Vox Lumina

A day on our beautiful Youghigheny river is a good day!
Friends, songs, stories, prayers for the water, 2 immature bald eagle sightings, a lush green diverse deciduous carpet covering the old old mountains and a very expressive sky- these are the blessings that make life so rich.

This was our latest women’s ReWilding adventure.
Join us next time!

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Early Bird pricing until July 1.
If you are ready to work the chakra energies within you to consciously create your inspired life, be a member of an amazing cohort of chakra-activated people cheering each other on to manifest the vision of their lives, and be coached by an experienced guide in the field of energy activation and embodiment for 30 years, join us!

Applications are now open.

Dear Glorious & Gifted Human,

Today I am delighted to invite you to join MANIFEST:
my Transformational Coaching Program for Consciously Creating Your Inspired Life.


MANIFEST is an upgraded, improved and integrated version
of the best of the best of the best that I have been sharing
in my 25 years of

* teaching transformational techniques,

* creating transformational tools,

* providing transformational experiences

and

* coaching people to transform themselves and their lives.


In MANIFEST I'm your Mentor & Midwife,
coaching you to conceive & create your inspired life....

a life you love,

the life you've dreamed of,

a life of fulfillment, joy and purpose.


Yes of course, we work with the chakra energies!

In MANIFEST we actually take our Chakra Activation tools & techniques "off the yoga mat" so to speak, and learn/practice APPLYING these distinct and powerful energies to the very important task of manifesting our unique dreams and visions and creating our inspired and inspiring lives!

In MANIFEST we invite/allow/welcome and authorize the energy of INSPIRATION to move through us from Crown Chakra to Root Chakra, for a remarkable and transformational 7 month journey.


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We are chakra-activated people engaged in chakra-themed conversations and approaching life's challenges in chakra-educated ways with others from our community of Chakra Explorers all over the world!


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The MANIFEST Transformational Coaching Experience is a high-engagement, small group coaching program and a limited number of spots are available for this year's cohort.

Our MANIFEST journey begins on Wednesday July 24!

(Early Bird Pricing is available until July 1!)

For more information and to apply:

https://brookesmokelin.kartra.com/page/MANIFEST2024

MANIFEST is:

* Live Monthly Zoom Energy Activation Sessions (2.5 hours)

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* Daily (M-F) engagement activities (videos, contemplations, practices, assignments, etc.)

* Weekly Group Coaching Calls (Tuesdays from 7:30-8:30 pm)

* Monthly Private Transformational Coaching Calls

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Ok Wild Women!
If you are looking for a wonderful way to begin summer and get outside and play in the woods and in the water with some other wonderful wild women- join us for our next ReWilding adventure!

This Friday and Saturday, June 28-29th we are camping out in the Laurel Highlands and then spending a day paddling down the calm and scenic Middle Youghigheny River together!

Just a few spots left!
Join us!

https://www.chakrayogahealing.com/events/women-rewilding-river-adventure

Vox Lumina is the musical, mystical Queen-Priestess of Orga, the Land of Organically Generated Sound, Time and Form.

The musical medicine she brings is meant to awaken us all to the supreme beauty and intelligence of the natural world.

She weaves a rich tapestry from various musical elements.

It might be the ecstatic “mantra trance-chanting” from her self-released album Vox Lumina’s Music is Medicine and years as a kirtan-wallah leading sacred song circles in yoga studios and at festivals across the country,

or the deeply woven musical matrix of her Pythogrean-tuned crystal bowls that she has been weaving since the last century.

Sometimes she combines them both with a high-vibing, super harmonious water-loving song set as The Musical Medicine Experience.

Harmonizing these elements with the gifts of her musical partner Patrick Keddie and his own rich roots in blue grass and sacred music, their soulful “Appalachian water-healing, trance-chanting” variety is truly unique.
‍
On the holy days Vox Lumina sings the Song of Light, the ancient Orga’n tale of the Original Ones- Sky Earth, Sun, Moon, and River- and how they dreamed themselves to be.

