HOBBY HELPS
QUIET THE MIND

By SUZANNE M. SCHMIDT

Temple Terrace resident Ronald Hays’ favorite hobby is bowling.
He said it helps him quiet his mind. Of course, he is not talking about a ball rolling down an aisle towards 10 pins. He’s referring to the quartz crystal singing bowls he often plays at events and for his own pleasure at home.
He first heard the crystal bowls after a yoga session.
“I laid down and heard the most amazing sound,” Hays said. “It went around me and through me and around the room. At the end of the session, I thought where did I go. I was hooked. I have been playing the bowls ever since.”
The bowls are made of pure crushed quartz heated to 4,000 degrees in a centrifugal mold. They come in different sizes – some are frosted and some are clear. The size of a bowl does not determine the note, but the larger the bowl the more they reverberate.
The tone of the bowl is tested with digital technology after the bowl is made.
Hays said he loves the experience so much he wants to share it with others, which is why he gives performances at various events in the area.
“I started doing events last year,” Hays said. “It is a passion. I love to give people the experience of hearing the bowls. They are a great meditative tool. It gives a glimpse behind all the chatter that goes on in the mind.”
Hays said the sound and the vibration of the bowls helps people to see deep inside themselves.
“You can see what is beneath it all; the essence of who we really are,” Hays said. “It is an experience to help separate the mind from the body.”
At the end of his usual 50-minute long performances, Hays allows people to ask questions and to play the bowls.
“If someone can be helped by my bowling then I have fulfilled my goal,” Hays said. “I compare bowling to having a massage. It has a very meditating and relaxing effect on me. It is like when you go in for a massage and you are tense and stressed and your body is overworked and tired. Then you come out of the massage and you are relaxed and invigorated. You feel aware and ready to head out into the world.”
Laura Gushin, teacher at Namaste Yoga in New Tampa, said she thinks Hays is so amazing she plans to have him perform at the studio once a month or at least once every other month.
“He has performed now at Namaste twice,” Gushin said. “The audience all respond so well to him. He turns the lights low and puts multicolored light projectors in the bowl so they glow and change colors as he plays. He plays for an hour and you don’t even realize the time go by.”
Gushin said she loves the effect his performance has on people in the studio.
“Everyone just feels so relaxed,” Gushin said. “All the people who come to the performance have nothing but good things to say about him. The performance is so beautiful to watch and then you close your eyes and lay back and just enjoy it.”
The bowls are an experience hard to describe because it is not just something to listen to, it is also a feeling.
“The vibrations go in one ear and out the other and then around the room,” Gushin said. “The first time I heard one I was scared, because the sound overwhelmed me.
“It is just a wonderful feeling. It relaxes every cell in my body. I just let go and let the vibration wash over me.”
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