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

New: 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,

Beginning March 1, 2024
Daily at 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

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.”

Wisdom Chanting Library

Explore our archive of chant resources including chant series by various writers and recordings from past Wisdom Schools and Wisdom Waypoints practice days.


Meet Our 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. 

Learn more, listen, and order recordings here:

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.

Learn more, listen, and order recordings at her website.

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.