Namaste, Thank you for your kind emails about our Yoga classes in concord being a welcome refuge in our strange new world. I’ll continue to do my best to cultivate a safe space, where all are welcome.
Some of you have asked about this great book I’m reading about the spiritual history of rhythm by Layne Redmond.
I’ve been listening to to Layne’s music for years and years. I’ve often said that her drumming is more accurate than any metronome. It’s only recently that I looked into her life and discovered her sacred activism through her writing. For fifteen years she researched the place of the feminine in music and leadership throughout the ancient world, culminating in her book that details “a lost history of a time when women were the primary percussionists in the ancient world and also explains why they are not today.”
After devoting her life to teaching, healing, and empowering the feminine through rhythm and breathing, Layne passed from this world in 2013, leaving behind an impressive body of work in her writing, and her albums of music and meditations on the Chakras and breathing.
You can take a look at her (now rare) book here: When The Drummers Were Women by Layne Redmond. And yes, the Minuteman Library Network has a copy.
Most of her music and meditations can be found here on Amazon, or for streaming on iTunes. Her album Chanting the Chakras explores not only the main Bija sounds for the chakras, but the subtle Bija or ‘seed’ sounds for each petal of each Chakra… for a incredibly meditative recording.
I am trying to memorize the mantas through listening and reading along in the little booklet that came with the cd. What a challenge for my aging brain!
Hope that you are well and I’ll see you in class.
Peace,
john
p.s. two spots just opened up in our Restorative Yoga immersion happening this Sunday February 5th at 2:3opm in West Concord. Send me an email if you’d like a spot, or you can sign up at my events page And If you’re looking for a getaway this spring, my friend Jen is taking people on another Goddess pilgrimage, this time to Ireland. she told me she has one room left.