Marilyn's Website

Shakti Creations is the cyberspace home for my various passions and activities, chief of which is leading chanting in the modern kirtan style of ancient Bhakti Yoga. Shakti, the feminine creative life force energy, does it all—when “I” get out of the way.

Thinking Kirtan

We do kirtans under the name Shakti Creations Kirtan. These sacred chants are usually the simple repetition of the names of the divine, sung mostly in Sanskrit in a call and response format to westernized melodies and rhythms.

Astonishingly, as we chant, we get happy. Kirtan is how we can extend loving kindness to the whole of the world, starting with ourselves, in Kirtan community — Satsang. Come and try if for yourself. We gear our Kirtans simply so they’re suitable for beginners, but all levels are welcome. No singing experience is necessary!

There is no way to know the calm and bliss that arises by chanting Kirtan without trying it. Curious? Why not just give it a try? CHANT TO BE HAPPY.

How does one become a Kirtan Walla?

My first trip to the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram in Taos, NM, was in 2006, with a friend who’d been leading the chanting group I’d been in for several years. It was then that Baba called me. I don't understand it in my head, but when Hanuman winked at me, I knew something was going on. As odd as it seemed to me at the time, I knew that weekend that Neem Karoli Baba had given me marching orders to learn the Hanuman Chalisa and come back when I’d done it. It took me two years to learn the forty verses in the Awadhi language (say what?) before I returned. It just so happened that the week after I finally returned to the Ashram during the Jayanti Celebration of Hanuman’s birth, I went camping at a Colorado hot springs.

The woman camping next to me saw the Ashram's sticker on my car and asked if I were from the Ashram, and said that she had set up an altar in the forest, and I was welcome to share it. I asked her if she would like to chant together the Chalisa and the Gayatri mantra and that I could probably get us through them. We had just her finger cymbals for accompaniment.

When we finished our impromptu kirtan duet, she said, "I want you to come to Colorado Springs and lead a kirtan regularly."

I was a considerably taken aback and said, "Well, I'm not a kirtan walla (leader), and I don't play the harmonium, but I know all the kirtan wallas along the Colorado Front Range, and I'm sure I can find one for you."

She said, "NO! It has to be YOU," which I didn't really understand.

All I could say was, "But I don't play the harmonium. I don't know anybody in Colorado Springs. I've never lead a kirtan. I'm not a kirtan walla."

"Oh, but your ARE," she insisted, and wouldn't take no for an answer. She had the studio already lined up, an email list of people who wanted kirtan in Colorado Springs, and she'd make all the arrangements. All I had to do was get a harmonium, learn to play and show up. All? Ha.

How did Vic KNOW? Victoria Garrison and I still sing and lead together. (I much later found out she had gone to St. John’s College in Santa Fe with my husband back in the day. The circles are small at the top.)

It happened by grace is all I can figure and feel. And by grace, its been happening, and keeps happening--it appears. We've been leading kirtans regularly in Colorado Springs for over two years. And we’re branching out to lead in my own Denver area and other places along the front range. It's all been like all the stories about Baba. Stuff just magically happens. I would have never even thought of it. I still don't understand it in my head, but I guess I don't have to. As Neem Karoli Baba said, “It’s better to try to see God in everything than to try to figure it all out.”