The album-story was released in 2012 and is done live as a performance-ritual to cultivate reverence and respect for our beautiful rivers and to “make water sacred again”.

Since 1996 each Vox Lumina musical experience produces a “vibrationally enhanced alchemical elixir” - The Sonic Tonic- that is offered to the local bodies of water as musical medicine to raise the vibration of bodies of water everywhere.

Come here our Appalachian water-healing trance-chanting music to raise the spirits and move the bodies at the
Summer Solstice Campout in Stoneboro, PA this weekend!

We make musical medicine at 7 pm!🌞

Link in bio of for tickets!
Day passes and weekend passes available.

Summer Solstice Campout 🌞 Musician highlight:

Featuring Artist Brooke Smokelin of Vox Lumina

Appalachian water-healing trance-chanting music to raise the spirits and move the bodies

🎨Vox Lumina is the musical, mystical, mythical Queen-Priestess of Orga, the Land of Organically Generated Sound, Time and Form. The musical medicine she brings is meant to awaken us all to the supreme beauty and intelligence of the natural world. She weaves a rich tapestry from various musical elements. It might be the ecstatic “mantra trance-chanting" from her self-released album Vox Lumina’s Music is Medicine and years as a kirtan-wallah leading sacred song circles in yoga studios and at festivals across the country, or the deeply woven musical matrix of her Pythogrean-tuned crystal bowls that she has been weaving since the last century. Sometimes she combines them both with a high-vibing, super harmonious water-loving song set as The Musical Medicine Experience. Harmonizing these elements with the gifts of her musical partner Patrick Keddie and his own rich roots in blue grass and sacred music, their soulful "Appalachian water-healing, trance-chanting" variety is truly unique.
‍
On the holy days Vox Lumina sings the Song of Light, the ancient Orga’n tale of the Original Ones- Sky Earth, Sun, Moon, and River- and how they dreamed themselves to be. The album-story was released in 2012 and is done live as a performance-ritual to cultivate reverence and respect for our beautiful rivers and to "make water sacred again". Since 1996 each Vox Lumina musical experience produces a “vibrationally enhanced alchemical elixir” - The Sonic Tonic- that is offered to the local bodies of water as musical medicine to raise the vibration of all water everywhere.

social links:


FB:https://www.facebook.com/voxluminamusic

https://www.chakrayogahealing.com/vox-lumina

Check out the Summer Solstice Campout 🌞 event page for more details, tickets, and volunteer forms!

Link in bio of

We will see you 8 days!

Life force expresses itself in an infinite variety of forms.
I am so grateful for this deep listening.

Summertime music festival season has officially begun and I’m so happy to say I’ll be a part of it as a performer again this year! 🤩🤩🤩

It’s been a while, but I’m back on my unicorn
and super delighted to share all the water-loving songs I carry in my heart with all of you.

First up, my dear friend Michael is hosting a sweet gathering of folks on his farm just a bit north of Pittsburgh for a Summer Solstice Campout.

Saturday June 15- Sunday June 16

The amazing Patrick Keddie and I will be doing a musical medicine set at 7 pm on Saturday

Let your heart be filled and uplifted with beautiful song and gorgeous harmonies and genuine love.

Go here for all the details and to get your tickets:

https://harmonyacresfarms.org/summer-solstice-campout?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3kJZMSSQuUzXcVMQjZNW0a1bjFOqz1AXCT0Ip0Ro897V9N1-i6P_E6y2M_aem_AWqupKA2UHxuhRD6r-2lVwYUvl_oXIX-npucNQUr6Z3P-5uUUvsMy6meefyu2BsXHtS4ualwfGADQzzO5eZsLIjn

Giving thanks to all the music-makers of the world and all the music-loving people that come out and listen and dance and sing and feel the music and all the people that create events/ have places where music is shared.

Giving thanks for music!

