I do know that we stood their for quite awhile. I imagine that my body wasn't the only one still buzzing like it was made of happy bees, buzzing in harmony. Many of us joked that we never wanted to leave the space. As we lingered there, a single lightening bug danced above us like a star within our reach.
We need this.
I want you to feel the sounds of the flutes, the drums and the glorious digeridoo, and recognize your body and how it hums along. How the sound touches your bones and organs as if it is pushing you to heal. I want your skin to hum and heal your body from the outside- in. This is what happens during a Sound Immersion with Sonic Field.
An experience with Sonic Field will leave you feeling amazed at what just happened. These are just two guys from southeastern New England, who facilitate a welcoming, therapeutic and expressive space for all. I want you to join in and bask in the love and openness that truly validates what it means to be a human in our best possible form. What it feels like to be free, and to express yourself with absolutely no judgement. I hope you have the opportunity to join Sonic Field in one of their upcoming events and feel for yourself the purity that resides in our human form and how beautiful we can be in a space that is cultivated from our own well intentioned hearts.
Being outside in Mother Earth, the trees, and all of her living, beating, end-of-spring creatures is nothing short of a miracle. I am at a point in my life, where I crave loving community and nature. I crave the need to express myself in whatever way I can in a healthy way. Saturday night sound is an opportunity to release the anxiety that a work week and life overall brings, and any anger that I didn’t even know I had, yet somehow gets released without even trying. I truly feel acceptance and love and everything good that I am grateful for in humans during and even days after these experiences. These sound events anchor my weeks and they are raising the vibration of my own soul. I did not know that is what would happen to me, when I experienced my first event with them, but I sure am grateful for their facilitation, and for the community that I have connected with at all of their events.
Sonic Field is Jaime Allen Poyant and Alan Stonewolf. They have events all over New England almost every week. Please find Sonic Field on Facebook here, or visit their website at www.sonicfield.us
I experienced my first sound event with Sonic Field in September of 2020, outside at Alan’s house. I have joined them in building my very own drum at one of their Drum and Rattle building events at The Soul Purpose , and am excited to be attending another Drum and Rattle build event in July at Quantum Health & Wellness, where one of my oldest and dearest friends will join me to share in the experience of creating our own sacred sound tools. In March, I spent a full day with Sonic Field, for their inaugural class Intro to the Art of Sacred Sound Healing, offered at The Soul Purpose, in Swansea, MA.
Updated: Jun 9, 2022
I got a new therapist. I met with her in person this week for the first time. It was exciting and also annoying. I remember the hard parts of therapy now. I was always good at talk therapy. I like to share. But there were times in the many years that I had with my former therapist of 20 years, that I didn’t want to go. The accountability piece. I didn’t want to have to explain my actions and how they made me feel in so impulsively doing them. I wanted to eat some cheeseburgers, smoke my cigarettes, and numb myself. I was in what seemed like a never ending self-sabotage cycle in my 20s and early 30s. I would come out of it for a bit, and then do something new and healthy for a while, and then as soon as I started to feel good, I would fuck it up again and get back to self-loathing and throwing my hands up. I was self-destructive to the point where I think it frustrated many of the friends I had at the time. I gave up. I was the poster child for doing everything half-assed. I would give up. Whether I was making wrong choices with relationships, or overeating to the point of being sick, I knew better than anyone how to hold myself back.
As someone with a looming diagnosis of Bipolar 1, I forced myself to go to therapy because for me, it was life or death. The alternative could be another stay in inpatient, and another psychotic break. After my 7th hospitalization in just 5 long years, I listened to the doctor and the therapist out of fear for my life. I took Lithium and saw a therapist. I had almost killed myself on the highway while driving recklessly and completely manic. I was put in jail for driving under the influence. Only thing was that I was not under the influence of any substance at all, but my own brain. That scared me, as did the months following with no license to drive and needing to take the bus to the bank that I worked at since on hiatus from school. Trips to court. Expensive lawyers (thank God for my parents) and another setback.
