I had the incredible blessing of playing flute on Secrets of Love back when I was still very new to Ananda.
I hadn’t yet met Swami Kriyananda (who was living at Ananda Assisi at the time), but I spent three days and nights at Crystal Hermitage, playing his exquisite melodies for hours each day. By the end I felt very close to him.
Ananda was so much smaller then, and marketing and promotion were a very different story back in 2000. Word of the new album spread throughout the immediate Ananda World and then that was pretty much it, as far as I could see.
So, one of the goals of the music ministry’s collaboration with Crystal Clarity Publishers is to reintroduce the classic albums that might be unknown to newer Ananda members — hence, the relaunch!
And I must say, I absolutely love the amazing artwork of the new cover.
Photo of Crystal Hermitage Upper Gardens by Kent Williams
I’m not sure whether I mentioned it in a previous blog post, but one of my first big spiritual lessons after arriving at Ananda Palo Alto was that no one seemed particularly interested in the fact that I was a professional flutist.
For starters, there was already a woman in the community who played flute. And at my first meeting with Asha Praver — basically a “getting-to-know-you” chat — I described some of the musical activities I had offered at my previous church homes, including benefit concerts and the like. Her response? Pretty much no response. I mean, she might have said something like, “Oh, that’s interesting,” but I received no energy from her at all regarding my flute playing.
It took me back a bit, but it was also rather refreshing not being primarily identified as a flutist.
However, within a few months a friend in the community somehow learned more about my musical background and convinced me to give her a copy of my resume, which she then shared with the music people up at Ananda Village.
What I had no way of knowing was that they had been slowly working on a recording of Swami Kriyananda’s music using mostly synthesized sounds for the various instruments. They had a live harpist (the late Donnelle Page) and professional cellist, David Eby, had come to Ananda Portland a year or two before I arrived in Palo Alto. So, now they invited me to provide live flute to the album.
And that is how it came about that in late October 1999 I was blessed to come up to Ananda Village for a long weekend at Crystal Hermitage, recording “Secrets of Love” with music arranger, David Miller, and recording engineer, Agni Ferraro.
What a blessed experience it was! Crystal Hermitage was Swamiji’s home whenever he was in residence at the Village (although this was during the time that I still hadn’t met him because he was living in Italy). I got to stay in a small apartment at Crystal Hermitage, doing my Energization Exercises in the beautiful upper gardens and meditating in the dome.
Of course I spent hours and hours in the studio, with photos of Yogananda and Swami to keep me focused on the goal of allowing their vibration to flow through my playing. Although recording is always intense, there was also plenty of joy and laughter in working with my fellow devotees.
I was transported by the melodies I was playing, especially “Love Is the Aspiration toward Perfection” (click here to listen) and felt Swamiji close to me throughout the entire process. By the end, I understood that this was the raison d’être for all my years of training and experience as a flutist.
