A Sleep Hike To The Empty Space

Sometimes things get too stressful here at The Jiffy, a podcast about upstate New York that really takes you places.

And when this happens, I lace up my hiking boots and guide you on a restful Sleep Hike, where I do the hiking, while you do the sleeping.

I've been told that my methods could use some training, so in this episode we visit Anna Yang and Alex Artymiak, the co-founders of Empty Space.

Empty Space is a sound studio in Old Chatham, New York, with ancient singing bowls, gongs, sansulas, harps, and more, and in this episode, we learn how we can perhaps tune out the noise by listening to the sounds within.

You can find Anna and Alex at @emptyspace.sound.

Some previous Sleep Hike episodes:

The Jiffy Takes A Sleep Hike

A Sleep Hike Through Mud Creek

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome To The Sleep Hike
• 1:16 Why A Sound Meditation Hike
• 2:03 Arriving At Empty Space Studio
• 2:43 Meet Anna And Alex
• 3:26 Breathwork To Drop In
• 4:07 Stimulating Then Calming The Nervous System
• 4:54 Drum, Heartbeat, And Entrainment
• 5:55 Ancient Singing Bowls And Purpose
• 7:00 Listening For Harmonics And Overtones
• 8:18 Curating Bowls And Tuning By Feel
• 9:30 Demonstrating Dissonance Versus Harmony
• 10:55 Gongs And The Power Of Fundamentals
• 12:10 Deep Listening And Mind Capture
• 12:56 Reading The Room During Sessions
• 14:08 Anna’s Journey Through Burnout And Healing
• 16:08 Instruments On The Body And Release
• 17:28 From Harp To Facilitator And Upstate Move
• 18:40 Naming The Studio: The First Sound Is Silence
• 19:44 Guidance Tips: Words Worth Breaking Silence
• 21:00 Closing Gratitude And Ways To Connect

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Jiffy, a podcast about upstate New York that really takes you places and I don't know about you, but I think it might be time. Time for one of our relaxing sleep hikes. Sleep hike. Now if you've never listened to one of my patent pending sleep hike episodes, or uh maybe never been on a sleep hike with us before. Well, this is when I I guess they really come around when it feels like things are getting pretty stressful out there. I guess m most of the time they tend to come around election day, uh, but also when it just feels like things are getting too much. And so I feel like maybe it's time to get back in touch with nature, go take a little relaxing stroll. But sometimes you may not have the time to go out in the woods, or maybe you live in a place where there are no woods. Maybe you just don't like the woods. The point about sleep hiking is that you don't have to do any hiking. If you're sleeping while I do the hiking, and hopefully you'll never hear the end of this episode because you'll be asleep. Now, previously, we've taken sleep hikes through Illinois Creek Garden as well as Mud Creek during the mud season. It's really beautiful. But today I want to do something a little differently. It's been brought to my attention that maybe my sleep hikes could use some improvement on both the sleepy side and the relaxing side of things. So I thought it'd be interesting to go and talk to some experts that I recently learned about. Maybe they can teach us about the craft of meditation. And because this is an audio-only podcast, uh specifically looking at meditating through sound. Okay, we're gonna go head out to Old Chatham and Sleep Hike to an empty space. Alright, we just got here. Pulled in him in the parking lot, and uh Old Chatham. It's beautiful and a little uh rainy and uh oh there's a commemorative bench to the actor Walton Goggins. I always love seeing those. Here we are, empty space. Okay, let's open the door. Let's say hi. Oh hi. Hi, Alex Anna? Oh James. Empty Space is uh a sound studio that offers sound meditation, yoga, and breathwork classes. It's co-founded by Anna Yang, a musician and trained sound meditation guide, and Alex Artimiak. Alex has guided meditations for readers of such publications as Goop in the New York Times. Uh who's a yoga breathwork teacher and a sound facilitator as well. And so clearly uh these are two experts who could help improve our sleep hype here on the podcast. What do I need to do to put me where you where I need to be? Okay. Uh I'm taking off my buttons. And so I'm about to take us into one of their uh guided sound meditations. Hopefully, we'll come out on the other side of this feeling really rested and hopefully more in charge of ourselves. This is my first time doing something like this. So what am I in for? What can what can I expect?

