In 1976, Swamini Turiyasangitananda (Alice Coltrane) established The Vedantic Center in the Santa Monica Mountains neighborhood of Agoura Hills, later naming it the Sai Anantam Ashram. This 50-acre ashram served as a sanctuary where seekers of all faiths were welcomed to experience sublime teachings on spiritual life.

As Michelle Coltrane has shared, “Sunday services were filled with music, chanting, meditation and my mother’s discourses.” These discourses we a meditation on the transformational power of sound & that by chanting the names of god one could connect to divine consciousness. Music, as the foundation of Turiya’s spiritual practice, was led in epic bhajan sessions where chants were guided by the swirl and pulse of her Wurlitzer organ into uncharted, cosmic planes.

It was around this time in 1977 when an organization of young naturalists calling themselves TreePeople moved into the site of an old fire station further east along these same mountains. Working from the belief that the simple act of planting a tree can carry broader societal effects, TreePeople took root within the 45-acre Coldwater Canyon Park, just down the 101 from the The Vedantic Center. Today, TreePeople is one of the largest environmental organizations in Southern California and are responsible for planting more than 3 million trees in LA County. When the Sai Anantam Ashram burnt in 2018’s devastating Woolsey Fire, TreePeople were on the front lines of habitat restoration, bringing thousands of native plants back into the landscape.

This August 27th, on the night of Swamini Turiyasangitananda’s 88th solar return, we tie these legacies of communal determination together and bring this devotional music back into the familiar scents of coast live oaks and black walnut that first carried the ashram into being. Please bring an offering the evening’s altar & we look forward to sharing this sunset with you.

This evening is presented and organized by Surya Botofasina and Carlos Niño with love and support from TreePeople and Living Earth. This is an evening for living music, for breathing music, with bhajans and progressive sounds inspired from Turiyasangitananda’s devotional music as played by a child of the Sai Anantam Ashram.