The Journey Kin-tinues with your Big Voice

Brothers Isaac and Thorald Koren experienced the glitter and glory of the pop music world shortly after they left their Australian home for the promise of America. As The Kin, they signed with Interscope/Universal Records, had a Gold Record, toured arenas with Coldplay, Pink, and Rod Stewart, performed on Conan, and had their songs appear in major movie soundtracks. But they tired of not feeling fully expressed via chasing approval, listening to industry execs, and letting others define their values.

So after 15 years they left for their own path of discovery, first forming a production-songwriting team, and more recently developing The Songwriter’s Journey, where they lend their talent to supporting others in finding and expressing their true voice and authentic nature in music. Their latest venture is called Your Big Voice, an in-depth online course for personal development.

“Standing in front of people as our [performances] were adored got really old,” Thorald explained after reorganizing into a circle a roomful of people at the recent Santa Barbara Consciousness Network 3rd anniversary party, and coaxing them to join in a call-and-response refrain. “What never gets old is being with people and their own distinct, amazing instruments of expression.”

That’s the impetus behind the Brothers Koren’s SBCN-sponsored event next Saturday, February 15, at Unity of Santa Barbara. Billed as “An Evening of Music and Transformation,” the event begins with a mini-workshop aimed to offer an experience of the Brothers Koren’s practical guide to reclaiming your unique story, fully embodying your distinct voice and having an embodied experience of how truly musical all of us are.

“It’s a taste of what we do, a introduction into understanding how to quiet the small voices in our heads – the ones that say not to do things, like sing in public – in order to discover your big voice,” Isaac Koren explained.

The mini-workshop will be followed by a 90-minute concert featuring songs from The Kin catalog and their more recent project The Brave. The “interactive musical experience” will find the Brothers Koren joined by special guests including Monique DeBose, a graduate of The Songwriter’s Journey who performs a solo jazz show in Los Angeles, and other alumni of the program.

The workshop and concert are open to all. “We’ve worked with everyone from professional singers who are hoping to get a record deal to a 65-year-old woman who had always been told she can’t sing,” Thorald said. “We want to reach people with voices that feel unheard, and help you find the music that’s stuck inside, whether it’s about the music itself or integrating your voice in your life. But there’s no expectation other than the journey itself.”

Tickets for the 6-8:30 pm event are $20. Visit tbk.eventbrite.com

Buddhism and Patriarchy

Buddhism is one of the world’s ancient spiritual practices, but modern masters are capable of contemplating the most current of issues. Case in point: a special event guest lecture series from Bodhi Path Santa Barbara that takes a look at what is happening at the emerging intersections of race, patriarchy, gender, and sexuality, and how the practice of presence, wisdom, and compassion can reveal paths forward. “Outgrowing Patriarchy & Unveiling the Sacred Masculine with Lama Rod Owens and Daniel Sutton-Johanson” – which perhaps not coincidentally takes place on Valentine’s Day, next Thursday, February 14 – promises a thought-provoking evening to unpack how patriarchy has deeply shaped our expressions of masculinity and our experience of self. Participants are invited to take a dharmic lens to examine our relationship to violence and domination, power, femininity, love and sexuality along a path to unveiling and honoring non-patriarchal expressions of who we are as human beings, and discover how patriarchal expressions of self can yield to a much more sacred masculinity.

Lama Rod Owens’ website homepage headlines “Conversations and contemplations on the stuff we’re scared to talk about… rooted in Buddhist wisdom and human experience.” He is an author, activist, and formally authorized Buddhist teacher in the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism who is considered one of the emerging leaders of his generation of Buddhist teachers. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Owens is a co-founder of Bhumisparsha, a Buddhist tantric practice community, and a visiting teacher at several Buddhist centers including the Natural Dharma Fellowship and the Brooklyn Zen Center. He is also co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation and a forthcoming book exploring transformative anger and rage due this fall.

Daniel Sutton-Johanson is the founder and community dharma leader of Southsea Sangha, an urban dharma community on the island city of Portsmouth, U.K., and a practicing psychotherapist trained to teach mindfulness to young people through Mindful Schools. The 7:30 to 9 pm event takes place in the Chapel at El Presidio de Santa Barbara, 123 East Canon Perdido Street, and costs $20 (no one turned away for lack of funds). Visit www.bodhipath.org/sb or www.eventbrite.com.

