Sean Johnson And The Wild Lotus Band: Press

Review Of Devaloka – Sean Johnson & The Wild Lotus Band

Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band consists of Sean Johnson (vocals, harmonium, and beat box), Gwendolyn Colman (all kinds of rad percussion and vocals), and Alvin Young (guitars).

This self produced work offers a wide variety of tunes and textures.  Devaloka explores polyethnic rhythms and back-beats dabbling in funk and jazz which is nothing new to this New Orleans kirtan power trio.  I recently saw the Wild Lotus live show (highly recommended) in Savannah GA and immediately purchased Devaloka.  To my joy I found much of the same incredible energy from the show distilled into this great album.

Devaloka is uplifting and relaxing at the same time.  Imagine if Krishna Das and The Funky Meters teamed up on some tunes you might get a sound similar to The Wild Lotus Band.  But why try to box this talented group in, they are a bold and refreshing face in Kirtan style music.

This album is great for asana practice or yoga class if you are a teacher.  If you love this work as much as me you will be sure to pick up its predecessor, Calling the Spirits. Also, if you happen to be in the Big Easy, don’t forget to swing by the Wild Lotus Studio for a class!

Article In Bust Magazine by Elissa Stein

"Urban Bliss"

Last night I went to my very first kirtan. From what I'd heard about them—hours of hot, sweaty ecstatic chanting and dancing, I never felt compelled to attend one. I'm far too cynical to let go and get swept away in those kinds of moments. But, Laughing Lotus was hosting a big summer solstice celebration and I replied yes to my facebook invite mostly to be polite, not really planning on attending. After several people mentioned they were excited I'd said yes, surprisingly, shockingly, there I was stressing about what to wear. Note: I ended up in a lilac tank top, long swirly brown skirt, and smoky quartz beads which was perfectly appropriate although I learned less is more when it comes to kirtan wear.

As we approached the relatively nondescript office building the studio's in, we found the stunning sand art creation by Joe Mangrum pictured above , radiant colors lighting up the concrete and gritty metal doors, pink, yellow and rich red rose petals strewn in front of the doorway, more petals creating a path down the hall, into the elevator and towards the studio front door. Inside the reception area was packed with people in sundresses, or yoga gear, the larger studio itself had dozens of yoga blankets neatly placed in a semi-circle, ropes of multi-colored lights wrapped around the instruments and chairs where the musicians would be.

The lotus chandeliers above were dim. The walls glowed with the warm orange pink of sunset.

People packed in tight and I was overcome by claustrophobia for a moment as the temperature rose and there was no discernible path to the door from where I was sitting. But, I took a deep breath, willing myself to stay in the moment.

The three members of Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band quietly took their seats—Sean spoke for a few moments and then taught us the first song. Turns out a kirtan is basically a call and response. He sings, we sing back. He chants, we repeat. Some songs were in English, most were in sanskrit. I was prepared to sit through 2 to 3 songs tops and then sneak out quietly.

I had no idea that chanting "Maha Deva" and "Kali Ma" over and over (and over) could be so beautiful. That simple words and melodies could become so layered, so complex, so intense with voices and instruments weaving beat and rhythm and energy together. The band started slow and sweet, masterfully constructing ebbs and flows that had people quietly swaying and then leaping to their feet. As the pace picked up more and more got up and started moving, clapping, at times jumping up and down like happy 5 year olds in a bouncy castle.

I didn't jump. But, I did dance. And I even sang, getting past the fact that I actually can't sing.

It didn't matter.

I smiled at people I didn't know. I wrapped my arms around those I did, and hugged hard, drenched in sweat, at the thrill of sharing these moments.

I saw rapture. Celebration. A community building of people who never met and those who knew each other well all joining together through sound and creativity and presence.

And at times the silence between the songs was more powerful than the music itself.

As the last note slipped away, and Sean chanted "om" I found my hands automatically folded at my heart, then my forehead, my head dipping, as we shared a final moment of thanks, love and togetherness.

Much to my surprise, the jaded part of me was silenced for awhile.

I've already been invited to my next kirtan. I'm pretty sure I'll mean it when I respond yes.

Learning Kirtan

By Felicia Tomasko, Editor, LA Yoga Magazine

The tradition of kirtan was brought to these shores by gurus, saints, devotees and musicians as the kirtan scene seems to explode exponentially, the call-and-response form of participatory chant continues its democratic ascendancy into Yoga studios, living rooms and thousand-plus seat theaters. Along this trajectory, audience members,Yoga teachers, professional musicians and novices are all learning chords and actively demystifying the secrets of sacred chant.

Studying music, mantra, chant and even the intricacies of creating and holding the ritual space of the energetic art of kirtan is not necessarily new, but there is currently an increase in the kirtan wallah passing the baton – or the harmonium, as it were – to invite a deeper level of participation in the community. Judging by the weekly classes, one-on-one tutorials, group sleep-over experiences in retreat centers immersing oneself in the kirtan experience and even forming full-on kirtan bands with new friends, learning kirtan is the new Yoga. We’ve asked some community members to describe their experience with the genre.

Dance, Yoga, Meditation, Love, & Joy: Sean Johnson
By Hemalayaa

When Sean Johnston and The Wild Lotus Band played at the Ojai Yoga Crib in the fall of 2009, their devotional music re-sparked my desire to sing more. I signed up the moment I learned they were offering a weekend retreat.

The weekend began with the band playing “Aum Hari Aum,” and then leading us into a series of opening mantras to clear the space and bring us into our bodies. We all shared why we were there. My fear of singing in front of people has been a challenge; the Wild Lotuses were the perfect teachers to inspire me (and everyone else) to love singing rather than continually fear being imperfect. They did this through practices utilizing our voices, introducing us to the basics of the harmonium and then inspiring us all to play embodied drum rhythms. They gave me the courage to sing out loud, to lead and be led.

Being an Indo-Canadian, I would have never imagined learning kirtan music from Westerners, and I have to say: Sean Johnson, Gwendolyn and Alvin live, breathe, play music and sing with their whole hearts in a mesmerizing manner that sends chills all over my body and soul. The experience of learning from them far exceeded my expectations. We learned the bhakti path of singing and playing music to share out in the world and for our own devotional practice. I haven’t stopped singing since!

Hemalayaa is a joyous teacher of Yoga and Indian dance can be found teaching Monday nights in Ojai as well as leading immersions, retreats and workshops around the world: hemalayaa.com.

Offbeat Magazine: Highlights from the 2010 New Orleans Jazz Festival by Alex Rawls

"The least likely and perhaps most powerful version of “I’ll Fly Away” came from Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band. As he droned it as a private dirge in the Lagniappe Stage, his intensity silenced the talkers and sat those who wanted to dance or rhythmically clap, which would have forced a beat on a version that worked just fine without one."

Devaloka, by Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band. Nutone Music; nutonemusic.com

Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band's eclectic approach to kirtan reflects the band's New Orleans roots.

Guided on Devaloka by Johnson's plaintive tenor and soothing harmonium, ancient Sanskrit mantras like "Jai Hanuman" (faith), "Ram Sita Ram" (union), and "Devakinandana Gopala" (love) find a home amid funk, soul, and bluesy modulations.

Gwendolyn Colman's skillful handling of percussion instruments and her heartfelt vocals create a grounding energy. Alvin Young deepens the groove on bass. The group's dynamic arrangements move through rhythmic changes, making this disc an ideal accompaniment to all forms of active yoga. And the final few tracks settle 
into a slow, meditative pace, leaving you centered and relaxed. 

A Community Of The Spirit By Melinda Rothouse
On Kirtan, New Orleans, and Tibetan New Year

I had the good fortune last night to go and hear Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band from New Orleans play for the grand opening celebration of East Side Yoga in Austin. The band performs kirtan mantra chants with a bit of NOLA funk thrown in, and though I lived in New Orleans for a time I had never heard them play. What fun! A great, big spiritual sing along, and so healing. We sat shoulder to shoulder, swinging and swaying to the lush rhythms while Sean, Gwendolyn, and Alvin ushered us into another dimension. Would that more spiritual practice was so drenched in music and love!

When asked, Sean spoke about the Superbowl and what it meant to New Orleanians for the Saints to have won--people spontaneously running out into the streets, embracing strangers, high-fiving between cars, and dancing in the streets of the Quarter all night long. And all of this in the midst of carnival season. What a triumph for the city, five years after Katrina, when so many had left her for dead. I've been thinking a lot about NOLA lately, the city I had to leave but who always resides in my heart...

Themes of union and separation ~ both are important in the spiritual path ~ Shiva Nataraj, dancing the world into existence, unburned by the ring of flames that surrounds him because he is one with it. In union there is no distinction, but only from a place of separation can we see and feel and touch. As the Tao says: "Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations" (Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1). And yet it is an endless dance, for as the Buddhist Heart Sutra teaches us "Form is emptiness; emptiness also is form." We swirl back and forth between unity and bittersweet separation, because that's where learning and growth occur. Learning how to become more and more gentle in the face of fear and injustice and sorrow...

Learning how to love, learning the power of love ~ this was the major message from Shambhala Buddhist teacher Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche on the occasion of the Tibetan New Year (Year of the Iron Tiger, 2010), which fell on Valentine's Day this year. How can we express kindness and gentleness when provoked, rather than anger and aggression? Love is the path...

Review of Devaloka by Debi Buzil, Music Editor for Yoga Chicago Magazine.

With the first strains of Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band's Devaloka , I am thrilled. Their music has always moved and astonished me. The melding of the depth of mantra with rockin' grooves soothes my American yogini soul. Sean is the director of New Orleans' Wild Lotus Yoga Studio and Soul School. He is a bhakti, or devotional yogi, both a committed student and seeker.

