Amber - Yoga Teacher/Sound Artist
As a child Sound and music were woven into daily life. Our living room was filled with instruments, not TVs and couches. This is where my love for sound originated. I remember all of us kids playing with the gongs and other fun sounds. Now it has come full circle, my own daughter, loves to play with my instruments and help me create mini sound baths.
I have been training yoga teachers since 2009. My style of yoga is grounded in alignment and body awareness, blended with free form exploration and rhythmic movement. When I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2016, I naturally began searching for ways to improve my own health. I fell in love with restorative yoga in 2017, adding this to my classes, and quickly felt the benefits to the nervous system. This opened me to the joy of using sound instruments within asana. The gong and its powerful resonance immediately called to Me. I have experienced first hand the healing benefits that the sound instruments create.
I now have a regular group I work with using sound and asana to heal body, mind and spirit. My long time experience in guiding yoga teacher trainings has given me an awareness of the needs of the group. My intention as a sound artist is to nurture and guide you through the soundscape to optimize the healing experience.
Sarasvati - Yoga Teacher/Sound Artist
Growing up, I was born into a home full of unique instruments and sounds which sparked my joy and love for the healing power of music. Gathering and ceremony seemed to be a regular occurrence in our house, and for as long as I can remember the music created and shared in those settings offered a space for collective awareness and connection. Exploring with sound was also something that was simply fun and playful when I was a child. My parents had a Gamelan set in our living room at one point including a gong that was taller than me and hung on a beautiful ornate stand made with traditional Indonesian carvings and colors. I loved waking up my siblings in the morning to the sound of this gong or calling them to dinner with one strike. It was the exposure to these instruments and the family that has supported me along the way that has led me down this path and I am forever grateful!
In 2007 my parents, sister and I drove down to Baja, Mexico. Originally looking to camp on the beach and surf, our plans changed gradually. We connected with old time friends that were already in the area offering an evening music program at a Yoga school nearby. My parents joined them as fellow musicians and my sister and I found no reason to head back north. Eventually we were offered small jobs around the school working in the kitchen and the garden. This all lead to us going through their yoga teacher training program and becoming yoga teachers ourselves.
I began teaching yoga in 2010 with Yandara Yoga Institute which led me to explore Bhakti Yoga and mantra. This journey is particularly special to me, as I asked myself what I wanted to continue studying upon completing my yoga teacher training I quickly realized I had an amazing teacher at my doorstep. My mother then began to teach me the harmonium and the tradition of Mantra and Kirtan. I cannot imagine a more loving being, teacher, and mother and I am so thankful for all she has shared with me.
Teaching yoga regularly I started to bring live music into my classes. I have enjoyed including more instruments into my offerings to enhance the experience of my students and discovered a love for chanting and playing the harmonium. I try to hold a nurturing presence, being receptive and kind while guiding others to explore all aspects of themselves. Intrigued by the science of sound I also gather inspiration from Nature, seeing its essential part in our healing journey, and connect with the elements to bring balance into what I share. Yoga has offered a platform for me to grow in every direction and I am thrilled to continue expanding my passions which now include sound healing.
With an amazing collection of sound healing instruments, from gongs, bowls, tuning forks, chimes, and many many more tools for healing, I am so excited for what life has shaped us to give back to our community. My family and I are ready to share what we have been focusing on and cultivating over the years and it makes me burst with joy!
Mercy - Musician/Sound Artist/Yoga Teacher
I am called to the artistic life. For me it is a path of service, a way to share the subtle mystery and beauty of this creation … a way to move beyond personal identification and to experience together the ever-present flow of unity.
Sound is such a basic ingredient of this connection. It knows no preferences and it touches so deeply into the fabric of our collective being.
From the first moments of lying on my back in the grass as a young girl, gazing up at the clouds in the deep blue sky and plucking a tune on my mandolin to completing an MA in music composition at UCSC, sound has been my companion.
I use sound to chant mantra, to share kirtan, to heal. I teach others how to use sound … how to play various instruments such as the harmonium, shruti box, and tamboura, how to find and use their own unique voice, and I guide them toward an appreciation for the healing benefits of sound. We learn about the science of sound, the far-reaching aspects of sound and the deepest inner realms of sound.
