Everything you need to know

Yes. Most people who come have never been to a sound session before.

You don't have to be good at meditating for this to work. You just have to be in the room and lie down.

Something comfortable to wear, warm socks, and a blanket or shawl if you have one. Your body cools down when it rests deeply.

Bring a journal if you have one of your own, otherwise I'll have paper as well.

Try not to eat anything heavy in the hours before. Cacao lands better on a lighter stomach, and so does lying down.

I also advise you to go easy on the caffeine later that day. It makes it harder for the body to drop into rest.

That's no problem at all. The cacao is 100% pure from Guatemala, mixed with a bit of oat milk.

If you have any allergies or you'd rather skip it, just let me know and I'll make sure there's something else ready for you.

Yes. If you're pregnant, have epilepsy, a pacemaker, recent surgery, or any other condition I should know about, let me know so we can make sure everything feels safe and comfortable for you.

And mention any allergies at least a week ahead, so I can adjust the cacao and the incense I use.

We open with a moment to feel the body and check in. Then we set intentions for the night and open our hearts through a cup of ceremonial cacao. From there I guide you into a meditation, followed by sound and inner stillness with the crystal singing bowls, windgongs, chimes and my voice.

We close gently, with time to come back, land, and connect.

No. Cacao is part of the evening, not the shape of it.

We drink it after setting our intentions, because it opens the heart and brings you out of your head and into your body. From there the writing and the sound go deeper.

Small circles of women, maximum five, so there is room for every person in it.

In Rotterdam. The exact address is in the email you get a few days before, along with how to find your way in.

The evenings are in English.

An hour where you lie down and do nothing, while sound does the work.

All day your brain runs on beta. Alert, scanning, keeping up. Sound pulls it down. First into alpha, then into theta. Theta is the state right before sleep, the one most people only reach after years of meditation. Here it takes about twenty minutes.

It also reaches the feeling part of your brain before the thinking part. So you feel it before you understand it, and that happens without you steering it.

So you don't have to be good at meditating for this to work. You just have to be in the room.

No. Nothing here asks you to believe anything.

You are not being fixed and you are not being sent anywhere. You lie down, the sound moves through the room, and your body responds to it whether or not your mind is convinced.

You don't have to believe in it for it to work. You just have to lie down and listen.

Some of it, yes, and I would rather tell you which parts than let you assume all of it.

What is solid: slow sound that you experience as pleasant lowers your heart rate and raises your heart rate variability, and that has been measured. The pulse you hear between two bowls is plain acoustics, exactly the difference between two frequencies. And expressive writing is one of the better studied things you can do on your own, across more than a hundred studies.

What I will not tell you: that a specific frequency repairs your cells, that cacao is full of love molecules, or that a tuning fork changes something in your blood. Those claims are everywhere in this world and they do not hold up when you look them up.

What is left is still plenty. An hour where your system finally slows down is not a small thing.

They are made of quartz. Tibetan bowls are hammered metal and give you many overtones at once, warm and complex. Quartz gives one clear tone that holds and fills the whole room.

When two bowls sit slightly apart in pitch, you hear a slow pulse between them. That pulse is not mystical. It is exactly the difference between the two frequencies, and you can measure it.

So nothing has to be done to you. Two tones meeting is already enough.

There are two kinds. Weighted forks are placed on the body, so you feel the vibration through you. Unweighted forks are held near the ear, so you hear them.

What is real underneath it is entrainment: systems vibrating close to each other tend to fall into step. That is documented physics, and it is also how I think about a room full of people breathing to the same slow sound.

You will find claims online that tuning forks raise nitric oxide in your blood. I am not going to tell you that. The only source for it is a paper co written by the man who sells the forks, and there is no measurement in people. I use them for what they do in the room, not for a promise I cannot back up.

The crystal singing bowls are at the heart of the session. Around them I work intuitively with tuning forks, a wind gong, chimes, and my voice.

Intuitively means there is no fixed setlist. I follow the room. A wind gong fills the whole space at once and is often where something lets go. Chimes do the opposite, small and bright, and they tend to bring you back up gently at the end.

My voice runs through all of it, guiding at the start and humming or toning where it belongs.

From Maya communities in Guatemala. That is also where the sessions come full circle: the calendar I plan by and the cacao we drink come from the same roots.

I want to be honest about that history, because it is often told wrong. Cacao in Maya ritual is real and well documented, going back a very long way. But the form we now call a cacao ceremony, including the words "ceremonial grade", took shape around 2003 near Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.

