Mountain Song: Prayers to Meet the Moment

Arnaé Batson is a Grammy nominated singer, songwriter and culture carrier based in Los Angeles.  She uses music, song and storytelling to empower and inspire lovers of singing to find their voices, reawaken joy and create spiritual pathways for healing.  Her dedication to racial and environmental justice is an extension of her work with the internationally acclaimed women’s ensemble, Sweet Honey In The Rock.

Arnaé’s music reflects the R&B, gospel and blues sounds of her youth and is deeply rooted in the spiritual, religious and historical experiences of Black America.  She has earned the distinction of being one of the foremost interpreters and song leaders of music from the Underground Railroad, the Modern Civil Rights Movement and Black American Sacred Music.

In addition to her work as a professional studio session singer, Arnaé serves as  founder and artistic director of the Hearts Afire Community Choir, a grassroots acapella ensemble.  She also contributes historic and original compositions to the Art/Theomusicology Working Group of the California Poor People’s Campaign.  

Arnaé remains grateful for every opportunity to build true connections and provide the musical salve necessary for the healing of personal and social wounds for all who are willing.

Aaron Johnson is a facilitator, public speaker, and touch activist working to identify and interrupt barriers between people. As co-founder of both Holistic Resistance and Grief to Action, Aaron takes the time to hold the stories of black people around homophobia, transphobia, internalized racism, and those that are Chronically UnderTouched. Because oppression is a part of historical and present American culture, the long-term impact of those trauma stories should be acknowledged and held as a map for our collective healing. Aaron Johnson practices and invites various methods of moving through these stories, such as the communal listening ear, sound healing, meditation, and closeness to the earth.

Shireen “Riyo” Amini (they/them) is a queer, trans masculine, Puerto Rican-Iranian American, earth-loving song creator, rhythm maker, and community facilitator based in Portland, Oregon. As a human, they carry a deep commitment to their own liberation path and vision of a more just world. As an artist, they believe strongly in music’s power to propel cultural revolution. Shireen blends pop, rock, hip hop, latin, and roots sensibilities with socially-conscious themes as a singer-songwriter and creates modern medicine music for community singing. In song circles, they hold transformational space, leading joyful, groove-based songs, evoking tenderness, and often engaging participants in the rhythm and ceremony of it all. Stay tuned for Shireen’s first community song album in-the-works, tentatively titled “Gather Your Resilience: Medicine Songs for Liberation.”

Te Martin​ is a song-keeper and ritual artist. They were born on Ramaytush Ohlone land in san francisco and have been shaped by Ocean, Redwoods, circus arts, and theater games. They facilitate oral tradition singing classes and workshops that focus on song as a tool for collective liberation, somatic regulation, and ancestral connection. Te served as co-organizer of Thrive Street Choir in the san francisco bay area for six years, founded “Murmuration: A Sebastopol Community Choir” in 2024, and is a student of the Irish bodhrán drum. Listen to their album, “Water & Bones” and their music video, “May This Body Be a Bridge”.

yeshe ( Y ) salz (they/them) is a poet, song-tender, ritualist  and community organizer whose life and passion is dedicated to building collective resilience in times of deep change. As a song-tender, Y draws on the radical, intersectional legacies of their mixed-heritage Jewish ancestors. They weave anti-imperial, post-empiric stories, song, myth, ritual and clowning into multi-genre community ritual space. Yesh serves as Co-Director for Restoring Lifeways, a cross-cultural network of communities practicing both traditional and emergent forms of cultural healing and regeneration and are currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Y strives to live into their inherited name as a Soloveichik or “Nightingale” bringing song into (and up from) the darkest places. 

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