Ravenna Michalsen is a Shambhala Buddhist practitioner and acclaimed singer-songwriter.
Her 2006 debut album Bloom, a collection of original devotional songs in English, is a perfect showcase for her unique style and sensibility. The Worst Horse aptly describes it as "half-acoustic, half-electronic; just right for the wee small hours."
In what I think was quite a compliment, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review last year selected the Bloom track "Machig" to accompany a special slideshow podcast/presentation of the great Don Farber's exquisite photography on their website.
Ravenna and I have known each other since 1999, when we travelled through India together as undergraduates on Antioch Education Abroad's Buddhist Studies in Bodh Gaya program. While travelling in Dharamsala at the time, I had the distinct pleasure of very briefly meeting His Holiness the Dalai Lama with Ravenna and a couple of our friends. I remember like it was yesterday the way she was beaming as we left the audience with him by way of the Tsuglagkhang (Central Chapel). It was the big, bright smile of one so truly dedicated and devoted to the practice that it has an inspiring effect on me just to think back on it.
For the last two years, Ravenna has been touring and promoting Bloom, as well as completing her upcoming album Dharmasong. (Incidentally, you can find out her touring schedule and/or her albums through either http://www.RavennaM.com or http://www.myspace.com/ravennam.) She very kindly took time out her schedule to answer my questions via email.
DANNY FISHER: Ravenna, for those who haven't yet had the pleasure of discovering you and your music, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your music? What brought you to a career making dharma music?
RAVENNA MICHALSEN: Well, my name is Ravenna Michalsen...I studied classical cello for about 14 years, but then I developed rheumatoid arthritis and had to slowly give up playing. But in 2002 I met Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and it ended up that I sang a song for him and then he wrote two songs for me to set to music. I didn't really think that much about it except that slowly I began to write more dharma-based songs. I had been doing a Ph.D. in Anthropology, but after meeting Rinpoche I dropped out and lived for a couple of years at different Buddhist retreat centers, writing more and more songs. Eventually I ended up at Tara Mandala, the retreat center founded by Tsultrim Allione, who wrote Women of Wisdom, a truly remarkable book. Tsultrim advised me to record my songs rather than return to grad school. So I did...Bloom was a pretty quick and dirty enterprise, but I toured with it for about two years and now the second album will be out in about a month.
D.F.: It seems to me like your dharma music fits into what the Shambhala community refers to as "Dharma art" or "Shambhala art"--creative work approached as practice and dedicated to producing art meant to inspire and encourage wakefulness. (This seems especially true of Bloom, with its devotional songs.) Do you think of your dharma music this way? What influences your music? What is your process of making music like?
R.M.:I guess my understanding of dharma art is that it is art done with an attitude of wakefulness, open-heartedness and genuineness--as you said...but that the product itself doesn't matter so so much. And that can get a bit tricky when you are tying to make a living off of your "product"!
But I definitely try to combine an attitude of devotion with the nuts and bolts action of writing and performing music...most of my songs I write before or after practice sessions. I just counted up that six of the eight songs on the new album (called Dharmasong), I wrote while at different retreat centers! Well, I should say, I wrote the basic lyrical and musical outlines. A lot of the little shifts and glossings that have to take place for a piece of music to be "finished" happens in rehearsal and in performance--and those are more technical changes, rather than inspirational ones.
I thought a fair amount about the dichotomy between practice-based performance and then straight up "getting the job done" performance while recording this time around. My recording engineer for most of Dharmasong was not a practitioner and I was a little worried about that in terms of getting the right motivation/intention (feeling?) for the songs. But then, just standing in front of the microphone, I kind of came to terms with the idea of: just being in reality is practice. Whether or not there are images or a shared practice experience or whathaveyou in the recording space, you can just be there, really there, and that is what can provide the lungta, the windhorse, the magic for that recording...hope that's vaguely clear!
D.F.: I'm sort of curious to hear your reflections and riffs about the contemporary dharma music scene. I'm aware of some performers and bands, but I don't know a lot about what's out there. What's out there? What do you think of it all? Where's it going?
R.M.: That's a good question! And I have no idea! I am not sure there is a contemporary dharma music scene yet. I don't know of anyone who is writing dharma music in a similar fashion to how I am going about it. I definitely know of performers who are keeping the Tibetan musical tradition alive or who are creating what is sometimes called "yoga music" (which a lot of people sometimes use for their contemplative practices), but I do not know of people out there writing songs in English about ancient and/or contemporary Buddhist figures/ideas.
It was my hope in making Bloom and now, even more so, in making Dharmasong, to really jumpstart an American dharma music movement. After studying Anthropology it is hard for me to get behind anything that exoticizes Buddhism or a Buddhist culture--which is a big reason why I write the majority of my songs in English. And yet, Buddhism's historical development is one of cultural adaptation, so there will be some inevitable blending of musical ideas and languages in the creation of a new Buddhist-based musical movement.
Bloom is definitely not one musical style, neither is Dharmasong. There is some techno influence, some folk, some bluegrass, some ambient, some choral and a little avant-garde. It is the content, rather than the musical style, that makes it "dharma music"--but too often consumers confuse musical style with content or vice versa. I want my albums to be bought by anyone who likes good music whether or not they are Buddhist...In the same way, I listen to Aretha Franklin's early gospel music, not because I am Christian, but because it is terrific music. For the American dharma music movement to be successful, both the content and the music has to be compelling to listeners.
D.F.: What can you tell us about your upcoming album? What else are you working on for the future?
R.M.: Yay! Dharmasong will be released on December 8th (through www.RavennaM.com) and I am so excited! It is an eight song album that is mostly devotional. There are two songs that were originally written by Milarepa, the 11th century Tibetan yogi, that I have adapted and included--so that is different from Bloom. There still is the theme of women in Buddhism with songs about Machig Labdron, Tara and Yeshe Tsogyal. But I would say that overall it is a more mature, developed album. It has taken almost a year to record--whereas Bloom took about a month!
After Dharmasong comes out I hope to do as many concerts on it as possible for about two years, then start on another album. At a certain point it will become clear whether this is a viable living or not. I hope it will prove to be! But if not, that is why grad school was invented. : )
D.F.: Lastly, as a chaplain, I'm curious to know more about the work you do with addicts as a meditation teacher. What can you tell us about it? What have you noticed about mindfulness meditation's role in relapse prevention?
R.M.: Well, I work about 10 hours a week teaching a mindfulness-based relapse prevention protocol to crack and alcohol addicts--both inpatient and outpatient. I am a Meditation Instructor in the Shambhala Buddhist community and that training has definitely served me well in this role--although I have definitely had to learn more about mindfulness as a practice and to do it myself. The protocol is eight sessions and it covers meditation instruction, various mindfulness practices (such as a body scan, mindful walking, mindfulness of a daily activity, etc.), and teachings on working with cravings and triggers through noticing and non-judgement.
Two things have really jumped out at me through the course of this work. One is that self-hate is such a deep destructive current in our society. Sigh. The other is that mindfuless is truly a remarkable path! It is entirely secular and deals simply with noticing reality, rather than trying to manipulate it.
We are still in the early stages of the research project, but the initial results have shown that mindfulness is effective in terms of controlling substance use. People who do the practices consistently are able to cut down their use dramatically or to stop entirely. But, like anything, they have to practice in order to get the benefits of changing their mind. In doing this work I have had to definitely watch my own hope and fear arise a lot--addiction is incredibly strong. But just being totally present while teaching and relating with the patients is really all I can offer. We'll see!
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