SPEAKER_01: 3:06

So, first we'll be starting off with a little bit of breath work to help drop you in. Uh, we use a more active breath technique, and that stimulates your nervous system. You get into uh the sympathetic, which is more fight or flight, so it raises your your nervous system, it stimulates it, excites it. So let's start by placing one hand on the belly, one hand on the chest, and take three or four deep, deep breaths. Let's take an inhale to the belly, an inhale into the chest, and then exhale, let it go. Very nice. And then we'll do a breath hold, which will help to calm the nervous system. So we do this because it helps to create almost like a larger gap of spectrum where sometimes it's hard to let go of something when you're holding onto it unconsciously. So this is almost like a way of tensing your nervous system so that when you let go you can completely relax and drop in. And out. In, up, out. Drum is is a very ancestral instrument, right? Drums have been used for people going to war, they're used for dance, and the reason being is they say that the drum is like the heartbeat of the orchestra. There's something that as soon as the drum hits, there's a deeper resonance. You may have been feeling it in your actual body. Um, and that you can you can actually entrain the heartbeat using the drum. Into the chest. Sip in a little bit more. Hold your breath at the top. And so when you pick up the drum beat, the heart rate starts to go a little faster. That's gonna put you deeper into a sympathetic nervous system, push you into an excited state. Maybe feel a little bit of good discomfort, a little bit of tension, that then they can have that contrast of a deeper state of release and relaxation. And let go.

SPEAKER_02: 5:08

Those are our very big collections of antique same bowls. They're all collected individually from, you know, Himalayan mountains. And each bowl's probably around anywhere between 500 to a thousand years old.

SPEAKER_01: 5:34

The bowls were used because meditation and and frequency was always hand in hand. We can play the sounds, and when you use that sensitivity of listening, it really helps to check in with your thoughts. Our teacher always says there's two types of sounds. There are the ones that you can hear, and then there's the inaudible ones. And those inaudible sounds are, of course, your thoughts, right? And so creating this really distinct sound on the outside world gives your awareness a place to go. And so often through our modern day, we're being stimulated by the things we hear, the news, the traffic, arguments we have with loved ones. And so that's constantly playing into our nervous system, playing into our consciousness. And these sounds and the harmonics and the overtones that they emit help to bring you back into a state of peace, into a state of harmony within yourself. When it comes to listening to the sounds, just think of it as a way of really experiencing sound, not just through your ears, but trying to feel the vibrations within yourself, in your body. You know, sound travels much faster and stronger through liquid. And so see if you can connect to that. The liquid that holds the brain in the heart tissue of the skull. Just try to feel the vibrations up there, feel the vibrations moving through your blood, moving through your muscle tissue. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 7:06

Anyway, so those are the walls. It's really hard to put like a big set together like this, um, because you kind of need to do the math correctly, and those are all very unique, one of a kind. There's there kind of like has its own spirit. So um we have a teacher that goes to Nepal to collect all those symbols, and he'll bring back tens, thousands of balls, and you know, um, and then we'll need to just pick out the one that harmonize each other the most.

SPEAKER_01: 7:43

The reason why they're they have to be selected one by one is because they are tuned to a very specific frequency. And so the way that they're going to play together, play with each other will change if the frequency is just a little off. So even though they are closely related to certain notes on a scale, uh we have to create a harmony within the bull set. And so that's why they're they're selected one by one.

SPEAKER_00: 8:07

Yeah, it's interesting. Would it be possible to hear a version of it where it's not really resonating and then to compare it with one where it all sort of connects?