Here is the part nobody tells you: "ceremonial grade" is not a protected term. There is no standard behind it and anyone can print it on a bag. I have seen cacao sold as ceremonial that was under fifty percent cacao.

So it is a young practice grown on old roots. I would rather say that than borrow a lineage that is not mine.

Reiki is gentle, hands-on energy healing. Where sound moves through the whole room, Reiki is close and still: you rest, and I work with what your body is holding.

It's a Japanese practice, developed in the early twentieth century, and the name says what it is: "rei" means universal, "ki" means life energy. Reiki works with the idea that this energy flows through the body, and that stress, emotion, and holding on can leave it stuck. During a session I place my hands lightly on or just above the body. I practice at Reiki Level 1.

Like the sound work, Reiki is not a medical treatment and never a replacement for medical care. It is a supportive tool for wellbeing.

For me, writing has always helped me understand life in a way my brain couldn't. Everything in my head moves at once, and it can feel chaotic and like too much at the same time. But on paper it slows down. The words land somewhere, and they start to mean something.

Four things turn out to matter, and none of them is talent. Give it at least fifteen minutes. Do it more than once, three times is where it starts to show. Write to a real question instead of a blank page. And let it stay private.

The blank page is what stops most people, so I work with prompts. In the sessions we write to one question, together, after the cacao and before the sound.

The arc I use goes in four steps: arriving, peeling back, meeting yourself, coming home. And because every day in the Tzolk'in has its own character, there is a prompt for each of them.

The Tzolk'in is the sacred 260 day calendar of the Maya. It weaves two cycles into each other, thirteen tones and twenty day signs, so no day repeats for 260 days.

Where our calendar measures time, the Tzolk'in describes its character. That is how I use it: as a daily compass for planning, creating and resting, and as part of how each session finds its moment and its theme.

Sessions also gather around the new and the full moon, roughly once a month.

Slow sound that you experience as pleasant lowers your heart rate and raises your heart rate variability. That has been measured.

Sound also reaches the feeling part of your brain before it reaches the thinking part. So you feel it before you understand it. It is why people sometimes cry here without knowing why. Nothing is wrong. Something is just moving.

And most people drop into deeper sleep that night. Not longer. Deeper. Deep sleep is the only stage where your body does its repair work, so the hour does not really end when you go home.

The main thing in it is theobromine, not caffeine. Caffeine peaks after about half an hour and is largely gone within a few hours. Theobromine peaks after two to three hours and stays with you for seven to twelve, and it does not reach the brain as easily. So it is slower and wider than coffee, without the spike and without the drop.

The flavanols in cacao open up your blood vessels, so more blood moves through you, including to your brain. That peaks around two hours in. More blood flow is not the same as thinking better, and I am not going to pretend it is.

You will read everywhere that cacao contains PEA and anandamide, the so called love molecules. That one does not hold up. PEA is broken down before it reaches your brain, and the anandamide story comes from a single paper from 1996 with amounts that would mean drinking about eleven kilos of chocolate in one sitting.

So what is it then? It is warm, bitter, slow to drink, and you drink it with an intention in a room with other people. That combination is most of it, and that is enough.

Expressive writing is one of the better studied things you can do on your own, across more than a hundred studies. Putting a feeling into words changes how strongly you sit inside it.

Four things turn out to matter, and none of them is talent. At least fifteen minutes. More than once. A real question instead of a blank page. And nobody reads it.

So it is not about writing well. It is about getting it out of the loop in your head and onto something that holds still.

Then you fall asleep. Your body takes what it needs, and it doesn't need your attention to do it.

Sound reaches the feeling part of your brain before it reaches the thinking part. You feel it before you understand it.

It's why people cry here without knowing why. Nothing is wrong. Something is just moving.

Through Hipsy. All upcoming dates are on hipsy.nl/tune-in and on this site.

Sessions are around the new and the full moon, and they're small on purpose, so they tend to fill up.

Yes. The group evenings have a ticket for two, so you can bring someone with you.

And if you would rather have the room to yourselves, I hold private ceremonies for two, or for your own circle. You choose the date and bring your people, and the evening is shaped around what you want to experience together.

Mention who you are bringing in your message, and the session will be ready for exactly that.

Yes, alongside the group evenings I do private sessions and Reiki. Send me a message and we'll find something that fits.