September 3, 2022

I arrived in Costa Rica on August 22nd with the goal of doing lots of yoga and writing about interesting experiences. I spent my first 2 full days just looking for a mat worthy of a yoga tour of what may be the yoga mecca of Central America. I finally scored the perfect mat at an estudio y tienda in Escazu, the most shopped area of the country.

I stayed in La Garita (in the Central Valley) for a week, where I was able to reconnect with old friends and get some much-needed rest. At the beginning of my second week, I turned my eyes toward the sky and snaked my way to Monteverde, a mountaintop town less than 3 hours north of the Costa Rican capital, San Jose. The quaint town 4,360 feet up exists in a cloud forest, a unique ecosystem making up only 1% of all earthly forests.

On dia numero uno in the cloud city, I called Jose, who seemed to be the only yoga-type person on the mountain with a website and phone number. He also answered the phone. He also speaks English. (I will happily speak broken Spanish as long as it takes to get my point across, I just hate to torcher native speakers, and truth be told, I might be a little afraid to speak it). According to Jose, there was a yoga class in a couple of hours and he was teaching it. Perfecto. 

After his lovely slow-flow class, we visited a bit about yoga: teaching it, writing about it, creating sounds for it, and writing poetry for it. When we parted, he had agreed to an interview and I had agreed to a sound bathing/healing ceremony. 

To the casual yoga practitioner, sound bathing may sound a bit “out there”, but there is a surprising amount of scientific research to back up the healing effects of sound on our minds and bodies. In Ayurveda (the sister science of yoga), sound is the most healing modality and offers the most profound healing effects. Sound is considered the most subtle of all the energies and is associated with the element of ether, or the bliss body. 

I recently listened to a podcast about this topic, featuring Dr. Kulreet Chaudhary, a neurologist and Ayurvedic practitioner, which I highly recommend. You can find it HERE. 

Jose and I spent two yoga classes, one interview, and one sound bathing session in the glass-walled, stand-alone room overlooking the forest. 

Eight years prior, Jose experienced an epiphany while taking a yoga class in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, where he was a diving instructor. His teacher at the time was a woman he admired and respected. During savasana on the star-shaped, open-air patio, he experienced an opening-a realization; an awareness of the profound effects yoga could bring to his body, mind, and soul. He described this experience as “mind-blowing,” and it was the reason he began a daily yoga practice (sadhana) right after. 

When Jose moved to Costa Rica 6 years ago, he met a man named Alejandro, who, having studied with the Lakota Indians in the U.S., introduced him to Native American traditions, native music, and the power of the sweat lodge and cacao ceremonies. 

Alejandro taught him how to follow The Red Road, which was the path he took to connect with nature and to himself. He inspired him to learn to experiment with sounds as a tool for healing and transformation. With his guidance and inspiration, Jose learned to play the didgeridoo, the flute, the rain stick, and other instruments of indigenous people. He discovered a new yoga class while living in Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica, where he began exploring spontaneous movement, shamanic drumming, ecstatic dance, and sound bathing. 

He spent several years living near the beach in Costa Rica, managing his diving studio, deepening his personal yoga practice, and learning how to incorporate his love of music into his life and his work. For him, diving was an important step on his journey. He describes his time in the ocean as a “big cleaning” as he worked on letting go of the traditional, money-making goals he believes were imprinted on him by the larger culture in which he was raised. Diving was a tool to cleanse himself, to learn to regulate his breath, to be totally in the moment.

Just before he was scheduled to start building his new home near the beach, he began to feel oppressed by the heat. He said he literally “couldn’t think” because of it and he felt compelled to find a cooler climate. Almost overnight, he left his beach life and moved to the cool, cloud forest of Monteverde, sight unseen. Jose says he is happy here and feels he is exactly where he’s meant to be. 

“The mountain wanted me to live on it. I switched earth for water, and diving for yoga.” He now feels the same cleansing sensation he got from diving when he walks through the forest. 

On the morning of August 31st I made my way to his studio for our sound healing appointment at 9 in the morning  He was higher in the clouds than my Airbnb by about 20 minutes. The road to his studio was so riddled with holes (and by holes I mean craters), I arrived each time with my shoulders up to my ears. Luckily, the subsequent activities were a counterpoint to the stressful drive in my low-to-the-ground Hyandai sedan. 

Instead of the yoga mats lined up in their usual way, this morning Jose had created a beautiful altar to sound in the middle of the room. He centered himself in this space, surrounded by his instruments, as I sat in front of him while he described the process.

He explained he would sometimes get close to my body with his instruments, sometimes further away. Which instruments he used and how he used them was an intuitive process and different with each individual. Listening plays an important role in the sessions; he listens to the whispers of the body and spirit of his subject.

Each person calls to him in different ways. 

I felt ready. I was without expectations or goals of any kind. I was prepared for anything and opened myself up to whatever was going to happen. My intention was to say “yes” to all of it.

We began by standing at the windows, looking out at the jungle in the clouds. We shook out our hands, feet, legs, and arms. We reached up high on an inhale and then swooshed our arms down, bending our knees and bringing our hands behind us, skiers on a downhill slope.

We did this arm/breath movement several times. A kind of kundalini movement, sweeping all the negative energy and thoughts behind us with our breath and our bodies. 

I stood still as he shook a percussion instrument around me, a rain stick. When he did this, I had a clear image of a rattlesnake moving around me, cleansing my space and warding off unnecessary intrusions. Protecting me.

Afterward, he had me lie down on the mat in front of his music altar, where he brought more snake medicine, which felt incredibly comforting. I don’t recall the exact order he played the instruments, because I went in and out of different states of relaxation and consciousness. He used gongs, chimes, drums, the didgeridoo, a string instrument, his voice, and the Native American flute.

There were other sounds in the environment, too. Sounds he mentioned at the beginning may be a part of my experience. People talking, traffic, footsteps. I heard and did my best to welcome all of it. I reminded myself not to resist any sound or sensation. To let it all flow around me and through me. 

There were moments where I got very cold, so cold that I imagined myself covered in snow. I did not resist it, but instead I embraced it, accepted it. I said “yes” to it. 

Because of all the environmental sounds, I didn’t go into a state of deep relaxation, although I did come close. As I skitted along the edges of a deeper state, my mind wondered and the sounds in the larger environment crept in. As thoughts appeared, the musical sounds became various animals that carried the thoughts away. 

The flute music became birds catching hold of each thought and flying away with it, higher into the clouds. The stringed instrument made small, pointed sounds that became bees, carrying my thoughts away like pollen from a flower. I saw each thought held in a separate hexagon in a giant beehive, tended by the bees, making thought honey. Over and over again, when a thought would appear in my mind, the sound creatures carried them away. The creature who appeared depended on the instrument Jose was playing. 

Jose told me before we started his intention was to nudge my subconscious, to talk to those parts of myself that are beyond my awareness. Like a shower for your body, a sound bath is meant for the subtle, unseen parts of yourself; a cleansing for your spirit.

I don’t know for sure how the experience has changed me and how it will affect me moving forward. I enjoyed it immensely and think it’s an important part of my own healing journey. 

Maybe the thought beehive will help me stay as organized and hardworking as Bee. Perhaps Forest Bird will continue carrying my rubbish thoughts to the clouds, and maybe Rattlesnake will keep protecting me. If sound bathing does indeed tap into the subconscious, then I suppose it remains to be seen how I will be affected moving forward. The most subtle effects are usually the most profound, after all. 

To learn more about the Sound Healing Journey by Jose and to get in touch with him, go to his website HERE.