SPEAKER_01: 8:33

We can, it'll it won't be uh this will be a little sharp. Um so we have a bowl that is an F sharp, and that's a seven fifty-two. So why don't you play play the C five and then the G five? And then do it again. Yeah, there's a little bit of beating towards that sound, right? And then undo the C and E. So you can analyze it from just like a from an analytical technical place, but then also how does it make you feel when you hear the E? This pairing versus the first pairing. It's not that it does it sounds bad. There's just a little bit it's a little off-putting, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 10:12

The singing balls is a very big crucial part of the sound meditation, and then behind me are the gons, which you know the history of is traced back to a thousand years ago. Well, I'm from Asia and Gon is a very uh it's a meditation instrument that people use in, you know, in Tibet in Buddhism. And this is Gon is the instrument that emits the most overtones.

SPEAKER_01: 10:49

What Anna's uh describing is is called the fundamental. When we first strike a bowl, that first initial hit is called strike. It plays off the what you'll hear when we strike it is you'll hear the fundamental. That's gonna be the basiest, the lowest tone. And then if you listen closely, you'll start to hear rising tones above that. And each of those tones, this comes back to the beauty of art and math, is it sounds pleasant, but from a mathematical standpoint, what you're hearing is a multiple off of that fundamental. So you're hearing maybe the fundamental just for the sake of easy math resonates at 100 hertz, and then the second overtone or this is the second harmonic will be 200 hertz, the third will be 300 hertz, 400 hertz, 500 hertz, 600, and so on. And so when you're listening to the sound meditation, when you're actually going through the experience, we ask you not just to listen to the fundamental tone, which is what's going to strike you the loudest, but listen very closely, listen for those overtones, listen for those harmonics. And what that will do is it will really captivate your mind and captivate your awareness. You'll go into a state of deeper listening. So that's what we mean when we say listen judiciously. Listen for those rising tones, listen for the relationships, the beating, the harmony in between the tones.

SPEAKER_02: 12:16

We play, we observe people, and um, every group is different. And some people, a lot of people may be their first timer, they have a really hard time, you know, dropping in or having a hard time. Or they're you can tell that they're going through something. A lot of their when we play the gong or play the single ball, there might be certain memories that come up for them. Some are pleasant, some are not. Um, so we kind of just need to uh read the room, you know, read every single one. And there's also like a very collective energy that you can feel. And and then also again, like it's a it's a feeling that I can't really describe to pick what instrument next, because at the same time I don't want to have my personal experience to project on other people. So I tend to not rationalize too much and like you know, oh, I'm projecting that this person is going through a hard time, or maybe this person is just, you know. I was living in Long Island with my two girls, and um, I was doing more entrepreneur tenure stuff. I was in multiple industries before, and you know, I've experienced burnout and stress, and um I have a history of like depression and anxiety uh for a very long time, ever since like high school-ish. And then it starts to become really, really um affecting my life after I have kids. I had like postpartum depression, and then I started to talk to therapists, traditional talking therapists. And I'm not the kind of person that is very much uh that I would do a lot of research on my own. So I read a lot of psychology books. I understand my condition and I would talk to a therapist and I would, you know, like basically take their work. And so I would talk to them and I would analyze it and then they were like, why you're here. Or sometimes I'll tell us a story and my and then I can put a therapist to sleep. They're like, you know, your voice is so calm, you should go work for calm. I was like, I was like in the middle of telling him tragic like car accident my best friend had and then passed away and he like was falling asleep on me. Anyway, so I tried the traditional therapist and it wasn't working on me, so um it was like a very random day that you know I got introduced to this type of work and my teacher, and um it kind of changed my life uh in some sense. So this is Mona Lena that usually I place this on um one of the participants' body because the back is made of wood. So when I play it, it really just uh resonates a lot, and then like you can actually feel the vibration of the sound through the wood. Um and I would play this based on how I play it, it's really based on, you know, also the energy of the room. Um sometimes a little too uh outplay it very intensely um for people to release certain things and sometimes a little sing when I play it and um more softly gentle because it's it's a very like i i i it looks simple, but it can really create a different dynamic on how you play it. I how you see it have a music background. I've played harp um ever since when I was little. So have been very musical and I kind of want to know what the hell are all those instruments are. So I went to the training and you know, my purpose, my intention was to play for my friends. Um host, you know, little session with my friends, and that's usually our way to hang out. We we like to do very meaningful stuff and conversations and do like a wellness hang hangout. So so yeah, uh after I went to the training I met Alex and you know, we just fell in love and then I I decided to move to upstate uh before the training because Long Island that environment is way too toxic for me uh for the kids too. Uh I live in a neighborhood where everyone kind of judge you by what you wear, what you drive. So I was never the type of person that cared that much, but but an Evel really needs like I fell you know into it because it it's just suck when people treat you differently when you when they see you driving different cars. And I uh I just want my kids to be raised in an environment where you know more wholesome, more connect with nature. We wanted to open up a studio eventually, um, I think in the beginning of this year. So we wanted to we're brainstorming the name on a drive to a ski trip.

