THE BODHI TREE - SHOW 8 - 16 MARCH 2025
- Shannon Douglas
- Mar 28
- 22 min read
My guest on the March 'The Bodhi Tree' show was Sika,
ahead of his sound journey in Whangarei.
Here's the interview.
You can also listen to it on Soundcloud
Shannon:
Sika welcome to the show. Welcome to The Bodhi Tree.
Sika:
Thank you very much. It's good to be part of your vision and part of the Bodhi Tree story.
Shannon:
Thank you. So for those new to the concept, how would you define a sound journey, and what can participants typically expect during a session?
Sika:
That's a very good question to start with and it's a subject that I feel passionate about.
I started doing what I call Sound Journeys over 30 years ago and at that time there wasn't really a name for what was going on. In fact, my first one I was completely surprised when everyone rocked up with things to lie on and cushions and blankets and proceeded to fill the entire floor space lying down. But that is the one thing that is quite common with a sound journey.
It's kind of a new genre really, as in it's maybe been around for 30, 35 years as it is, where people come and listen to sounds from a whole array of different instruments from different cultures around the world. And it's an interesting one because most people will think of a sound journey as involving gongs and singing bowls and gentle relaxing sounds and music with a view to going into a deep relaxed space. And the way that my sound journey has developed over the years doesn't involve any gongs or singing bowls, and although it is deeply contemplative and meditative, it isn't always relaxing. Sometimes it's quite strong medicine.
I don't shy away from strong rhythms on the drums. Sometimes they're slow, sometimes they're fast and there are times when people are lying there and the130, 140 BPM of what I'm playing on the drum and the didgeridoo is intense and hugely energising. Some people say they want to get up and dance and they want to jiggle, and they start breathing in a very deep cyclic way, moving through energy, moving through what's coming up for them internally.
And the sound is intensifying that and after a while of listening to that sort of an energy you enter into an altered state of mind, an altered state of consciousness, kind of slip between the worlds and conversely if it's a very slow piece that is played on very relaxing flutes with a steady trickling sound of a river in the background, maybe a bit of bird song and the occasional playing of some taonga puoro, then it is very seductive, very positive of other worlds and you again find yourself slipping into another reality.
That is kind of what it's about for me. I could probably talk for the entire radio show on just that question.
Shannon:
Yeah. They certainly do stir something in you on a deeply, deeply profound level, don't they?
Sika:
Yeah. I hope they do. My experience is that they do, and I'm told enough times by many people that that is what's going on and really my intention is to enable people to connect with themselves deeply, to connect with spirit and to seek answers from within, to seek guidance from within, know, to take the time to just surrender and see what signs come, what mirrors come. I'm big on not telling people what it's going to do. I'm not saying that certain instruments are going to do such and such or certain frequencies are going to do such and such. This is an entirely personal exploration and I'm keen for it to remain like that because when we find those things ourselves they are deeply personal to our and they are strong they're powerful and we hold those in a sacred way within ourselves that for me has a lasting effect more than receiving information about something that may or may not be true anyway.
Shannon:
I remember at your sound journey at the Voices of Sacred Earth Festival, it was the first sound journey of yours that I'd experienced, and it stayed with me for a long time after the experience. Just the sense of peace that I personally found from it. The room was packed, there were so many other people, but the sense of peace that I found from it honestly did stay with me long after the encounter. Beautiful, beautiful experience.
Sika:
Thank you, good. I'm glad to hear that, of course. I feel, like I said, very passionate about this. I think that we're in an age when there is a lot of information coming from outside of us and to have any amount of time to just relax and stop and just reflect and watch what's going on is valuable. And you add the sounds, and you've got a concoction that is potent.
Shannon:
Definitely potent. That's a great word to explain what you do. It's potent medicine. It really is.
Your work with sound is recognised by Maori, Native American and Aboriginal elders. How have these indigenous cultures influenced your music and your approach to sound healing?
