About Me
Darren Austin Hall is a passionate seeker (and finder!) of spirituality who became interested in the healing arts and practice of medicine when he discovered that he had a deep desire to serve the upliftment of people and culture in a way that was direct and fulfilling.
Darren recognizes that we live in a thrilling time. Science is baffled by what it’s discovering about the nature of things (quantum physics, enough said). The Internet has made time and space a matter of the past, allowing cultures to share their wisdom the world over, creating exciting innovations through found similarities. And yet, we also live in a time when the stakes couldn’t be higher—the world is under tremendous threat by human civilization’s unwillingness to work with nature and if we don’t smarten up fast, the generations to come may not even see the light of day. Darren takes the state of the world very seriously and realizes that human civilization is quite ill—obsessed with material greed (which pushes the causes of spirituality and philosophy far down the ladder of values, acting without appropriate perspective, morally and ethically compromised due to the inhumanity of many cultural systems (societal, political, financial etc.) and, on the whole, leading the world to destruction instead of creation, humanity needs to heal its nature in the deepest way possible if we’re going to survive the challenges now facing us. This is healing not of mere physical conditions but of the very essence of what makes us human, namely our values, our understandings of ourselves and the world, and the direction of how to act in a world from a perspective of great depth. Darren spent all his years studying spirituality and medicine recognizing that such healing takes into consideration the deepest questions about life, namely:
Who am I?
What is my purpose?
And what am I doing about it?
Though Darren acknowledges the advancements made by modern medicine that have helped us achieved the lowest mortality rates yet he also acknowledges that progress never stops and that we need to push deeper if we’re going to realize that healing the depths of the individual means healing our fundamental identities and understandings about the world. For truly stress is the number one health concern in modern civilization and that really amounts to people living in ways that are not sane, pushing themselves beyond limits, not taking care of themselves and not exploring the deepest questions of life, which leave most of us living in a state of subtle depression and fear our entire lives. How many of us are living lives of quiet misery? Too many. So Darren wants to change all that and he knows the only way to do so is to bring spirituality into the practice of medicine because it has always been the spiritual traditions that bravely explored the deepest issues of what it means to be human and what it means to exist in the world.
Darren is not about getting people to devote themselves to some specific tradition such as a religion and he’s not against that either. He believes spirituality is merely the exploration of what the nature of being human is. Having studied many different religions and traditions of spirituality for close to a decade, as well as being a devoted student of meditation and yoga, Darren has realized that these questions can be answered by transforming how we live. In this way, meditation is essential as it gives us insight into what the Eastern traditions have always said: that beyond the mind, beyond our thoughts is the experience of pure consciousness or pure being, which is a state that is free of desires and divisions of good and bad; a state that is blissfully, subtly and powerfully, indestructible, eternal, wholly unified and connected to all that is and so familiar and natural that once you apprehend it you realize the true nature of EVERYTHING. It is this state of pure consciousness that has nourished thousands of years of spiritual development the world over and is at the essence of every religion. It is this state of consciousness that transforms lives into beacons of strength, wisdom, integrity and purpose. And it’s not difficult to live one’s life from it. It is this recognition of consciousness as the deepest part of ourselves and the universe that is essential for us to survive. For human culture to survive it must strive to become an enlightened culture.
“Medicine can no longer simply be concerned with the relief of our physical illnesses. In fact, we now know that most physical illnesses have their root in our minds, our emotions, how we behave and, especially, our lifestyle choices. We need to go deeper with our medicines to help affect change on a deeper level; to help people change at the level of values, beliefs and being. With this shift of perspective, we also realize as medical practitioners that if we can guide people to transform this profoundly that they will then be much, much better contributors in the world to the purpose of serving the betterment of the whole, which is at the essence of spiritual work. Every human being has the potential to be immense forces of cultural change and when we begin to stabilize the cause of our personal suffering, rooted often in misunderstandings of our nature and the nature of the world, we liberate our life-energy to give to others, which then gives us incredible purpose with which to devote our entire lives. This is, in fact, the only true healing that there has ever been and it’s now coming to the light in the 21st century. What an exciting time to be alive; to push forward and evolve our consciousness, personally and collectively and to help change the world, relentlessly to better levels of development.”
