Cantor Miriam Fein
Creator of Resonant Silence Technique®
Miriam Fein is the creator of Resonant Silence Technique® (RST).
Being a singer and drawn to silence for personal rest and renewal, Miriam experienced how restorative group silence can be.
Then, using gentle tones leading into periods of silence, she created Resonant Silence Technique® (RST) for her group work with individuals with dementia.
Miriam holds a Bachelor of Comparative Religion from New York University (1972) and a Bachelor of Sacred Music (BSM) from The Jewish Theological Seminary (1979) which granted her certification as a Cantor/Minister/Educator. She is also a Certified Music Practitioner (CMP).
Wishing to deepen her understanding of the therapeutic nature of sound vibration on the body, she became a third level graduate of Acutonics (1999), an Acupuncture Sound Therapy program using tuning forks instead of needles on the acupuncture points.
She studied with and graduated from the Music for Healing and Transition Program (MHTP) as a Certified Music Practitioner (2001), trained to play and sing at the bedside in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and hospice.
In order to further her understanding of how subtle energy flows throughout the body and to learn how to nurture and tone this energy for optimum health and longevity, she completed a year-long course in Yi Ren Medical Qi Gong for Self Care with Yi Ren founder Dr. Guan-Cheng Sun, Ph.D. at Bastyr University (2013).
She is the author of two articles on Resonant Silence Technique. The first is called “Through the Still Portal Dementia Wellness Through Sound and Stillness” which was published in 2007 in the Western Washington Senior Guidebook.
Her second article entitled “A new dementia treatment with quieting focus, subtle sound vibration and intentional shared silence: Introducing Resonant Silence Technique: Innovative Practice” was published online on July 28th, 2018 in Dementia: the international journal of social research and practice. This article appears on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) website which is a resource for the most up-to-date and innovative healing approaches worldwide.
She has also completed a book on RST showing how it is used to significantly benefit those with dementia and provide a path to find inner peace and bliss. The book delves deeply into silence as a spiritual path as practiced by religious teachers from many traditions. The book contains calming and quieting sound-to-silence exercises for those with dementia and their caregivers as well as exercises for using RST as a path to abiding inner quiet and tranquility.
Miriam is a transgender woman. In 2009 she transitioned from male to female and legally changed her name from Ira Hirsch Fein to Miriam Iya Fein. One of the photographs on the website shows her as a male before she claimed her female identity. She sees being transgender as a gift which has immeasurably enriched her life allowing her to connect to many more people and to see life from a larger, deeper and more holistic perspective.
She is a singer, multi-instrumentalist, poet, composer and songwriter with two recordings, "Soul Calling" and "Come Beloved.” Her second recording, “Come Beloved” was a collaboration with her beloved and talented partner, Simme Bobrosky.
Miriam lives in La Conner, Washington, with Simme and their sweet kitties, Simba and Myrka.