“Jai Hanuman (Faith)” is electric and uplifting. Who can sit still while chanting this wild spirited chant? Sean's soaring vocals are more ecstatic than ever in “ Shiva Shankara (Transformation ).” He has mastered the “ Tarana” style of singing syllables, and it is delightful! Gwendolyn Colman keeps the heart of the band together with her masterful drumming, moving into hiphop, jazzy beats on frame drum, dumbek, and cajon. The results are dazzling, as are her exquisite vocals. Alvin Young's guitar and bass keep the music fresh and exciting. Devaloka simmers and smokes. And n'uff respect to Sean and The Wild Lotus Band with their first release on Nutone/Nettwork records, Canada's largest independent label!

Kirtan: Spiritual Materialism, or Accessible Devotion? By Waylon Lewis, Editor, Elephantjournal.com

Tonight, I sat in a room of 100 plus enthusiastic—nay, downright blissful—Americans, swaying side to side, arms raised and also swaying, or dancing about in the corners.

It’s called kirtan, and in seven and a half years of publishing a magazine, and now web site, intimately involved in the coverage of yoga, I’ve managed to more or less avoid it.

If you’re cool, or think you’re cool, or if you’re cynical, or even normal (not that that’s a good thing)—well kirtan is downright scary. I felt like laughing at everyone, half the time. The rest of the time, I felt like a wallflower at the proverbial high school dance: not wanting to participate makes you feel uptight, and not with it (it being the present moment).

As the chanting and singing and swaying and dancing went on, I relaxed: I began to sing more (I love crooning along with Elvis and Dino, and kirtan can feel surprisingly similar, at least as led by Sean Johnson). And as I relaxed I stopped fretting about how this was all just cultural appropriation, like

“driving a Mantra sports car when you don’t even have your driver’s license yet,” as I later put it,

or whether this was just love n’light spiritual materialism that, at the end of the day, was just about feeling good, and blissed out. Which is, after all, how the ego wants to feel all the time: pleasure is good, suffering is pushed away.

We were, after all, singing about devotion to God, in sanskrit, and 90% of us didn’t understand 90% of what we were saying. But it sure felt good, so who cares, right?

After two hours of singing and swaying and dancing, with contemplative silences (which I appreciated, instead of habitual rock star-like applause at the end of song) and some heartfelt introductions via Sean, which helped provide some context for our chantings), I was having a damn good time. I started thinking of my friends who like to go to concerts all the time, drinking and drugging and dancing for all hours, and how they love and worship their favorite bands and musicians. And I started realizing that my party friends were merely expressing a timeless, more secularized version of kirtan: where chanting sacred mantras becomes a meditation practice, a fun, loveful way of joining with the present moment and opening up one’s closed, cold, tight-held heart.

And, at least for one night, I opened up, and breathed, and smiled and sang like a happy fool.

Though I couldn’t help but get into a few philosophical discussions with Kasey of yogamates.com and Felicia of LA Yoga magazine…and their experience of other kinds of kirtan scenes, some more masculine; some, like this one, overwhelmingly loving, joyful, feminine…I was grateful to be in such a strong, warm, ecstatic community, one that didn’t mind if I had my doubts and quibbles.

It was a fun, eye-and-heart-opening few hours, a moment where community—as Saul David Raye would put it—was activated.

Review of DEVALOKA by Lloyd Barde, music editor for  San Francisco's Common Ground Magazine

Sean Johnson and The Wild Lotus Band “Devaloka” 
   
Sean Johnson is becoming increasingly familiar to kirtan fans in the Bay area.  His regular appearances from The City to the East Bay have built a loyal and growing following. But even with a couple prior releases and critical acclaim, nothing could have prepared any of us for the utter excellence in musicianship and the heartfelt outpouring of soul meets spirit that is contained in his new "Devaloka" CD on Nutone Records.  It's a veritable kirtan cauldron of simmering, bubbling, delectable chants that fluidly traverse the myriad of musical styles he brings to the stage. Sean's passionate, sweet songs are the ideal balance of magically melodic flow for the rhythm-driven tracks that are sprinkled throughout.  Hailing from New Orleans, his Wild Lotus Band trio has claimed a second home in the Bay area. And the gumbo feeling they bring from the gulf jives well with the musical blendings that bring to mind Grateful Dead jams, a little Santana spice in the percussion section, and an all around endearing space that draws you in with each listen.  Sean holds steady space with his moving harmonium playing and enlivened vocals, while multi-talented percussionist Gwendolyn Colman, who adds her voice in a distinctive kirtan framework, works out on everything from frame drum to kalimba, udu to cajon, doumbek, karkab and assorted funky grooves with an urban flare. Guitarist and fretless bass player Alvin Young, like Sean a New Orleans native, really turns it up on a couple tracks, notably the rave up "Ram Sita Ram", and tastefully adds precise fills to most of the others. Another highlight is “Om Hari Om/Sharanam Ganesha” where the sacred beauty of the mantras is matched with Sean’s voice and gentle acoustic instrumentation. All in all, it's understandable why other chanting luminaries like Jai Uttal are so eager to endorse this group, as Sean manages to spread his bayou magic from ocean to ocean, inside and out. In Jai's words, "Sean's voice is a warm soothing river of serenity". Diving right in is the recommended plan.--Lloyd Barde, Music Editor, Common Ground Magazine

Interview with Sean on Yoga TV on YogaMates.com. Click on play to watch:

FEATURE ARTICLE IN YOGA CITY NYC:
Rock Out With The Wild Lotus Band
Breeching The Levees Of Our Spirits

I attended a kirtan with Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band at Kripalu last year and if that was any indication, you do not want to miss Johnson’s extremely varied and beautiful music at the Laughing Lotus next Saturday. Over two hours, we chanted only about 6 or 7 mantras in call and response. Kirtan meditation is a perfect combination of relaxation and mind-controlling focus.. Some people sit during kirtan. Others get up to dance, chant, clap and holler — it all depends on how the spirit moves you.

The mantras at Kripalu included a gorgeous, sweet rendition of “Devakinandana Gopala” that calls upon the feeling of being in love; a quiet and sinister “Durga, Jai Jai Ma;” and then a lively “Hare Krishna” that had the room jumping around. Think New Orleans Mardi Gras in a yoga studio (except the audience is drunk on music)!

This kirtankar’s music is as eclectic as his hometown of New Orleans, where he grew up around early rap and breakdancing which was a major influence on his style. As a child, he also sang in musical theater and The New Orleans Symphony Children’s Chorus; and in his early twenties studied sean-nos (old-style) Irish singing, an ancient form of song known for its elaborate ornamentation.

Johnson’s studies might have stayed in the western traditions, but the curious music seeker went to graduate school at The Naropa Institute where he met and studied mantra and kirtan with the hugely influential south Indian musician and author Russill Paul. A few years later, in addition to chanting kirtan, he began teaching yoga and opened his own very successful studio in New Orleans, Wild Lotus Yoga, which has been richly involved with the New Orleans community, sending teacher-trained graduates into the community to teach for free to those who can’t afford it.

The devastating effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans was another call to consciousness for Johnson. During September through November of 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, Johnson launched a countrywide tour across the U.S. called The New Orleans REBIRTH tour to raise money for hurricane relief. He traveled with his band whose members include Gwendolyn Colman on drums, Alvin Young on bass, and occasionally Johnson’s brother Matt on guitar and tenor sax. At the beginning of the REBIRTH Kirtans he says, “We’re going to flood our hearts, we’re going to breech the levees of our spirits.”

“Live at Laughing Lotus,” part of the REBIRTH tour, is an ecstatic, wild call and response CD that encouraged me to start attending kirtan because the audience sounded so joyful and enthusiastic and I was intrigued by the depth of feeling that Johnson expresses in his chanting from the rapturous beginnings of “Sharanam Ganesha” to the sinister tones of “Kali Ma”.

The band’s most recent release is “Calling the Spirits.” Some of the highlights are the earthy, drum heavy “Om Gang Ganapatye Namah,” the improvisational “Om Namah Shivaya,” and soft lullaby “Jai Ma”, a mantra that is perfect for Savasana. Their music is capable of being energetic, grounding, mellow, tender, sweet - eerie, rapturous and blissful all at once. Johnson once joked that because New Orleans is located in the south of the United States it represents the first and second chakras, energy centers that have everything to do with sense of home, survival, sensuality, and creativity - qualities that you’ll always hear in Johnson’s music.

If past kirtans are any indication, expect a wonderful experience on March 21. The group plans to be previewing material for their newest album on Nettwerk/Nutone, home label of Krishna Das, Jai Uttal, Bhagavan Das, Wah! And other world music greats. Book in advanc;e Johnson attracts a laughing loyal crowd and sells out!

CLICK ON 'YOGA PLUS' LINK BELOW TO READ FEATURE ARTICLE TITLED "COULD CHANT TOP THE CHARTS" ON TERRY MCBRIDE, THE FOUNDER OF SEAN AND THE WILD LOTUS BAND'S RECORD LABEL NETTWERK/NUTONE RECORDS:

CLICK ON 'NEW YORK TIMES' LINK BELOW TO READ FEATURE ARTICLE ON THE GROWING POPULARITY OF KIRTAN

INTERVIEW WITH FEATURED ARTIST SEAN JOHNSON ON YOGAMATES:

YM: What is Kirtan all about?

SJ: Kirtan is connecting to the Spirit of Life through singing. It's stretching and expanding the heart, and our capacity to love, like when we stretch our bodies in asana. Kirtan is a love song to Life, offering whatever is in our heart as food, nourishment to the Universe. Kirtan is a form of love-making with the world, and a celebration of the sacred presence within us. Kirtan is prayer, worship of the life force through song. Kirtan is meditation-- the repetition of the mantras washes the mind and helps us remember who we really are. Kirtan is a practice for cultivating spiritual and emotional freedom. Kirtan is medicine-- the sound tones our bodies, and feeds the brain electrical potential.� Kirtan is an opportunity to share YOUR voice with the Universe.

