The Sound of Ashana

I want everyone to be able to hear the beautiful music from “Beloved”. So for the next few weeks, in honor of “Beloved’s” formal release to the worldwide market, I thought it would be fun to post a new track on my MySpace page each week so you can hear the whole CD. I hope this way you can really enjoy the vocals, Thomas Barquee’s amazing production and musical artistry, the cello (oh my god! Cameron Stone’s beautiful contribution on cello brings tears to my eyes!) and Girish and Simone’s percussion and guitar. Yum. Yum. Yum.

The first song you’ll hear is the title track from the CD – “You Are My Breath”. The song actually has two choruses; the second one being the Sufi chant “La illaha il”Allah,” which roughly translated means “There is but one God”. Being a yogini for the last 20 years, I have wanted to write a song about the breath for the longest time. Scott Kalechstein, a very wonderful writer of inspirational English chants, has a beautiful piece called “Closer and Closer,” which I have sung for many, many years. His piece really was the initial inspiration behind “You Are My Breath.” Daniel Ladinsky’s poem, “The Christ’s Breath” was the second. Shortly after reading this poem the lyrics to “You Are My Breath” galloped onto the page.

I sang “You Are My Breath” publicly for the first time at Unity of Tustin, CA where I was honored to be the guest artist when Andrew Harvey was speaking. He was on fire talking about Rumi and the Beloved, and the passion of serving the world at this time in history. He implored everyone to connect deeply with their passion and to offer it in service. His love for Rumi is so palpable it is intoxicating. Listening to Andrew speak and singing both before and after his talk was deeply moving for me.

More than a year later, when Thomas Barquee and I got together to record “Beloved” I sang it for him and we both instantly knew it had to be on the CD. Thomas helped me find the joy, and I was high as a kite on love when I was recording the vocals.

This is a joyful song to open the heart and offer the love of the Beloved to others while bringing it into your own heart. As always, I offer this to you from mine, heart to heart.

Ashana