Contemplative Chant – Online and Ongoing
January 1, 2023 - December 31, 2024
Please Join Us for
30 minutes of Contemplative Chant
Every Wednesday (except the 5th Wednesday of every month)
2 pm PT/3 pm MT/4 pm CT/5 pm ET
on Zoom
Need help converting the times to where you are? Click here for a time converter.
Chanting will be led by Susan Latimer and occasionally Elizabeth Combs on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of the month and will be lead by Joy Andrews Hayter or Faye Cox on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the Month
ALL are welcome!
Chanting is a wonderful practice for bringing both the Moving Center (body, breath, tone) and the Emotional Center (open heart) online. It is a spiritual practice that opens our hearts, nourishes our nervous systems, prepares us for prayer and meditation as a bridge into stillness, and connects us to our innate joy, courage, steadfastness, peace, beauty, truth and goodness.
In times of great uncertainty and change, we find chant to be one of the things that most grounds us. These sessions draw chants from Wisdom Schools, various spiritual and religious traditions, sacred texts, old hymns and poetry.
Because of the limitations of synching sound on Zoom, all participants are muted except for the one leading. This allows everyone to chant along in their own space. (Great if you are shy about sharing your voice! Fun if you like to try harmonies!) To join, just click on the zoom link below.
Join Zoom Meeting
(this is a new link as of October 1st, 2023):
HERE
Meeting ID: 810 8061 0840
Passcode: Chant
ALL are welcome
Susan Latimer
Chanting is my go-to practice for grounding, centering, heart-opening, healing. When I was unable to do Centering prayer during my 8 months of treatment for stage 3 breast cancer (2017) I chanted. I am a singer, pianist, Episcopal priest, and mom of two grown sons. Last summer I moved back home to Southern CA after 35 years on the East Coast. I have been blessed by connections in this Wisdom community since 2015, and started writing Wisdom chants soon after. I have learned much about the spirituality of the voice from my work with Therese Schroeder-Sheker. This March I felt called to offer a chance for folks to gather on Zoom and chant together. Soon afterwards my friend Elizabeth Combs joined me.
Elizabeth Combs
I have been chanting and singing my whole life, and it is the practice that most grounds me in my heart. I remember singing Southern Baptist hymns as my first prayer of breath and vibration. I found my way to Wisdom chant through Cynthia’s Wisdom schools, after many years chanting Sanskrit mantras in the yogic tradition. I enjoy creating chants and like to play my crystal bowls and shruti box outside in the trees. At other times, I can be found caring for clients in my energy balancing practice, crafting herbal remedies or hanging out with my son Jack.
Chanting is a grounding practice for me. I find it a perfect prelude to a meditation practice such as centering prayer, and a delight on its own. When I feel a little “off base,” I might chant—in the car, or quietly in the grocery line or the dentist’s office—it helps me to show up as a whole human being. I’ve been surrounded with music all my life, and have often woken up with melodies in my heart. It has been a natural expansion of the wisdom path for me to become more involved in chanting – leading groups of people intoning them together, writing them, and simply offering them as prayer. I’m a retired scientist and I live in Northern California and offer spiritual direction, and facilitate retreats and workshops. I recently published a book (with foreword by Cynthia!) called “The Cosmic Web: Hope For Our World