YM: Who/What is the Wild Lotus Band?

SJ:Many kirtan wallahs travel with a single percussionist-- but I love to tour with the band who bring so much life and spirit and depth to our kirtans. They are a joy to travel and hang out with. We have developed a really sweet musical chemistry over the years and it keeps getting juicier and juicier. And we all bring different influences to the mix that keeps the music fresh.

The Wild Lotus Band is vocalist and percussionist Gwendolyn Colman who plays cajon, frame drums, high hat, bass drum, cymbals and assorted other percussion instruments. Gwendolyn is the mother-engine of the band, a magical drummer who can play so sweet and subtle and also rock the house with her fancy fingerwork. She's also has a gorgeous singing voice. Gwendolyn has a strong background in middle eastern rhythm and flamenco so she brings those flavors to the band.

Alvin Young is our fretless bass player and he also plays guitar. Alvin is a really humble wicked bass player. Back in the day, he used to have jazz titons Wynton and Branford Marsalis in his band, and has played with some of New Orleans greatest musicians. He's one of the most melodic bass players around and when it's time to get funky, watch out!

YM: How did Kirtan discover you?

SJ: I went to a really amazing alternative college called The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA where I first discovered yoga, mysticism, and connected with sacred chant. I was enrolled in a program called "PATH: Practices Acknowledging The Heart" where we were engaged in spiritual practices from different traditions: yoga, Buddhist meditation, sacred dance and art. A group of Sufis came to work with us and shared their chanting practice called Zhikr-- the incantation and repetition of the divine names. It blew my mind and heart wide open. I was immediately hooked and went on a quest to learn more about sacred chant. That quest led my to a graduate program at Naropa West where I did an apprenticeship in the yoga of sound with Russill Paul for two years. Russill is a really great musician and vocalist from south India who wrote the book "The Yoga Of Sound" and has released several cds. After leaving Naropa, I moved back home to New Orleans and started teaching yoga and sharing kirtan full time. Jai Uttal has also been a great inspiration and friend along the way.

YM: Please tell me about this "funky twist" you put on Kirtan.

SJ: Rather than trying to sound like an Indian-born kirtan band, we respect and honor the tradition, but seek to channel kirtan through the authenticity of where we come from, and our influences. Alvin and I grew up in New Orleans so you can hear jazz, funk, gospel, rock, and street rhythms. Gwendolyn has a strong background in middle eastern rhythms and flamenco percussion so she adds even more spice to the mix. Instead of straight ahead call and response chanting with little variation, we like to create spacious arrangements and dynamics that serve to deepen the experience of the mantra. We also try to celebrate the relationship between soul and spirit in our music. The soul quality is about moving deeper, into the mystery, into the roots, which is so present in day-to-day life in New Orleans. While the spirit quality is about elevation and transcendence, which is usually more present in this genre of music. We want to bring the two together, seeking to explore the dark and the light in our music. Get down and get up!

YM: How do you create a song, from start to finish?

SJ: I feel like a vessel, a channel for the music. A melody "comes through" and I can feel this little tingle of excitement inside as it arrives. In gratitude, I'll sit at the harmonium and flesh it out a little bit, do a rough recording. Then I'll bring it to the band and we play with it, give it more shape and nuance. It really comes to life and gets "cooked" when we start to share it live with people and interact with the energy of the chanters.

YM: What is your favorite part of working in the yoga scene?

SJ: That's an easy answer. The vast majority of yoga people are super cool, kind, open-minded, positive, open-hearted, generous, creative, loving people. It's such an honor to meet and share yoga and kirtan with so many beautiful people who are hungry to transform their lives. One of our favorite parts of touring is the community that is created, particularly when you return to a place again and again.

Just as an example, after Hurricane Katrina I got e-mails from yoga studios nationwide who wanted to help. Many of them ended up hosting fundraising kirtans and putting us up in their homes. I was so touched by their generosity. We have also helped to host several karma yoga groups who have come to New Orleans to do service work.

YM: You also own a yoga studio in New Orleans, Wild Lotus Yoga Studio. Please tell us about the importance of mantra and your studio after Katrina hit.

SJ: For me personally the kirtan got deeper after Katrina. I was able to channel a lot of the feelings at the time into the music as we did an extensive cross-country tour raising money for hurricane relief. My family home where I grew up and where my parents lived took 10 feet of water and they lost almost everything. The neighborhood I grew up in is still a ghost land now, nearly three years after the storm. We did a lot of Shiva and Kali mantras, tapping into the creative universal power behind destruction. I felt like the chanting was very therapeutic for everyone who felt that sense of loss, grief, and anger.

Wild Lotus was the first yoga studio to reopen after the storm. Katrina hit August 29, 2005 and the city didn't really open up to the public until October. We reopened on November 1st. Much of the city still did not have electricity. None of the traffic lights worked. There was a lot of storm debris everywhere, trees, abandoned cars. The city was a refrigerator graveyard, as everyone put their rotted refrigerators out on the sidewalk. There were very very few children in New Orleans at that time and very few elderly people. Most of the street traffic consisted of out-of-state contractors. Signs were posted everywhere for contractors and house gutting services. Few restaurants and grocery stores were open. There was a curfew in place at night. It was a bizarre time. As you can imagine, people were incredibly grateful to come to the studio and practice yoga. Lots of tears and lots of joy. We all know that yoga is therapeutic and we know the importance of satsang-- but this added a whole new meaning to those words. The studio was a place to grieve, to process what had happened kinesthetically, to reunite with old friends, to reconnect with a some semblance of normalcy, to pray, to breathe, to find refuge at a chaotic time. We also had a population of relief workers who came to class as well.

So many New Orleanians lost the things they relied on for stability in their daily lives-- family, loved ones, homes, jobs, a sense of normalcy-- and turned to yoga for sustenance. The devastating experience of the storm amplified the spiritual and therapeutic benefits of yoga for all of us. I believe the storm also awakened us to the preciousness of life and invited us to pay more attention to what we really value, to how we devote our energy, and to the gifts and blessings of life we shouldn't ever take for granted. While the population of New Orleans has been cut in half, the enrollment at Wild Lotus has mushroomed. We have more students now that we did before the storm, including many beginners. Many people have told us they don't know how they would have survived mentally and emotionally over the past two years without yoga and the presence of the studio.

YM: You often travel and teach yoga classes with the live band. Tell us about this experience.

SJ:I've been feeling really inspired to bring more bhakti yoga, devotion, heart, and more imagination to asana practice. Sometimes when we are over-emphasizing the physical experience, we forget what it's really all about- tapping into the creative love power within. Our practice can become mechanical or even dry up. My goal is to bring more juice to the practice through bhakti yoga. I've been teaching workshops at yoga conferences with the band playing a live soundtrack, so there's a live groove, a living relationship between the musicians and the yogis. I love to integrate ecstatic kirtan, storytelling, mythology, mystical poetry, creative movement, imagination, and play into the workshops. The practice became an offering, a blessing to the Universe, a body-prayer. I believe the most important alignment is alignment with the Heart. My study of Creation Spirituality, which celebrates the spiritual power of art and our innate creativity has been a strong influence. Yoga teachers who have been an big inspiration to me in this way include my friends Dana Flynn and Jasmine Tarkeshi of Laughing Lotus Yoga and Saul David Raye.

YM: Who can sing kirtan?

SJ: Anybody and everybody!!! If you're self-conscious about singing, even better! It's an opportunity to set that inhibition free and be yourself, offer your authentic voice to the Universe. It's incredibly liberating!

YM: Can mantra save the world

SJ:What's beautiful about kirtan and mantra is that it unites us! We all sing together. And diverse beings coming together to celebrate life, nourishes, sustains, and saves our world.

Even in the microcosm of the yoga world, it doesn't matter if we're an Anusara yogi, an Astanga yogi, an Iyengar yogi, etc-- when we come to a kirtan we leave behind the brand names, the philosophical differences, allegiance to the alignment principles of our school, the tribalism, and we join voices with our fellow yogis and celebrate life!

YM: What's next?

SJ: We are fleshing out material for a new album and are really excited about it. We've grown a lot as a band since recording Calling The Spirits and I'm so stoked to record and share the new music with everybody.

I will be guiding a teacher training program called Wild Lotus Soul School in New Orleans in the fall 2008. It's an interdisciplinary yoga and spirituality teacher training program that will guide aspiring teachers into the wilderness of their own spirit so they can teach others to travel there. There will be a great emphasis on the art of teaching yoga and bringing hatha and bhakti together. We'll explore the relationship between yoga, art, music, mythology, philosophy, dance, play, and more. We've got some great teachers who are going to be a part of it including Dana and Jasmine from Laughing Lotus, James Bailey, Lorin Roche, Mitchel Bleier, and others.

We'll also be opening up a second Wild Lotus Yoga in downtown New Orleans in late 2009 as part of a special project called The New Orleans Healing Center. The New Orleans Healing Center is being developed in a 55,000 sq. foot building in one of the recovering neighborhoods in New Orleans near the 9th Ward. Plans for the three story building include a natural foods grocery, healing arts rooms, gallery, performance space, street university, women's center, labyrinth, offices for local green businesses, organic cafe, and arts bazaar. One of the main purposes of the center is to bring healing arts practices to people in downtown New Orleans who don't have access to them. So many of the services will be offered on a sliding scale and we'll have a number of community yoga classes we'll be offering specifically focusing on post-traumatic stress relief. Shortly, we'll be creating a fundraising program to raise scholarship money for neighborhood residents to attend yoga classes and we'll be inviting yogis nationwide to contribute.

YM: Where can people buy your cds and find out more about you and the band?

SJ: Visit www. seanjohnsonkirtan.com for cds and kirtan info. Visit www.wildlotusyoga.com to check out info about the studio.

