Chant
Chanting is an ancient contemplative practice which opens our hearts, nourishes our nervous systems, prepares us for meditation, and connects us to our innate virtues. As Cynthia Bourgeault offers in Chanting the Psalms, “Chanting is a total immersion program in learning to think with the heart.”
Chanting in Community
Chanting the Psalms
Beloved as an effective instrument for spiritual awakening, the psalms echo our spiritual longings while bringing us into harmony with saints and teachers in the lineage. Start your day with this deeply satisfying “divine therapy” (as Thomas Keating referred to it) while engaging breath, tone, intention, and community,
Mon – Fri from 8:30am – 9:00am ET, Online
Wednesday Wisdom Chant
Our own Wisdom community has been a leader in the trend toward simplifying chanting and you will sample the fruits of this work each Wednesday. Join in beautiful, easy-to-sing Wisdom chants created within our own Wisdom network. If you are a bit shy about singing, know that our experienced chant leaders will guide you gently as you discover your own voice.
Wednesdays at 5:00pm – 5:30pm ET, Online
Getting Started Resources
Chanting the Psalms
Gain a compelling introduction to this transformative practice with Chanting the Psalms, a personal, yet practical guide book. Instructional CD included or also available on Audible with narration and singing by Cynthia Bourgeault.
Introduction to Sacred Chanting
A free two-part video teaching, about 15 minutes in total length, in which Cynthia Bourgeault offers an introduction to the practice of sacred chanting and elaborates on why it is “at the heart of all sacred traditions worldwide.”
Featured Wisdom Chant Writers
Darlene Franz
Darlene Franz is a freelance oboist, music educator, singer, and chant composer residing in Seattle, Washington. Since 2006 she has facilitated music and attention sessions at Wisdom Schools and other retreats, workshops, and conferences throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Europe, and New Zealand.
Her work with groups cultivates the expansion of embodied attention and presence. Through active and meditative practices based in sacred mantric interspiritual chant, both accomplished and reticent singers can discover grounded, centered, whole awareness while singing together.
Henry Schoenfield
Chanting has been an integral part of my spiritual practice for many years. I was first introduced
to chanting in the Christian monastic tradition in the late 1990s as a cantor in the seminary.
Then in 2010, I was introduced to chanting in the Theravada Buddhist path. Both of these (and
more!) influence the way that I approach chanting today – as a three-centered practice, an
expression of essence, and blending of self with the whole. Chanting allows us to be nourished
and to nourish by and with the vibration that lives and breathes in and through all that is.
Paulette Meier
Paulette Meier is a singer/songwriter, whose strong alto voice has stirred hearts and opened minds for over 30 years in the pursuit of a peaceful, just and sustainable world. An active Quaker, Paulette was moved to set quotations from texts of early Quaker leaders to song and record them in chant-like, a cappella style in Timeless Quaker Wisdom in Plainsong, which includes many chants used in Wisdom Schools and gatherings as well in personal practice.
Inspired at a Quaker Wisdom retreat led by Cynthia, Paulette and Marcelle Martin, Paulette’s most recent chant CD, Wellsprings of Life: Quaker Wisdom in Chant, draws from Quaker quotes spanning the centuries and features Wisdom’s Nick Weiland on double bass and Andrew Breitenberg on piano. Bursting with the immediacy so present in the roots of Quaker spirituality, Paulette’s chants serve both as joyful and meditative elements of inner practice.
Susan Latimer
Chanting is my favorite way to pray, as well as the spiritual practice that most reliably awakens all three centers in me. It is a practice that can offer healing to ourselves and to the world around us. I am quite convinced that one reason my lengthy cancer treatment was successful was that I intentionally used chanting as a daily vibrational nourishment for my being.
Elizabeth Combs
I have been chanting and singing my whole life, and it is the practice that most grounds me in my heart, mind and body.
I enjoy creating chants — which is more like receiving chants from the atmosphere or the imaginal or wherever it is that chants come from.
Singing every day reminds me that, really and truly, it is all about LOVE.
Debbie Brewin-Wilson
Chants with a Celtic flair by Debbie Brewin-Wilson. A sought-after Celtic harp teacher and songwriter, Deborah always seeks ways to help people find their voice and connect more deeply with God.
Kristy Christian
For the past several years, Kristy has immersed herself in writing chants and body prayer chants, teaching chant as a spiritual practice, and leading weekly meditation and chanting groups, both locally and nationally.
Tony Martin
Tony Martin has been chanting as a spiritual practice and as ministry for nearly 20 years. During that time, he and his wife, Patsy have been leading two monthly chanting groups near their home in Bedford, VA. Since March 2020, when COVID put a stop to in-person chanting, they have been leading Zoom chanting sessions twice a month online.