Sika:
Hugely, they are hugely interwoven. Those experiences that I've had over the years when.. I suppose I weave a bit of a story here.. when I was young, I grew up on the edge of a forest in the southeast of England and my happy times were spent in the forest on my own. And I would walk out there pretty much every day. I'd spend time in nature. And as I grew up and as a teenager, the yearning to be closer to nature grew in me so much that from the age of 19, I began living in a tipi. And I lived in a tipi for 10 years with a view to being close to nature. I wasn't trying to get away from society, but I was needing to be able to hear the sound of the birds and the sound of the weather and to really feel it and to experience it.
And that was a formative time for me, and it was during that time that I was given my first didgeridoo and that took me on a journey to travel to America where I went to Arizona and began the life of a performer, of a public figure. I didn't intend that to happen, but the sound was something that everyone really wanted, and it was quite unusual in those days outside of Australia.
And it eventually took me to go to Australia to sit among Aboriginal people. And I think that it's easy to hear those words and to imagine this kind of fantastic situation when I'm sitting out in the desert or something like that.
But in many cases, my interactions with indigenous people around the world has been in a very natural flow. We might not be out in the wild somewhere, although there have been plenty of times like that.
Sitting with different people all around the world who are connecting with spirit and who are listening to the signs and the connecting to the land has had a huge influence on me. The instruments themselves have taken me on this magical journey. And I suppose I've come, in a way, it feels like I've come full circle back to my roots, back to my Englishness, being born and brought up in the southeast of England.
I'm interested in connecting to the earth and to spirit and I use these instruments as my vehicle to do that. So I would say that my friends who are over in Australia, they say to me that they're very happy and totally supportive of what I'm doing with the Yadaki, the didgeridoo, as long as I'm singing the songs of my own connection to earth, of my own story. They can hear if you're singing your own song, and that's what it's all about. And I've expressed in different shapes and forms from all the indigenous people that I've encountered and spent time with, it's like the key that is in connecting us to our own truth. Which is a really interesting place to be in as an English person.
I only in the last 10 years found out that my true granddad, and I know very little about that. I know very little about my ancestral story. But I do know that he was a professional musician. But really, I can't tell you a great deal about my family story, and I don't feel like I have a family ancestral land that I could speak of.
I think these things are really important to acknowledge because if you are an indigenous person, then you probably do have that story that supports you. That guidance from ancestors, relatives, maybe still alive, guidance and instruction as to how to live your life and that connection to place is very important. But I feel like I'm keen to support those of us that don't have that, to feel like we belong. We have a right to be breathing and walking the earth, and we have a right to feel a connection to clan. I call it clan. Recently, that's what's come through with me. And a sense of being able to get together with the clan and do meaningful ceremony and basically live in a way that is true and has impeccability and integrity. So, I'm keen to see the sound journeys that I do in that way as a vehicle for us to do that.
Shannon:
Yeah, and as more and more people get to know about you, whether it be here or in Australia, the US, the UK, or anywhere in the world, they'll discover that for themselves as well. There seems to be a searching, humanity is searching for something. And what you do can provide a guidepost or a pathway for them. And so you're absolutely on the right track and Earth is your papakainga, that's your homeland, the Earth.
Sika:
Yeah. And I suppose that's where I've got to with it. After 30 odd years of roaming around the world and playing these instruments, this is this is where I've come to with it. And that feeling of connection that comes directly from source by closing your eyes and just journeying inwards and connecting, you know, as well.
Shannon:
And it doesn't matter where you come from, what your language is, once we close our eyes and we connect to ourselves and we connect to source and we connect with mother nature, we're all one. We're all one clan.
Sika:
Yeah... Yeah. Exactly.
Shannon:
So could you tell us about the selection of instruments that you use? Didgeridoo, drums, flutes, taonga puoro. Tell us a bit about some of that.
Sika:
Yeah, well, I’m probably most known as a didgeridoo player. Of course, it has other names and is from Australia. My first one was given to me, like I said, when I was still living in England and that in itself is a long story really. But I was given it after six months of hosting an Australian couple and their child.