YM: Thank you for joining us and sharing all your gifts and music with our community.

SJ: Thank you, Kasey! And for all the vision and energy you put into Yoga Mates. The site is like an online village for the yoga community. Really great work!

FEATURE ARTICLE IN YOGA PLUS MAGAZINE:

Yoga Rock Stars

Devotional chanting, a centuries-old practice in India, is newly in vogue in the West. It even has its very own…
A Special Report by Anna Dubrovsky

There’s a rave-like atmosphere in the ballroom of a Florida hotel and a group of musicians onstage, but this gathering of hundreds isn’t a party or performance. It’s a spiritual practice. The yoga conference participants singing and dancing late into the night are engaged in bhakti yoga, the yoga of joyful devotion to God.

Bhakti yoga isn’t a recent import. Many Westerners got their first taste in the 1960s, when shaven-headed Hare Krishna devotees took a bhakti practice called kirtan to the streets. Kirtan is the chanting of God’s names and attributes, often in call-and-response fashion. In 1969, Beatles guitarist George Harrison produced a recording of the Hare Krishna mantra, and bhakti debuted on Britain’s Top of the Pops. Around the same time, former Harvard psychology professor Richard Alpert returned from India with a new name—Ram Dass—and the message that psychedelics were poor substitutes for divine love. He taught ancient Hindu chants to hippies.

Recent years have seen another surge of Western interest in bhakti yoga and particularly devotional chanting. Longtime “kirtan wallahs” such as Jai Uttal and Krishna Das (Americans both) have graduated from living rooms to concert venues that seat many hundreds, achieving the status of rock stars in the yoga community. These days, it’s rare to find a yoga conference without communal chanting on the program. The Omega Institute’s annual “Ecstatic Chant” weekend grew so popular that this year the retreat center scheduled two chant-a-thons. There are kirtan camps for those seeking in-depth study and kirtan ringtones for cell phones. The Canadian music company that manages Avril Lavigne and Sarah McLachlan recently signed half a dozen chant artists to its label. “It’s a bull market,” quips Shyamdas, who has led kirtan for a quarter of a century.

Why are a growing number of Westerns investing in bhakti? For one, it’s accessible. Anyone can sing to the Divine Being. The practice doesn’t require formal training. It doesn’t require physical flexibility. Unlike avenues such as asana and silent meditation, which call for persistence, chanting “can be immediately successful with just a little bit of good intention,” says Shyamdas, who points out that bhakti is by far the most popular branch of yoga in India.

“Success” is an experience that even longtime chanters find hard to verbalize. It’s heart-opening, they say. It’s elation and more. “I haven’t found a good way to explain it without people thinking I’m weird,” says Sharon Smith, a Connecticut yoga teacher and retired project manager. “You need to feel it a little bit. I don’t think you can talk someone into appreciating kirtan. It’s visceral.”

The yoga studio boom also has much to do with bhakti’s new fan base. More and more people are giving yoga a go and discovering the music that’s played in many classes. They buy chant albums and tickets to sacred sing-alongs. Miten, a British rocker turned devotional singer, says people often tell him: “I’ve started to get into yoga, and I heard your music, and I can’t stop playing it. I play it in my car. I play it to my kids. It just resonates. I don’t know why.”

It’s not only yoga practitioners who are tuning in. After NPR reviewed David Newman’s Lotus Feet: A Kirtan Revolution, the chant maestro heard from music lovers who’d never stepped inside a yoga studio. “They were just digging the music,” says Newman, whose spiritual name is Durga Das. “We’ll go to a yoga center to chant and the owner will say, ‘God, we’ve never seen these people.’ They are drawn to the music, and through the music they’re exposed to the vibration.” Krishna Das was greeted by 700 fans in Buenos Aires after one of his songs, “Jaya Bhagavan,” was used in an Argentine film.

Though rooted in India, the music of yoga’s new rock stars has an unmistakably Western imprint. The ranks of chant artists are filled with lovers of rock and jazz, bluegrass and reggae, folk and world fusion. “We were brought up with the Beatles or the blues or whatever, so that enters into our styles,” Shyamdas says. They may slip an English song into an otherwise Sanskrit set. They may swap tabla drums for bass guitar. They may even insert a sax solo. It’s not the stuff of Indian temples, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less spiritual.

Anna Dubrovsky is a contributing editor of Yoga+. Last year, after returning from seven months of yoga study in Chennai, India, she settled in Pittsburgh, where she also teaches yoga.


Krishna Das: Bhakti With a Dash of Blues
Krishna Das makes no apologies for the way he pronounces “Ram,” the Hindu deity who epitomizes virtue. He doesn’t pronounce the “r” the way someone proficient in Sanskrit would. That caused an Indian woman to leave one of his kirtans. She just got up and walked out.

“I understand there are people who feel that what happens in the West with chanting is ridiculous—what do we know about chanting?” says Krishna Das, the white guy from Long Island whose name is synonymous with Indian mantric music in America. “That’s really dumb. It’s like saying Westerners don’t have God in their hearts, because that’s what chanting is about. God knows what the heart wants and responds to the call of the heart. It’s not about music or pronunciation.”

“Dumb” is the milder of the four-letter words that dot his defense of American-style kirtan. Krishna Das—born Jeffrey Kagel—discovered devotional chanting in India in the early ’70s. He practiced it there at the feet of his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, also known as Maharaj-ji. But the music he makes today borrows from rock and roll and country blues as much as it does from the temples of India. “As the mantras changed me, as they got deeper into me, they began to come out of me in a way that’s more natural to this incarnation. The chants took on different shapes—much more Western shapes. I didn’t do that on purpose. It was a natural evolution.” All One, his 2005 release, explores the Hare Krishna mantra from four diverse musical perspectives, including rock and South African township jive.

This weaving together of ancient mantras with modern melodies and instrumentation may offend purists, but it’s part of the reason why communal chanting is gaining popularity in cultures that prize individuality and secularism. “It’s only reasonable that people here would be attracted by the Western sounds because it’s who they are,” he says. The pressures of modern life also account for the expanding kirtan “market.” “It’s growing and will continue to grow because things are getting harder and harder in the world. I think it just reflects people’s desire to find some happiness, some rest, a sense of joy in life.”

Krishna Das spent the better part of his 61 years searching for happiness. He struggled with depression and drugs. He worked odd jobs and dabbled in music. In his 20s he met Ram Dass, the Harvard professor turned spiritual teacher whose 1971 best seller Be Here Now introduced legions of Westerners to Maharaj-ji and yoga. Krishna Das traveled to the foothills of the Himalayas to find Maharaj-ji. He spent almost three years there, basking in his guru’s unconditional love. Then, in 1973, Maharaj-ji died.

“I was really destroyed by that,” Krishna Das says. “Being with him was the only thing that made me happy. It was the most extraordinary, powerful experience I’ve ever had, on the physical plane anyway. When he died, I figured my only chance to be happy was gone. I went through a long, long, long period of very unconscious self-destructive behavior.”

It wasn’t until 1994 that a solution presented itself. “I was standing in my living room in New York, and I just realized I had to sing with people. It was the only way I could clean up the dark places in my heart.” He walked into a Jivamukti Yoga Center in Manhattan, where founders Sharon Gannon and David Life offered him a Monday slot.

His audience then was several yoga students. Today he packs houses all over the world, singing with hundreds and sometimes thousands. The man who jokes about being “Jewish on my parents’ side” occasionally bursts into a gospel classic—“Amazing Grace” or “Jesus on the Mainline”—as if to remind people that it matters not how you call out to God. It matters that you do.

He has found the faith he lost when his guru died. “By leaving his body, he forced me to find that love inside of me—or to begin to at least look for that love inside of me. That’s really the point: it’s not outside of us. Things outside of us can push a button for us and open us up temporarily. But ultimately we have to find that place ourselves. When we unravel our psychological issues and untie the knots in our hearts, and begin to let go of fear and judging ourselves and treating ourselves so harshly, then we start to move deeper within ourselves to where that love is.”

Tour dates at www.krishnadas.com


Deva Premal & Miten: At Home in the World
Ask Deva Premal and Miten where home is, and you won’t get a short answer. The couple tours so tirelessly that the closest thing to home base is the apartment in Germany where Deva was born and her mother still lives. They keep clothes and other belongings there and return for a few weeks each year. “We actually consider the whole planet our home,” says Miten.

The two have been traveling the world since 1992, when they left their guru’s ashram in Pune, India. They are the Johnny and June Carter Cash of sacred music, with more than a dozen albums and a fan base that includes both Cher and the Dalai Lama. “We swim in it, 24/7,” Miten says of their music. “It’s not to be famous. It’s not to make money. It’s not to sit in front of an audience. It’s to connect with our guru, and the way we do that is through our music.”

Their guru is the Indian spiritual teacher who came to be known as Osho. Deva was just 10 when her mother returned from a trip to India and introduced her to Osho’s “active meditations”—techniques that include dancing, Sufi whirl-ing, and humming. She became a preteen devotee, donning mala prayer beads and robes in the shades of a sunrise. Years would pass before she slipped into a pair of blue jeans. In her late teens, she left Germany and moved to the ashram in Pune. It was there, in 1990, that she met Miten. She was 20. He was 43.

Miten, whose Osho-given name means “friend,” came to Pune by way of England and a rock-and-roll lifestyle. In the ’70s, the singer-songwriter toured with Fleetwood Mac, Lou Reed, and Ry Cooder, closing many sets with a plaintive song called “Show Me a Home.” The business of music sapped his passion for music. After reading a book of Osho’s discourses, he sold his guitars and moved to a commune of devotees in England. “The pain I was carrying around with music suddenly evaporated as soon as I sold my guitars and stopped identifying myself as a musician,” he told Yoga+. “That was one of Osho’s great teachings. He helped many people drop the idea of who they were so they could actually locate something of who they really are. Suddenly I wasn’t a musician anymore. That was a great relief.”

