This listening does not ask you to look inward. The Sidereal Moon is measured against the fixed stars. It is not concerned with what you are feeling, remembering, or processing. It does not invite emotional inventory or inner analysis. You are allowed to remain oriented outward. You may notice the room. The floor beneath you. The edges of the space. The simple fact of being here. Introspection is often framed as care.

Unity does not require sameness. The Jupiter gong does not ask a group to feel the same thing, believe the same thing, or arrive at the same insight. There is no emotional synchronization required. No collective mood to match. Each body remains its own body. Each nervous system keeps its own pace. Each listener stays inside their own experience.

The drum is not here to take you somewhere. It does not ask you to journey, visualize, interpret, or arrive. It offers rhythm—steady, repetitive, present—and allows that rhythm to exist alongside whatever is already happening. A companion does not pull. A companion does not push. A companion stays.

Some daysThey sit alongside experience rather than trying to change it. They offer vibration without interpretation. They allow the body to remain as it is. Some days, the sound may feel comforting. Some days, it may feel irrelevant. Some days, it may feel unwelcome., the sound may feel comforting. Some days, it may feel irrelevant. Some days, it may feel unwelcome.

You do not need to listen the entire time. You do not need to stay near the sound. You do not need to “work with” the vibration. Turning the sound off is part of the practice. Leaving the room is part of the practice. Needing quiet afterward is part of the practice.

A serene rest day unfolds with a vibrant sunset painting the sky over the tranquil ocean waves.

Julie Jules Smoot’s work as a sound alchemist did not emerge from theory or technique alone. It grew slowly—through years of personal healing, careful listening, and learning what it means to live inside a body again after trauma. Before sound became an offering, it was a companion. Julie’s healing path has included many modalities, each meeting her at different moments, each teaching something distinct about safety, choice, and timing.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is not only a condition of memory or thought. It is a nervous system response shaped by overwhelm, threat, and loss of safety.

You don’t need to remember every moment. You don’t need to carry meaning forward. You don’t need to decide what this was.

Often, the most meaningful shifts happen later. In the way you pause before responding. In the way you notice your breath while standing in line. In the way your body recovers a little more quickly. These changes are subtle. They are easy to miss because they do not feel like events. They feel like capacity.

People often ask what is supposed to happen during sound healing. They want to know what they should feel. They want to know if they’re doing it right. They want to know how they’ll know it’s working. These questions make sense. Many of us have learned that healing looks a certain way—calm, emotional release, insight, lightness, peace. But trauma-informed sound begins with a quieter truth:

Even when these expectations are offered gently, they are still expectations. And for many people—especially those with trauma histories—expectations can feel like pressure. Trauma-informed sound healing begins with a different premise: Nothing is required of you.

If sound healing has ever made you feel restless, emotional, numb, irritated, or even resistant, nothing has gone wrong. Your body isn’t failing. Your nervous system isn’t broken. It may be doing exactly what it needs to do. Trauma-informed sound work begins with a different assumption than most wellness culture: healing does not require relaxation. Healing requires safety, consent, and honest presence—sometimes quiet, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes wordless.

Julie Jewels Smoot continues to expand her sound alchemy practice with a variety of newer albums, single tracks, and immersive sound experiences that build on and diversify her earlier Threads of Trauma work. This evolution in her artistic journey reflects not only her commitment to exploring the depths of sound but also her desire to connect with listeners on a more profound level.

We live in a culture obsessed with calm. Calm your mind. Regulate your nervous system. Breathe until everything feels better. For many people—especially those who have lived through trauma, grief, military service, chronic stress, or long-term overwhelm—this message quietly turns into another form of pressure. If calm were the doorway to healing, you would already be healed.

When the mind is overloaded and the heart feels adrift, sound healing offers a pathway beyond words. A Neptune Gong Bath is a deeply immersive sound healing experience guided by Sound Alchemist Julie Jewels Smoot, inviting participants into states of profound rest, emotional softening, and spiritual stillness. Neptune—the planet of dreams, mysticism, compassion, and the subconscious—works through dissolution rather than force. This gong bath is not about setting intentions

In trauma-informed and somatic frameworks, it is understood that regulation often follows activation. The nervous system may need to recognize and move through held patterns before settling. Sound can catalyze this process. For someone accustomed to dissociation, relaxation can feel unsafe. Stillness may bring awareness that was previously avoided. In these cases, discomfort is not a sign of harm—it is a sign of contact.

We have been taught—through images, language, and expectation—to associate healing with comfort and visual harmony. If it looks serene, if it feels gentle, if it can be captured and shared, then it must be working. This belief confuses appearance with truth. Real healing is not a performance. It does not arrive curated. It often begins in discomfort, confusion, or a sense of disorientation as old patterns loosen their grip.

There are moments in sound work when nothing seems to happen. No waves of emotion. No visions. No release that announces itself. Just sound, breath, and the ordinary awareness of being in a body. These moments are often misunderstood. We’re conditioned to look for signs—proof that something is working. When nothing obvious occurs, it’s easy to assume the session failed, that the sound missed its mark, or that we somehow did it wrong.

During the energy of the Wolf Moon — often seen as a period for deep reflection and confronting inner truths — Smoot’s gong bath transcends meditation, becoming a transformative ritual. The gong’s slow, flowing tones, with their deep low frequencies and lingering harmonics, lead listeners into states of release and renewal, reflecting the moon’s own cycle of letting go and enlightenment.