During the six months that we lived together in Tipi's, we sat by the fire, and he told me about the way and the etiquette of playing and honouring the Aboriginal people that he had spent time among. So he passed that teaching on to me without me having any intention of playing it. It didn't even cross my mind. When he gave it to me, I knew that I had to honour that by learning to play, by teaching myself to play. Part of that teaching was to have that instrument with me at all times. So I literally slept with it. I had it tucked down in the bed next to me. And at night in my dreams, I was very often taken into dreams where I was being showed how to play it. And then in the morning I'd wake up and apply that teaching. And that was largely how I learned really. And by the time I went to Australia the first time, I already had become quite proficient. And to my surprise, it was the land and the wildlife that really spoke to me, through the playing. So that instrument is a powerful instrument. It's at the core of everything that I do really. And it's taught me the power of the drone, which is the continuous sound, the continual notes in so much of what I create. A lot of it is created on didgeridoos, but these days I'm also using other things to do it.
I also played drum and in fact I did play drum before the Didgeridoo and the drum that I commonly play is from New Mexico from the Taos Pueblo. It is made out of cottonwood and it has a thick skin that's about nearly three millimetres thick, so it's got a very soft feel to the sound. I think it's quite a feminine sound really and I love the way that it merges with the sound of the Didgeridoo. It doesn't have a long sustain to the sound, it's quite a dull thud. I learned to play that in Arizona and New Mexico, playing alongside a friend of mine who is Aztec, Mazat Galindo. He taught me to play it with two hands and a heel of one of my feet. And that heel changes the tone of the skin and it makes it very expressive. It really feels like it talks.
Shannon:
Is that the one that you sit on?
Sika:
Yeah.
So then the journey was going along, I was playing the drum and I was playing the didgeridoo and then I realised well I could actually put something on my left foot because that's jiggling up and down and keeping time. So I put some ankle bells on there to start with and rattles. And one of the rattles actually is made of moth cocoons, is absolutely beautiful. From the North coast of Mexico.
So I had this kind of triad of sounds going on with the drum, the didgeridoo and the rattles on my ankle. And that triad of rhythm and drone kept me transfixed for many years and is at the core really.
So along with that I'm playing Native American style flutes, most of which are from the Kapiti Coast made by Southern Cross Flutes. I have quite a big collection of flutes and some of them are transverse flutes. In fact the flute was the first instrument that I ever began to play apart from my hands.
So I then discovered the joy of making sounds using natural things that I found. I was living in the tipi and I was making wooden things and necklaces and they rattle and bones and shells and stones and leaves and sticks, all of these things add to the soundscape that builds.
I also use a loop system so I can loop live and create layers of these instruments building up textures and adding effects to them, and these days after many years of wanting to, I've actually included a Moog synthesizer for creating abstract sounds.
I work in the studio. I have my own studio and I go out into in the field and record sounds and then bring them back into studio and do whatever to them and make them more abstract. Yeah, so it's a combination of all of that really.
Shannon:
And what about the taonga puoro because I know that you play those.
Sika:
Yeah, so the taonga puoro began to come in a few years ago. I'm living in New Zealand in the South Island and I live near my dear friend Richard Nuns before he passed away a few couple of years ago. I used to run into him and Brian Flintoff down in Nelson who is also a friend of mine, and also a dear carver called Clem Mellish. Between them, they kind of fed me the inspiration to play things that I hadn't even considered. And they showed me techniques to do, side blown techniques and things that made it possible to play hollow bones in a way that I didn't have before.
So the world of taonga puoro opened up my relationship to sound in a way that until the didgeridoo, other than the didgeridoo, I think that the world of taonga puoro probably did more to change me than anything really. It was like realising that there are sounds everywhere.
Obviously out in nature you've got the obvious ones, the wind, the water, you know. But everywhere there are sounds. And I began to listen in a way that I hadn't intellectually been aware of. I started to take stuff in and to appreciate that a journey listening to sound can actually happen with any sound.
