There’s a particular feeling when you have a vision, and instead of setting it aside or telling yourself maybe later, you begin to make it real.

One night in late November 2025, I lay down to sleep and couldn’t. I had just returned from a month-long pilgrimage in India, days immersed in song alongside some really beautiful souls. When I came home, the music didn’t stop, and at times even kept me from sleeping, awakened by a bliss that I had scarcely known before.

Then something simple but undeniable came through… you can make something real here. This doesn’t need to fade or stay only within you. It is meant to grow and to be shared. That night, so much of what is now Song Keepers arrived, the gatherings, the kirtans, the spirit of service, the name, the logo. Almost immediately, people began to arrive too. Friends sat and talked for hours, dreaming, visioning, practicing. A website got built. A retreat took shape. It felt like all I had to do was speak “Song Keepers” out loud, and it began to find its people. A match was struck, a fire was lit, and something beyond me was calling forth others to help tend the collective flame.

I had briefly met Angela Hassan on that initial trip to India. We were part of separate groups who had converged on a mountaintop where an ancient Hanuman temple stood. We later traveled to the ashram of a beautiful old baba who had taken a vow of silence, but didn’t need words to express the love radiating from every pore of his being.

Months later, as Song Keepers was beginning to find its footing, Angela came to mind as someone I would love to bring to Philly for one of our first events. Within a matter of hours of having that thought, I received a text from her asking exactly that… You can’t make this stuff up. Months of planning and phone calls ensued. Our first Song Keepers event got snowed out, and our date with Angela on March 28th moved up to become the first public event. Everything fell into place.

Angela took us on a journey that night. Her music carries something that goes straight to the heart. There is a celestial quality, an essence, a deep devotion that can be felt but not explained in words. While her musical abilities are tremendous, Angela is as humble and heart-centered as anyone I have met on this path. She is not chasing anything, but expressing something beyond herself. You can feel it in your bones. It is not only the technical skill, though that is certainly there, but the ineffable quality of what is being shared. Something that reaches inward and connects you to a deeper place. Dare I call it the soul.

After singing together in kirtan, we were blessed to have Angela invite us to lay down and receive a sound bath. This included the zither, an instrument that felt like a perfect accompaniment to her voice and evoked that same celestial quality. My own experience was of a deep inward journey, seeing lights and colors while the sounds bathed my ears, and my whole body felt transported into a kind of mystical state.

I don’t think anyone in the room wanted it to end, though the feeling that the evening evoked has lingered in the weeks since.

I am grateful for the dream and vision that was planted so many months ago and is now beginning to take form. For Angela, showing up in her full heart and soul and offering something real and deeply felt. For the musicians and volunteers who helped make this possible, and for all those who said yes to being there.

I know it will not be the last time Angela joins us, and we so deeply look forward to many more of these gatherings.