The source is a compilation of tracks specifically designed for reflection, meditation and contemplation. Alternatively it may be played in the background of your normal day. Some people are using this music to help them focus more intently on reading material which they have a particular affinity with. Others find it is somehow helpful to have playing in the background while they are going through a healing process. However you choose to listen to this CD, it is meant for your enjoyment, in whatever context is right for you.

The sourceis the product of over a decade of playing the dijeridoo, around eight years involvement with harmonic chanting (with many, many thanks to Joe VanDermeer), and approximately seven years of involvement with Tibetan Bells and Bowls (Namaste to Chris Catsanis & Chris Shakallis and the rest of the lads in our old Bells and Bowls group - thanks for the many nights of laughter and Turkish pizzas).

The source was recorded by Matt Hishon at Studios 205 via an introduction to this great facility through Francis Firebrace who is master Aboriginal storyteller (see the website at www.newagemultimedia.com for more info there). The tracks were specifically recorded in single takes in order to catch the immediacy and creative spontaneity of the specific sounds required. Matt has gone to great lengths to catch the intricacy of sounds and somewhat unusual finer harmonies. The result of this is a very true-to-life sound that cannot be easily reproduced from a live context (particularly with the harmonic chanting).

The instruments were especially selected for this album for their particular effects. Two dijeridoos (or yidiki) were used, one shaped and painted with 'Sweet Potato Dreaming' by George Jungawonga of Weemol in Southern Arnhemland - courtesy of Scott Elliott, a master dij shaper himself. It is with additional thanks also to Graham Wood at 'The Dijeridoo Shop' in the Rocks who has provided so many 'logs' over the years and who lead to one of those propitious crossing of life paths with Scott. The other dij is from Central Australia, special in the fact that the wood is so scarce and has a particular toughness to it - courtesy of Roslyn Premont at Gallery Gondwana.

'Singing' or 'Tibetan' Bells and Bowls as they are most commonly referred to, originate from the Himalayas and are handmade in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and India. The instruments from this album come directly from Nepal via the aforementioned Chris Catsanis, who uses the monies made from sales of these to support Nepalese village children in furthering their education. The Bell is composed of six metals, whereas the bowl has the more traditional seven metal composition representing the seven planets known since antiquity (Sun, Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, Saturn & Jupiter). The multiple metal construction facilitates a wide range of harmonic overtones. The origins of this appear to originate in Shamanistic traditions.

Harmonic chanting has its earliest roots in Tuva, a remote section a remote section of Mongolia, just south of Russia. Current familiarity with this style of prayer is through its frequent use by Buddhist monks in Tibetan monasteries.

The interpretation of the music and its effects is up to you. All the tracks are designed for a purpose, but not necessarily limited to this. The intention of the simplistic singular track content stems from a Zen format where the inherent beauty evolves through simplicity. We do not need complication to achieve depth. The album is designed to assist people in their inner strivings and the enjoyment of engaging in beauty. If this is achieved, then the music has been worth the energy of production and your valuable time in listening to it. If not, then at least children in the discomfort of severe illness have received assistance through your financial support, of which 100% goes directly to them, which was my sole requirement in this undertaking.

The tracks are short, the album is brief - in the West we lack the inherent ability to concentrate for the periods our Eastern brothers and sisters so easily achieve - so this is accommodated for. Any comments on the album will help determine the shape of future productions, should the reception of this initial step be appropriate to warrant further ventures. If you wish to provide feedback, please e-mail lachlan@drlhinds.com.

For those of you who would like a beginning insight on how to view this album, Edmund Dickson has most kindly provided the following discourse. Edmund is widely travelled in Eastern areas and is one of the most accepting and genuinely appreciative persons of cultural diversity I have had the great pleasure to meet. A friend and peer, Ed's long history of appreciation of artistic forms more than qualifies him to give this exposition. To a man of objectively deep spiritual matters, my thanks is warmly given and I leave you in his hands:

"The inner world, when we close our eyes, is often described as a murky field of sombre, cloud-like images, cloud-like because like clouds they are in continually movement, evolving from one amorphous form into another, which seem to vaguely resemble the thoughts that occupy us at any moment. Others have described the inner screen in terms of russet and greens 'blodges', the effect of looking up upward through a forest canopy of leaves. Our awareness of our own particular field of vision is the starting point that begins a meditation journey.

