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 celebrate Imbolc up on Spotify at the New World Kirtan page if you’d like to listen. Life is good here, I hope the same for you. This edition of the podcast is an interview with Dave Stringer, Madi Das & Sean Johnson about the very exciting news that Madi & Dave’s CD ’Mantra Americana’ has been nominated for a Grammy award! Dave, Madi & Sean will tell you about the process behind getting the Grammy’s New Age category renamed to include chant for the very first time, how the pandemic helped with that process & led to the birth of the Auricle Collective — as you probably recall, I’ve been telling you about that project in the last several podcasts. Then we’ll hear about the mashup of musical influences that gave birth to this extraordinary album ‘Mantra Americana’, and how Dave & Madi feel about going to the Grammys for the second time. The music so rich musically, I know you’re going to love it! Now it’s Saturday, and the Grammys are tomorrow night, so let’s send the guys all our love and best wishes. And if you have a minute, don’t forget to give the New World Kirtan podcast a rating on iTunes, it will help more people to find us. Until next time, my friends — Namaste. MANTRA AMERICANA Hey Gopinath Boro Sukher Om Namoh Bhagavate Maha Mantra Americana Shri Guru