I share many instruments. I remember thinking long ago that I was accumulating so many instruments, which was a bit confusing to the yogini in me, and so I made a vow to share these instruments I was so privileged to caretake. My first Tibetan bowl was a gift from my children and since then I have expanded the sound tools to Gongs, Crystal bowls, Tuning forks, some wonderful artisanal Planetary sound plates, Shaman drums and rattles, and even a Kailani, a unique tuned chime piece.
I spent many years studying Acutonics, a tuning fork system that bases its protocols on acupuncture points, astrology, and the planets. From this I gained a wide perspective on the vibrational aspects of the planetary bodies and how they contribute to our health. Astrology has been a passion since I was a teenager, and my husband Shiva Das and I authored the astrology book Divine Love Astrology.
I also enjoy the study of Hindustani Sangeet, the system of raga and tal that uses sound in an Ayurvedic manner to harmonize and heal. I was blessed to have some greats as my teachers, the late Maestro Alli Akbar Khan and the extremely gifted bansuri flute artist, Deepak Ram. Playing the sitar is my way to express this and I find it draws me into meditation and transports me to an ancient time realm of contentment.
Currently I am enamored by the art of the Chinese Tea ceremony. I find the simple clarity of preparing tea in this way complements a morning meditation and appreciation of the day. And when a soft Crystal bowl or Gong or Tibetan bowl is added, the whole being melts into harmony and resonance.
And finally, a life of yoga is my ground. Here I practice and learn to live in harmony as an Earthkeeper. I have practiced yoga since I was a young woman. I have earned an ERYT 500 and a YACEP designation with Yoga Alliance. Teaching yoga in all its aspects is my joy and my dharma, and to travel the inner realms of the Naad yoga sound stream is a destiny shared by all. Sound is Unity… yoga in motion. Unity in vibrational resonance is the experience of bliss.
Our family has always been close. We practice yoga together and enjoy each other’s company in our leisure time. Sharing sound is such a natural expression of who we are. We are a happy bunch, and by these sound offerings we gather together with our greater human family to heal, transform, and celebrate. We offer sound for the highest good of all.
Das - Musician/Sound Artist/Astrologer
Beginning around age 5, singing harmonies with my brother while our father played the piano, music has been an all important part of my life. I began playing drums at 11 and was soon consumed in the joy of playing rock & roll. At 21, I was exposed to eastern spiritual practices and kirtan music (group call and response singing & chanting) and for over 50 years now have been devoted to this musical sharing. This along with the spiritual practices of yoga and meditation, taught me of the deep connection music establishes between people, a connection that is both joyful and healing.
My first experience with sound healing, although I didn’t think about it as such at the time, was in the 1970s when I met a kundalini yoga friend who had suspended a big Paiste symphonic gong from the ceiling of his Volkswagen van and had a mattress covering the entire back of the van where two or three people could lie down while he ‘gonged’ us. I will never forget the transformational, transcendental experience it evoked. I started off with some Tibetan singing bowls back then and have been slowly moving in that direction ever since.
Over the years, I and my wife Mercy, along with our two daughters, Amber and Sarasvati, have accumulated many gongs, Tibetan and crystal bowls, tuning forks, chimes, bells, handpans, and many other sound instruments for doing sound baths, meditations, and restorative yoga journey’s as well as hosting trainings. My experience has convinced me that gongs and sound journeys help us to go beyond the limitations of the mind to access higher realms of consciousness where clarity and healing exist.
We have all been at the Yandara Yoga Institute near Todos Santos, BCS, Mexico for the last 14 years where Mercy and I are part of the kirtan band ‘Jaya’ leading kirtans several times a week, and where we as a family do regular sound baths at the institute and in the local community. We are all certified yoga teachers, and I have been an astrologer for over 40 years.
From being an astrologer and doing many readings (daily for the last 14 years) an ever-increasing understanding of life’s cycles and how the planetary vibrations work in affecting consciousness has enabled us to include working with planetary tones in our sound baths and healings. We are now doing several trainings around sound and sound baths each year and, starting next April, we will be offering sound bath experiential retreats where people can come to ‘Rest and Receive.”
We are sound as every cell in our body is swirling and vibrating. Through the principle of entrainment, sound can affect healing both mentally and physically by breaking up and realigning energy, and inspiring positive feelings, which lead to positive thoughts and attitudes. The profound effect this can have on our lives is incalculable yet has been proven again and again in many people. And for me, the joy and satisfaction I experience when immersed in sound vibrations has and continues to help me find meaning and purpose. I could think of nothing else I would rather do in my life or share with people.