It doesn't necessarily have to be an instrument. Two rocks tapped together repetitively will send you into a trance. Leaves rustling. Repetition is quite a key. And that ability to be able to literally walk out the door and just pick anything up and create sound from it and enter into a trance is key. I think that's key.
So the taonga puoro has been huge. It's helped me connect with this land in a way that I hadn't gone that deep until I found it really.
Shannon:
Oh, that's nice. As somebody from here, that's really nice to hear you say that.
And what you said about sounds coming from tapping two rocks together, that would have been the first instruments before the didgeridoo was invented, before the shamanic drum was invented. That's how they would have made music. So it's just taking it back to its roots, really, isn't it?
Sika:
It is. And when I sat in the teepee all those years ago as a young man, I followed a dream that I had of these singing stones. And I found two long stones that resonated beautifully together when you tapped them. And I painted them a certain way according to this dream I had. And then for years I was sitting by the fire chanting in a low voice to myself, listening to the sound of the crackling wood and the flames and the wind outside and the birds, and tapping these stones and entering into a very primal, otherworldly state.
And then lo and behold, I come to New Zealand and I find the taonga puoro. And sure, they've been tapping stones and pieces of pounamu together and doing this in the same way. I loved the fact that I came to it naturally, and I found it's probably like you said, right there at the very beginning for everyone, everywhere in the world. But then, of course there are things that are particular to this land and the taonga puoro has very unique, unique things.
Shannon:
It's really lovely that you have such a connection with it and that you've adopted Aotearoa New Zealand as your home. That's really lovely.
Sika:
I've spent half of my life here! But I still feel like I'm only just really just scratching on the surface of it.
Shannon:
And there's lots more to come.
But apart from just Aotearoa New Zealand, over the years you've facilitated sound journeys internationally. So tell us about some of the places that you have performed. I know you've performed at Stonehenge and in ancient forests and deserts, so tell us a bit about that.
Sika:
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I have played in some incredible places and Stonehenge has hosted me several times for sound journeys. At least two of those occasions were to watch the full moon rise as the sun set. So on one side of the Stonehenge is the moon rising over the horizon and on the other side the sun is going down over the horizon, and a group of us lay down in there and that place has an extraordinary phenomena that I discovered by if you're inside the Stonehenge, in the middle, the sound is amplified and the moment you step outside it is way quieter and way less focused. It's an extraordinary amplifier it really is.
Shannon:
That just brought to mind, you know when you see a full arch rainbow and underneath the rainbow it's quite gold and glowing, but on the outside of the rainbow it's, different, it darker, duller. That's the image that came to mind when you told me about the sound inside and outside of Stonehenge.
Sika:
Yeah. Yeah Stonehenge has been a phenomenal place. I feel very blessed to be able to have been there. Another one of my favourites in the world of ancient stone circles is Avebury. I've been doing a sound journey walk there. I did it a few months ago when I was over there, we had about 150 people came and processed around. And then we'd stand or sit around a stone and I'd do a sound journey, and some people would put their hands on the surface of the stone and we'd journey like that. Then we'd walk on. Powerful. With the ancestors of that place and the story of Earth energy making its way through the matrix… Love it. I love it.
I was just talking with my friend yesterday about the experience of playing in Westminster Abbey that was a very noticeable experience. I was invited by the King of Ghana of all people. At that time I was doing a presentation in the Commonwealth Institute in London and I was introduced to the King of Ghana and his entourage and when he found out my name he was really excited and burst into laughter because apparently Sika means gold and abundance and great spiritual wealth in Ghana. So he wanted me to be near him. I was a bit like a lucky mascot, a lucky charm. So he invited me to play in this ceremony that was happening in Westminster Abbey. And there I was, a full congregation, representatives from all the world's religions, representatives from all over the world were there. And I took my turn to stand in the centre of Westminster Abbey and play the didgeridoo, which was a phenomenal acoustic, like truly an experience. Not to say not at least as well, like a huge honour to be invited to do that.
Shannon:
Absolutely.
And deserts, I know that you've performed in a desert.