Lucky 13: Stringer at Yoga Soup

Celebrate Yoga Soup’s 13th birthday with international kirtan superstar Dave Stringer, the Grammy-nominated producer, singer-songwriter and innovative modern Kirtan artist whose unique musical approach connects the transcendent mysticism of traditional Indian instruments with the groove-oriented sensibility of American gospel and the traditional harmonies of Appalachia. Stringer was trained as a visual artist, filmmaker, and jazz musician before his focus shifted when he had a video project at an ashram in India in 1990. In the intervening years, he’s taught meditation to prison inmates and conducted research in neuroscience, all of which are incorporated in his music that also employs a wry and unorthodox sense of humor.

The evening gathering begins in the studio’s “living room” space browsing wares from local vendors before it moves into the studio for Stringer’s often ecstasy-inducing form of mantra chanting, in which all are invited to lift voices and hearts – and move the body – guided by the band into “kirtan oblivion.” Soup and simple foodie delights and connecting conversations close out the evening. Admission is $20 in advance, or $25 on Friday.

Healing with Qigong or Choral Singing

Chloe Conger and Britta Gudmunson teamed up for a Qigong and Sound Healing experience at Yoga Soup last month. This week, each begins an extended course exploring their individual specialties. Montecito resident Conger launches “Living with Ease: Qigong and Meditation,” which takes place from 2:30 to 4 pm Saturdays and Sundays, February 9-24, and offers experiential sessions in letting go of the habitual contractions in the body when we hold on and try to control. The moving meditation of qigong offers an opportunity to live in flow, employing the ancient practice to stop the struggle, dissolve stress, and soothe the nervous system. Conger’s practice of Radiant Heart Qigong encourages increasing ease and effortlessness that reveals our natural aliveness, the innate vitality, and peace. The sessions land in stillness with meditation and restorative yoga. The classes cost $20 each on a drop-in basis, or $90 for the full series
.

Meanwhile, newlyweds Britta Gudmunson and Ben Gould are back from their honeymoon and ready to resume the light reins of their singing group in launching the spring season of the inCourage Chorus. The non-audition, non-denominational, all-ages community choir welcomes all kinds of singers, from professionals to shower singers to those who think they have no voice at all to commune in songs from around the world spanning culture, tradition, and language. The songs are taught and shared in the oral tradition, meaning there’s no written music in favor of a community-building, heart-opening call-and-response style that echoes the ancient forms of human expression. The year-old chorus’ new session lasts 13 weeks, plus a daylong retreat in a forested canyon above downtown Santa Barbara on Saturday, April 13, and concluding final benefit concerts on Friday, May 10 and Sunday, May 12.

Gould and Gudmunson operate from the belief that music truly is medicine as well as every human being’s birthright, and share the mission to bring community together in a spirit of courageous, musical expression, and activism while exploring the connective instrument of voice. The couple completed the immersive Community Choir Leadership Training in Victoria, BC in 2017, and are members of the Ubuntu Choir Network. The February 11-May 6 Monday nights season costs $200 for the season pass, while first-timers can visit one time for a $15 drop-in fee. New this winter: a concurrent season on Tuesday nights in Ojai at Somatic Sanctuary.

Yoga Soup is located at 28 Parker Way. Call (805) 965-8811 or visit www.yogasoup.com/category/events.

Caregiver’s Guide to Healing and Transformation

Dr. Edward M. Smink has more than 40 years of experience in healthcare as a nurse, crisis, and pastoral counselor, executive leader, and facilitator of mission, ethics, value, and leadership formation and community health. Now he’s also an author, with last summer’s publication of The Soul of Caregiving: A Caregiver’s Guide to Healing and Transformation. In a Valentine’s Day eve booksigning and talk at Chaucer’s at 7 pm Wednesday, February 13, Smink will explore the love of others and the love of self as explained in his view of everyone as caregivers in that at the heart of being human is the capacity to care, to reach out to others, and explore the relationships we build. The book is about how caregivers serve, and even sacrifice, for those in need and can use their own soul as a tour guide for periods of rest and self-care, to ponder, reflect, and grow – and handle feelings of helplessness, fears, and pain – in the midst of a whirlwind of activity. Free.

‘Live Your Happy’

Pathways of Light Reverend Maria Felipe subtitled her book based on core teaching from A Course in Miracles “Find the Love Within.” That’s also the goal of her workshop this Sunday, February 10, at Unity of Santa Barbara, where she will follow a talk during the morning service with a two-hour dip into connecting with your inner teacher. Dissolving the “Cuckoo voice” of the ego, releasing past and future barriers in just two minutes, and releasing inner judgments are among the elements of the “Live Your Happy” workshop, taking place 12:30-2:30 pm with a suggested donation of $25. Visit www.santabarbaraunity.org/live-your-happy-rev-maria-felipe.