Befriending the Mind Dragons:
A Yoga-Tantra Approach to Emotional Transformation
Sally Kempton

Yoga and tantra traditions created a radical approach to emotional turmoil:Find the creative energy within the turmoil, and the suffering will free itself. In this workshop, master teacher Sally Kempton introduces the tantric principles and processes for freeing ourselves from painful or deluding emotional habits. We’ll explore the reasons we remain immobilized in disruptive or counterproductive emotional patterns, as well as work with a series of meditations and contemplative inquiries that are uniquely designed to redirect how we relate to patterns, allowing the essential truth of our hearts to emerge and begin dissolving the energies that block us.

Introduction to Frame Drumming and Drum Language
Glen Velez with Lori Cotler

The frame drum plays a role in many cultures. It requires an extensive array of hand techniques and rhythms. Unlike the tambourine, to which it is often compared, the frame drum has a wide variety of sizes—from quite large to particularly small—with or without jingles. Generally played with the fingers, its ringing tones create a powerful drone effect. Because the human voice is masterful in its expression of rhythmic nuance, even the use of simple vocalizations, such as those used in daily expression, can deliver us into the fantastic world of frame drumming.

Witness how voice wisdom is used to access the electric rhythms and sounds of frame drumming. By drawing on the traditions of Arabic and South Indian drumming, which trace their lineage to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia, an ecstatic community drumming experience is created. Overtone singing and the art of South Indian rhythm singing are included to provide a firsthand experience of the exhilarating effects of quick articulation and slow pulsing.

Intermediate/Advanced
Techniques for Frame Drumming
Glen Velez with Lori Cotler

Partake in this exploration of a wide variety of hand movements— drawn from Arabic, South Indian, Central Asian, South Italian, and Basque drumming styles—that relate to the frame drum. Renowned percussionist Glen Velez demonstrates the interweaving of these styles and teaches through hands-on practice how to alternate from one technique to another. Recognize how rhythmic voice serves as a thread connecting breath with primordial pulse, ultimately unifying the body with your drumming.

Ecstasy, Heart, and Soul —
A Movement Master Class
Zuleikha

“When you do things from your soul,
You feel a river moving in you,
A joy.”
— Rumi

In all cultures, in all ages, dance, music, and poetry are languages for the soul. When the body is touched by the soul, dance or movement with awareness is born.

Join Zuleikha, international performing artist with The Rumi Concert, for an innovative opportunity to explore the mystical journey of soul and the ecstasy of heart through sacred poetry, devotional movement/dance, and world music. Participants are invited to work with an extraordinarily talented artist, whose artistic collaboration in The Rumi Concert is inspired by the poetry of the 13th century mystic Rumi. Prior experience is not required— simply a desire to open the heart and stir the soul.

Passion And Grace:
The Art Of Devotional Singing
Jai Uttal

Kirtan is food for the spirit, a life raft of song…

Embark on a journey through the multicolored, many-roomed mansions of the heart. The practice of kirtan (chanting the ecstatic mantras and songs of ancient India) connects us to a wide palette of internal feelings and allows us to freely express and share them. No longer obstacles in our path, these emotions can serve as the fuel that connects us to the spirit, to our eternal beloved.

This deep river of passionate surrender and prayer—Bhakti Yoga—is the yoga of devotion, or personal relationship, with the divine. Using call-and-response singing and storytelling, recording artist Jai Uttal, joined by tabla maestro and vocalist Daniel Paul, invokes a space of prayer and heartfelt expression.

This exploration of the heart is independent of vocal or musical technique; experience is not required.

The Mystical Teachings of Rumi
Imam Bilal Hyde

Through his inspiring and moving verses, Jelaluddin Rumi, the 13th century Sufi mystic, has become one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century. Rumi is the founder of the Mevlevi Sufis, also known as the Whirling Dervishes, who consider his massive work, the Masnavi, to be a mystical commentary on Islam’s holy book, the Qu’ran. Born in present-day Afghanistan, he was a scholar of Islam and Sufism who experienced a spiritual awakening upon meeting his teacher, Shams-i-Tabriz, who influenced Rumi’s own teaching. For centuries, crossing a multitude of religions, Rumi has been respected for his outpouring of love and inspiration.