Sika:
Yeah. I've a notable occurrence happened in the New Mexico desert in North America. I was playing at a place called Casa Rinconada. Many of the indigenous people of that area do, and have done for a long time, their ceremonies in what's called a kiva, which is a semi-underground chamber, either round or square. The kiva in Rinconada doesn't have a roof on it anymore, but it did have, and a complete one. So we stepped down into this place to do a ceremony and at that time the desert hadn't had any rain for seven years and I played the didgeridoo in there and suddenly it started to rain. And the sound of the frogs that had been lying dormant in the sand, they started singing their songs and the sound was incredible. The whole desert just came alive with this sound of frogs and didgeridoo. Yeah, it was potent, really potent.
It rained for the first time in seven years and there were people coming from the desert. The local people were appearing and just whooping and dancing with joy because it was such a needed blessing you know.
Shannon:
Mmm, definitely.
Look at the power of what you do, not just to people, but to the planet and to the natural world. It's pretty incredible. You're pretty special, Sika.
Sika:
It is incredible. And it's easy to think of the sound genesis being something that humans do because we need something. And that is true. But there's also a whole host of other layers going on behind the scenes and connecting to the land and giving back to the land and energising places, shifting flows of energy. These are all really important parts of my work.
Working with Hamish Miller, the dowser, he doused an area and then had the group of 30 or 40 people, focus our intention on increasing the energy in that place, and then he had me play the didgeridoo whilst we focused on that, and then he doused it again and the amount of radial petals that emanated from this place was hugely increased. He wrote about that in his book because it was a powerful example of the power of sound really.
Shannon:
The power of sound and raising the vibration. It's a bit of a cliche term these days, but it's a true one, isn't it? Anything you can do to raise the vibration in the times that we're living in, and your work most certainly does.
I wouldn't call it work, I’d call it your blessings, because your sound journeys are blessings. And if anyone out there hasn't ever experienced one, then I highly recommend it because they are. They stir something in you on a deeply, deeply profound level.
Sika:
Thank you.
Shannon:
Looking ahead, what are your aspirations for the future of sound journeying and how do you envisage its role in global healing practices?
Sika:
Oooh, that's a good question, Shannon.
I want people to have experiences that, as I mentioned earlier, have a lasting effect. I would like it if everyone was able to listen to the sounds around them in day-to-day life and if they need more guidance or more connection to spirit or power, that they can use the sounds that are around them to enter into an immediate deep space and connect, and find those answers, then bring into that moment and act out in a sort of more mundane life, you know. So it kind of heightens the connection that we have going on in every single moment. Like making life more like a ceremony, less distance between the sacred state of being and the way that we are in our day-to-day life. No matter how repetitive and mundane that might be, it can still be full of energy, full of life.
Shannon:
And you mentioned before about the drone, the constant sound that's repetitive, it's such a healing repetition. With the sound of a drone, you just float with it. So it's not like repetition as in, Groundhog Day kind of repetition, it's repetition in a sense where you flow down a river of bliss, really. And that's where we want to be, don't we? And in our daily lives, find a moment of bliss each day. And whether that be through sound or meditation or whatever, that's where we all need to be every day at some stage of the day.
Sika:
Yeah, that's interesting. You know, we all love a state of bliss and we're all looking to be happy, of course. You know, but we all also experience times that are really hard and challenging when we're definitely not feeling bliss, we're feeling the other, you know. And I think it's so important that it's how we respond to those, to the other.
I'd like sound and sound journeys to be so much part of day-to-day life that the ability to be able to slip into another way of being is very natural and very easy. One of the things that I did learn among Aboriginal people of Australia is the ability to be able to just slip into another state. They are supremely skillful at that, it’s a naturally inherited state, into another world, another way of seeing the reality of the moment, a very deep connection to an altered state.
Shannon:
So how did your journey as a visual artist begin?
Sika:
Oh, that was the beginning beginning. That began when I was as small as small was, you know, when I was really small. I began drawing and I drew every day for a lot of the day. I carried a sketchbook around as a youngster and I drew and painted and I always knew that I was going to be an artist and everyone in my family knew I was going to be an artist as well, which was fortunate because there was never any pressure to be anything other than that. So for me, painting and drawing is a huge part of my life and totally connected to the sound journey, the sound experience.