I took the advice of so many doctors. I followed that recipe for 20 years. I had many difficult roller coasters in and out of self-sabotage cycles through those years, and eventually, I learned how to like myself enough to break that cycle. Meeting someone who loved me for me, and then marrying him certainly helped. Getting a great job and excelling at it. I always thought I was the dumbest, ugliest, messy, and worst person in the room. Everybody else was way better than me. I believed that in my mind. I do not have anyone to blame for those feelings. Perhaps this was my sickness, and the environment I got well in. But this was my truth. I hated myself. I would start every sentence with someone new in my life that “well, I am bipolar so….” In other words, I am a fuck up and here is my badge that proves it. Don’t put any faith in what I can do, and don’t you dare think that I have a brain. I would also let people think that I was dumb because it was easier. I was disconnected from my heart back then, and only in my beautiful and super active brain.
There is a lot of sad feelings that come up when I think about my 20s and 30s, but I truly don’t regret any of it. I know that I would not be where I am today, a person who is open and willing to learn from others, who is finally feeling and experiencing an open-hearted connection to my own soul, and to a beautiful and growing community of people of energy healers, chaplains, intuitive teachers and friends who also live from their heart spaces.
It was 23 years ago, next week, when I had my last psychotic episode. I am married, and have a great life now, and it sure as shit was not easy. It still isn’t easy. I had this great therapist for so many years and she literally saved my life multiple times because I forced myself to see her, even when I didn’t want to. Sure, plenty of times I skipped, but I showed up more than I ditched. When I stopped seeing her and my psychiatrist in 2018, they were cheering me on. They made me feel like I was some kind of rock star. I actually felt uncomfortable with their praise (I still don’t do well with that!). They were proud of how far I came, having known me from when I was newly diagnosed and a numbed out frightened woman with no connection to anything beyond how to survive each day.
Playing small still comes back to haunt me. I do it naturally due to my conditioning. This conditioning may never be fully broken, but I am happy that I am aware when I regress a bit and do that. And when I am not aware of it, having a therapist will be wonderful.
I am paraphrasing our conversation a bit but she basically said that, you don’t have to use air quotes when you talk about journeying, drumming, Reiki or how Kundalini Yoga makes you feel, and you don’t have to use words like “supposedly”, as if you need to play small, like the Spiritual life you are leading isn’t real, or it’s some kind of phony belief system that you are making light of because everyone else is freaked out about ever talking about something so provocative. You don’t have to minimize how much this work is helping you be more compassionate and open.
It is amazing all of the work I do, with teachers, shamans, energy healers, so much work and I feel my body now, and how much it is changing, and how much space I have in my brain. I don’t just run my mouth about my feelings now, I actually feel them in my body. I don’t drink or take any medication now. I do not numb and binge to the point of getting sick. I never imagined that just learning mindfulness strategies like meditation, yoga and slowing down the constant doing would make my thinking brain perceive and learn so much! I am 46 and I have never wanted to learn as much as I do now.
I like this new therapist. She is attuned to energy work. When I started going over my story, I was talking fast in the interest of time, and she actually told me to take a breath. We sat and meditated for a couple of minutes. With my history and diagnosis, I felt the need to tell her the major events. I dumped out my high level story from the first time I was hospitalized in 1994, and the subsequent major psychotic events that happened in 1996, and 1999, with a whole lot of medication adjustments, outpatient stays, depression, loss of my grandparents, and my entire connection to creativity, and spirituality that came with living mostly in safety, and how medication that saved my life, but also numbed me out.
She is going to be good for me. I left there feeling contemplative, and she is going to help me progress from where I am right now, which is in a place of newness. I feel happy that I took it upon myself to see someone again. I know that things are getting harder in my relationships because I am not necessarily the same person who likes to talk about the same things that I did even a year ago, never mind 3 years ago when I really started to open my heart and intuition with my introduction to yoga.
Mental health awareness is so much about recognizing what doesn’t sit right in your own mind and body and knowing that there are people that can help. None of us needs to walk this path alone. And we don’t have to wait until we are in crisis to seek help. This is the beautiful part about being human. Connection is always possible.
Originally published on Medium on June 2, 2022