Loving Los Angeles and Miracles in Las Vegas.

Namaste!!

I have not blogged in a while because so much has been happening! California has thoroughly captivated me.  It really is beautiful here, and I have only seen a fraction of what it has to offer.  We took some time out to visit the magnificent Grand Canyon and Joshua Tree National Park over my birthday weekend in early July and Fabian took these stunning pictures on our travels! 

Sunset at the Grand Canyon, Arizona, so humbling. Pictures just do not do it justice!

Fabian's creative energy exploring Joshua Tree, California

One of my most favourite places on earth, Joshua Tree National Park, California

  

We happened to pass by Las Vegas on our way back to Los Angeles.  It was quite an experience to walk down the “strip”, and while in amidst all that is “Las Vegas”, it is hard to believe that they have a flourishing yoga and kirtan community there! Yet we managed to connect with just such a community, and Ashley Wynn,  one of the Charlie’s Angels of Yoga in Las Vegas (where she is pioneering the Kirtan and Yogic Community) welcomed us with open arms and her beautiful smile.  After a decade in LA she has just returned home and opened her own studio called The Grateful Yogi.  You can imagine how grateful we were to encounter this spiritual oasis in what many uninitiated might consider a spiritual desert….in the actual desert!  http://www.thegratefulyogi.com/  Ashley invited me to run a Kundalini Yoga Workshop as well as to offer a Kirtan in her beautiful studio. Here is a video of one of the songs from the evening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6rVHl1hyBY

We rushed back to LA for a Kirtan at Naam Yoga based in Santa Monica the next evening where I offered a very calming, yin meditation and satsang on mantras. I also had the rare opportunity to be interviewed by Gary Goldberg, a long standing advocate of spiritual music on the East Coast of the States.  He has his own Radio Show on the station WRPI: http://www.wrpi.org/  We spent two whole hours discussing my album and he played all the songs live on air!

I was also at the Yogi Tree in Los Angeles during July's newmoon for their Moon Goddess Workshop and I got to play during the class as well as to do some group hypnosis with everyone.

Another blessing during my Californian Tour, was to sing at the Moksha Festival in Topanga Canyon, Los Angeles with an awesome kirtanian, teacher and friend, Daniel Stewart during Ashley Turner's class.

Ashley Turner, Daniel Stewart and Sarab Deva at Moksha Festival 2013

The highlight of the Los Angeles leg of this tour is that I had the great privilege of working with Wahe Guru Khalsa (affectionately known as Wah).  I supported her during her class with live music both at her own studio, Golden Bridge in Santa Monica and at the Golden Bridge Mothership in Hollywood. Wah is a fantastic teacher and I was so inspired to be able to work with her.

California really seems to be the place to be! A place of miracles for me. When out in the desert, it certainly feels like sacred ground, as the ancients always admonished.  And driving through Joshua Tree and the mountains and into the desert here made me fully understand how the early inhabitants of this land must have found such divinity in nature.  No wonder they worshiped the land and the sky and the animals and all the elements that make the land so magical. And I truly felt heartsore considering the history around this land and it's early inhabitants.

I will miss this place once I return to Europe next week.  But please keep tuned to my blog, I have so much exciting news and events on the horizon over the next few months to keep me busy, and we plan to be back in the States again in October if all goes well :)

If you have not heard my album yet, please follow this link: http://sarabdeva.bandcamp.com/

Next Stop is NYC then onto London and Berlin for the HoliOne Festival of Colours!

With love, Sarab Deva xx