Ceridwen Arseneau and I enjoyed yet another inspiring and fulfilling celebration of Kirtan this evening at Culture Shrooms on the Arcata Plaza. These monthly happenings have been our main spiritual focus since September 2019, when we were introduced to the practice by our former house mate, Michelle Cooper. We’ve attended pretty much every Kirtan session since, from its location at the old Om Shala Yoga studio location on 10th St (above a bar) to it’s present venue at Culture Shrooms, with sessions at Redwood Park and at private homes in between.
These past five years there have been changes in Skywater Kirtan Band’s lineup, with singers and musicians changing and evolving, and with the interruption of the Covid pandemic (during which Ceridwen and I discovered a whole lot of Kirtan music on YouTube). The mainstay throughout has been Shemaia Skywater, whose musical abilities and spiritual knowledge are unsurpassed in this area, lending her expertise to making these Kirtan sessions the profoundly deep experiences that they always are.
Thank you Shemaia, for bringing us Kirtan, for the experiences we have enjoyed for the past five years, and for the continence of this evolving practice in the years to come.
As we used to say in AA (and I think it applies profoundly here), “Keep coming back – it works!”
“OM SRI SHEMAIA MATA KI!” “JAI!”
“OM SRI SKYWATER KIRTAN BAND KI!” “JAI!”
(Here’s a sample, part of a Skywater Kirtan session from March 2020:)
