Relax, San Francisco's Grace Cathedral sound baths are for everyone

SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco's Grace Cathedral can be seen as an inspiration to many communities for different reasons. 

The church dates back to the Gold Rush era. In one of their recent newsletters, they said gifts to the church back then were actually in the form of gold dust. 

But these days, not everyone is looking for gold or material possessions. Some people are looking for a spiritual experience or a sense of community and belonging. Fortunately, this church is welcoming to all, and its Mind, Body, Spirit programming makes it easy to participate in events that aren't necessarily religious, but transcendent nonetheless. 

We recently attended one of their monthly sound baths, an event that regularly attracts up to 450 people, hoping to transport them to a state of bliss. 

A tradition of community events 

Malcolm Clemens Young is the 9th Dean at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. He talked about the long-standing tradition of holding community events at the church.  

"We were founded in 1849, so in the gold rush time, San Francisco had only just been named San Francisco," he said. "It used to be Yerba Buena right before that. And so really, the church grew up with the city, and so it's always been really connected with the city."

Clemens stressed that throughout the generations, Grace Cathedral has been welcoming to various and different kinds of people who have partnered with the church in interesting ways. 

"So, Duke Ellington had his jazz mass in the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. preached here, Desmond Tutu, Dalai Lama preached here. Jane Goodall preached here," said Clemens Young. "So really from the ‘60s on, we've been having these different kinds of events that are really for the whole community." 

Looking to reconnect 

Shelly Najafi is attending a sound bath for the first time along with her cousin. 

"My cousin and I, we’ve actually been trying to just do more stuff together. We’ve kinda been feeling a little bit of seasonal depression," she said. "We’re discussing like what activities we can do that will make us happier and I found this. Actually, a friend recommended it and then I found one online for today. So that’s kind of what inspired it." 

She said while she's open to reconnecting with her cousin, she also wants to find a deeper connection to the community. 

"Just to kind of like join in the community and feel something together and maybe like find some joy and happiness in like the meditative state that we’ll be in."

Soul-searching 

Dean Clemens Young reinforces this notion of soul-searching. Perhaps that's why this event is so popular. 

"We're all kind of searching for our own meaning in life, and that finds expression in artists' artistic ways, and in church kinds of ways. But you know, Grace Cathedral really, it does not exist just for the people here at 11 o'clock on Sunday morning. It really is for everybody. It's a real important part of our DNA," he said. 

Art is for everyone 

"Places like Grace Cathedral are a place of healing, a place where we can kind of return to our best self," said Clemens Young said. "There's a lot of wealthy people in San Francisco who have beautiful art in their homes, and they'll never invite you, they'll never invite me. It's all private. But here, the art is for everybody. Anybody who comes here to do a sound bath or yoga or comes to church on a Sunday morning, it's a way that you can connect with something just much deeper and much more profound."

The church's commitment to inclusion is clear; in the lobby, Keith Haring's "The Life of Christ" triptych altarpiece sits prominently in the Interfaith AIDS Memorial Chapel. It's Haring's last work, completed just weeks before his own death from AIDS.  

Relax, meditate 

Bodies fill the church, lying on the floor, and even in the pews. They are in prone positions, ready to calm their minds through meditation, relaxation; hoping to achieve a higher state of consciousness. But some are just open-minded and curious as to what the event entails. 

Eva Woo Slavitt, the canon for marketing and communications, who runs the Mind, Body, Spirit programming at Grace Cathedral, talks about how relaxing the popular event is. 

"It's extremely relaxing. What you'll see are people coming with all of their materials to truly relax," she said. "We have people bringing in their own pillows, their sleeping bags, their blankets. People are setting up on the labyrinth and the music is amplified throughout the cathedral." 

If sound baths seem too passive, maybe you'd like to try yoga on the labyrinth. It's another event this church program regularly holds, with expert instruction on Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings. Grace Cathedral has been having their yoga events for 15 years. This is one event Dean Clemens Young said he attends every chance he gets. 

Sounds that resonate 

The cathedral's acoustics are partly what attracts musicians to this event. 

"What is very famous about Grace Cathedral is the acoustics of our cathedral and so what you will see is a delay from the sounds that resonate and part of the beauty of a sound bath is that and having it in Grace Cathedral, is that the sound will resonate into the ground and as you lie down, you'll feel it in your body," Woo Slavitt said. 

A multi-instrumentalist can be seen walking up and down the aisles, banging a gong as people are sprawled out on the cathedral's floor and in the pews. 

A didgeridoo can be heard from where the altar sits. One of the multi-instrumentalists, who is part of the collective that plays this event regularly, is Sam Jackson. Their group is called Fractals of Sound. 

"The acoustics are quite special and play into the reason why we choose to be here," said Jackson. He describes this event as somewhere you should turn off your cell phone, and maybe rest and close your eyes. Not everyone is on board with parting ways with their phones, but it does seem the majority of those partaking are in a meditative state, or at least they seem very comfortable. 

"There's not going to be a visual performance that you'll need to focus on. So it's going to be more about letting go and letting the sound sort of immerse, you know? Letting yourself be immersed in the surround sounds," says Jackson. 

For this sound bath event, commemorating Earth Day, they partnered with Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). The collective voices of the ocean, in the form of sea mammals, dolphins and humpback whales, provide an extra soothing sound for participants to relax to. 

The sitar, played by Egemen Sanli of Fractals of Sound, has a calming effect, as do Jackson's resonant crystal bowls and the intonations of their vocalist, Phoenix Song. 

Everyone participates in their own way. A woman can be seen loosening up on the floor with some wrist rolls, a man sitting in a pew lets his eyes shut, other people on the floor are covered in hooded sweatshirts. Perhaps they are sleeping. A woman and a child stand side-by-side in a yoga tree pose as the droning sounds reverberate throughout the church. 

The sound bath seems to be resonating on multiple levels. 

By the end, one attendant is packing up her mat and talking to her friend. She said it was her first time attending. She called her friend, and they decided to check it out.  

"I really didn't know what to expect. I just wanted to experience it," said Lynn Micheal. "You never know. You don't know what you're going to find." 

Her open mind and curiosity inspired her to take this journey to an inspiring destination. 

Want to bask in reverberating sound in this iconic setting? Check out upcoming sound baths at Grace Cathedral on their website. 

Andre Torrez is a digital content producer for KTVU. Email Andre at andre.torrez@fox.com or call him at 510-874-0579. 

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