Miten soon discovered that “the orange people,” as Osho’s robed followers were called, saw joyous singing as a spiritual practice. Their song-filled meditations reawakened his passion for music—and for life. It wasn’t long before he was leading the music sessions, first in England and later at the ashram in India.

Though Deva had studied violin, piano, and voice as a child, she wasn’t a singer when she and Miten met. She was studying bodywork at the ashram and, one day, recruited Miten for a practice shiatsu session. That sparked their romantic partnership. Their musical partnership took root later, when Deva asked Miten to listen to her sing. He put her in the band.

Deva shunned the spotlight until 1997, when she recorded a mantra album in her mother’s apartment. The Essence, which features the ancient Gayatri mantra, rose to the top of New Age charts. Unlike their earlier albums, it found fans outside the Osho community—in yoga centers. “We put The Essence out thinking that it would support our friends in their massage practices,” Miten says. “Suddenly it was like the world started pouring through our window. We began receiv-ing all these invitations to come play in yoga studios in America. We’ve gone from yoga studios to playing to 1,500 people in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Amazing.”

Deva and Miten’s music is an amalgam of sacred mantras and English songs written by Miten or musician friends. Their concerts are sing-alongs rather than call-and-response affairs. “The peo-ple who come to sing with us, they’re part of the band. They’re the choir,” says Deva. “That changes every night. It’s going to sound different and have a different flavor every night.”

Tour dates at http://www.devapremalmiten.com/


Wah!: “If It’s Playful, I’m There.”
Wah! is sitting on a lawn at the Omega Institute campus in Rhinebeck, New York. It’s the end of a four-day chanting festival, during which she took the stage half a dozen times. A stranger approaches and drops to his knees. He is a middle-aged man who spent much of the festival dancing ecstatically, smiling broadly, hands flapping like prayer flags. He takes one of her hands in both of his and touches his forehead to it. He’s in a good place, this one.

“We all need to get to a good place,” Wah! says when the man is gone. “Some people who have come to the concert are already in a good place, and other people are not. Let’s balance out those vibrations so everybody can feel the wideness of their own heart.”

Devotional chanting, stripped of musical and spiritual jargon, is just this: getting to a good place. No one leaves a Wah! concert with a heavy heart, shoulders hunched, or feet shuffling. Most people get what they came for, whether it’s solace, insight, inspiration, or a sweaty good time. “The mantras are designed to lead you into infinite space,” she says. But unlike many spiritual practices, chanting needn’t be approached with solemnity. “The music has emotional content. If it’s serious and drab and educational, I’m just so not there. And if it’s got a groove, and if it’s playful, I’m there.” Her music is sensual enough to accompany candlelight and playful enough to make a grown man shimmy. She lays down a groove that makes for a head-bopping drive home.

Wah! is her legal name, exclamation point and all. It was given to her by a yoga teacher. “‘Wah!’ is something you might say when you can’t say anything else, when it’s so incredible, so juicy, so indescribable, so beyond what you expected—that’s the expression: ‘Wah!’” Her discography, which includes ancient Sanskrit chants and ethereal English songs, tells the story of her spiritual transformation, which be-gan not in India but in Africa.

Wah! was in her teens when she traveled to Ghana and Nigeria as part of an American dance company. She was a musician, singer, dancer, and conservatory student at Oberlin College. She stayed in Ghana when her stint with the ensemble ended and lived in a shamanic shrine in the hills. “I had an experience in Africa,” she recalls. “People gather during sunrise, and they drum, and they dance—a swirling whirling dervish kind of dance—and then as the sun rises, if there are any complaints within the community, they’re brought before the elders. Once the problems are solved, you start the day. People go to the fields or make baskets.

“I just loved getting up before the sun and hearing the drums, getting together and starting the day with community,” she says. “It triggered something in me, some memory in me of what spiritual life should be. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but once I went to Africa, I went ‘Oh yeah, that’s right!’”

A government coup cut short her stay in Ghana. She returned to the States, finished her performing arts degree, and moved to New York City, where she danced and choreographed, composed and performed music, and tried to cultivate the sense of community she’d found in Africa. “I moved into a meditation and yoga center. It was ten to twelve hippies living together.” Wah! had learned the rudiments of classical Indian music at Oberlin and played for her housemates. They sat and listened to the complex melodies but didn’t participate. “My experience of wanting people to be involved kind of forced the simplification of the meditation music,” Wah! says. She switched to simple mantras and call-and-response. It worked. The audience became involved.

Today, Wah!’s music is a staple at yoga studios, and she performs in front of audiences that already know the words. She plays violin and electric bass, among other instruments, and her band bears a closer resemblance to R.E.M. than a Ravi Shankar ensemble. The only instrumental link to Indian music is the harmonium (introduced to India by the British in the colonial era). “I’ve been trying to weave together elements of pop within the chanting because pop is the heartbeat—the pulse—of American culture. Bhajans and chanting are the pulse of Indian culture, before Westernization. There’s beena lot of pop exploration and instrumentation exploration until I really found what I wanted. And I have found it.”

Tour dates at www.wahmusic.com


Jai Uttal: In the Footsteps of the Minstrels
Walking through Jai Uttal’s northern California home, I pass more than 20 instruments. He introduces each one—the one-stringed ektar and the five-string fretless banjo, the droning tamboura and the wailing soprano 12-string guitar. “Each instrument has a different song, a different world that emanates from it,” he tells me.

Like his instrument collection, Jai’s musical repertoire is vast, spanning everything from rock to the Ramayana, an ancient epic Indian poem that he set to music and performed with the Chicago Children’s Choir. His CD Mondo Rama (one of dozens he’s produced) contains Brazilian influences, Hebrew prayers, Appalachian blues, Beatles psychedelia, along with Indian music and chants. Jai tours with his band, Pagan Love Orchestra, drawing audiences well beyond the New Age or yoga crowd.

He’s lived in India among the Bauls, the wandering street musicians of Bengal. He’s led kirtan in countries as diverse as Israel and Fiji. He has sung with great singers and those with no musical ability at all. To Jai, this is the epitome of kirtan. “Sometimes kirtan is gorgeous and sometimes it’s super rustic. It’s all kirtan. The heart of kirtan is the prayer—the repetition of the mantra, of God’s names, and the intention—being sung. But that singing can be two screechy notes or a gorgeous classical raga. Whether it’s sung, screamed, or cried, it’s all praise.”

Jai, who grew up in Manhattan, began studying classical piano at the age of seven and went on to learn old-time banjo, harmonica, and guitar. He was a musical experimenter from the beginning. At 18, he moved to California to become a student of India’s “National Living Treasure,” Ali Akbar Khan, from whom he received traditional voice training. You can detect this influence in Jai’s trademark vocals which, the first time I heard them, sounded to me like the yearning of my own soul. Says Jai: “I honestly feel that, since I was a teenager, all my music has been directed—even if not totally consciously—toward inner healing, finding a place of wholeness.”

At 19, Jai traveled to India. As with many of his generation, the journey was transformational. He met his guru, Neem Karoli Baba. (Jai Uttal’s Sanskrit name, Jai Gopal, was given to him by a yoga teacher before he met his guru. “I guess that’s why I’m not a ‘Das,’” he jokes, referring to the fact that Krishna Das, Bhagavan Das, and Ram Dass were also devotees of the Maharaj-ji.)

Jai also steeped himself in the spiritually ecstatic music of the Bauls, an experience that has shaped his life. “Before I ever went to India, among the albums of Indian classical music I had was one called The Street Singers of Bengal,” he says. “This record was so moving, I had to meet the Bauls.”

The origin of the name Baul is debated, but one interpretation is that it comes from the Sanskrit word batul, meaning “divinely inspired insanity.” Jai tells the story of going to Shantiniketan, a town in West Bengal, where he heard they were living: “After several days of asking around and not getting anywhere, I was in a chai shop when this old man, wearing a patchwork dhoti and bells around his ankles and carrying a one-stringed instrument in one hand and a little drum in the other, came in. He played and asked if anyone had any money. Afterwards I followed him. We came to a little mela (a gathering): Onstage was this big family, all sitting down except the lead singer, who was dancing. On the floor were all the grandmas and grandpas, the little babies, all generations, playing cymbals and singing with him. It was just great. And the guy gets off the stage and it turns out he’s Lakshman Das Baul, one of the two well-known Bauls on the cover of one of Bob Dylan’s albums!”

Jai met him and then others. “We really connected with one guy, Baidyanath Das Baul, who started coming to our house and then gave us lessons four times a week. We knew no Bengali and he knew no English, but we began to have this amazing relationship over music, singing, chai, a little food, all kinds of instruments.”

Jai became friends with other Bauls, too, and traveled around with them. “I had written some Baul-style songs with English words, and I would play some of them. What a rich and beautiful time it was.” It was also inspiring musically. “The music of the Bauls is simple but full of passion,” says Jai. “The words are very metaphorical. The imagery is rural, rustic. But their tone is one of busting out, breaking through the rooftops of heaven.”

—Maggie Jacobus
Tour dates at www.jaiuttal.com

Adapted from Kirtan! Chanting as a Spiritual Path, by Linda Johnsen and Maggie Jacobus. Published by Yes International Publishers, www.yespublishers.com. Reprinted with permission.

Wallahs to Watch
Seán Johnson
When Seán Johnson evacuated New Orleans in August 2005, he took a few changes of clothes, his harmonium, and a box of music and mystical poetry. Hurricane Katrina hit the next day. Unable to go home, Johnson embarked on a kirtan tour to raise money for hurricane relief—and to collect himself. “The kirtan was very therapeutic,” he says. His music is as much a product of his New Orleans roots as it is of formal study. “There’s music in the water, in the air, in the heat and the humidity here, and in the way people walk and talk,” says Johnson, who grew up listening to jazz, hip hop, and rock, and sang in the city’s children’s choir. In college he studied the singing style of his Irish ancestors and got hooked on Middle Eastern music. Later he apprenticed with South Indian musician and author Russill Paul. “When I lead kirtan now, it’s a really rich brew of all these traditions.”

