One of our community members, Toni Whitmont visited Cambodia last October and it touched her heart so much she has focussed her energy on supporting them through her sound healing – below Toni shares her story with you.

Last year I learned a huge lesson about love and gratitude, about putting things into perspective, and I learned it from a chance meeting with a Cambodian woman who was encountering crystal sound healing for the very first time.

Nimol is 30 years old. She lives in Phnom Penh with her three children Bayt, Nita and Benar. When I say she lives in Phnom Penh, I really mean she lives in an orphanage on the outskirts. She rarely gets to go into the city. Nimol is a “mama” to about 100 kids from infants to late teenagers, some of whom are abandoned due to their often profound and multiple disabilities. Others are HIV positive and are actual orphans. Nimol works seven days a week, 365 days a year and for her annual labour she is paid about $1,000. Nimol doesn’t speak English.

Most of the children at the NBIC* orphanage can vocalise but not that many of them can speak. Many of them can’t control their bodies, many of them have to be fed lying down. There are all sorts of shortages at the orphanage – there aren’t enough nappies (most of the children wear nappies into their teens), the few wheelchairs often leave them with cruel cuts and bruises, there are virtually no specialist carers. There isn’t even enough of their bodies – many of the children are skin and bone and it is often impossible to tell how old they are. Most of all, there aren’t enough mamas like Nimol.

What there is plenty of at the orphanage, is love and gratitude. Love and gratitude from the wonderful team of carers, volunteers and mamas, all ably and seemingly indefatigably led by Australian wonderwoman Colleen Kennedy. And love and gratitude returned tenfold from these brave and open hearted children to each other, to their carers and to the occasional awkward, uncomfortable visitor. Encountering women like Nimol is like encountering a miracle – five minutes in her company is like a five lifetime lesson on putting things into perspective.

Along with ten others attending a two week crystal sound healing retreat in Cambodia in October last year, I visited the NBIC orphanage. The purpose of the visit was to bring our gorgeous and healing crystal quartz singing bowls into their world. What we discovered was, while so many of the children are imprisoned in their bodies, they can sense and respond to sound. The sound of the bowls is sublime. It is ethereal. It is wonderfully energising and grounding while at the same time being completely uplifting. Watching the children’s little faces light up as we moved around the room, sometimes cradling them in our arms, bathing them in the pure crystalline vibrations of these marvellous healing instruments, was profoundly moving and beautiful. It was also the deepest lesson in love and gratitude, and in putting things into perspective.

An hour or so of crystal sound healing was all they could cope with. Colleen showed us around, we left our gifts of nappy wipes, clothes, cuddly toys and CDs. My gorgeous little cousins in Sydney had woven about 30 loom bracelets, which were placed on little wrists – for most of the children it was the only thing that they had that was actually their own. Think on that! And for some those bracelets gave them something to fiddle with rather than picking at their own skin. We left a quartz crystal singing bowl at the orphanage for Nimol and the other mamas to play.

Anyone who has visited Cambodia will know it has a history that is both rich and tragic. Travel there for even a couple of weeks and you get the sense of a generation lost, a nation struggling to remake itself, an extraordinarily distorted economy, and a seemingly huge tribe of foreigners with all sorts of projects to help to rebuild.

Bravehearts is one of those projects. It is a little project, run by Colleen and a few friends, and it simply tries to gather funds for anything more than the subsistence handouts that NBIC gets from the government.

Since my visit in October, I have been fundraising for Bravehearts through my crystal bowl sound therapy practice Sacred Vessels Sound Healing. Specifically, I am fundraising to pay the annual wages of extra mamas.

Toni will be at Embrace Life Lower North Shore on Sunday May 24 with her orchestra of beautiful quartz crystal and alchemy bowls.  She will be doing a performance at 12.30 and a workshop at 2pm. Apart from that, she will be at her table and happy to talk to you about sound healing, Bravehearts and upcoming events.

Thanks to Bravehearts being one of three orphanages that have been “adopted” by Embrace Life’s Gratitude initiative, you too will have the chance to contribute on the day via one of the gorgeous Gratitude jars.

If you would to experience the bliss and transformational potential of the bowls, as well as have the chance to put things in perspective, come along to my Bravehearts Crystal Sound Healing, on Sunday July 5 from 4pm, at The Yoga Institute – 1/498 Miller St, Cammeray.

Thanks to the big heart of The Yoga Institute, the entire proceeds of the event will go directly to the program. Contact me at sacredvesselsounds@gmail.com for ticket information.

*NBIC stands for National Borey (realm/land) for Infants and Children

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