“The Infinite Heart”

Weaving together soaring, angelic vocals and the celestial sound of crystal singing bowls, Ashana is one of the premiere healing music artists and New Age vocalists of our time. In fact, Ashana’s original sound is the forefront of an entirely new genre of healing music. This exquisitely crafted, luminous sonic tapestry soothes and opens the heart, enfolding the listener in a transcendent experience of the Divine and a direct experience of the Soul. This stunningly beautiful alchemy has been hailed by listeners all over the world as “breathtaking” and “a Gift from Heaven.”  Evolving from deep self-exploration, her style is truly eclectic. From her haunting rendition of the Lord’s Prayer in the original Aramaic, to a Sufi chant, Latin verse, Gaelic song and Eastern mantra, Ashana blends Western and ethnic instruments with the unique drone of the crystal singing bowls to create the ultimate transcendent music for healing, relaxation and meditation.

“Music is a blessing, a prayer, and a healing when it comes deeply from the heart” says Ashana. “Music can transport us, lift us to the place where we gently let go and open to receive, reflect and remember the Love we truly Are. And as we begin to rest in this Love, our world is transformed. We see beauty in everything. And Heaven becomes fully present in every moment, right here on Earth.”

Exclusive Interview with Ashana

By Ramdesh Kaur

I recently interviewed Ashana, the beautiful singer and crystal singing bowl musician.  Talking with Ashana is always an experience, as she vibrates with energy and consciousness.  It is more like witnessing a channeling than interviewing an artist.  Ashana’s newest release, “The Infinite Heart” along with her CD’s “Jewels of Silence”, “All is Forgiven”, and “Beloved” are magnificent and full of music for yoga, healing, massage, Reiki, meditation and shifting the space both within and without.  You can find her on www.AshanaMusic.com and www.spiritvoyage.com.

The sound of your music is breathtakingly beautiful and so unique. What are your musical influences and how did you come to create this sound?

I’m classically trained and spent many years exploring a wide variety of musical genres, immersing myself in jazz, pop, gospel, musical theater and composing and teaching children’s music. I began singing sacred music in churches and temples when I was a young girl, and chanting and kirtan when I started doing yoga in the mid-80. I’ve explored toning and am passionate about improvisational vocalize. In hindsight, music was a road leading me to my Self. I was searching for authenticity; for something inside that felt real and rang true. Then, a very magical thing happened when I played my first crystal singing bowl. I heard the sound of the bowl and instantly knew that one day I would sing with them and put them into music. By the time I met Thomas Barquee [Ashana’s producer], the ground inside of me had been prepared for a long time.  I was vocally, spiritually and emotionally ready to be brought together into a complete whole.  Thomas Barquee saw that.  We began working together and my music unfolded. The music that has come out of our collaboration and my work with the bowls feels the most “true” for me, and reflects most deeply my soul essence and core self.

What inspires you to write your music?

These days when I write, I close my eyes, open the channel, tune-in, and hold the space for what wants to come through. It is always my intention that the music holds the highest frequency of light and love – that it is a blessing, a prayer, a healing for others, and that it comes deeply from my heart. It could be a mantra, a chant, an improvisation or a song. It could be in English, Spanish, Sanskrit or Aramaic. I never really know until it shows up and lets me know what wants to be born. The process never ceases to amaze me.

How is your music related to your spiritual practice?

My spiritual practice has been really eclectic and continues to evolve and grow. I have a deep connection to more than one religious path and have been profoundly influenced and nurtured by several gifted teachers and a wealth of personal experience. At its essence, my practice now is about acceptance and love. It is a process of honoring and acknowledging myself and all beings everywhere as Divine and remembering how to live that Divinity in each moment, in each breath. Especially during those moments when that is the furthest thing from my mind! There are so many astonishing and glorious qualities that make up the Divine Self  – expansion, love, joy, yearning, oneness, kindness, beauty, lightness, depth, tenderness, purity, grace … I could go on and on. For me, the music is a reflection of all of this. It allows and inspires me to explore, express and feel what it feels like to be in this state of consciousness. It is a bridge to Light and the exquisite vibration of Love.

What is the power of music?

We are discovering now that everything in the universe, all of life, including our emotions and thoughts, is vibration. Our energy field is made up of the vibration of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies, in their most dense and subtle forms. For most of us, our energy field will resonate with and respond to the dominant vibratory frequency in any environment.

Music is a child of Sound and Vibration. It is a universal language, if you will, that allows us to express emotion and intention, with or without words, in the purest sense. So when music is created with an intention of love, compassion, peace, healing — that vibration enters our energy field and all the energy bodies, from the physical to the most subtle, and can literally re-calibrate and realign our vibration, down to our cellular structure. It can help us clear and balance emotional patterns that have become ingrained in the physical on a cellular level. It can change our mood, uplift our spirits, help reframe our thinking and shift our energy. As such, music like this can be an extremely powerful adjunct to any healing modality.

See Also

John Pavlovitz: If God Is Love, Don’t Be A Jerk

What do the crystal singing bowls do?

Pure quartz crystal amplifies, transmits and stores energy. Crystal singing bowls combine the qualities of crystal with sound vibration, creating one of the most powerful tools for transformation we have available to us at this time. The Master Alchemy crystal singing bowls I play (made by Crystal Tones™) take this one step further by adding in the frequencies of precious gemstones, minerals and metals. Working with these bowls entrains us to higher frequency energies. They are absolutely magnificent in the way they serve to help balance and clear the chakras, quiet the mind, calm the nervous system and allow the brain to move into alpha and theta states in a very short space of time. When the mind is quiet, you begin to rest. And rest is the optimal state in which healing can occur.

How do you see the light work that you do?

Yoga, prayer, sound, vibration, music, crystal singing bowls, mantra, chant, introspection, contemplation … all these are part of a spiritual journey leading me back to Self.  H.H. Sai Maa Lakshmi Devi wrote the most beautiful words: “Allow your Self to be transformed by Love. Let the music of Love melt your heart. Let Divinity fill your heart with Love.”

I feel very blessed to be a handmaiden of the music of Love … to have the opportunity and dharma to create music and sound experiences where Divinity can come to melt a heart and help someone remember the Love they truly are. That for me is how the world is transformed.  That is how light becomes grounded in our bodies and how Heaven becomes present on Earth.

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