Home Base: New Orleans, Louisiana
Website: www.seanjohnsonkirtan.com
Can’t Miss: When he’s not touring, Johnson teaches yoga and leads Monday evening kirtans at Wild Lotus Yoga, the New Orleans studio he founded in 2002. His 200-hour teacher-training program, Soul School, blends bhakti and hatha yoga. www.wildlotusyoga.com
Coming Soon: Johnson is helping raise funds to convert a 55,000-square-foot warehouse in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans into a healing center, which will include a second Wild Lotus location as well as a food co-op, an organic café, and performance and gallery spaces.

SEE MORE 'WALLAHS TO WATCH' BY CLICKING YOGA PLUS LINK BELOW.

REVIEW FROM YOGA JOURNAL:

"When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, studio owner and kirtan singer Sean Johnson left his hometown to go on tour with his band. In between performances, the group set to work on writing new material that blended Big Easy jazz with Sanskrit chants. The resulting studio album represents the band's emotional grieving for its city and hopefulness for its renaissance.

In this acoustically based album, Johnson, his brother and guitarist Matt Johnson, percussionist Gwendolyn Colman, and jazz bassist Alvin Young aims to capture the spirit of the devastated city. Tenor sax and guitar fuse beautifully with the Indian harmonium and tamboura, Middle Eastern dumbek and udu, and Laten castanets. Many of the tracks are improvised recordings, giving each song a life of its own.

This organic energy is evident throughout the album, especially with "Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu," in which the opening guitar riff precedes a soulful saxophone accompanying the mantra for happiness and freedom to all. The funky rhythms and vocals in "Om Shakti" exuding the power of the divine feminine, are paired with a rapped chant of the "Durga Chalisa,' a Hindu prayer honoring Durga, the lion-riding warrior goddess.

Calling The Spirits delivers the spicy sounds of the bayou with devotion. For that reason, the album is a joy to listen to whether you're a yogi, a jazz connoisseur, or anyone who appreciates wildly creative music."

CONCERT REVIEW FROM LA YOGA MAGAZINE:

Rocking The Lotus
Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band return to L.A.
September 21-23

"I never miss an opportunity to sing or practice when Sean Johnson and The Wild Lotus Band come to Southern California. Framing their appearance at the Global Mala Project, the band played evening gigs at Exhale in Venice and the Santa Barbara Yoga Center while also cramming onto the stage at Exhale to accompany Saul David Raye's soulful asana practice. The lotuses bring a new groove to kirtan, reminiscent of smoky jazz but with a transcendent ring...or maybe that's just Matt's saxophone licks. In warrior pose, there's nothing more satisfying than feeling the reverberations, the vibrations, in my very bones as I practice; it is beyond compare. Gwendolyn's frame drum and other creative percussive actions create a beat while Sean and bassist Alvin provide melody and rhythm. Their Friday evening kirtan maade a bhakti out of my visiting jnana yogi houseguest, and the Sunday morning practice brought tears of joy to both of our eyes. Om Shanti...until next time."

NEW ORLEANS GAMBIT WEEKLY: SEAN PROFILED IN 2008 40 UNDER 40 FEATURE

The New Orleans area is teeming with remarkable young adults who excel in a multitude of areas, including education, athletics, community development, business, technology, entertainment and more. Every year (with the exception of an interruption by Hurricane Katrina in 2005), Gambit Weekly honors 40 people under the age of 40 for contributions they have made to our area and the potential they show for making their community a better place. The 10th annual '40 Under 40" issue is evidence that personal and professional success and exceptional works can be realized at an early age through innovative thinking and inspired actions.

Sean Johnson, 36
Founder, Wild Lotus Yoga Sanctuary and Wild Lotus Band

As a New Orleans native, Sean Johnson surely knows the meaning of the word soul. Johnson, founder of Wild Lotus Yoga Sanctuary Uptown, loves the strong sense of ritual and tradition that permeates the city and its history.

While attending college in Washington state, Johnson studied comparative spiritual traditions and fell in love with a new practice: yoga.

'I loved it so much that I wanted to continue to study yoga and eastern spirituality (after college), [so] I found a graduate program in Oakland, Calif., where I could do that," he says. 'I got into chanting and music in addition to yoga practice there, and I just felt inspired to come back home and share what I learned."

Johnson moved back to New Orleans in 1999 and began teaching yoga. He opened the Wild Lotus Yoga Sanctuary shortly thereafter. He also tours with his Wild Lotus Band, teaching mantra music and meditation nationwide.

'One of the things I really love is the interplay between the sense of history and romance of New Orleans and the spirit of the water and the land, and the way that plays and dances with yoga," Johnson says. 'Having a yoga studio here in New Orleans you get the best of both worlds, this laid-back kind of swamp energy in the land and the water here " there's a real soulfulness to it " and yoga, that's really about waking up the spirit. [It] creates a way for the soul and the spirit to be at play with each other."

Johnson's future plans include opening a yoga studio downtown in conjunction with other healers, artists, engineers and architects working on an alternative healing center for underprivileged residents in the Eighth and Ninth wards who are suffering post-traumatic stress and other health problems. "

FEATURE ARTICLE IN YOGA CHICAGO MAGAZINE:

Post-apocalyptic Yoga in New Orleans
By Carla Douros

I love New Orleans. And Jazz Fest has always been an especially favorite time for me to be there: good music, good food and good people. So my ears perked up at the idea of going to Jazz Fest this year, especially when my friend and I decided to do a week of service in between the festivities. The mix felt right--great fun and karma yoga. Armed with breathing masks, excellent spirits and yoga mats, we ventured into the unknown. Post-apocalyptic N’awlins.

I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive. I hadn’t been back to NOLA (New Orleans, LA) since Katrina, and I didn’t know what to expect. Was the city healing its physical scars? What about the spiritual and emotional wounds? Would it ever recover? What about the yoga community in the city? Was it alive and well? I needed to see for myself how the recovery was progressing. However, the more I saw and the more people I spoke with, the more complicated the situation seemed.

I am still processing what I experienced in NOLA; it was both inspiring and heartbreaking. The spirit of hope was astonishing; the boarded up homes and people living in FEMA trailers were painful. How could this situation have happened in the first place? And how could it not be resolved two years later?

On Friday of the second weekend of Jazz Fest there was a flash storm spilling as much as five inches of rain on the New Orleans area. Streets flooded, power outages left thousands without electricity and cars were swamped as the storm water pumping system failed yet again. But Jazz Fest seemed to take it all in stride. The fairgrounds were cleaned up, with cardboard and sawdust covering the most flooded areas. The musicians performed under umbrellas with smiles on their faces. Many of the artists found time to work with Habitat for Humanity or to raise money for displaced musicians and schools. Harry Connick Jr., Bonnie Raitt, Norah Jones, Joss Stone and others volunteered to help with the city’s recovery. “New Orleans is an important part of our culture as Americans,” explained John Legend to a local paper as he washed clothes as part of a free mobile laundry service for families still living in FEMA trailers in St. Bernard Parish.

The spirit of the people at Jazz Fest following the storm was remarkable. Everyone seemed to be even more polite and helpful. Amazing. I began to ask questions; the answers helped me (and, I hope, others) understand the love that people in New Orleans have for their city, how yoga saw them through the hard times and what they believe the future may hold in store.

The first person I interviewed was Sean Johnson, founder of Wild Lotus Yoga and a renowned musician. Sean was born and raised in New Orleans and is a pillar of the yoga community. Here he describes his studio post-Katrina.

Sean: “Wild Lotus is not just a building where yoga classes are held; it’s a sanctuary where people gather to kindle peace and stoke their spirits. To be a sanctuary was our original intention, but Katrina gave that a whole new meaning.

“We were the first yoga studio to reopen after the storm. Much of the city still did not have electricity. None of the traffic lights worked. There was debris everywhere. Lots of abandoned cars. The city was a refrigerator graveyard, as everyone put their rotted refrigerators out on the sidewalk. There were very few children in New Orleans at that time and very few elderly people. Most of the street traffic consisted of out-of-state contractors. Few restaurants and grocery stores were open. There was a curfew in place at night. It was a bizarre time. As you can imagine, people were incredibly grateful to come to the studio and practice yoga. Lots of tears and lots of joy. We all know that yoga is therapeutic, and we know the importance of satsang, but this added a whole new meaning to those [concepts]. The studio was a place to grieve, to process what had happened kinesthetically, to reunite with old friends, to reconnect with some semblance of normalcy, to pray, to breathe, to find refuge at a chaotic time. We also had a population of relief workers who came to class.

“So many New Orleanians lost the things they relied on for stability in their daily lives--family, loved ones, homes, jobs, a sense of normalcy--and turned to yoga for sustenance. The devastating experience of the storm amplified the spiritual and therapeutic benefits of yoga for all of us. I believe the storm also awakened us to the preciousness of life and invited us to pay more attention to what we really value, to how we devote our energy and to the gifts and blessings of life we shouldn’t ever take for granted. While the population of New Orleans has been cut in half, the enrollment at Wild Lotus has mushroomed. We have more students now than we did before the storm, including many beginners. Many people have told us they don’t know how they would have survived mentally and emotionally over the past two years without yoga and the presence of the studio.”

I told him I was touched by the fleur de lis banners of rebirth and renewal that were flying throughout the city. I asked him if he felt that reflected the general spirit of the residents.