Explore Rumi’s teachings through a close study of the Masnavi and gain a deeper mystical understanding of the soul’s unfolding by exploring the events of this great Sufi saint. The class is intended for anyone who has been inspired by Rumi’s work and is eager to delve into the deeper dimensions of his teachings and its applications to life.

Mystical Remembrance:
A Sufi Intensive
Imam Bilal Hyde

In conjunction with the workshop “The Mystical Teachings of Rumi,” Imam Bilal Hyde also offers a morning intensive that addresses Rumi and Sufism. In this intensive, he explores the mystical traditions that Jelaluddin Rumi followed, using his poetry and teachings as a guide. The Sufi teachings focus on developing our love, tolerance, and wisdom. To awaken one’s inner nature, Sufis employ several practices: the repetition of sacred phrases, movement, sound, devotion, breath, and prayer. During the intensive, participants will establish a community of friends, join in a “zikr” (the Sufi practice of remembrance through group repetition of sacred phrases), and engage in a purposeful teaching discourse.

Essential Music Therapy and Clinical Improvisation
Clive Robbins

Just as speech has its rules of grammar, sentence construction, and different options of syntax, music too contains compositional elements that facilitate and shape its expression.

An intimate connection exists in music between composition and improvisation. Both modes of creation use similar structural resources, such as formal procedures of harmonic progression, melodic construction, and rhythmic order. Composition, however, is free from any demands of immediacy, whereas improvisation is the creation of music in the moment and from moment to moment—composed in the living now.

To practice “creative music therapy” is to live at the threshold of artistic and developmental potential. It invites therapists to trust music making —musicing— as a means of reaching out and searching within, and as an instrument of clinical research.

Learn how intuition determines the clinical approach and inspiration for using music in therapy, the significance of the quality of expression achieved, and the importance of order in its form.

Elegant Threads:
An Immersion into the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Kofi Busia

The famous Yoga Sutras of Sage Patanjali contain, in concise and elegant fashion, a statement of the beginning, ending, and purpose of existence. Explore through chanting, discussion, and asana practice, the relevance of this Vision of Reality while living in 21st century Western society—a condition undoubtedly far removed from Patanjali’s experience. Embrace chanting the Sutras in the original Sanskrit; share in discussions inspired by the ideas within the Sutras; and actualize the Sutras’ purposeful messages in asana sessions. The asanas classes are grounded in the Iyengar style of practice.

Creating the Work You Love
Rick Jarow

Rick Jarow’s richly experiential approach illustrates how to honor your life’s calling (versus settling for an uninspiring job). He shares his step-by-step process for building a self-sustaining career that resonates with deep levels of integrity, passion, and purpose. Drawing upon his background in religious studies and small businesses, including his years of experience with shamans and healers, Rick transforms intuitions into action in order to create and receive support for your visions and find the motivation and discipline necessary to develop authentic vocation.

Rick provides a meditative work format that applies internal exercises based on the chakra system to personal issues that are crucial to identify and overcome to successfully work in the world. Beginning with an examination of abundance and scarcity and moving through an exploration of work-related family history, true priorities are identified and creative visions emerge, allowing a complete whole-being alignment. His anticareer methods provide the opportunity to create new strategies for career development, uncover latent talents, and create heart-centered prosperity.

The Alchemy of Abundance:
Manifesting Your Vision, Power, and Purpose
Rick Jarow

Through his acclaimed anticareer workshops, Rick Jarow has helped thousands of people transform their work lives by skillfully instructing them on how to align with their energy of desire. In this workshop, you will learn to use this ever-present energy to catalyze change in your relationships, creative pursuits, financial well-being, and elsewhere.

Learn to focus passion and desire to create profound changes in your life by journeying through 12 specific realms of human experience. Rick works with a three-fold model: 1) Look what’s happened; 2) Can I deeply feel where it is directing me? and 3) How can I re-image its most radiant possibility? He illustrates how personal abundance—from health to relationships to deepened states of consciousness—can be realized through the world around us, and how intention and emotions work together to transmute the base metal of a stagnant life into the golden rewards of compassion, inner fulfillment, and success.

