Sound Healing with Jeremy Mikush | Rooted in Sound Podcast

Podcast Transcript — Rooted in Sound

This page contains the full transcript of the Rooted in Sound podcast conversation between Wyatt and Jeremy Mikush, one of our new sound healing practitioners. The discussion introduces Jeremy's background, his path into sound healing, and what clients can expect from a session.

In this episode, Jeremy shares how growing up in a musical family and studying music at the University of Pittsburgh, West Virginia University, and UCLA led him from a career as a touring musician into sound healing. He explains how his practice draws on Western mystical traditions — Pythagorean sacred geometry, cymatics, and contemplative Christian and Sufi mysticism — rather than the Eastern influences more common in the field, and walks through what a typical sound healing session with him looks like.

The conversation also explores:

• Jeremy's musical upbringing and academic background in musicology

• his transition from touring musician to certified sound healer

• sacred geometry, cymatics, and the mystical roots of sound therapy

• what to expect in a private sound healing session

• how toning, vocal biofeedback, and elemental shapes are used in his work

Below you can read the full transcript of the podcast episode. You can also watch the full video above.

Wyatt: Hello, I'm Wyatt with Rooted in Sound and I am here to introduce us to Jeremy — one of our new practitioners here. Jeremy is going to be offering some private services as well as some group sessions. So Jeremy, why don't you tell us a little bit about you and your background?

Jeremy: I grew up in the South Hills, and I grew up in a musical background — both sides of my family either sang or played instruments. I had singers on both sides and instrumentalists on both sides as well. I grew up in the church playing music, and then in high school I was part of different ensembles — chorus, the spring musical. I decided to study music at the University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia University, thinking I was going to be a classical singer and a multi-instrumentalist. Then I really got into music history and music theory, so I ended up moving to Los Angeles, to UCLA, to study musicology, music history and theory, and music criticism. That's where it starts to lean into this work and into sound therapy — I was very much into the theory of music, and also a little bit into the mysticism, you might say the metaphysics and philosophy behind it. Because I was really focused on Renaissance and Baroque music, which is where a lot of our modern theory comes from. Over the course of grad school I ended up going down these different metaphysical, musical rabbit holes, which got me interested — especially in Western culture — in how far back music was spoken of and written of as a healing practice, a mystical practice, and a way to come back to the bigger, cosmic sense of self.

Wyatt: Why don't you tell us a little bit about the sound healing path and what led you down it?

Jeremy: From about 2013 to 2020 I was touring fairly regularly as a musician. When 2020 came around, I was really thinking about how I could both expand my musical practice and integrate it with a lot of the metaphysical and spiritual curiosities that had developed over that time. So I took a certificate in Sound Healing from the Globe Institute in the Bay Area. A lot of what I'd already been studying — through an academic or philosophical lens — suddenly clicked: sound is an ancient tool, across all cultures, that helps us move from a dysregulated or uncentered state into a more centered space, and into one's own interior. You get to step away from whatever's distracting you on the outside and take time for interiority.

Wyatt: So tell me a little bit about what makes your practice different from some of the other sound healers out there.

Jeremy: A lot of sound healers have learned from — and taken in — Eastern practices, which are very sacred and venerable, say from Tibet, Nepal, South Asia generally, and have been influenced by Vedic, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions. I've studied a bit of that too, but a lot of what I'm interested in lately is that those of us with Western lineage also have mystical traditions worth returning to. So I look to the Pythagorean tradition — so emphasized academically, but not usually treated as a mystical one — that sound is a form of geometry that can regulate and help us center ourselves; that it really was a mystical, contemplative tradition, much like Sufism or Christian mysticism, which is about a very personal relationship with the divine and the uniqueness of the soul's experience of that divine space. So I use my voice, along with the instruments I'm trained in — gongs, bowls, percussion — but my sacred space is really built on that sonic sacred geometry, from my training in the Pythagorean and pre-Pythagorean traditions.

Wyatt: Tell me a little more about those Pythagorean traditions.

Jeremy: Sound therapists have research and evidence for how sound therapeutics work on the body, but what we're continuing to connect is that the ancient roots of math, science, and physics come from mystical traditions. In Pythagoreanism, the divine is one, two, three — these are qualitative as well as quantitative ways of understanding that the universe runs on patterns, sounds, and angles. One of the best pieces of evidence for this is cymatics — if you vibrate sand or water on a speaker and move the tones, you see the geometry appear right there. That's a great way to let the intellectual mind take a break and realize there are both very scientific and very mystical, subatomic experiences happening at once — and neither excludes the other. They get to talk to each other.

Wyatt: So tell us what someone might expect when they come in for a session.

Jeremy: We start with the client's life and goals, and what they've experienced with sound therapeutics or other wellness practices. On the table, we begin by building the most fundamental form of sacred space — think of the sigil of the sun, a circle and a point. I create that point as a full three-plus-dimensional space we hold our healing work in. Through intentional breathing and visualization, we shape what the client's essence or soul looks like geometrically. If they don't already have a tradition they want to bring, we start simple — above, below, left, right, forward, back, and center: the seven sacred points. From there I move into toning, exploring a vowel range, similar to how Eastern traditions pair different vowels with different chakras — those seven points show up in Greek and Egyptian traditions too. Between toning and the instruments, I also invite the client to tone or sing along and let their own voice be part of the feedback. Sometimes I work in layers — a general sweep of the body, a pause to notice how that feels, then moving to particular areas. Depending on the work, we might use elemental shapes: the tetrahedron, that four-sided equilateral triangle, to ascend or descend the fire element; or the octahedron, an eight-sided form with those same seven points and three axes, for an open, spacious consciousness. These are things you could study in tenth-grade geometry, but they're also real mathematical, scientific, and mystical containers — and with that visualization and surrender, recalibration, balance, and healing can take place.

Wyatt: Thank you. I had an experience with your sound, and the setting of those intentions along with the use of your voice and the instruments was really impactful — I had a very sweet session, went deep, and felt very rejuvenated afterward. What experiences have you had with sound healing in your own personal life?

Jeremy: It started as curiosity — going down the rabbit hole and realizing you can know about something, but it needs to be embodied and experienced, especially over the past six to eight years. My mother and I are the same way — we just hum and sing, that sort of vocal biofeedback, all the time, because the sound of your own voice is so comforting. The same way that as small children, the way our parents or caregivers speak to us gently creates a safe space. Between me humming, my mom humming, and my dad being a guitarist and singer, the voice became one of the most fundamental ways of soothing for me. I also found a lot of peace the way many traditions do — through basic form and sacred geometry. Music theory and sacred geometry seemed to want to sing, speak, and hold each other simultaneously. So I started experimenting — I bought an antique singing bowl and a quartz bowl and just started playing, the way I would if I were playing a song on guitar or piano. It gets back to the myth of Orpheus soothing animals and nature — playing with nature in a way our present civilization is having to remember again, after all the ways we've gotten dysregulated. It's like we've been trying to find our way back to nature, and thus to ourselves. That's what drew me to study sound healing — what are all the ways I can do this for myself, and facilitate it for others? That's what inspired me to get certified.

Wyatt: Thank you for taking a couple of minutes to introduce yourself to those out there interested in sound — we look forward to hearing more about you, your practice, and the impact we may have on our communities.

Jeremy: Yeah, thank you.