A graduate of the esteemed Institute of Traditional Medicine in Toronto (ITM), there Darren not only attained a Diploma of Acupuncture but was one of the more relentless curious students who took advantage of the wealth of miscellaneous spiritual lectures and courses ITM ran outside of its central Chinese Medicine programs. Subsequently, Darren took a two-year intensive with ‘American Shaman’ Bradford Keeney in Shaking Medicine & Creative Transformation Therapy where he was introduced to how ecstatic states could help release blocks in our bodies and lives. Darren also learned under some of the most brilliant thinkers in health and spirituality, such as: Stephen Jenkinson (‘Griefwalker’), the Druid, Alan Reed (who inspired Darren’s trip to Findhorn, the famous ecovillage in Northern Scotland), Dine healer, Walking Thunder, and Mohawk Elder, Diane Longboat. Through ITM, Darren was introduced to a group of Native American teachers and elders whom he learned under ‘on the land’ for two years, learning the ‘old ways’ of medicine and living.
Though firmly rooted in the wisdom of the ancients, Darren has also spent much time exploring what is the cutting edge because evolution never stops. In this vein, Darren brings one of the most innovative and powerful practices of medicine into his offering: Sound Medicine. Sound Medicine or Sound Healing has become one of the most compelling fields of medicine. A musician and writer/poet at heart, Darren was always trying to find a way to bring his artistic sensibilities into the realm of his medicine practice. It was through the counsel of a close teacher that he was introduced to the world of Sound Medicine and it opened a massive horizon of possibilities he’s still exploring and pushing forward to this day! Soon after the revelation, he was introduced to David Hickey (Crystal Journey) whose work with Quartz Crystal Singing Bowls inspired Darren to begin working also with the incredible healing tones of the bowls. He also has honed his voice as a healing instrument and with his set of crystal bowls he performs under the name SHEN: Sound Healing Energy (Shen is actually an ancient Chinese character for consciousness). His SHEN events have become very popular and he is continually playing in and around Toronto at various centres and yoga studios.
Above all, Darren is passionate about bringing messages of health and spirituality to the public at large. An avid writer, he’s been published in many places, such as Vitality Magazine, PreventDisease.com and AlternativeMed.ca. He’s also a passionate educator and loves doing workshops on a variety of subjects having to do with spirituality and health. He was a speaker at the 2009 Freedom Festival at Queen’s Park and was also one of the co-organizers of the 2010 Harvest of Healing Arts. He also founded the popular Tongue Open Mic events that used to run at the Concord Café.
ne:
Phone: 647 726 7789
Email: darren@innertraditionshealing.com
2 nd F ddsloor
Darren recognizes that we live in a thrilling time. Science is baffled by what it’s discovering about the nature of things (quantum physics, enough said). The Internet has made time and space a matter of the past, allowing cultures to share their wisdom the world over, creating exciting innovations through found similarities. And yet, we also live in a time when the stakes couldn’t be higher—the world is under tremendous threat by human civilization’s unwillingness to work with nature and if we don’t smarten up fast, the generations to come may not even see the light of day. Darren takes the state of the world very seriously and realizes that human civilization is quite ill—obsessed with material greed (which pushes the causes of spirituality and philosophy far down the ladder of values, acting without appropriate perspective, morally and ethically compromised due to the inhumanity of many cultural systems (societal, political, financial etc.) and, on the whole, leading the world to destruction instead of creation, humanity needs to heal its nature in the deepest way possible if we’re going to survive the challenges now facing us. This is healing not of mere physical conditions but of the very essence of what makes us human, namely our values, our understandings of ourselves and the world, and the direction of how to act in a world from a perspective of great depth. Darren spent all his years studying spirituality and medicine recognizing that such healing takes into consideration the deepest questions about life, namely:
Who am I?
What is my purpose?
And what am I doing about it?
Though Darren acknowledges the advancements made by modern medicine that have helped us achieved the lowest mortality rates yet he also acknowledges that progress never stops and that we need to push deeper if we’re going to realize that healing the depths of the individual means healing our fundamental identities and understandings about the world. For truly stress is the number one health concern in modern civilization and that really amounts to people living in ways that are not sane, pushing themselves beyond limits, not taking care of themselves and not exploring the deepest questions of life, which leave most of us living in a state of subtle depression and fear our entire lives. How many of us are living lives of quiet misery? Too many. So Darren wants to change all that and he knows the only way to do so is to bring spirituality into the practice of medicine because it has always been the spiritual traditions that bravely explored the deepest issues of what it means to be human and what it means to exist in the world.
