The interviewer: Arabella received her B.A. in Psychology from Stanford University, completed one-year’s M.A. coursework in clinical psychology, and spent many years in business management.  A Buddhist student and practitioner for thirteen years, Arabella has written a book on Buddhist reform that is in its final editing stages.

Happily present at the interview that follows was Corey’s 1 ½ year old daughter, Sofia.  Her remarks are included.

Arabella: What got you interested in the didgeridoo?

Corey: I got interested in the didgeridoo while I was traveling in Indonesia.  I was on Bali and I was doing Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and so I was on an “artist’s date.”  I was taking myself on a date to walk along the beach, and I was not supposed to stop and say hello to anyone.  I was supposed to just be with myself, and not get distracted by other people.  I happened upon these two young teenage boys that were making these long sticks, and they were just really happy.  And I saw them and I was, like, “Hmmm!”  Just totally, made a bee-line for them and was asking them, “What are you doing?”  And they couldn’t speak English; they just said, “You wait for boss!  You wait for boss!”  I said, “Alright, I’ll wait for the boss!” 

So, we were smokin’ cigarettes together, and I was just, like, watching them work and trying to understand their sign language.  Just, really, such curiosity about what they were making…I couldn’t even fathom it!  Two hours later the boss comes and he’s another teenage boy with cut-off jeans and a long pony-tail and he couldn’t speak English either, but he takes the didgeridoo and he kneels over a djembe drum and he props it up against the wall, and he starts playing the drum, and then – bauuuummmm – the didgeridoo comes in. 

And for a half hour, he plays this amazing, amazing rhythm and composition.  It just blew my mind away!  The kind of music that was coming out of this, this boy – I knew right there and then.  It’s like, I was bit by the didgeridoo mosquito.  I knew that I had to play it!  It spoke to my soul.  It spoke to my heart.  I knew I had to play it, so I asked them to make me one and for the next couple of days I went back to them and hung out with them as they were carving it.  And then he taught me how to play it for, like, three minutes.  And everything after that, for the next – that was about ten years ago; everything after that was all my own meditation.  I didn’t even hear another didgeridoo for around three or four years.

Arabella: So, you were being self-taught?

Corey: I was being self-taught, yeah.  And it was, basically, my meditation practice.  And for me, it wasn’t about doing it right – it was about the meditation.

Arabella: How did this lead you to SBGI for psychology graduate studies, or how did that relate?

Corey: I got dumped, really bad, by a woman I was in love with.  And in order to process my emotions, I just found myself playing the didgeridoo.  And I realized that I’d been heart-broken before…

Sofia: No!  No!  Mommy, mommy!

Corey: (to Sofia) You can go get her honey; she’s right there!

Sofia: Mommy!  Mommy!  (Exits the room.)

Arabella: You’d been there before.

Corey: I’d been there before.  So I knew that this time, something was different.  You know, I would play for a half hour or forty-five minutes and I would be able to transform the, um…

Arabella: Grief?

Corey: Anger, really.  I would be able to transform the anger and the hurt – y’a know?!

Arabella: Yeah.

Corey: I was able to transform that to compassion, then sadness and grief.  So, I was actually grieving the loss of a friend, grieving the loss of a lover, and kind of opening up space to get what I wanted.  I was also playing into the instrument what I wanted.  So, how did that lead me to SBGI?  So, I realized…I was living at Esalen at the time and I would wait until everyone was out of the silent tubs – down at Esalen – which is basically a resonance chamber because it’s all enclosed in concrete on the cliff at the ocean.  And I would start playing and all the sound would bounce all from the walls and, just, come right back at me.  So, with the vibrations, I was healing myself.  And I would play for ten or fifteen minutes with my eyes closed, do my meditation, and then I would look up and there’d be people all around me. 

There’d be people lying on the massage tables, there’d be people in the tubs, there’d be people that would be right in front of me.  And it happened every single night for about a week.  And I realized that, not only was I helping myself to heal, I was helping others – and people were drawn to it. 

So, at the time I was learning massage and I just wasn’t getting the same kind of reaction from the people that I was massaging as I was from playing the didgeridoo.  And I knew that there was some kind of connection between processing emotions and the didgeridoo that wasn’t happening in massage as much as I wanted it.  So, I knew that I needed more education – this led me to SBGI. 

Arabella: Are you now using your didgeridoo playing with clients in therapy sessions?

Corey: No.

Arabella: Will you be?

Corey: I think so.  Yeah, I think so.  Because I have one client right now that I can tell would really benefit from regulating his breath.  And just by seeing his body posture!  He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and his body posture is very collapsed.  His chin is down as he speaks to me, his shoulders are protecting his heart a lot and rounded forward, and he only takes very, very short breaths.  In our therapy work right now, I’m trying to get him to explore his breath and I could definitely see myself bringing in the didgeridoo when he’s ready…y’a know?!

Arabella: Is the didgeridoo a classic Australian aboriginal instrument?

(Sofia re-enters the room.) 

Corey: Yes, and no.  Tibetans use a long horn, but they don’t use circular breathing and they don’t get the same drone, which is a different frequency.  You can play the didgeridoo like a horn, like the Tibetans play it – kind of like you would play a trumpet.  But from what I’ve seen, the only culture that uses the drone –-- and I think, really, it’s the drone that facilitates the dream-time, the access to these subconscious or unconscious states…

Arabella: What about the pipes of Scotland, the bagpipes?

