The Power of the Native Flute

…It was as if there were a magical connection between me and this instrument. It told me how to play it. That is a very native way of thinking… Mary Youngblood

The Native American Style Flute is an easy instrument to play. Even if you think you know nothing about music, you will be surprised at what you can do in a short amount of time and with little practice. You just need to create the space, allow yourself to experiment, open yourself to the unknown, and stop thinking about “how” to become music with the flute, and you will have a transformative experience.

All existence is in motion, creating infinite vibrations of light and sound – life. Music has been happening since the beginning of time. Every form of life in essence combines within itself a sequence of vibrations ordered by rhythm, harmony, and melody. When we tune in with nature, we create relationship and resonance with the essence. You also have a song, it is happening within you, let it flow!

In animistic, shamanic cultures, the music of wind instruments are beings that were delivered by divine ancestors to fulfill specific functions in invocations, rituals, ceremonies, etc… The sound of the breath carries vital energy. All beings are songs breathed by the Great Spirit. Listen to your song and sing the breath of your soul.

The native flute has the power to develop in us a fluid, pleasurable, and therapeutic spontaneous musicality. It reduces anxiety, leads to relaxation, puts us in resonance with nature, and also favors meditative and contemplative states. When playing the flute, we begin to value silence, the intervals, and intuitively awaken to true listening.

Musicality is natural in us, and it can be developed or not. Ancestral instruments invite us to reclaim our musical expression. My encounter with Native Flutes transformed my life, enabled the expression of feelings that vibrate directly from the soul, sensations that hover in a subtle space where unspeakable words dwell in a universal language.

In the Age of self-knowledge, the rescue of spontaneous expression and healing through sound is increasingly present. The flute is a wonderful path to this awakening. Increasingly, quantum physics and studies of cymatics are approaching native origin myths, which in their symbolic language reveal sound as the creator of worlds, which upon breaking sonic barriers, organized the elements and all existing forms of life.

The river cane flute is a vital instrument in the culture, history, and ceremonies of the peoples who lived on the banks of the Colorado River and Gila River, such as the Navajos, Hopis, Hualapai, among others. In some origin myths of these peoples, a long bamboo tube was used to pierce and pass from the underworld until reaching the world we live in.

Bamboo flutes carry many meanings and energies, and one of them is the intimate relationship with the element Water. Bamboo pumps a lot of water to rise toward the sun. Some origin stories of Southern Native American flutes are related to spirits of waters, rivers, and fish. Meanwhile, the stories and ritual symbolisms of Northern Native Americans relate flutes to rituals of invocation of the “Thunder Beings” to bring rains. Likewise, when we play the flute, we feel the movement of emotions – an aspect related to the water element.

In the region of the Anasazi peoples, predecessors of the Pueblo peoples, located in the vast area that is now Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico, called the ‘Four Corners’. There was a Myth known mainly in the Hopi and Navajo cultures as Kokopelli.

Kokopelli, with his flute and his apparent hump, is represented in the oldest petroglyphs of the Southwest of North America, about 3000 years old. Some refer to him as a sage, a magician, a storyteller, a trickster, a healer, a teacher, a trader, a God of Harvest. But the unanimity lies in the power of fertility, ensuring success in crops, growth, and human conception. He was often evoked at the time of planting corn to ensure a good harvest. The Navajos consider him the God of Harvest and Abundance. The Zuni as a priest of Rain. Others consider him a spiritual guide with real healing power. There are several legends about him.

NATIVE FLUTE AND HEALING

The NAF (Native American) style flute is often used in music therapy. In recent research in the USA, where these flutes are very popular, its use has shown great improvement in measurements of resilience to stress, asthma, anxiety, as well as post-traumatic stress. It has also shown effectiveness in fighting depression. In general, improvisational gatherings with the flute have been shown to increase the production of cancer-fighting cells.

When playing a flute, we can exercise therapeutic breathing. According to Chinese medicine, the lung has the functions of managing our vital energy, body fluids, controlling channels and blood vessels, regulating the passage of waters and all physiological activities, controlling the skin, housing the corporeal soul, in addition to having a connection with emotions and being affected by them, especially sadness, grief, or distress. Release your emotions beautifully by blowing the native flute! Free your Hummingbird Soul!