Waterfalls keep a river wild, watersong filling up the space and reminding All of the beauty and power of water.

I love when a big river still has waterfalls. And especially a big river with dams interfering with its natural rhythms and life cycles.

But the big and beautiful New River of West Virginia transcends that complication, and proudly sings her water-falling song.

There was a delightful “shimmering” happening everywhere I looked-

an aliveness, a vitality,
a brightness, a lightness-

In the water and on the surface
In the thick ferns on the hillside
And in the wind in the leaves of the trees.

Always a treat to be out and about when the wild azaleas are in bloom here in PA!

Rhododendron periclymenoides- thank you!

What a welcome sight!

The eastern red-spotted newt presenting in its terrestrial red eft form. 

In the early spring the newt larvae hatch from large deposits of 200-400 eggs attached to the undersides of aquatic plants and live in that aquatic form for another 2-3 months.

They then take to land in their terrestrial red eft form (pictured).

They are highly poisonous to predators that try to eat them, thus their bright “I dare you” coloring and lack of camouflage.

After 1-3 years as red efts in the forests, the salamanders move back to the water, where they change again into the adult red-spotted newt and begin breeding.

Amphibians are awesome!

Amphibians include frogs, toads, salamanders, and newts. All can breathe and absorb water through their very thin skin.

“Amphibian” comes from a Greek word meaning “double life”; they spend part of their lives in water and part on land.

They are born with gills, and while some outgrow them and grow lungs as they transform into adults, others retain their gills for their entire lives.

Amphibians are the most threatened class of animals in nature. They are extremely susceptible to pollution because of their porous eggs and semipermeable skin.

Thank you Eastern Red-Spotted Newt!

If you’ve hung around me for at least a little bit,
you know I have big joy for rainbows.

You know I’ll pull the car over anywhere when the conditions are right- that slightest bit of sunshine when the rain is still falling- and I’ll get out and look around and just wait for the magical moment to occur, when the diffuse full spectrum of light organizes itself into those vivid bands of color. It’s a holy moment and it lights me up and lifts me up every time!

Yesterday here in my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA,
I experienced 4 separate rainbow occurrences in one day-

🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

that’s a new record for me-
an avid “rainbow hunter”-
and I am replete with rainbow joy.

🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

How many rainbows have you seen in one day?

🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

One glorious day in Lake Tahoe, California, in the fall of 2022, the conditions were right and I saw three rainbows in an afternoon. That was a good day!

And yesterday had even more rainbow joy.

What else is possible?!?!

May our hearts continue to open to allow for more and more blessings. 💗

The funny thing about rainbows is that it’s really about where you are looking at the time.

If you are looking/ driving in one direction, it’s pretty dark and gloomy and has that whole feel going on.

But a slight shift in perspective, and a little bit of patience, combined with the right earthly conditions of course, reveals the full spectrum of light in all its glory.

Thank you Rainbow!

#412

All set up and ready to rock and roll on this next recording session at the super fabulous Institute for the Musical Arts in Goshen, Massachusetts!

In addition to the inspiring natural beauty of this place, this school of music and music camp was built by rock legend of F***y and her partner , and has been going strong for over 20 years.

I have the great honor and pleasure of working with my dear friend and long time musical collaborator Janelle Burdell aka on this project as well.


Plus a legendary analog recording system (SSL 4040G mixing board from Berklee College of Music combined by engineer Judy Elliot Brown) and a studio designed by Walters-Storyk Design (he did Electric Lady studio for Jimi Hendrix) and another stupendous sound engineer, David Chalfant.

Wow.

There is so much music that comes to me and through me and it’s been high time to get into the studio to record these moments and get them out into the world- to you!

Today I’ll be recording a few of my crystal bowl sound bath meditations and the narration for the Song of Light.

🤘🤘🤘🤘



Plus, 👆activating a bit of energy today for sure, thanks to my tools and techniques!

Let’s go!

Rock on!

Shine on!

Something wonderful was born today!