Sean: “People who live in New Orleans have a real love affair with the city. I use that expression intentionally because we know that a love affair is not always pie in the sky. There are highs and lows. There is great passion. And with that passion comes great fondness and affection for the city, as well as frustration with its dysfunctions. There is no other place like it. There are many reasons to love New Orleans. It has a culture all its own. If you look at the elements that really define a distinct culture, we have many of them: our own music, cuisine, holidays, accent, architecture, a unique history, rituals. Much of the United States and its acres of strip malls feel sterile compared to New Orleans. New Orleans has contrast, paradox. The dark and the light dance vivaciously, which makes it a fascinating and romantic place to live. New Orleans is lush, ghostly, humid, sexy, heavy, laid-back, decadent, traditional. Yes, all over the city you see fleur de lis emblems. The fleur de lis can be likened to the lotus as a symbol of renewal and healing. People are flying fleur de lis banners and flags from their homes and businesses, putting stickers on their cars; it’s also one of the most popular tattoos in New Orleans.

“I love having a yoga studio here. I think sometimes those of us who are spiritual seekers start to take ourselves too seriously and we dry up. There can be an unbalanced focus on moving awareness into the upper chakras and sometimes a tendency to lose touch with our soulfulness. New Orleans keeps our being fertile and wet, allowing the soul and the spirit to be at play with each other. There is a primal energy here, wild and humble, that lives in the water, in the mud, in the bayou and the swamp. The metaphor of the wild lotus growing out of the mud is so relevant here. That’s one of the reasons why I named my yoga studio Wild Lotus.”

I told him I had a vision of the worldwide yoga community coming together to support one another in times of crisis. I asked whether he had had any support from the yoga community.

Sean: “The yoga community was incredibly supportive of us in the aftermath of Katrina. A week after the storm, when it became clear that we would not be able to return home anytime soon, I decided to embark on a cross-country kirtan tour, raising funds for Habitat for Humanity, which is rebuilding many homes in the poorer ‘n’hoods’ of New Orleans. I also wanted to help my parents, whose home was damaged and who had lost their business in the storm. Within a couple of weeks, we had received invitations from yoga studios all over the country--people I had never met before. On the East Coast leg of the tour I traveled with my wife, our dog, Lance, my brother Matt, who plays sax and guitar, and our drummer; so many people opened their homes to us and their pocketbooks to the cause. It was incredible and very humbling. An amazing blessing. I received many E-mails from studios that wanted to help. There have also been a couple of groups of yogis from around the country who have organized karma yoga retreats to New Orleans to do service and practice yoga. I worked closely with one group last July and am assisting another coming to work with Habitat for Humanity in the fall. We are still doing some fundraising concerts around the country for various causes in post-Katrina New Orleans.”

REVIEW IN YOGA CHICAGO MAGAZINE:

"Sean Johnson’s kirtan will ignite the world! Starting on slow simmer, Calling The Spirits is a jazzy hybrid of East and West that will bring joy to your heart and get your body boogieing! New Orleans is home for this band, and there’s something in the arrangements and in the horns that brings to mind the old-time Cajun mix of high culture and deep roots.

I hear the influence of Sean’s teacher, Russill Paul, who taught Sean raga and harmonics, particularly in the title track. With deep reverence for mantra and melody, the Wild Lotus Band does its magic, creating a stew of shimmering world music. Sean’s voice is sublime beyond belief. I adore Gwendolyn Coleman’s vocals, and her Middle Eastern percussion skills are fabulous. The horns add a bit of Eastern European flavor.

The cover art is a dreamy feast for the eyes–Hanuman on harmonium, Krishna on sax and Ganesh on bass, while the Devi keeps it all together in time. It’s highly recommended for all chant fans, yogis and music lovers alike. Calling The Spirits will ground you, while at the same time allow your wings to emerge and fly--a true spiritual phenomena."

REVIEW IN AURA MAGAZINE:

"Calling the Spirits is destined to become one of the most well regarded recordings in the world of chant music. Each arrangement is unique and inspiring from the smooth saxophone on Jai Ma to the danceable beat of Om Shakti. Sean Johnson's vocals are impeccable. Gwendolyn Colman backs him up strongly, adding a balancing feminine component. Colman also contributes percussion and her skill on a variety of exotic instruments. She is joined by other talented guest musicians, resulting in a colorful and well integrated sound.

Though chant music is a fairly recent genre in our musical culture, it has a longstanding history. In fact, highlighting sacred words with beautiful melodies is a tradition that spans at least a thousand years. This tradition is now being transformed by time and place. Western artists performing kirtan today bring their varied cultural experiences to the melodies they choose.

Johnson's music is infused with a subtle flavor of his native city, New Orleans. This recording is also a reflection of his attempt to bring light and hope back to his beloved city after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina."

REVIEW FROM MUSIC DESIGN:

Sean Johnson & the Wild Lotus Band are a New Orleans-based collective that offer a unique twist on classic kirtan chant. Acoustic guitar, bluesy rhythms, lots of clap-style percussion... the band takes the essence of the bayou and merges it with Indian spiritual music for a sound that bubbles with soul and unbridled passion. Johnson provides lead vocals on the album, and his voice has a low, smooth quality that melds well with the earthy, acoustic-based backdrops. Their take on the perennial "Om Namah Shivaya" is fresh and original, with a light jazz sound and joyous singing that captivates. The same could be said for another favorite "Govinda Gopala," which makes great use of Kristen Jensen's violin to provide an upbeat yet tender melody. Johnson and his band perform regularly at yoga studios around the country and have frequently put on benefit concerts to help rebuilding efforts in their New Orleans home.

REVIEW FROM LA YOGA MAGAZINE:

Dedicated to the creativity deity Saraswati, New Orleans-based Sean Johnson & the Wild Lotus Band has some serious energy flowing in every chant in Calling the Spirits. The musical attack is modest and skillful, primarily featuring Matt Johnson on an acoustic guitar with Sean chanting the lead while harmonizing a harmonium drone. The Wild Lotus Band features light violin accompaniment performed by Kristen Jensen, tasty fretless bass lines by Alvin Young, as well as cello tracks by Ludmila Konstantinova, tamboura drones by Dean Klopsis and excellent and skillful percussion contributed by Gwendolyn Colman. The chants here are extremely gentle and easy to listen to. Sean knows his way around a variety of chord structures to keep each piece engaging and musically unique. On the traditional “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu,” Matt throws in some soft sax licks to keep the mood sensual. I enjoyed the choice of using mostly frame drum rhythms to give the group’s sound a distinctive Middle Eastern influence not often heard on Sanskrit chant albums. There are a lot of other Middle Eastern instruments used here such as the dumbek and the udu –– which are nicely complemented by Sean’s harmonium and Matt’s guitar. All the compositions on Calling the Spirits are well worth listening to and using for any yoga class situation--there is plenty of sweetness and devotion here. Reprinted with the permission of LA Yoga Ayurveda and Health www.LAYogaMagazine.com © Goodman Media Group 2007

FEATURE ARTICLE IN THE FRESNO BEE:

Yoga studio hosts kirtan concert

By Don Mayhew

Part of the reason music fans pay good money to see a concert is for the opportunity to sing along to their favorite hits. Opening up the ol' vocal cords with a group of like-minded people can be an uplifting experience.
Seán Johnson, who will perform a kirtan concert at Coil Yoga in downtown Fresno on Tuesday night, enjoys tapping into that impulse -- even if the audience is unfamiliar with his music and what's being sung isn't words, per se.

The music will remind some of a Grateful Dead concert, others of a Sunday morning in a Southern Baptist church. People who enjoy house music will be familiar with the way the long, flowing jams wind through the room.

"Kirtan has been called the gospel music of India," the New Orleans harmonium player says. "It's got that flavor to it. It's devotional music."

But he's quick to add that he draws from multiple cultures and religions: Irish, Indian, Catholic, Buddhist and Muslim. He does his best to present it in an ecumenical, inclusive way.

"It's really important to me to explain it in a very accessible way, so that it doesn't seem like this exotic, esoteric thing that comes from another planet," Johnson says. "In our culture, we're a very visual culture. We don't pay too much attention to sound.

"We know that music moves us. We know that songs mark different places in our life. We find an emotional connection to music and songs. But we don't pay that much attention to how sound can change our consciousness."

Johnson says kirtan is not so much about performance: "It's about all of us bringing our voices together and waking each other up."

Since the goals of yoga also are about connection, kirtan is closely associated with that practice. The songs during Johnson's appearances often last 15 minutes or more, with the audience chanting in call-and-response patterns. The voices don't tell a narrative but are used as instrumentation.

Few in the audience actually practice yoga during kirtan shows, even though they typically happen at studios. More often, Johnson says, people chant along with their eyes shut, get up and dance or just sit and listen.

"Sometimes we play softer, more lullaby-type of stuff, and people will actually lie down," he says. "It's quite sweet. You can't go to your local music club and lie down on the floor. You wouldn't want to."

Johnson is excited about the way his music is evolving. His next album won't have any songs longer than seven minutes (which is short by kirtan standards), and it includes a small dose of hip-hop.

"We're blending the sounds that we heard growing up, particularly here in New Orleans, so that it's authentic for us," he says. "What we're trying to do is balance being respectful of the tradition that this comes from, but also being innovative and creative and keeping it alive."

The reporter can be reached at dmayhew@

FEATURE ARTICLE IN FIT YOGA MAGAZINE:

Day In The Life Feature
by Tess Ghilaga

Sean Johnson
This yoga teacher and kirtan leader offers his gifts to the re-blossoming city of New Orleans...

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans continues its inspiring journey of renewal. For the bord-and-bred Big Easy native Sean Johnson, his Wild Lotus Yoga studio has been a vital part of the healing process. Located in the historic uptown district, the acclaimed studio was the first one to reopen its doors in Katrina's aftermath. Sustaining only minor wind damage, Wild Lotus was ready to serve as a peaceful sanctuary to the beleagured community.