Drawing from more than 25 years of practice, study, and teaching in the world’s spiritual traditions, Rick offers a rich universe of archetypes— experienced through movement, meditation, and expression—that lead the way to a visionary encounter with your deepest desires and potentials. In-depth diagnostic practices and meditations provide a daring exploration of each of the 12 realms, illuminating what is truly calling for attention in your life. Come see how each realm holds a figurative “key to abundance” that unlocks dreams and allows intentions to come to life.

Shamanism, Dying, and Beyond
Michael and Sandra Harner
Assisted by Susan Mokelke

Explore the issue of dying and the destiny of souls from a shamanic perspective. The workshop is structured for those who wish to learn for themselves, as well as for those who wish to facilitate others who are in terminal situations or who have already passed on. Training to be undertaken includes learning how to become experientially familiar with the after-death realms, tracking a person using shamanic journeying, completing unfinished business, helping a person to cross over, and classic psychopomp work.

Prerequisite: The Way of the Shaman: The Basic Workshop with the Harners or other authorized Foundation for Shamanic Studies faculty members.

 

Afro-Brazilian Music and Shamanism:
Entrancing, Enchantment, and Ritual Artistry through Chant, Movement, and Rhythm
Silvia Nakkach
(accompanied by Brazilian Master dancer Tania Santiago and Master Drummers from Africa)

Gain an in-depth understanding of how chanting, rhythm, and movement foster personal empowerment and healing when connected to shamanic lineage and cosmology. Through a highly experiential musically induced journey, become aware of the power of the voice, ritual dances, and rhythm as instruments for transformation and transcendence. The archetypical work of sacred Afro-Brazilian healing arts is explored, which provides a liberating model toward the finest sound medicine and opens new possibilities for a sound healing practice with a renewed spiritual emphasis.

Two distinct forms of sacred chant and movement are identified that comprise the whole spectrum of the magic within Brazilian music: Afro-Brazilian Orixàs chants and Amazon healing songs. Learn how to trace the cultural context and the philosophical aspects of these devotional traditions of sound healing and then explore the reasons for their preservation and continuous evolution. Develop appreciation for the universal character of the Orixàs and learn how their qualities manifest in one’s body and mind as a source of spiritual information and personal wisdom. Techniques to free the voice and a repertoire of shamanic rhythms and chants that can be used to access higher states of consciousness and creativity, and for assisting healing processes, are included in the coursework.

Nada Brahma: Sound Healing through Chant
Silvia Nakkach

In the Vedic tradition, Nada Brahma refers to the sacred current of one’s divine essence. Nada (vibration) is the primordial roaring, the resounding flow that heralds the beginning of the evolutionary process from which energy and matter radiate. Brahma is the creative power that animates one’s divine consciousness with the power to move the heart. Nada Brahma experienced by a calm mind leads to bliss and the healing silence of compassion and peace.

Explore Eastern and Western contemplative practices of chanting for spiritual transformation and healing. Ancient sound healing will be introduced through Nada Yoga, a meditative modality of chanting that reflects the union of the body and spirit through subtle vibration. Learn yogic chants from the traditions of Shabda Yoga and Bhakti Yoga, including sacred seed-syllables, invocations, and powerful mantras, accompanied by subtle body movements and gestures (mudras) that deliver explicit spiritual information. Explore Bhava Yoga—the power of raga and rasa through a precise use of melody to convey distinct moods and emotional states—and experience the sharing of Gregorian chants, Hildegaard Von Bingen musical divinations, and the Sufi music healing practice of Sama, or spiritual listening. In addition to the sacred music repertoire, a cache of vocal meditation exercises, Sanskrit mantras, and medicinal melodies (which can be used as part of sound healing), a yoga session, and chanting circles, are provided.

“Just as the perception of subtle psychic centers of the body
(chakras) lead up to transcendental space, through the magnetic
experience of sacred chanting we liberate a sense of
boundless radiance and openness, nurturing the intense
yearning of the heart to unite with the divine.”
— Silvia Nakkac