"I love LA," said the woman next to me, as she gathered up her crystals and folded up her sheet. We'd slept next to each other, on two neighboring mattresses, during a sound bath conducted inside the Mattress Central store in Atwater Village. And then we went our separate ways.
She'd brought her crystals to recharge them. She reads tarot and practices the healing art of reiki on others; I'm just desperate to find some inner peace.
In the past, I've sought solace in restorative yoga and hugging cows with some degree of success—but now that my stress levels are ramping back up again, I'm back to experimenting with some fringe practices.
But in LA, it's not all that alternative to heal thyself with some carefully curated frequencies. It's just kind of wacky that it's now happening inside a mattress store, after hours. (Then again, it's not nearly as weird as lying on the floor inside an electrically-charged time machine built based on alien-dictated blueprints.)
The last sound bath I attended, sitting on the floor of Central Library with my back against a bookcase, I was horrified when a guy sat down in front of me so close, I had to wrap my legs around his body.
Imagine my relief today when I got a queen-sized mattress all to myself, with a hot pink fitted sheet, my own blankie, and a sleep mask to keep!
It's a little bit funny trying to get zen with the last light of day still streaming through those big shop windows. But as soon as Amber Moon of Moon Soul Sound Baths began to play her quartz bowls, I settled right in.
"If you find yourself distracted by the snoring of your neighbor, just try to focus on the music," she told us—and I took that as permission to fall asleep (especially when she started to play her ocean drum, which sounds like the crashing waves of the Pacific).
And when it was all over, Amber declared that our 50 minutes were up, "but it might've seemed shorter to some of you who fell asleep, based on all the snoring." I liked to think she wasn't just talking about me.
After we folded our sheets back up and turned in our blankets, we each grabbed a crescent-shaped crystal to take home with us.
I took the only white one in the bunch. But I'm not well-versed in crystals enough to know what that could or could not do for me.
The other takeaway—besides a sense of serenity—was one of several different affirmation cards strewn on a table. The theory is that whichever card you choose is the one you're meant to have—and "I am a master manifester" did, in fact, resonate with me. And the reminder of that made me feel a little less stressed out.
And as I exited the mattress store, and searched for the full "Blue Moon" that hadn't yet risen in the sky, I wished for a more premium version of the sound bath—an overnight one, in full sleepover mode.
I won't get my hopes up for that. But I'd love to go back sometime for another guided nap.
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