Darren is not about getting people to devote themselves to some specific tradition such as a religion and he’s not against that either. He believes spirituality is merely the exploration of what the nature of being human is. Having studied many different religions and traditions of spirituality for close to a decade, as well as being a devoted student of meditation and yoga, Darren has realized that these questions can be answered by transforming how we live. In this way, meditation is essential as it gives us insight into what the Eastern traditions have always said: that beyond the mind, beyond our thoughts is the experience of pure consciousness or pure being, which is a state that is free of desires and divisions of good and bad; a state that is blissfully, subtly and powerfully, indestructible, eternal, wholly unified and connected to all that is and so familiar and natural that once you apprehend it you realize the true nature of EVERYTHING. It is this state of pure consciousness that has nourished thousands of years of spiritual development the world over and is at the essence of every religion. It is this state of consciousness that transforms lives into beacons of strength, wisdom, integrity and purpose. And it’s not difficult to live one’s life from it. It is this recognition of consciousness as the deepest part of ourselves and the universe that is essential for us to survive. For human culture to survive it must strive to become an enlightened culture.
“Medicine can no longer simply be concerned with the relief of our physical illnesses. In fact, we now know that most physical illnesses have their root in our minds, our emotions, how we behave and, especially, our lifestyle choices. We need to go deeper with our medicines to help affect change on a deeper level; to help people change at the level of values, beliefs and being. With this shift of perspective, we also realize as medical practitioners that if we can guide people to transform this profoundly that they will then be much, much better contributors in the world to the purpose of serving the betterment of the whole, which is at the essence of spiritual work. Every human being has the potential to be immense forces of cultural change and when we begin to stabilize the cause of our personal suffering, rooted often in misunderstandings of our nature and the nature of the world, we liberate our life-energy to give to others, which then gives us incredible purpose with which to devote our entire lives. This is, in fact, the only true healing that there has ever been and it’s now coming to the light in the 21st century. What an exciting time to be alive; to push forward and evolve our consciousness, personally and collectively and to help change the world, relentlessly to better levels of development.”
A graduate of the esteemed Institute of Traditional Medicine in Toronto (ITM), there Darren not only attained a Diploma of Acupuncture but was one of the more relentless curious students who took advantage of the wealth of miscellaneous spiritual lectures and courses ITM ran outside of its central Chinese Medicine programs. Subsequently, Darren took a two-year intensive with ‘American Shaman’ Bradford Keeney in Shaking Medicine & Creative Transformation Therapy where he was introduced to how ecstatic states could help release blocks in our bodies and lives. Darren also learned under some of the most brilliant thinkers in health and spirituality, such as: Stephen Jenkinson (‘Griefwalker’), the Druid, Alan Reed (who inspired Darren’s trip to Findhorn, the famous ecovillage in Northern Scotland), Dine healer, Walking Thunder, and Mohawk Elder, Diane Longboat. Through ITM, Darren was introduced to a group of Native American teachers and elders whom he learned under ‘on the land’ for two years, learning the ‘old ways’ of medicine and living.
Though firmly rooted in the wisdom of the ancients, Darren has also spent much time exploring what is the cutting edge because evolution never stops. In this vein, Darren brings one of the most innovative and powerful practices of medicine into his offering: Sound Medicine. Sound Medicine or Sound Healing has become one of the most compelling fields of medicine. A musician and writer/poet at heart, Darren was always trying to find a way to bring his artistic sensibilities into the realm of his medicine practice. It was through the counsel of a close teacher that he was introduced to the world of Sound Medicine and it opened a massive horizon of possibilities he’s still exploring and pushing forward to this day! Soon after the revelation, he was introduced to David Hickey (Crystal Journey) whose work with Quartz Crystal Singing Bowls inspired Darren to begin working also with the incredible healing tones of the bowls. He also has honed his voice as a healing instrument and with his set of crystal bowls he performs under the name SHEN: Sound Healing Energy (Shen is actually an ancient Chinese character for consciousness). His SHEN events have become very popular and he is continually playing in and around Toronto at various centres and yoga studios.
Above all, Darren is passionate about bringing messages of health and spirituality to the public at large. An avid writer, he’s been published in many places, such as Vitality Magazine, PreventDisease.com and AlternativeMed.ca. He’s also a passionate educator and loves doing workshops on a variety of subjects having to do with spirituality and health. He was a speaker at the 2009 Freedom Festival at Queen’s Park and was also one of the co-organizers of the 2010 Harvest of Healing Arts. He also founded the popular Tongue Open Mic events that used to run at the Concord Café.
ne:
Phone: 647 726 7789
Email: darren@innertraditionshealing.com
2 nd F ddsloor
