Hello friends, Happy Autumn! In this edition we’re featuring artists playing at next week’s Bhakti Love Reunion, October 13-15 in Weldon, CA — that’s near Lake Isabella. Three full days of Yoga, kirtan, music, dancing and great food — doesn’t that sound awesome? I am SO excited to be going, I haven’t been to a festival in such a long time, and many of the artists we all love will be there. Jai Uttal & Donna De Lory are headlining. There’s a lot more detail on the website, here’s the...

Hello friends, This set is devoted to the Divine Mother, with the exception of one chant, the title track from Shantala’s remarkable new CD ‘Five’. The whole CD is great, but I’m kind of obsessed with this track & have been playing it on loop. Heather Wertheiimer composed the chant over the course of the pandemic, and the mantra ‘Namah Shivaya” pulses like a heartbeat behind a five-line English prayer for our planet. The chanting flows in a layered musical tapestry that features the...

I’m feeling blessed by a lot these days. Those of you who listen to the New World Kirtan Podcast are one of my biggest blessings — this community has enriched my life in ways too numerous to count. Thank you for being here. And we’ve been here together for quite a long time — the first edition of the podcast was posted in 2018 before anyone really knew what a podcast was. I was always trying to explain it! We’ve been through quite a journey together — my mother’s illness & death, my own...

Hello friends, I hope this finds you healthy & doing well. If the dark days are getting you down, take heart because on Wednesday we celebrated Imbolc, an ancient Celtic holiday that celebrates the beginning of Spring — it was traditionally celebrated by the lighting of fires to honor the sun goddess Brigid. This holiday traditionally marks the midway point between winter solstice & the spring equinox, so the light is coming back big time now. There’s a set to the Divine Mother to...

It has been a glorious summer & fall here, one of the most beautiful I can remember. But now the rains have started, and the leaves are falling. The Corvallis kirtan community continues to grow, and we’ll be starting live kirtan concerts again in December. It feels good to be returning to this magical practice. Let’s enter the way back machine for a moment and recall, back in April, me telling you about the Auricle Collective — a community of more than 156 musicians rooted in singing,...

OK, guys — time is running out! Let’s all come together and support the Auricle Collective by clicking on this link. I hope you all enjoy more new music from the talented artists of the Auricle Collective. Be well, enjoy the summer, and until next time — Namaste. THE MUSIC: Sean Johnson & the Wild Lotus Band, Mystery: Turn That Wall Into a Door (Jai Ganesha) Dave Stringer & Sheila Nicholls, Thrum: River Kamini Natarajan, Shiva Mantras: Shiva Dhyana Mantra Jai Uttal: Holy...

Hello dear friends, I hope life is good for you as we head into midsummer. If you recall, back in April, I told you about the Auricle Collective. This community of more than 100 musicians is rooted in singing, chanting & music as art and spiritual practice. It includes the musicians that fuel our Bhakti Yoga practice. Remember the olden days when we were all downloading our music? Then, a single song cost 99 cents. Now, in the streaming era, a song has to be downloaded 315 times for an...

Happy summer, my dear friends! I hope you’re enjoying life as much as I am. My health is almost back to normal after the accident, and I’m working on regaining fitness now. Our son was married last weekend, and it was a beautiful love-filled & life affirming celebration. And next week we’re starting a big garden renovation, and I’m so excited about that. I’m not a big Instagram person, but I’ll be posting pictures there as things progress if you’d like to follow along. I also wanted to...

Several weeks ago I was on a Zoom call with over 50 kirtan artists to hear more about something called the Auricle Collective — this is a project spearheaded by Dave Stringer, Seán Johnson and several other Kirtan artists. Singing kirtan connects us by the thread of sacred music as a spiritual path. The goal of the Auricle Collective is to share our resources to promote & support our kirtan artists, who are making music that is participatory, devotional and that has the intention of...

Hello dear friends, This week we’re celebrating Valentine’s Day with a kirtan set devoted to LOVE. Enjoy! THE MUSIC: Miten, Temple at Midnight: Inescapable Love Deva Premal & Miten, 21-Day Mantra Meditation Journey: Day 4 – I Am Love Radharani, Just One Drop: Higher Love Krishna Das, Heart As Wide As The World: Narayana/For Your Love Ananda Yogjiji and Jaya Lakshmi, Live at the Altar of Love~Disc 2: Divine Lover’s Maha Mantra Shantala, Sri: Om Namo Bhagavte Invocation Shantala,...

Hello dear friends, Imbolc is the ancient Celtic holiday that marks the beginning of Spring. The holiday was traditionally celebrated by the lighting of fires to honor the sun goddess Brigid. Imbolc this year was February 1, so our set this week honors the Divine Mother, the source of the life force behind the awakening of Spring. For more chants to honor the Divine Mother, here’s a link to ‘The Fires of Imbolc’, a New World Kirtan Podcast from February 2020. THE MUSIC: Shimshai,...

Ahh … sometimes all you want is to sink down into music that will release your mind & relax your body. I hope this set will do it for you — chanting along turned me into a puddle after we played it for our Friday Satsang several weeks ago. Bill’s & my pandemic life has a rhythm that is familiar & comforting. Nonetheless, I’ll be glad to get back to something more normal — whatever that might look like. Omicron is peaking now in Oregon — we’re surrounded by a lot of illness &...

