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Small sound bath Thursday night, eight people, mostly regulars. Near the end I struck the big crystal bowl, the low F, and let it ring out like always. Except it didn't fade. It kept going, a thin thread of sound, maybe twenty seconds longer than it physically should have. My hands were in my lap. Nobody touched it. Afterwards a woman who'd come for the first time told me, very quietly, that it was her late father's birthday, and that he used to hum one low note to her when she couldn't sleep. 'Like that one,' she said. I'm not going to make claims about what happened. I just held her hands for a minute, and then we had tea.

The facilitator who couldn't lie still

Confession: I hold sound baths for other people two nights a week, and until recently I could not get through one myself. Lie down, close my eyes, and immediately start answering emails in my head. What finally helped wasn't a fancier bowl. It was permission. A friend led me through one and said at the start, 'You don't have to relax. You just have to stay.' So I stayed. Fidgeted, planned, stayed. Somewhere in the long hum of the last bowl my jaw unclenched for what felt like the first time in weeks. Resting without guilt is still a practice for me, not an achievement. But I'm staying.