Some kind of wonderful creature decided it was time to break out of its shell and shine brightly as all it was meant to be!

I hope it was you!

Yesterday was my birthday and I had a delightful day!

Our family birthday tradition is a long hike in the woods. 🙂

And since it’s my day, much patience is mustered and we walk more slowly than usual so my true Taurean nature can nerd-out about all the plants and take lots of pictures of all the beautiful & curious things and sit down by the creek and listen to the watersong a long while
and sing and pray and give thanks
and skip stones across the water together.

Big love to and for being so patient with me 🙄 and making it such a special day!

This life is a blessing.

Of course it has its ups and downs and trials and tribulations and no one is exepmt from those.

But gratefully,
the joy always seems to outweigh the sorrow
and the heart is buoyant and resilient
and the sun continues to shine.

Happy Earth Day!

Well this is my big Earth Day/ Heart Chakra/ Almost- Birthday joy right here:

Today we had the biggest turnout EVER for our 9 Mile Run Stream Sweep in Frick Park!

Many thanks to for organizing these important events and for for promoting it and supporting the volunteers. 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

It was such a wonderful feeling to have all these friends and neighbors caring for the waters together,
cleaning up our beloved local stream and getting the gunk and the trash out.

What was extra special was hearing other park-goers and passers by say “thank you” to all of us as we were working.
I’m sure that at least some of them will be inspired to join us for the next stream sweep.

That’s having a positive impact on community. 👍

I’m super grateful for all the people that showed up and all the people that made it happen.

And I’m super grateful for our ecological community:
our beautiful park and the beautiful streams that flow through it and provide drink/ beauty/ song/ vitality to all of the other living things.

Now let’s reduce our use of plastics and pollutants! 💪

#412

The sweet homecoming following the sweet homecoming...

There is nothing quite like coming home after a big traveling adventure, after being immersed in the very unfamiliar of another culture, everything new and unexpected, delightful and disruptive as it all may be.

I found it exciting to be a foreigner in a far away place, like a child again, not understanding the language or customs, discovering/ curious/ open-hearted and open-minded, having to rely upon others to get to places safely and to translate what is being said.

Going to India was a spiritual homecoming for me. My feet on the ground of that place, I immediately felt “at home” there spiritually in ways that it’s taken me a lifetime to cultivate here. My body in the waters of Ganga Ma felt as “at home” as any body of water I’ve been in on this continent. The yoga, the music, the food, the chanting, the river-reverence- all felt wonderfully familiar to me.

And I will speak more to these “mysteries of remembrance” as time flows on.

But for right now I want to speak an appreciation for my sweet return to Pittsburgh.

Here I know all the streets and where they lead. I know the names and the songs of the birds, I know the plants and their medicine, I know the names of the people I meet in the street and they know mine- my dear neighbors and friends, my students and clients, the sweet familiar face of my son and my mom and my dad.

There is no replacement for this joy.
And there is no replacement for traveling joy either.
Each occupies a different place; one balances out the other.
I am grateful to feel this balance in this moment.

We live in a big beautiful world and we get to explore it if we choose to. And come home when we are ready. And enjoy that as well.

Pittsburgh- I love you and I am grateful for you. Thank you for providing me with a sense of home and belonging in this world.

I will continue to celebrate and sing the praises of our sacred confluence and our beautiful rivers and our unique place and people wherever I go.
There’s no place quite like our 412.

#412

We spent 3 days rafting Ganga Ma from Devprayag to Rishikesh, about a 70 km/ 45 mile run.

Our first two days we had the river to ourselves (!!!),
camping in the canyon on untouched beaches with no footprints,
with only the sounds of barking deer and peacocks,
and the silent shadows of the huge Himalayan eagle passing by.

Access to this section was due to permits obtained by - many thanks for this incredible experience!

Many thanks also to and for your expertise and guidance on the water!

On the last day we were joined by hundreds of other boaters sharing both the recreational and spiritual bliss of being on and in the Ganga.

