SARA AUSTER SOUND IS AN INVITATION
Sara Auster
A sound bath is an immersive, full-body listening experience that gently invites you to use sound and stillness as a way of connecting to your inner and outer worlds.
MoMA, Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, the World Health Organization, FDA-approved treatment for migraine. Sara Auster brought sound baths everywhere they had never been. Then lockdown arrived and she brought them to the whole world.
I discovered Sara Auster during lockdown. She was doing exactly what she had always done, just for the entire world at once.
Sara Auster is a sound therapist, meditation teacher, author and creator of the PAUSE app. She has spent the past decade introducing sound baths to audiences and unique environments all over the world, helping deep listening and sound meditation go mainstream in a way that feels anything but commercial. Her first book, Sound Bath: Meditate, Heal and Connect through Listening, was published in November 2019 by Simon and Schuster. At its core, her work explores how sound and listening transform space, both physically and psychologically, for the purpose of creating connection.
She has guided intimate events in public schools, hospitals, boardrooms, and nonprofits, and large-scale mass meditations at MoMA, Lincoln Center, Central Park SummerStage, and Madison Square Garden. She developed a mindfulness curriculum for the World Health Organization and created FDA-approved sound baths as a complementary treatment option for people living with migraine. Through the Auster Sound Method, she explores how listening transforms space and invites new audiences into deeper ways of being.
What can one expect from a sound bath?
We all have a desire to feel connected to ourselves and other people. A Sound Bath experience facilitates that in a simple, accessible, and powerful way. This idea is exciting and gives me hope for the future of humanity: that we can come together and get quiet, listen inward to connect to compassion and empathy, and express ourselves through our unique voices collectively to build community.
The term "healing" is rather controversial in the wellness world. How do you feel about it?
Through sound baths, sound meditation, community events, education and corporate training, I aim to facilitate mindful and immersive experiences that allow participants access to improved focus, expansive creativity, and deep human connection through listening. That said, the healing you experience in a Sound Bath is of your own making. You are the one who is nurturing and opening a path to your own state of wellness. You are the catalyst for your own change, and it is you who creates the magic of the experience. I am simply creating the space for you to do so.
How does one prepare for a session?
Find a comfortable space where you can be seated or lying down in a relaxed position. You could have a blanket and an eye mask handy, and perhaps a piece of paper or journal and a pen in case you would like to jot anything down. The instruments used can vary, but some include singing bowls, chimes, gongs, and one you always carry with you: the voice.
"Being able to access a moment of stillness internally when everything is rapidly swirling around outside of you can feel like a superpower."
Sara Auster
How do you feel about how the pandemic changed things?
The need for connection and deep listening are more necessary than ever before. While sound baths are typically in-person experiences, technology has allowed us to connect in new and innovative ways. Even though we are not together in a room, we are connected through a shared experience of sound. Virtual sound baths provided a unique opportunity to engage in a shared experience as part of a global community. Since I started offering virtual sound baths, there has been a global outpouring of gratitude from Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, France, Germany, the UK, New Zealand, South Korea, and more. It is an honor to hold this kind of space for people all around the world.
"During a Sound Bath I straddle this space of being conscious and not, and often I disappear. Afterwards, I feel like my soul has been given a bath and I am cleansed of whatever I brought into the space when I arrived."
An unprecedented and comprehensive guide to sound baths. Published November 2019 by Simon and Schuster. If you are drawn to this work, it is where to start.
We have been a part of this change, using social media to expose the works of some of the most inspiring artists in the world and putting you, the reader, in touch with them directly. There is no need for only a few people in a flawed system to dictate what artists can and cannot be exposed to. Today it is more important than ever to preserve the artist's perspective. Because artists are. ✦
Stay curious,
Leila Antakly
