An unexpected journey with 'healing' crystal bowls in Bermagui

Robbie Hart’s journey to heal herself with crystal bowls has taken her in unexpected directions including performing at Four Winds last year. She will also perform at an international symposium in Cambodia this November.

Ms Hart grew up on a dairy farm in Wandella, west of Cobargo in the Bega Valley. Music has always been in her life, be it singing in choirs or as a jazz aerobics exercise instructor. She plays by ear and, as clients in her Bermagui hairdressing salon Miracles by the Sea know, has eclectic taste in music.

Another long-held interest is natural healing, “understanding that we are what we think so the things we take on in our mental and emotional world affect us”. When the Black Summer bushfires arrived Ms Hart noticed she was really struggling with her health.

“After the fires clients came in with their trauma and that was affecting me. My dermatitis flared up,” Ms Hart says. “Next came the anxiety and fear of COVID. All that energy was coming through the door every day at me.”

Susie Nelson-Smith, the world’s most experienced crystal bowls teacher, lives in Australia and brought her healing course to Bermagui after the fires. She ran a 14-day retreat and Ms Hart found herself not only learning Certificate IV in International Crystal Sound Therapy, but also cooking for eight women with dietary challenges.

“I was sleeping in a room where the bowls were stored and I was energised,” she says.

“The moment I started playing the bowls, my skin healed immediately. All the emotional angst I had taken on vanished when I played the bowls. It became a daily practice,” she says.

“The bowls have a vibration. That vibration resonates through the cellular structure because we are like liquid crystal in our bodies. Bone and blood cells are very much like a crystalline structure,” Ms Hart says.

There are three commonly used frequencies when playing crystal bowls. The 432 hertz frequency is the heartbeat of the earth, 440 hertz is what most orchestras and musical instruments tune to and 528 hertz is the love frequency.

“My name is Robbie Hart, so I chose that one because of the heart connection,” she says. “It is the frequency of bees when they collect their honey and can affect DNA repair. I had no idea how powerful it was, but it is an amazing frequency.”

Ms Hart says that people who come to her Sound Spa sessions find they can release angst and stress and get a good night’s sleep. “It helps balance the left- and right-hand sides of the brain and you relax into a theta frequency which promotes a sense of wellbeing, relaxation, peace and harmony within the body.”

Ms Hart’s gift of playing by ear led her to experiment with what else she could do with the bowls other than use them as tools for meditation. She began playing the bowls to music, ranging from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to Mark Knopfler.

One of her hairdressing clients is local singer and songwriter Rune Alith. Ms Hart asked to listen to some of her music and found their frequencies matched. When they first played together, they were blown away by the live collaboration.

Ms Hart invited Ms Alith to play with her when she was accepted to perform at an Australian crystal bowl symposium in October 2023. “It inspired a lot of people because they had never seen the bowls used in a musical modern way and taken into a different realm of musicality.”

Ms Alith reciprocated by inviting Ms Hart to collaborate with her when she performed a concert at Four Winds. “With Rune singing and playing the grand piano and me playing my bowls it was like a celestial orchestra,” she says.

It was the first concert at Four Winds after the Coolagolite Road bushfires so while waiting for Ms Alith she thought it would be appropriate to cleanse Four Winds with her bowls.

“All the kangaroos came out of the bush. Some were injured.” For 45 minutes Ms Hart played the bowls to them. “One kangaroo just came and lay near my feet and took in the sounds of the bowls. Then I realised the vibrations worked on the animals in trauma too and they needed healing.”

“I was so present and the kangaroos appeared in awe of the connection.”