AUTUMN CYCLE :: OCT 26 - DEC 21

Mondays, 6:00-8:00pm
hybrid in-person + virtual

(N. Portland location to be announced)

 
 

Who We Are

We are a collective of singers who gather as an act of radical care for self and community.

The singing keeps us strong.

We channel our resources–time, money, energy, presence, love, and voice–to care for the most vulnerable in our community. This includes, but is not limited to: children, elders, parents, immigrants, refugees, trans, neurodiverse, Black, Brown, Indigenous and People of Color, and our houseless kin.

We are not a choir.
We do not perform.
We sing as an antidote to fear.
We sing to grieve, to heal, to play, to be in joy.
We sing for pleasure.
We sing when things don’t make sense.
We sing to regulate our nervous systems.
We sing at life’s thresholds, those liminal places of transition bound to our health, career, relationships, becoming, birth, death, and even in the ordinary everyday times.
We sing for it all.

We sing because we can.
Because we must.
Because we were born for this.

 
 

Join our beloved community!

Click below to become a member of Songha.

Membership is charged via Patreon at $60/month. You can join or cancel at any time.

 

What to Expect

Our weekly gatherings are offered in 8-week cycles each season (autumn, winter, spring, and summer). However, our community is in touch year-round on Patreon and with workshops and retreats offered periodically. Each of our weekly gatherings is two hours, which includes time before our circle to land softly with refreshments, quietude, and connection with each other. In our circle, we tend to our body, mind, and spirit through gentle movement, mindfulness meditation, writing, and song. There is time for silent individual reflection and group sharing woven throughout. All is an invitation, nothing required or expected. All is sacred.

 

The Heart of Our Practice

We gather to tend to our spiritual well-being through singing, meditation, movement, and writing in beloved community. These modalities are at the heart of our practice, and, while they are rooted in ancient Buddhist lineages, Chinese medicine, and other earth honoring wisdom traditions, our community is not a religious or faith-based community. We tend to our spiritual selves free from religious dogma, and with the agreement that we sing in defense of life, liberation, and sovereignty for all beings and the earth.

movement

qigong, yoga, and gentle stretching

meditation

guided mindfulness meditation

song

simple songs taught by ear that speak to our spiritual nature and our human experience

writing

written reflection, poetry, prose, or song

 
 

What’s included?

Our guides

audrey voon • Songha Founder + Steward

singing, songweaving, and mindfulness meditation

Josephine Woolington

writing, yoga, and meditation

Kathy Prewitt

qigong

MJ Molyneux

mindfulness meditation and yoga

 

our origins

The seeds for Songha were born in the heart of our founder and steward, audrey voon, and have been cultivated over the past few years as humanity has continued to move from crisis to crisis–from a global pandemic and racial upheaval to genocide, climate destruction, and war after unfounded and reckless war. We are in the midst of what the late environmental activist Joanna Macy called a Great Turning, a shift from the Industrial Growth Society to a life-sustaining civilization. We are waking up to our place in this world, to our spiritual nature, and to our sacred stewardship of this life. And it is painful.

As humanity finds our way, growing numbers of us find ourselves seeking community rooted in social and ecological consciousness, anchored in mutual care, and honoring of our spiritual nature. We have been harmed by the version of faith we were steeped in as children, a subscription to faith that has been handed down generation after generation, accumulating with it all the trauma of our ancestors. We yearn for a community of wisdom and care to fill the space that the church once occupied, without the dogma of religion. A community of practice, of care, of song where leadership is not hierarchical, but multidimensional. Where the needs of the most vulnerable are centered, and where all are taken care of.

Following the birth of her second child, audrey found herself in this yearning once more–wishing to be in conversation about her experiences as a spiritual being, wanting deeply to have the familiarity and consistency of a group of soul friends to be in practice with. She found herself dreaming of a single community with whom she could not only meditate, but sing and move and nourish her body. A group devoted to radical care for self, our close circles, and our broader local and global family.

She wanted church without The Church.

So, she decided to plant the seeds that had been germinating in her heart. She started to speak her truth out into the world in conversations with friends and family. She found her sentiments were resonant with what others in her community were also wanting: a beloved, singing-centric community.

“I want a sangha* of singers!” she heard herself saying one day.

And, just like that, Songha was born.

 
 

Join our beloved community!

Click below to become a member of Songha.

Membership is charged via Patreon at $60/month. You can join or cancel at any time.

 
 

*The word sangha in Sanskrit and Pali means “community.” In buddhism, one’s sangha is our beloved community of practice, the people with whom we choose to gather and learn and grow spiritually. As we are a beloved community of kindred spirits who love to sing, the song, naturally, found its home in our Songha.