Corey: Yeah, I guess that’s another droning instrument.  Do they use circular breathing?

Arabella: I believe that they do.  You know, they have to keep it going.

Corey: So, then, yeah – there you go! 

Arabella: But, the didgeridoo is aboriginal in origin? 

Corey: Yeah, yeah.  There are cave drawings that date back 1,500 to 2,000 years.

Arabella: I experience it as more similar to – if I’m to compare it to Tibet – to Tibetan monks’ chanting, which is multi-tonal.  The didgeridoo, to me, is multi-tonal, and that’s what opens it up for me.

Corey: Hmmm.

Arabella: Aboriginal expanded mind is not primitive – as some might think – but beyond such limited and limiting concepts as “modern” or “primitive.”  How does your playing move you – and (how will it move) your clients – toward an “expanded consciousness,” beyond space and time?

Corey: I believe through the breath.  And through my ability to inform and educate my clients about somatic principles – especially the ones I’ve learned in Somatic Psychology, which is focused on sensations…  I think it’s going to help people open up sensation in their bodies.  Once it helps them wake up sensations in their bodies, then they’ll realize that --- they’ve never felt their belly before.  Once they start feeling their belly, then that’s gonna wake them up to new aspects of themselves.  And many cultures believe that the breath is a way to connect the body with the spirit or with the soul.

Arabella: What about that place beyond space and time?

Corey: I think that that comes in through the use of the breath – like [Dr.] Stan Grof is able to help his clients access non-ordinary states of consciousness (which is what you’re talking about, where space and time is transcendent) – and he does it through the use of the breath.  So, when I play, I use different types of breath to access those states.  So, I can have my clients do that as well.  And if they focus on some kind of aspect about themselves that they want to explore or change, that’s the way to connect it.

Arabella: What impacts have you seen your transcendent states of mind have on others?  You mentioned at Esalen, people coming – that people came not just to hear the sound, but because there was a healing-ness about it…or does it open others’ heart-minds to others? 

Corey: (silence)

Arabella: Or does the question make you uncomfortable?

Corey:  No, not at all.  I’m just trying to think before I speak because I’m really excited to talk about it.

(More silence.)

Arabella: Because in some spiritual contexts, people are uncomfortable talking about the impacts that they might have on others.

Corey: No, no.  I don’t take myself too seriously.  I think it’s through the vibrations.  Because you can actually feel the vibrations in the body – I think that when I’m playing close to somebody, their body just goes into harmonic resonance with the didgeridoo, and they get regulated.  Their nervous system just slips into a state that’s really relaxed.

Sofia: Daddy.  Daddy?

Corey: Yeah Sofia? 

Sofia: Daddy!  Daddy?

Corey: (to Sofia): You want’a sit in my lap and just be? O.k., back it up!  Back it up! 
(to Arabella): Could  you ask the question again?

Arabella: What impacts have you seen your transcendent states of mind have on others?

Corey: So, I believe it’s mainly – I don’t think it comes from my transcendent state of mind, I see it more coming through the vibrations of the didgeridoo.  Like I’m connecting with somebody, and it’s a way to --- like I’m talking to you right now and we’re connecting through our eyes and we’re connecting through sound and sight --- and with the didgeridoo, it’s mainly through the vibrations of the sound.

Arabella: Has your playing taught you about non-conceptual thought or experience?  

Corey: Has my playing taught me about non-conceptual thought or experience?  Can you define non-conceptual?

Arabella: Mmmm.  That would be to destroy it.

Corey: Oh yeah, yeah.  So, I guess feeling, being in the moment.  It really helps me to just have a greater felt-sense – yeah, you’re right, to keep the mind out of it, to just be.  It normally happens after about twenty minutes of playing.  Because the first twenty minutes of playing, my mind is actually thinking about the rhythms that I’m playing, thinking about ego things such as, “I hope people are liking this!”  “Am I playing too loud?” – it just races.  Now, after about twenty minutes, I hit this point where – the only metaphor I can think of ----- it’s like swimming in space.  I’ll just look up, and it’ll be twenty minutes later.

Arabella: The Tibetans call that, “Nyima ring-po” – which is “long day,” expanded mind.
Do you believe that this is the greater reality – greater than concrete, physical reality – this realm of the non-conceptual? 

Corey: (silence)

Arabella: That elongated time – is that the greater reality than the mind that’s constantly….and/or how do the two realities interrelate?

Corey: I think it’s a different reality.  I don’t think it’s any greater.  It’s more pleasant.  It’s a lot more pleasant.  But no, I don’t think it’s greater because there’s absolutely nothing like having dinner with my wife and baby.  That’s a certain greatness.  And when I’m kind of swimming in the space of it, like I said before, that’s another greatness.  And how are the two connected?  That we have access to both realities every moment – each time that we take a breath.  Or each moment, there’s an opportunity to connect with both realities.

Arabella: Is there one didgeridoo CD that you could recommend to us – just one good one?

Corey: One of my friends, John Villa…if I had a didgeridoo teacher, he would be my didgeridoo teacher.  He’s teaching didgeridoo to levels that I hope to take it to in the future.  He’s gone to Australia and studied with Aboriginal tribes.  He himself has an Aboriginal didgeridoo Master carver and Master player as his teacher.  So…

Interviewer’s Commentary: Following the above interview, Corey put me in touch with John Villa.  Stay tuned to future newsletters for his didgeridoo CD recommendation!