by Astara
Our origin story doesn’t really have a beginning. Every small step and glorious mis-step have led us to the magic of what we are doing now. What has felt to us as an exponential leap in just seven years, has really been in the making for decades. Here is a high level glimpse into the magic and flow of how we called Illuminating Hearts into being.
It all began with the unlikely equation of a poison ivy break out, a didgeridoo, and some tarot cards. One fateful summer day in 2015 in Omaha, Nebraska, Orion unknowingly brought home the gift of poison ivy oil from an afternoon of landscaping. A few days later we were both itching. I had the worst response, and even an emergency room visit, a dermatologist visit, and man-made pharmaceuticals couldn’t alleviate my discomfort. Orion remembered from his years of playing and studying the didgeridoo, that the ancient instrument was used by Australian aboriginal healers. Orion asked if he could play the didgeridoo over me, hoping to offer relief. I easily said yes.
I loved the didgeridoo from my exposure to the powerful instrument during my years living in the California Bay Area. The didgeridoo produces multiple frequencies that are both heard and felt. These frequencies have a beneficial effect on living tissue and emotional well-being; they promote positive movement from cells to the flow of energy in the body. The primordial sounds not only soothed my immune system inflammation, they also offered me an emotional release expediting recovery. As the player, it had a powerful energetic effect on Orion too. He felt a burst of energy rise in his body, what some call kundalini. His calling was fully activated.
This was the moment. Our souls were ready to live a more soul-aligned life path. And our bodies and personalities were noticing.
Orion is a powerful ideator, and he suggested to Astara, “what if we combine sound healing with soul healing?” Without hesitation, Astara answered a resounding (pun intended), “I would love that. Yes!”
To make our new hybrid offering in the world, we began with very simple tools: Orion’s knowledge of the didgeridoo, my singing bowl and voice, as well as my extensive experience with energetic soul tools such as tarot, dowsing, shamanism and soul retrieval, as well as akashic records research. We began to collect instruments we had around our home, combining their different vibrational gifts. Based on my life-altering experience with listening to a gong in San Francisco years before, I recommended finding a gong.
Well, the gong found us. It was less than an hour away at Gongs Unlimited, the world’s happiest gong sellers in Lincoln, Nebraska. I had the joy to sound Orion behind the 84-inch Nipple Gong in our first visit to the warehouse at Gongs Unlimited. A few days later, after that life-altering experience, Orion quit smoking. Since then, Orion has often shared how a didgeridoo and a large gong saved his life.
With the help of the feisty plant medicine of poison oak, our individual passions combined to reveal a new mission: to empower people to remember and live from the intelligence of their core. And the center of that core is the heart. Within a month the simple idea of Illuminating Hearts expanded quickly and effortlessly. Sound instruments or more soul tools suddenly began flying our way. And voilà, Illuminating Hearts was conceived.
The vibration of nature, energy, and sound offer medicine to us in unlikely forms, and in this case, it led us to our destiny to bring our many empowering and healing gifts to you.
