Costa Rica-New Year’s Ecstatic Chant with Jai Uttal, Deva Premal & Miten, Jahnavi Harrison, and Marianela Ortiz @ Blue Spirit

This seven-day ecstatic chant retreat is a kirtan celebration over the turn of the year at Blue Spirit Retreat Center in Garza, Limón, Costa Rica. It is for people drawn to bhakti, mantra and group singing who want to spend a week chanting together by the ocean. Deva Premal & Miten, Jai Uttal, Jahnavi Harrison and Marianela Ortiz lead the week, with Shanti Sounds featured.

What to Expect

Ecstatic Chant is a yearly gathering at Blue Spirit, described by the organizers as a deeply spiritual seven-day celebration. The days are built around daily chanting sessions, with movement classes alongside them and healthy, delicious meals between. The themes attached to the event give a sense of the atmosphere: bhakti, community, sangha, harmonium, harmony, joy and love, with the sound of waves and warm ocean close by.

The week begins on an evening and ends on a morning seven days later, so it carries you across the New Year with the same group of people. Specific session times are not set out, so expect the rhythm of the days to be shared once you arrive.

About Jai Uttal

Jai Uttal was born in New York City and grew up in a home filled with jazz, rock and world music. That early exposure shaped an eclectic style and led him toward kirtan. For nearly five decades he has been a prominent figure in world music, leading kirtan and teaching the practice of chanting. His work is less a performance than an invitation to a communal experience of devotion and joy.

About Deva Premal & Miten

Deva Premal & Miten are a chant duo who share music, mantras and meditations. Their YouTube channel describes them as Grammy-nominated and as the world's leading chant artists. Their work is built around mantra, and includes a mantra book, a course on exploring mantras and an online Gayatri Sangha community with satsang circles. Miten and Deva Premal have also written the books In the Garden of the Mystic and NO WATER NO MOON: A Pilgrimage, and they perform with the Deva Premal & Miten Band. They run the Gayatri Fund, described as Nepal-Compassion In Action.

About Jahnavi Harrison

Jahnavi Harrison is a musician, writer, artist and practitioner of bhakti-yoga. She spent her formative years at Bhaktivedanta Manor in England, where mantra chanting and sacred art were part of everyday life. Trained in Western and Eastern classical music and dance, she has offered her voice and violin for nearly 20 years in performances of original spiritual music and mantra kirtan around the world. Now based in California, she regularly leads gatherings, sound bath experiences, concerts and retreats.

The Setting

Blue Spirit Retreat Center sits in Garza, in the Guanacaste Province of Costa Rica, by the Pacific coast. The organizers point to its beautiful grounds and the uplifting energy of the country, summed up in their closing words: Pura Vida.