Sound healing, in Clementine Moss's approach, uses sound to help a person connect to their own guidance rather than to be healed by someone else. A drummer with the Led Zeppelin tribute band Zepparella and a practitioner of vipassana meditation, she explains how drumming and stillness taught her the same lessons about power, self-judgment and self-worth.
ᛉKey takeaways
- Clementine believes true power is often stillness, whether she finds it behind a drum kit or on a meditation mat.
- In her sound healing, she sees herself as a conduit and says the client's own guidance knows best where the sound should go.
- She says self-compassion had to come before she could love others, and that a dream told her the purpose is to learn to love.
- Clementine recommends preparing for and integrating plant medicine journeys, and says her own difficult one left her off balance for over a year.
- She says meditation does not have to look one way, but that stepping toward discomfort with curiosity, rather than running from it, can teach a great deal.
ᛃ Moments in this one
ᚠHow sound healing works for Clementine Moss
Clementine Moss is a drummer, author and certified depth hypnosis practitioner who also works as a spiritual counselor. She describes her sound healing practice as a way for a client to connect to their own internal guidance. In her view, the client's own guides know best where to direct sound in the body to open up blockages.
She was trained in traditional shamanism, where the shaman makes the journey and retrieves parts for the client. Most of the time, she says, she works in depth hypnosis, or shamanic counseling, guiding clients to their own guidance and holding the field for them to do their own healing. She believes that is more powerful than someone telling you that you are healed.
When she plays, Clementine says she is a conduit and not the one who knows. These are her spiritual beliefs and methods, described as she sees them.
ᚢStillness, power and the animal behind the drum kit
Clementine started meditating and drumming in her 20s and first saw them as separate paths: the quiet person on the mat and the animal behind the kit. Over time she realized she learns the same lessons in silence as in loud, powerful playing. Her book, From Bonham to Buddha and Back, takes that idea from the drum throne to the meditation cushion.
She believes power is misunderstood as an external force, when true power is stillness. For her, the sound of John Bonham is authority: behind the drums, she says, he seemed to know exactly what he was there for.
She explains why he played behind the beat. It creates anticipation, and you can only do it with complete authority over yourself in time.
ᚦSelf-worth, self-compassion and the dream that said “learn to love”
Clementine says she gave her energy away through who she was as a woman in society, including her body image and her sense of worth. When she found drumming, she realizes now, she was struggling with the feeling that she was not good enough, and she kept people from getting close because she feared they would see it.
Drumming helped her feel her own authority, which opened a conversation with herself. She says she saw herself as loving toward others while attacking herself, and asked how she could open her heart to others if she could not give herself compassion. When it broke open, she says, it felt like a floodgate.
About 15 years ago she had a dream in which she asked a table of wise people for her purpose. A voice loud enough to wake her said: to learn to love. She understood it as loving herself first.
She also faced self-doubt. She started drumming in her late 20s and long felt like a sham, until she decided that doing her best was enough.
ᚨPlant medicine: why preparation and integration matter
Clementine does not administer any medicine. She says her specialty is preparing people for plant medicine journeys and helping them integrate afterward. She believes many people go in looking for an experience and then have no framework for it, and some come out very dysregulated.
She speaks from her own experience. Her first ceremony connected her to her power, she says, and her second was extremely difficult and disruptive for over a year, because she had not prepared properly or understood how to integrate it. She was later drawn to this work partly because of that. Her last journey, she says, told her the days of searching with substances were over.
Jeremy leads Light in the Mountains, a three-day small-group psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy retreat in the Sierra Nevada, for people ready for deeper work.
ᚱADHD, meditation and sitting with discomfort
Jeremy says he has ADHD and does better when he is moving, because sitting on the ground makes his brain a tornado. Clementine says she has worked with many people who say the same, and that she thinks he is on to something.
Her view is that practice does not have to look a particular way. You are not more spiritual in a full lotus than walking down the street. She suggests that movement such as a walk or yoga can open stillness, and then you can sit and ask what the chaos is trying to say.
She also thinks there is great value in moving toward discomfort rather than running from it. Jeremy offers ADHD coaching for high achievers who want practical tools for the same problem.
ᚲWhat a 10-day silent vipassana retreat teaches
Clementine has practiced vipassana for more than 30 years. She says she is not a teacher of it, but describes the 10-day silent retreats, which she says are donation-only. Participants take a vow of silence, are fed and housed, and watch a video of the main teacher each night.
The practice is observing sensation. For three days you rest your attention on the upper lip, noticing without reacting. After that you move through the body in small increments, noting itchy, tingly, hot or cold. Meanwhile the mind runs off and you bring it back.
What it teaches, she says, is non-reactivity. Over days she noticed a wider awareness behind the busy front attention, a stillness that observes. She calls the retreat the hardest thing she has ever done.
ᚷDisconnection, owning your story and what comes next
Jeremy, a licensed therapist and coach, says he sees anxiety, depression and trauma everywhere and believes the strangeness of modern life fosters them. Clementine adds that she thinks humanity has lost its connection to the earth and has been taught to look outside itself for wholeness. These are their views, not clinical findings.
Late in the conversation she shares that she once wrote a deeply honest piece about a painful struggle with body image and locked it with a password. Choosing to put it in her book showed her she no longer felt attached to that old idea of herself.
If you want conversation like this, you can find it in Thriving Spirits, the Mindful Mutiny community, which offers real conversation, live Fireside Chats and a course library.
Clementine's spiritual and sound healing practices are her beliefs and personal experience, not medical care. Psychedelics and plant medicines may be illegal where you live and aren't right for everyone; nothing here is a recommendation to use any substance. This episode also touches on body image and self-worth. If you are struggling, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.
ᚨ Questions people ask
What is sound healing?
Clementine describes sound healing as using sound as an avenue for a person to connect to their own guidance. She sees herself as a conduit and believes the client's own guides know best where the sound should go. This is her belief and method.
What is depth hypnosis?
Clementine says depth hypnosis was developed by her teacher Isa Gucciardi and combines shamanism, Tibetan Buddhist practice and transpersonal psychology. She says it helps the client become their own shaman.
Why did John Bonham play behind the beat?
Clementine says playing behind the beat creates a feeling of anticipation before the drum lands. In her view it takes complete authority over yourself in time, which is why she hears his playing as authority.
Do you have to sit still to meditate?
Clementine says practice does not have to look a certain way. She suggests movement can open access to stillness, and also values sitting with discomfort and asking what it shows you.
What happens on a 10-day silent vipassana retreat?
Clementine says participants observe sensation in the body without reacting, starting with the upper lip. She says the practice builds non-reactivity, and she found it the hardest thing she has done.