The Power of the Native Flute

…It was like there was a magical connection between me and this instrument. He would tell me how to play it. That's a very native way of thinking... Mary Youngblood

The Native Flute is an easy instrument to play. Even if you think you know nothing about music, you'll be amazed 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 live a transforming experience.

All existence is in motion, creating infinite vibrations of light and sound – life. There's been music going on since the beginning of time. Every form of life, in essence, combines in itself a sequence of vibrations ordered by rhythm, harmony and melody. When we tune in with nature, we create a relationship and resonance with the essence. You too have a song, it's happening in you, let it play!

In animistic, shamanic cultures, the music of wind instruments, are independent beings, which were given by divine ancestors to fulfill specific functions in invocations, rituals, ceremonies, etc... The sound of breath transports vital energy. All beings are music breathed by the Great Spirit. Listen to your music 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, in addition to favoring meditative and contemplative states. When playing the flute, we start to value silence, intervals and intuitively wake up to true listening.

Musicality is natural in us, and can be developed or not. Ancestral instruments invite us to rescue our musical expression. My encounter with the 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 in a universal language inhabit.

In the era 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 cymatics studies are approaching the native myths of origin, which in their symbolic language, reveal sound as a creator of worlds, which, by breaking the sonic barriers, created the elements and all existing life forms.

The river cane flute ( River Cane Flute) is a vital instrument in the culture, history and ceremonies of the people 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 pipe was used to pierce and pass from the underworld to the world we live in.

Bamboo flutes carry many meanings and energies, and one of them is the intimate relationship with the Water element. Bamboo pumps a lot of water to rise towards the sun. Some South Amerindian native flute origin stories are related to water spirits, rivers and fish. The stories and ritual symbologies of North Amerindians relate the flutes to rituals for invoking the “Thunder Beings” to bring rain. In the same way, when we play the native flutes, we feel the movement of emotions – human aspect related to the water element.

In the region of the Anasazi peoples, predecessors of the Pueblos peoples, located in the vast region that is now Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico, called 'the four corners'. There was a Myth known primarily in Hopi and Navajo cultures as Kokopelli.

Kokopelli, with his flute and apparent hump, is depicted in the oldest petroglyphs in southwestern North America, dating back about 3000 years. Some refer to him as a sage, a magician, a storyteller, a trickster, a healer, a teacher, a merchant, a God of the Harvest. But the unanimity is in the power of fertility, assuring success in crops, in growth, and in human conception. He was greatly evoked at the time of planting corn, to ensure a good harvest. The Navajos consider him the God of the Harvest and Abundance. The Zuni as a Rain priest. Others regard him as 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 as music therapy, in recent research in the USA, where these flutes are very popular, their use has shown great improvement in measures of resilience to stress, asthma, anxiety, as well as post-traumatic stress. . It has also been shown to be effective in fighting depression. In general, impromptu flute encounters have been shown to increase the production of cancer-fighting cells.

By playing a flute, we can practice 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 water and all physiological activities, controlling the skin, sheltering the corporeal soul, in addition to having connection with and being affected by emotions, especially sadness, hurt or distress. Release your emotions beautifully by blowing the native flute!