Hello friends, Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who are celebrating this week! I’ve become so aware lately of how much I have to be grateful for — sometimes it takes something bad happening in your life to get you radically present to how beautiful life is, and how fortunate you are. That’s where I am at the moment — thankful, grateful, blessed describes it perfectly. This week the music in the set is all about expressing gratitude to the Divine for our many blessings. Last Friday we...

Hello friends, Our Satsang loved this set last Friday night — it put us into a space where no one wanted to break the silence at the end. I hope you enjoy it too. Big news here — some feeling is starting to return to my foot! My goal is to stay in the ‘Believing’ place ALL THE TIME. Thanks for listening to the podcast, and until next time — Namaste   THE MUSIC: Snatam Kaur, Celebrate Peace: People of Love Luna Ray, Shining Through: Breathing Gate Gate Mirabai Ceiba, Humee Hum – The...

Hello friends, I always look forward to the sets Sky puts together for our Friday Satsang — she’s doing a set for us every month now. I love that she points me to artists & chants I may not have discovered on my own, and I think this set might be one of my favorites. You can find all of Sky’s sets on Spotify, search for Corvallis Satsang. The Music: Jahnavi Harrison, Mantra Lounge, Vol. 2: May all be Blessed Wah!, Kirtan, The Bhakti Yoga of Chanting Mantras: Shyam Bolo Jai Radharani...

I’ve been listening to Miten’s new CD ‘The Jungle Sessions” lately. It was recorded in Costa Rica during lockdown, and what a delight it is! ‘Never Give Up On Love’ beautifully expresses where I’m at just now, but all the tracks are great, you should check it out. I’m still coming at you from the couch, but there have been some positive developments. I started physical therapy last week, and have made appointments for MRIs, with the neurologist, etc. Everyone is booking into December, so...

Over the years you guys have been through a lot with me & I’ve told you how chanting has helped. I’ve produced the podcast through my Mom’s illness & death, dealing with the fear before the surgery to remove the spinal tumor. two hip replacement surgeries, and one hip dislocation. Last Monday my left hip dislocated again, this time accompanied by nerve damage. And I’m left with the question WHY? Why did this happen just as I was starting to get my life back? I’ll go into more detail...

Our set for this edition of the podcast is a bit unusual. The chants are specifically used in several religious traditions to help the soul rise from the heavier earth vibrations into a higher plane during the transition of leaving the body. One of our oldest & dearest Satsang members left her body this summer — the Friday after she passed we sang this set for her. It contains several versions of the haunting Kundalini chant ‘Akal’, translated as deathless, immortal & timeless. This...

Hello my friends, and welcome to this edition of the New World Kirtan Podcast. I haven’t posted in a while as I needed to take a break for various reasons, but everything is well here. The weather has been mostly spectacular, and we’ve had so many visitors — son David, son Jesse & his fiancee, my brother Michael, and up next is a trip to Cape Cod to visit Bill’s family. How incredible it has been to give people hugs after this long, long drought. I’m loving being back in the garden, able...

This week we continue our journey into mantra with Day 3 of Deva Premal & Miten’s 21-Day Mantra Meditation Journey. This week we’ll explore Lord Ganesha, one of the most loved Gods in Hinduism. In most households in India, a new task begins with a prayer to Lord Ganesh. His name has become synonymous with beginnings, and he is also known as the remover of all obstacles. As the god of beginnings, he is invoked at the start of every enterprise, rite or ceremony. Our set this week has wisdom...

This week we continue our journey into mantra with Day 2 of Deval Premal & Miten’s 21-Day Mantra Meditation Journey. This beautiful program features 21 specially selected mantras with guided meditations by Deva & Miten into their meaning & essential energetic properties. If you’re curious about chanting & the meaning of the various mantras, this is the series for you. The mantra we’ll be exploring this week is ‘Om Shanti’ which translates as ‘peace in body, peace in mind,...

Flame carriers of a 5,000-year-old tradition, Deva Premal & Miten are at the forefront of the burgeoning worldwide chant phenomenon. The two have been travelling the world since 1992, and with more than a dozen albums & a fan base that includes both Cher and the Dalai Lama, they are the Johnny & June Cash of sacred music. Our Friday Satsang is very familiar with Deva & Miten as we play their music in almost every set. We also use their 21-Day Mantra Meditation quite a bit –...

This week’s set is brought to you by our dear Friday Satsang member Sky. You can find Sky’s other sets for us on Spotify under ‘Corvallis Satsang‘. Enjoy! Setlist: Jane Winther, Mantra: Om Ty Burhoe, Invocation: Indian Chill Out Wade Imre Morissette, Mahadeva Shambo: Sargam Scales of Music Jai Uttal, Kirtan! The Art & Practice of Ecstatic Chant: Durga Pahimam Wah!, CD Krishna: Gopala Hare Donna De Lory, Sri Ma: Chants of Divine Mother: Amma (Maha Devi) Shantala, Sri: Sri Ram...

Rob and Melissa are husband & wife kirtan musicians from the Seattle area, but they travel extensively, leading kirtans, workshops and retreats around the world. They have shared their music at numerous yoga festivals in the US, including Bhakti Fest, Prana Fest, Samsara Fest, and the Northwest Yoga Feast. They’ve been to Corvallis several times to play for us, and their music is featured regularly in our Friday kirtan sets. Rob & Melissa are both beautiful human beings — you can hear...