SPEAKER_01: 18:33

And we thought, you know, we wanted it to be something about sound, something about resonance, something about vibration. And then we were thinking, you know, the first sound is silence. That's one of the keynotes that we learn. The first sound is silence. What is it that we're trying to achieve? Where is it we're trying to go? What is the place of potential? And that really is the empty space. It's I I've talked to people, and for us too, as we just say that name, the empty space, it kind of elicits um a place of of possibility, right? And so it's a place of letting go, it's a place where you can whatever you are is is perfectly welcome.

SPEAKER_02: 19:18

It's a place where you can go and and have an experience and yeah, and there is no judgment, there's no any preconceived, it's just like a very uh safe, blank space for you to be in.

SPEAKER_00: 19:33

So in my sleep hiking practice, uh do you have any tips for me as I guide folks along the wandering trails on my sleep hiking experiences?

SPEAKER_01: 19:45

Um I think leave a lot of good space for silence.

SPEAKER_02: 19:50

Oh, silence is golden. There is Alex's famous saying is No. Well, I think it's so true though, but um whatever that you say, so silence is golden, silence is the first thing. Whatever you say.

SPEAKER_01: 20:05

Silent if if silence is golden, then when you say something, just be sure that it's worthy breaking the silence. It just means be intentional with your words and and also know I think know that put a lot of um not not to put pressure, but put a lot of um heart into the things that you say because our voice is is a magical instrument as well. And what we're saying and how we're feeling when we're saying it also has a really big impact. And so when you're guiding through people, you're guiding people through these sleep hikes, um, just know that partially what they're getting is coming from the the content of what you're saying, and a large portion of it comes from the context of of where you're coming from, and that's gonna that's probably gonna have a bigger impact on on a subconscious level than you might realize.

SPEAKER_02: 20:58

And I think that now this is like our society is really scared of being silent.

SPEAKER_00: 21:06

Well, it kind of sounds like their advice to me is that I should maybe talk less as a podcast host. I'm not sure if that's advice or feedback. I'm gonna have to think about that for a little bit. Um but if you're still awake and you've made it all the way to the end, I want to thank you for hanging in there. I'd love to know what you think, as always. Uh you can send me a message using the link in the show notes, or you can rhythm me on Instagram, I'm at JamesCave. And if you'd like to learn more about Anna and Alex over at empty space, uh you can find them on Instagram at emptyspace.sound. They're also hosting public sessions at PS21's geothermically heated black box theater in Ghent as well. And that'll do it for this episode of the Jiffy podcast, a sleep hike to an empty space. I'm gonna stop talking now. Until next time, I'll see you over on the Instagram feed.

SPEAKER_01: 21:51

Start to bring movement back to your fingers and toes. Uh and your knees when you're ready, sliding your heels in. Then come back and join us in a seat of post.