In my studio, I'm fortunate enough to have one end where I can record and the other end where I paint. And they work together. As I'm painting I'm listening to what I'm recording, getting ideas and then going and recording those ideas and then whilst I'm doing that I'm looking at what I'm painting and so it goes on like that. I like to abstract paintings these days and they are real expressions of my experience of the sound journey.
So for example, I've been doing a series for quite a few years now of a kind of abstract - could be a landscape - and then set within that are these vertical sort of like cracks, black cracks that are just suspended in the landscape and to me they look like cracks in the matrix, where you just slip through when you're listening to sound and you enter into that other world.
Sound and painting, are absolutely beautiful together.
When I was at art college, I had a vision of combining sound and art. At that time, I didn't play anything. So I was the visual artist and I painted a series of abstract paintings and then photographed them and projected them. And I enlisted the help of a local rock band, which was a very interesting experiment. But it wasn't the right sort of music for what I was aiming for. I was kind of hoping for something more along the lines of Pink Floyd really but I didn't quite get there, but it was definitely the beginning of a vision that I've held for my whole life really, of combining sound and art.
Shannon:
And that's what defines your creative expression, isn't it? Sound and art.
Sika:
Yeah, I think it is. I think that's very much so. And the more abstract one has become, the other has followed it and become that.
Originally my art was very figurative. I was trained traditionally in watercolours and I learned the techniques going through art college to paint figurative artwork. And I wanted to let go of that and become more abstract. And something shifted in me a few years ago and I felt like I let go of my hold on the material plane in a way that was limiting me.
And suddenly I found myself able to paint abstract art and also enter deeper into the world of sound in an abstract way and not need to know that it's in a certain key or it's following a certain tempo or a certain pattern. The structure of my life just kind of loosened up a bit and I was able to just dive into the unknown more really. That's when I feel like I really started to act out of my own Dharma, my own path really started to come alive then. And it was at that time that I discovered the taonga puoro interestingly. So something shifted.
Shannon:
And what you said then about diving into the unknown, that's what people do when they lie down to experience one of your sound journeys, because each one is unique and that's what people do, isn't it? They give themselves permission to float off into the unknown and let your sounds carry them.
Sika:
Yeah, I hope so. And I think that they do. Yeah. I always say it's not necessary to have a vision. Not everyone is a visionary type. Whatever we receive as we absorb the sound journey is how it's meant to be for us. But yeah, that surrendering to the unknown is a wonderful place and I love the magic that we can tap into that comes from that.
Shannon:
Definitely.
Well, it's been really insightful speaking to you today, Sika. Thank you so much for joining us.
Sika:
Thank you very much.
~~~~~~*~~~~~~
I attended Sika's sound journey and it was indeed potent.
Here's how it was for me:
"Primal Resonance: A Journey Beyond"
As the first deep, resonant notes of the didgeridoo vibrate through the air,
the sound isn’t just something I hear
it moves through me,
pulsing in my chest,
settling into my bones.
It feels ancient,
like an echo from a time long before words.
The rhythm shifts,
layering deep drumbeats with the haunting call of a flute.
I drift into a place between waking and dreaming
as the sound carries me somewhere beyond the room,
beyond myself.
The beat grows intense, primal,
stirring something deep inside me,
deeply profound.
Suddenly I’m with the dinosaurs,
then I’m flying through the cosmos.
A rush of energy courses through my body,
emotions rising and falling in waves.
The sound softens,
taonga puoro offering a gentle sonic whisper.
A deep peace settles in,
like floating in a vast, timeless space.
And all my ancestors are with me.
My body twitches, intermittently,
shifting all the stagnant energy I have been carrying.
A sense of release washes over me,
as if something unspoken has been acknowledged
and let go.
When the final note fades into silence,
I feel as though I’ve travelled far
and returned with something unseen....
but deeply felt...
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