GOOD VIBRATIONS

What better place than a serene retreat in Kenya to immerse yourself in sound meditation, the ‘it’ healing practice sweeping the wellness world? PILAR GUZMÁN tunes in and chills out.

- PILAR GUZMAN

STEPPING OUT ONTO the terrace at Segera, a luxury lodge in Kenya’s Laikipia highlands, we spotted a trio of reticulated giraffes loping towards us as if beckoned by some invisible conductor. There was certainly music: a 19th-century gong was still reverberating in the room behind us. I was one of a group of 12 guests who had just finished a sound meditation session in the second-floor lounge of Segera’s main lodge. When they caught sight of us, the giraffes lowered their necks like party crashers trying not to call too much attention to themselves.

My group consisted of well-heeled travellers from Paris, Dubai, New York City, Cape Town, and Beirut, Lebanon. We were at Segera for a retreat hosted by Roar Africa CEO and founder Deborah Calmeyer, who was born and raised in Zimbabwe . Well-known for pushing the conventions of safari beyond game drives and sundowners, Calmeyer is among the first travel experts on the continent to tap into the wellness zeitgeist.

Sound meditation is a practice that replaces the noise pollution of the modern world with healing reverberations. It’s not the kind of wellness approach I would typically have bought into, but like so many of us, I had emerged from last year looking for ways to calm my rattled nerves. I started meditating in March of 2020, then tried a sound-therapy session and learned how, when exposed to certain music, the brain enters a ‘theta state’—that barely conscious realm we experience just before falling asleep and just after waking, when the mind is especially receptive to growth and restoration.