Yesterday Kim taught a class about how to use tuning forks to create vibrational balance. While I was en route, running pre-class errands, NPR played this segment:
Morning Edition, January 9, 2009 · Scientists at Cornell University have discovered that a species of mosquito has mastered the art of the serenade.
They found that Aedes aegypti mosquitoes adjust the frequency of the sound produced by their beating wings as potential mates near each other. The team's research appears in this week's issue of the journal Science.
The male mosquito's buzz, or flight tone, is normally about 600 cycles per second, or 600-Hz. The female's tone is about 400-Hz. In music, he's roughly a D, and she's about a G. So the male brings his tone into phase with the female's to create a near-perfect duet. Together, the two tones create what musicians call an overtone — a third, fainter tone at 1200-Hz. Only then will the mosquitoes mate.
They found that Aedes aegypti mosquitoes adjust the frequency of the sound produced by their beating wings as potential mates near each other. The team's research appears in this week's issue of the journal Science.
The male mosquito's buzz, or flight tone, is normally about 600 cycles per second, or 600-Hz. The female's tone is about 400-Hz. In music, he's roughly a D, and she's about a G. So the male brings his tone into phase with the female's to create a near-perfect duet. Together, the two tones create what musicians call an overtone — a third, fainter tone at 1200-Hz. Only then will the mosquitoes mate.
...
Most of the pairs varied their flight tones to create the overtone. Hoy speculates that the musical union could be a kind of sexual selection — potential mates unable to hear or produce the overtone might be deemed unfit for reproduction.
...
What makes A. aegypi so unusual in the animal world is how precisely it modifies its tones.
Rex Cocroft is a behavioral biologist at the University of Missouri who has recorded the sounds made by numerous kinds of insects. He says many animals, from birds to katydids, use sound in mating behavior. This experiment showed something new.
"We think of insects as being masters of timing and rhythm and not so much as masters of pitch," Cocroft says.
Most of the pairs varied their flight tones to create the overtone. Hoy speculates that the musical union could be a kind of sexual selection — potential mates unable to hear or produce the overtone might be deemed unfit for reproduction.
...
What makes A. aegypi so unusual in the animal world is how precisely it modifies its tones.
Rex Cocroft is a behavioral biologist at the University of Missouri who has recorded the sounds made by numerous kinds of insects. He says many animals, from birds to katydids, use sound in mating behavior. This experiment showed something new.
"We think of insects as being masters of timing and rhythm and not so much as masters of pitch," Cocroft says.
There's a field of science called biomusicology, he says, that investigates the idea that what we like in music may derive from what we've heard in the natural world.
"For example, when people were writing early melodies like Gregorian chants," Cocroft says, "when you have a large jump up in frequency, then you tend to drop down stepwise, and people were asking, 'Well, do animals show similar kinds of rules?'"
If that sounds crazy, consider this: The interval between the male mosquito's tone and the female's is quite close to what musicians call a perfect fifth.
In fact, composers for centuries considered the interval of a fifth to be the most euphonious. So if mosquitoes have it right, all you need is a melody with an interval of a fifth and you'll be guaranteed romantic success. The composer of that romantic chestnut "Feelings" apparently figured that out: The first two notes are a perfect fifth.
So What? What do mosquitoes have to do with tuning forks or natural healing or Reiki?
More than I ever thought about, until now.
We all tune in to perfect pitch. Everything in nature -- plants, animals, humans -- seeks balance in tone, pitch, vibration. More precisely, we crave the note of C, 128 Hz, for perfect health. And rise spiritually at 136 Hz, a Universal Tone, Om, that helps for spiritual meditation.
More and more scientific research has demonstrated healing effects using vibrational energy, sound waves, to modulate, calm, soothe -- or stimulate activity.
We demonstrated this in our classroom. I volunteered to be guinea pig and was rigged with an oxygen sensor and pulse meter. My classmates were able to increase my pulse rate dramatically, from 62 to over 80 and higher, by chopping the air with two tuning forks in two different tones Kim selected. My pulse rate went back down immediately when an Om tuner scanned over my body. My oxygen reading went from 98 to 99 as well under Om's influence. Physiological reactions to vibrational energy quickly convinced our class that this is for real -- something healers like Kim have always known.
Each of the chakras respond to various notes, beginning at the crown descending to the root: BAGFEDC. Use low and high Cs to help restore balance, root to crown. Use D and B to promote unconditional love. C and E create white energy to cleanse and reduce fear.
Even though the students were relatively inexperienced, each of them claimed they could feel some resistance over the solar plexus scanning with a tuning fork over my body. They were sensing the fact that I had developed a lower back issue from skiing with my son two days before.
As the guinea pig, I can tell you that I felt different reactions depending on which tuning fork they used -- slightly improved, neutral or less. It reminded me of the lens flipping eye doctors do when they're trying to tune the prescription for your eyeglasses. "Better? or worse?" I dunno exactly, I don't want to give the "wrong answer", but eventually I end up with something that works.
When I got up from the table, pulse and oxygen returned to normal, I felt light headed but tuned. Soon I was well enough to take these pictures of the next beautiful guinea pig you see here.
I'm going to get that book about Musicology that piqued my interest by the doctor, Oliver Sachs, who wrote the book about mistaking his wife for a coatrack... What was that? I'm sure Amazon will direct me. Another area in which I had zero interest, looks interesting now.
I spoke to Kim about writing a book together. She is a fountain of experience. She breaks into enthusiastic bubbling of information, her face flushes and sparkles like a little girl's, reciting ideas and recipes for healing that trip off her tongue so fast that no one can write them down. I've got to bring my recorder to class more often. Students asked if she could give them a chart on all this. She laughs, "Sure if you want to transcribe my notes from the last 25 years or more!" So much of this she developed from dreams after near death experiences, then put into practice. Some is written, some is intuitive, so much will be lost. Other teachers like her have guarded their secrets intensely. Buddhist traditions have been passed verbally for 2500 years or more.
Kim agrees that this is the time to unveil the secrets and share them with a world that needs them.
Wheels are turning.
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