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Hi, I’m Alison Palmer — founder of GAJÃRA SOUND, sound energy practitioner, teacher, and singing bowl obsessive.
I believe in the transformative power of sound because I’ve lived it
“Sometimes the thing you never knew you needed finds you anyway”
There is much anecdotal information about the call of the Tibetan singing bowls and how they find their rightful owners. I’d like to share my story.
A broken heart, a journey to India …
By the close of 2019 I was emotionally broken, I was in India for the first time, grieving.
In the space of nine months I had experienced the collapse of my business, financial bankruptcy, the deaths of my beloved Mum & Dad and another close family member .
My heart was broken.
I’d travelled to India to get away from it all. It was a distraction and a bucket list ‘tick’ for me.
“The vibration of that first singing bowl bypassed my thinking brain and went straight into my bones. It anchored me in my body instead of pushing me out of it.”
A singing bowl finds me
While visiting Sarnath (where Buddha gave his first sermon after enlightenment), I decided I wanted to buy a singing bowl. I didn’t know why — maybe as a yoga accessory.
The buying process was chaotic, as anyone who’s been to India will know. Shouting, bargaining, vendors following us along the street. My husband Tim was fending off an overly enthusiastic seller when I paused at a different stall. I spotted a bowl — I may have touched it, I can’t remember — but somehow, without any real negotiation, it was wrapped in newspaper and slipped into my bag, with Tim paying a very reasonable price for it.
I hadn’t played it, yet here it was.
Later I discovered it was a bowl resonant with the heart. Strange, how it found its way into my hands when my own heart was so broken.
HEALING DOESN'T ALWAYS ARRIVE AS YOU'D EXPECT
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HEALING DOESN'T ALWAYS ARRIVE AS YOU'D EXPECT //
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A chance meeting in Goa
Its arrival changed everything. A chance meeting with a man in Goa, and my life took a turn I could never have imagined.
That man was Altaf, who owned a jewellery store. I visited daily — sometimes twice a day — and while I bought jewellery, my attention kept drifting to his magnificent display of mantra-carved singing bowls.
One evening he began sharing his knowledge with me. Hours later, Tim walked in to find me cross-legged on the shop floor, gently tapping a bowl upside down on my head. At which point I can honestly say he thought I’d lost it completely!
The start of an unexpected journey
I came home with one bowl and a head full of curiosity. Lockdown soon followed, but the memory of Altaf’s bowls wouldn’t leave me. On a whim, I messaged him to ask if he could send me some — thinking a few of my yoga friends might like them.
Five years on, I’ve handled thousands of handmade Himalayan bowls from Altaf. Not one has been the same. Each has its own character, its own resonance, its own healing energy.
Just like people, every bowl has a voice and a purpose.
Read my own healing journey (below) to understand just how profoundly my healing began with the arrival of my very first singing bowl.
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My own healing … from silence to sound
I grew up in the 1960s, a girl raised in the shadow of patriarchy. Conditioned by dolly prams, wendy houses and tea sets. Schooled in ‘calm down’, ‘don’t be so emotional’, ‘that’s not very ladylike’. I was told to shrink. Be smaller. Be useful. Be pretty. Be chosen.
So I shrank. I adapted. I became good at absorbing bad behaviour and turning myself inside out to survive. I shaped myself into whatever was required—nurse, mother, secretary, wife—and somewhere along the way, I lost myself.
Two marriages, the same mistake: giving up pieces of myself to keep the peace. Even my own body became negotiable.
By the time I hit 55 I was exhausted, frustrated and in so much emotional & physical pain I didn’t know how to make myself better
Until one day, doing nothing became more unbearable than doing something.
A spark of possibility
That was nine years ago, when a sign outside a yoga studio caught my eye:
“It’s never too late. You’re never too old.”
I was deeply menopausal at the time, navigating not just physical change but the weight of decades of conditioning. Like so many women of my generation, I was using alcohol—unhealthily and unwittingly—to numb pain I didn’t yet have words for.
Yoga gave me a way to honour my body. Meditation gave me a way to quieten my mind. But it was sound—of all things—that helped me truly hear myself.
Reclaiming my power
The vibration of that first singing bowl bypassed my thinking brain and went straight into my bones. It anchored me in my body instead of pushing me out of it.
Bit by bit, the sound helped me navigate grief, rebuild my self-esteem, and ease the crushing anxiety I had carried for years. I began to shed emotional pain and decades-old conditioning that had kept me small, unseen, and stuck.
As my skills and my bowl collection grew, I noticed unexpected shifts. Pain from osteoarthritis became more manageable. My voice—both literal and figurative—returned. Creativity and feminine energy began to flow again. I became alcohol-free, replacing the need to “get out of my head” with the grounding power of sound.
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Learning, practising, sharing
When I first started, I’ll be honest - I “bish-bash-boshed” my way through sound baths.
But, Sound Practitioners are made, not born, and I committed to becoming the best I could be.
I trained with acclaimed spiritual healer Lola Lhamo SEMPA (London/Bali), learning vibroacoustic (sonic) massage, sacred geometry, and the art of working with sound at a deep energetic level. I studied multi-instrument integrated sound healing with The Sound Healing Academy (International) and continue to expand my knowledge every day devouring books and exploring new science. I practice & practice & practice.
What began as small workshops for friends grew organically into a thriving business, offering training courses to help others discover the transformative power of sound.
GAJÃRA SOUND is born
This year, GAJÃRA SOUND has evolved natuarlly from my healing business originally established in 2020 (Soul Soothing Bowls & HEAL Singing Bowl Academy) — the culmination of my personal healing, my sound healing practice, and the training I now share with others.
The name honours the elephant (Gaja in Sanskrit) and Ra, the sun god, with whom I feel a deep affinity. The elephant — a hand-painted gift from my dear friend Altaf — symbolises the very beginning for me, alongside my first singing bowl. It marked the start of an unfolding path:
A new business, a renewed purpose, and a calling to share the healing vibrations and knowledge that can benefit others.
For me, the elephant also represents elder female wisdom. Like whales and humans, female elephants have roles and purpose far beyond their childbearing years — they are the keepers of knowledge, holding the memory of waterhole routes and guiding the herd to life-sustaining water.
As a woman in my “crone” phase, I honour this wisdom. GAJÃRA SOUND is my way of carrying it forward.
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My mission
I’ve been called the fire starter by students whose own gifts ignited in our time together. I’ve seen transformations that defy logic but make perfect sense when you understand the language of vibration.
My mission is simple:
To awaken the healer within each and every one of us.
To guide women using the power of sound into radical self-knowing, soul-level healing, and unapologetic reclamation of the voice and power they were taught to hide.
To honour and amplify the feminine voice through ancient sound, modern science, and lived experience.
All women are welcome, my youngest child is transgender, - and I want to clearly include, honour and invite fluid, non-binary and transgender people in my mission
Because sound, which once silenced me, has become my path to liberation — and it can be yours too.
Words from my students
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Michelle @flotsam_holistics
WHAT MY STUDENTS SAY
“Ali not only has a NATURAL AFFINITY with BOWLS and SOUND, but the GIFT to TEACH IT to others IN SUCH A WAY it all MAKES PERFECT SENSE”.
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Sophia
“THANK YOU Ali I have LEARNT SO MUCH from you. YOU are a WONDERFUL TEACHER, SO KNOWLEDGEABLE & INSPIRING
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