"The devastating experience of the storm amplified the spiritual and therapeutic benefits of yoga for all of us," says the 35-year=old.

Johnson returned home after completing undergraduate and graduate studies of world spiritual traditions, including an apprenticeship in South Indian vocal music with musician Russill Paul. "I have sung since I was a child," Johnson says. "Kirtan, the practice of call and response chanting, is my favorite yoga practice."

SInce music has such deep historic roots in New Orleans, it's no surprise Johnson's kirtans have a Cajun spice to them. You'll hear inflections of hip-hop, Indian, flamenco, and Irish rhythms and melodies. "I feel most free when I'm chanting, leading kirtan." says Johnson.

The talented singer acts like a beacon for Bhakti yoga. While temporarily displaced by last year's hurricane, for example, Johnson and The Wild Lotus Band toured yoga studios throughout the country, performing over 30 kirtan concerts. The band raised money for Habitat for Humanity, which is helping to rebuild New Orleans, and for Johnson's parents, who lost their home and business in the storm.

Johnson's music and teachings pay homage to the ancient lineage but also serve as a breathing art form. "I feel the chemistry between reverence for tradition and creative innovation is what has enabled yoga to survive and flourish in different cultures." he says. Johnson also lends his velvet voice to Alive Yoga for audio-casts of his classes (www.aliveyoga.com).

Nocturnal by nature, Johnson comes to life in the evening hours, teaching and leading devotees in his beloved kirtan well into the night. Although New Orleans' population has been cut in half, enrollment at Wild Lotus has mushroomed, attracting many area relief workers and beginning students. From vigorous vinyasa to soothing Serenity Yoga classes, the studio has been a positive resource amid the grueling reconstruction of New Orleans.

"I love my hometown, " Johnson says. "It's soulful and romantic and full of paradoxes that stir the imagination."

CONCERT REVIEW IN LA YOGA MAGAZINE:

December 1, 2006
by Felicia M. Tomasko

FIFTY CANDLES ILLUMINATED THE LARGE PRACTICE ROOM AT THE SANTA BARBARA YOGA CENTER. SEAN JOHNSON AND THE WILD LOTUS BAND ROCKED THE HOUSE AND CROONED A FINAL LULLABY TO A GROUP OF KIRTAN (TRADITIONAL CALL-AND-RESPONSE) DEVOTEES.

Johnson and band returned to California one year after their series of benefit concerts, raising money for rebuiding their hometown New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Johnson sported a t-shirt labeled "RENEWORLEANS", a sentiment he expresses when he talks about progress.

"We breathed a collective sigh of relief come October, after this year's hurricane season had passed." This marked an opportunity to continue rebuilding. Rebuilding efforts depend on the part of town affected, Johnson said. But his yoga studio, Wild Lotus Yoga, has filled to capacity, with beginners seeking yoga practice as a way of reclaiming self.

In the yoga tradition, internal reconstruction also comes from chanting, which the Wild Lotuses provided. "In Faith I Fall," a track on their upcoming album, beautifully expressed faith through music. Other invocations, including ones to Hanuman and the Divine Mother, incorporated influences both Western and Eastern through Matt's saxophone solos and Sean's Sanskrit rhythmic scat.

While in Southern California Johnson and band (saxophonist Matt Johnson, percussionist Gwendolyn Colman, and bassist Alvin Young) provided the kirtan groove at Liberation Yoga, Exhale, Santa Barbara Yoga Center, and for one of Saul David Raye's classes at Exhale, delivering a message of hope through song.

FEATURE ARTICLE ON YOGA IN NEW ORLEANS IN YOGA JOURNAL:

October 1, 2006

YOGA TOUR NEW ORLEANS
The Big Easy rebuilds one breath at a time.

"One year after Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc throughout New Orleans, the city's yoga studios are in a remarkable state of recovery, with many teachers reporting an increase in student attendance since the storm. A few practitioners have left the city for good, but those who stayed have repaired roofs and are turning up in a growing number of stress-relief asana classes.

Wild Lotus Yoga: Whether it's the chimes playing in the breeze or the kirtan chanting of studio founder Sean Johnson and his Wild Lotus Band, this studio tunes the mind and body in more ways than one. Wild Lotus offers a wide variety of classes, from flow and Power Yoga to kids' and prenatal sessions. Music, chanting, and poetry inform many of the classes. Serenity Yoga, emphasizing restorative poses for postdisaster stress relief, is extremely popular, as are the chocalates that many teachers leave behind on students' mats during savasana. "

PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH SEAN

Sean was recently interviewed by the author of "Yoga and The Path of the Urban Mystic" and San Francisco-based yoga teacher Darren Main for an I-Pod audio-cast. The interview titled "Healing New Orleans Through Yoga" consists of questions about the post-Katrina yoga scene in New Orleans, Sean's kirtan music projects, touring and more. To listen to the interview click on the link below.

FEATURE ARTICLE IN LA YOGA MAGAZINE:

January 1, 2006
by Felicia M. Tomasko

ReBirth Tour
Raising money for New Orleans relief efforts

Kirtan leader Sean Johnson and his Wild Lotus Band (named for his epynomous New Orleans studio)-- with brother Matt Johnson on saxophone and guitar along with vibrant percussionist Gwendolyn Colman-- played, sold CD's, collected donations, spread love and told the insider's view of the huuricane Katrina disaster.

When New Orleans native and yoga teacher Johnson needed to evacuate the city, and it didn't look like returning home was a viable option, he and the Wild Lotus Band took to the road. "I decided to embark on a tour rather than sit around. Through kirtan and yoga practices, I wanted to help people channel their feelings," Johnson said. The Wild Lotus Band was invited to Laughing Lotus in New York (a city all-too-familiar with tragedy), where they recorded a live benefit CD. Between September and November they've been traveling the freeways from coast to coast performing and raising funds to rebuild.

In Southern California, Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band played at Liberation Yoga, Shakti's Elements, John Friend's teacher training in Encinitas, the Ojai Yoga Crib, and the Santa Barbara Yoga Center. Johnson said that the mand played more than 20 kirtan events and clocked 12,000 miles on the van since evacuating. "I've met a lot of really wonderful, kind and generous yoga people who took us in."

The money Johnson raises through sales of his benefit CD, is rebuilding the lives and homes of family as well as the Wild Lotus yoga studio's roof. Johnson maintains a positive attitude also characteristic of his singing. "Compared to what other people were dealing with, it's no big deal."

Before the winds and water swept through town, Wild Lotus (open since 2002) was filling 40 classes a week. On November 1, the studio reopened with nine packed classes. "We have had returning students, total beginners, and relief and humanitarian workers," Johnson said. "When so much has been lost, spiritual practice can be an anchor, community can be a comfort. There have been a lot of tears in class and also a lot of joy...It reminds people of the light in their lives through yoga."

Johnson returned home to New Orleans, his wife and studio on Thanksgiving Day. Will he stay in the city? I asked. "I feel compelled to help the city and the people deal with the change in their lives through yoga." Adds Johnson: "Although the tragedy is undeniably horrible, there is an opportunity amidst it for each person to focus on what's important, to discover what is meaningful in their lives and make a difference."

He believes kirtan opens the heart and sets the spirit free through the voice. "Kirtan became more meaningful to me, after the storm, it was an opportunity to focus." Johnson has studied music for years, including with teachers Russill Paul and Jai Uttal.

In Santa Barbara, Wild Lotus grooved through a bossa nova- influenced gayatri mantra (traditional Vedic-Sanskrit prayer), ecstatically led the group through melodic invocations to Shiva and Hanuman and crooned a Sanskrit lullaby to end the evening with a sense of calm after the strorm.

ARTICLE IN PHILADELPHIA INQUIROR:

October 1, 2005
by Karl Stark

New Orleans Band Takes The High Road

The Wild Lotus Band will donate some proceeds of its show to rebuilding efforts.
By Karl Stark
Philadephia Inquirer Staff Writer


With his hometown of New Orleans still sodden from Hurricane Katrina, yoga teacher and musician Sean Johnson did the only sane thing he and his band could: They set out on the road.

Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band play a special brand of India-based music called kirtan, which features call-and-response chanting backed by a miniature organ known as a harmonium.

The group has been crisscrossing the Northeast for two weeks, chanting sacred mantras in yoga studios from Boston to Asheville, N.C.

Tonight, the musicians will alight at the Nectar Yoga Center in the Goshen Village Shopping Center, in East Goshen Township near West Chester.

Johnson, 35, whose yoga studio in New Orleans used to offer 40 classes a week, doesn't yet know how his workplace has fared. He and his wife, Constance, have been exiled to Austin, Texas.

The road trip is a way to channel "what's happened to us in a positive way," he said. "We can sit around and feel sorry for ourselves and grieve and mourn everything that's been lost, or we can go on the road."

A portion of the money they make will go to Habitat for Humanity to help rebuild the Crescent City, he said.

The kirtans are not so much a performance as a participatory form of meditation or prayer coupled with music. The band - Johnson on harmonium, his brother Matt on saxophone and guitar, Alan Frost on percussion, and vocalist Stacey Brass - will play a phrase that the audience sings back.

"The whole room is the orchestra," Johnson said. "We'll all be making music together."

So far the gigs have varied with the locations. In New York, many people were dancing, while at a studio in Norwalk, Conn., children played along with toy instruments. "It was unexpected, but we went with it," Johnson said.

The Wild Lotus Band will appear

at 8 tonight at the Nectar Yoga Center, 1548 Paoli Pike, East Goshen. A $15 minimum donation is requested. For information, call 610-918-2200. For directions, see http://www.nectaryoga.com/contact.html.
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Contact staff writer Karl Stark at 215-854-5363 or kstark@phillynews.com.