While we were in Lugano a couple of months ago, I felt a certain amount of inward restlessness. It was hard to pin down and define. The best I could come up with was that I felt some sort of shift was trying to happen.
In fact, for some time I had been becoming aware of a subtle but gradually increasing sense that we needed to be doing something more to accomplish our mission in serving the music of Ananda.
Well, not too long after we got back from Europe, Ramesha made the decision to reduce his teaching schedule in order to serve the music ministry full time. This is a huge shift — for him and for me — which is rippling out and inspiring the exciting new developments which we’re sharing about in the letter that follows.
Dear friend,
We’d like to share some exciting new developments about our work in service to Ananda Music.
Starting in the next few months, Bhagavati and I will be focusing a lot more on traveling to Ananda centers and meditation groups to provide support with learning, singing, and more deeply understanding our music.
We’ve experienced again and again the transforming power of Ananda Music; we want to make it possible for more people to benefit from it.
Our goal is to support everyone who wants to learn and sing our wonderful music!
If this project inspires you and you feel to support our efforts and help with travel expenses, we invite you to join our Bhagavati & Ramesha Patreon.
As a thank you for your generous help you will receive an exclusive video from us every month.
Yay! The energy is definitely moving and we’re thrilled with the prospect of potentially visiting five different Ananda communities between now and the end of the year!
So, we started thinking about creating a Patreon account almost a year and a half ago.
We wanted to put more focus on the making music part of our lives, as opposed to the teaching, directing, coordinating, managing side of things.
But it felt rather complicated and like we had to do all these things in just the right way, and — sure enough — it ended up falling by the wayside, even though we had most of the pieces in place.
Fast forward a year and a half and we realized it was time.
Why?
One motivator is that during Spiritual Renewal Week we were greeted by so many devotees from all over the world who expressed over and over again how much they appreciated seeing us on video. And we realized most of those videos are just from Sunday service or larger concerts; we haven’t beentaking the time to make and share our own videos, with our own choice of songs and perspective.
But the biggest motivation has come as one of the many gifts of my cancer experience.
When I started treatment I had to consider the necessity of letting some of my activities go, because I didn’t know whether I would be laid out from side effects or how much additional rest I would need, etc.
As it turns out, my energy held up and I never did have to let go of hardly anything, other than not directing larger groups of singers (but that was more of a COVID precaution, since my immune system is compromised at the moment).
But even considering the possibilities brought thoughts and ideas to mind. And then there’s the reality of the bone marrow transplant, and the fact that we’ll be completely out of commission for a couple of months.
All of which is forcing us (in the best way possible) to not just talk and wish that there were more people taking on responsibility in the music ministry, but to take action to make it happen, and on a rather strict timeline!
Which leads to the final, very important fact: that my cancer diagnosis has helped me to better embrace the concept of mortality and the fact that we really aren’t all going to be here forever. Which in its turn has prompted some real soul-searching, especially in terms of wanting to be sure we’re serving Master, Swamiji, and Ananda in the absolutely best way we can.
You see, soon after Ramesha and I got married we were having lunch in Assisi and had one of those “aha” moments. Of course, we knew perfectly well that we both sang, and that between us we played guitar and violin and flute and keyboard. But we suddenly knew we should be a duo; that we actually were a duo — The Harmony Duo. Two people from different countries, different cultures, different races, and different mother languages, who nevertheless were in harmony — musically and otherwise.
When we came to the States in 2006 (supposedly for one year — ha ha), we spent a few months giving Harmony Duo concerts at Ananda communities up and down the west coast. When Swamiji got word of it, he conveyed the message that he thought we should tour the USA. And we were going to do it, too! We gathered maps and lists of meditation groups and started planning our route.
But we ended up Ananda Village, then Ananda Los Angeles, and back to the Village — all of which has been wonderful and vitally important to our spiritual growth. And yet…we feel there are some things yet unfinished, for which we will need to be able to extricate ourselves for a few months at a time and not be responsible for all the day-to-day musical activities of one particular community.
In addition, for several years now we’ve been wanting to establish more communication and collaboration among the various music ministries throughout the world, without making much progress. But we feel that we must find a way, especially considering the vital importance of the music in helping to keep the vibration of Ananda uplifted, harmonious, and united, no matter how large it grows.
So, all of this adds up to the reason why we’ve decided to join Patreon and see where it leads us.
âThe way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.â ~ Walt Disney
I was thrilled to see this quote on my Momentum Dash this afternoon, because it was completely aligned with today’s reality.
That fact is that Ramesha and I have been talking about a particular (and very special) project for over a year, but today the talking was over and we did something about it!
This morning we recorded our Patreon intro video, as well as one of our earliest Harmony Duo song arrangements (which we hadn’t performed in probably ten years).
The intro video is not published yet, although you can see a sneak preview by clicking here.
There’s a lot I’d like to say about Patreon, why we’re doing it, the process of getting to this point, and how cancer proved to be a clarifying factor…but these are topics that will have to wait for a future blog post.
If this project inspires you and you feel to support our efforts and help with travel expenses, we invite you to join our Bhagavati & Ramesha Patreon. 