This was also somewhat new to me:
I've rafted many rivers in the US and celebrated the sport of it with many blissful boaters over the years.

But being on the Ganga was totally different.

It was a sacred and spiritual experience as well, a rite of passage, a holy thing.

Boats full of young men and women would pass us by, everyone smiling and singing together chants to Ganga Ma.

And also to Shiva, who caught the young Ganga in his dreaded mane as she first came from the heavens to the high Himalayas and thereby protected humanity from what would have been sheer destruction from her full flow and force.

Again, a sense of togetherness and pilgrimage.
A deeply spiritual and celebrated connection to the land and the waters.

(P.S. As an environmental educator and water worker here in America I was so inspired and heartened to witness all of this!
This is what I've envisioned 25 years ago and work to create here in our country, in our land with our rivers- this kind of river-loving celebration and conversation and culture. May this inspiration from India fuel me and flow through me and may it be so more and more!)

This beautiful force turns mountains to stone and sand...

The gorgeous goddess Ganga Ma
and the landscape she has formed
with all her years of flow and singing….

Dhari Devi (goddess) Temple on the Alakananda at Rudprayag, one of the 5 holy confluences.

This goddess is the protector of the Char Dham pilgrimage which includes the 4 sacred sites/temples of Yamunotri (source of Yamuna River) Gangotri (source of Ganga Ma) Kedarnath and Badrinath.

A beautiful scene here:
people bathing in Ganga Ma below the temple;
the temple’s foundational pillars rising up out of her waters,
incense, chanting, marigold offerings.

Jai Ma!

In the Uttarakhand region of northern India there are
5 holy confluences (prayag) and
5 temples (kedar) and
5 shrines (badri) that are part of an ancient pilgrimage/ prayer trail that has been walked for thousands of years.

Devprayag.
The “divine confluence” where the Alakananda and the Bhaigarathi come together to make Ganga Ma.

This sacred place is where we put our three rafts in the water (2 for participants and 1 for food and supplies and crew) and began our 3 day journey on this wildly powerful, voluptuous and voluminous, gorgeous goddess of a river back to Rishikesh.

This part of the journey was particularly amazing to me- as I’ve never experienced the spiritual energy and physical excitement of being on a pilgrimage to a holy place with hundreds if not thousands of other people at the same time. It’s remarkable.

People of all ages and sizes from all over India make this trek, to Tungnath Temple- the highest Shiva temple in the world- and then beyond to the summit of Chandrashila.

The elevation is significant- the summit is 4000 meters/ 13123 feet!

Along the way everyone is smiling and laughing and chanting and saying encouraging things to get each other to the top. It’s like a big team effort to get there and everyone was interested in lifting each other up and so very delighted that as westerners we had come so far to make this sacred journey.

Such a beautiful place and such beautiful people.

My body was lifted high that day but my heart was lifted even higher.

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Look at these beauties.

Pipsissewa and Ghost Pipe.

Their forms inform mine.

Are you ready to consciously create your inspired life?

Join me in MANIFEST!

Are you ready to MANIFEST?
Join us!
Use your chakra energies to consciously create your inspired life!
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Just a few spots left for tomorrow’s Salt Cave Sound Bath!

Call 724-260-0472 to get your spot!

Brooke Smokelin is here this week for our Crystal Bowl Sound Bath class. Only a few spots available.
Brooke is an experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT), IKYTA certified Kundalini Yoga Teacher, Yoga Therapist, Sound Healer, and Musician, or “Nada Yogini”. She has been a practitioner of various forms of Sound Therapy for over 25 years and works with the instruments of voice, percussion, guitar, tuning forks, and quartz crystal bowls. She is a pioneer and visionary in the field and has toured all over the country sharing her healing abilities. Class is held in the Salt Cave for the extra benefits of halotherapy.
Sign up here:
https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/ws?studioid=609067&stype=-7&sTG=33&sView=day&sLoc=0&date=07/12/23