In many spiritual traditions attention is given to an arrestment of this unremitting presence and movement of these restless, cloud-like images. When this is achieved we are able to fix upon a singular, meaningful image that may act as a portal into inner dimensions of imports and subtle meanings. Or else banish images altogether so that, with the "mind resting in itself" we may witness the ipseic dynamic qualities that constitute the mind. Beyond that remains the possible identity with the 'Source', the light of the Divine Essence or Consciousness that is said to stand behind the mind and which acts as the illuminative principle of mind.

This process is surely reflected in the choice given by the producer of this inspirational disc in the contrasting sky-scapes in which the outer cover is illustrated with stormy cumulous images suggestive of the restless state of the unquiet soul that when opened up to an exploration of inner processes leads to an inner lightness of being generated by a circumspection of mind that turns around the central principal of 'Source'.

The journey then is from the outer, 'square' field of relative darkness to an inner circular arena of lightness that contains the source of all conscious understanding and of course if it is to serve any practical utility, a return to our ordinary state bearing a salubrious influence by way of resonant harmonies - a case of 'squaring the circle' in metaphysical parlence enabled by the use of music as a tool for meditation.

Our engagement with the mind- soul (the mind being the conscious aspect of the soul) is described in the traditional story, "The Elephant in the Dark", in terms of three blind-folded men who are led into a room in which stands an elephant within a circle of silent witness. These three in turn are asked to describe what they feel to be the nature of the 'object' and to come to some conclusion. The first discovers a leg, perhaps a pair of legs and the underbelly from reaching upwards from that vantage and concludes that the object is a structure, perhaps a shrine. The second is aware of a breeze and seeking its source grasps an ear. His conclusion is that the 'object' is a fan-like device. The third, approaches the hinder parts, oblivious to the occasionally disastrous outcomes, and grasps the tail of the elephant to describe the object in terms of, "a rope let down from heaven".

Here we have three metaphors for the nature of the mind, the first in terms of an idealised structure that contains a sacred or 'holy' essence, the second in terms of its intimate relationship with pneuma / prana or breath of life / spirit whilst the third gives emphasis to a established nexus (silsila) with the transcendent dimension of being eg. Homer's 'Golden Rope' between heaven and earth. The pertinent point to me is that where the unconscious mind is infinitely larger than our reach we can only understand the mind and come to a conclusion according to our engagement and grasp of it. Our viewpoint is at the best partial and to those who have achieved inner illumination must appear quite ludicrous. The dilemma, to make an appeal to those silent watching circle of realised beings to help us to remove the blindfold.

There is a conscious structure that underlies the work and this is to be seen in the two brackets of threefold movements that represent the journey inwards and the return bearing the profound influences of 'The Source' that harmonises according to those inner values such as a sense of welfare, perhaps even of peace and contentment, that is generated from a greater integrity of being.

Following the intro track, the didge propels us on the theme of 'Floating' a theme that is progressed to a feeling for 'Distance' led by vocal harmonics that brings us to the important passage (if sponteniety is to be achieved), the 'Letting go of Expectations'.

In the second triplet towards inwardness, we are led by the didge to the emerging heightening of a conscious through 'Focus' so that we might explore that inner 'Space' sounded out by harmonic vocalisation that delivers us to a centring upon the feeling of 'Here and Now', the reality-creating, re-occuring present moment. The holding on to that experiencing of 'inner' as we return to our more familiar state is an important practical concern so that whatever of benefit we might have gained by this process of guided meditation will persist as 'Resonant Harmonies' that we carry beyond the 'Outro'.

Beyond the artistic intentions it should be said that there has been a collaboration of hearts and minds in all facets involved in the production of this work. All involved, including the recording, duplicating, artwork, packaging and providing this web page, have contributed their services gratis, acting out of a love and a practical concern for the wellbeing of children in hospital."