Sometimes a remedy is closer than we think. Communal singing. The rhythm of a strumming charango in your chest. The therapeutic vibrations of harmony.

This episode helps us remember what music feel like in our bodies and the power it has to minister to our spirits as well as our communities. We revisit The Religious Five Quartet and Jim James from past festivals and talk with Appalatin band members Fernando Moya and Yani Vozos about the spiritual dimension of music and its ability to heal and sustain us today.

It’s hard to miss — Appalatin’s music is good for the soul. This six member band bridges both Latin and American folk traditions and the result is a joyful convergence of energy. They somehow came together from Ecuador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Kentucky with diverse faith backgrounds that have shaped them as artists. We also find out how they’ve continued bring other people together with their joyful blend of stringed instruments, Andean flutes, and harmonies for almost 20 years! To learn more about this award-winning band and their three albums, go to www.appalatin.com.

The Festival of Faiths is delighted to welcome Appalatin to the stage Friday, November 14 at 7 pm. For tickets and more information, go to www.festivaloffaiths.org!

The Center for Interfaith Relations celebrates the diversity of faith traditions, expresses gratitude for our unity, and strengthens the role of faith in society through common action. They host the nationally renowned Festival of Faiths and offer year-round programming that fosters compassion in our world. They are also committed to sharing the insights and inspiration rooted in the wisdom of faith traditions, and strive to cultivate communities that are true to the motto of “Many Faiths, One Heart, Common Action.”

Website: www.centerforinterfaithrelations.org | www.festivaloffaiths.org
Facebook: facebook.com/festivaloffaiths
Instagram: instagram.com/festoffaiths/
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Most of us struggle with falling into two general ways of being: overstimulated and productive or disengaged and tuned out. Lay Buddhist Adam Kane offers another option; a state that occurs in a third space called “relaxed alertness”. How do we begin to build the capacity for this?

In our third episode of Holy Echoes, Adam Kane revisits a session at the 2016 Festival of Faiths featuring travel writer and prolific author Pico Iyer as he discusses the concept of Stillness and how to stay close to what is most important in our busy and overcrowded lives. Pico challenges us still today to consider how we gather our inner resources, as every major religion from Buddhism to Christianity invites us to do.

This is more than a fascinating conversation. It is a practical look at how we can train our mind to reclaim transitional moments in our everyday life, finding stillness within movement as well as without. It is in this tangible approach to finding Stillness that we unleash the incredible capacities we have within us to live in that profound third space -- a calm state of focus.

Adam will be exploring themes of compassion, inclusion and belonging in a two hour meditation workshop called "Pathways to Belonging" on Wednesday, November 12 at the Festival of Faiths! More information and tickets are available at festivaloffaiths.org.

Pico Iyer
Born in Oxford, England and educated at Eton, Oxford, and Harvard, Iyer has been based in Western Japan for 28 years and spends much of the rest of his time in a Benedictine hermitage in California. He is a prolific essayist and is known for his travel writing and has written 15 books but his 2008 book on the XIVth Dalai Lama, The Open Road, drawn from more than 30 years of talks and travels with the Tibetan leader, was a national best-seller. The same is true of his most recent book, The Art of Stillness, the second TED Original ever to be published.

Adam Kane
Adam Kane has his undergraduate degree in neuroscience and a masters degree in Buddhist Philosophy. His journey has taken him to a forest monastery, years studying Tibetan Buddhism in Nepal, and now he is interpreting, translating, writing and developing curriculum for his root lamas and various other lamas and khenpos since 2013. He is based in Crestone, Colorado, and enjoys walking in the mountains in his spare time.

The Center for Interfaith Relations celebrates the diversity of faith traditions, expresses gratitude for our unity, and strengthens the role of faith in society through common action. They host the nationally renowned Festival of Faiths and offer year-round programming that fosters compassion in our world. They are also committed to sharing the insights and inspiration rooted in the wisdom of faith traditions, and strive to cultivate communities that are true to the motto of “Many Faiths, One Heart, Common Action.”

Website: www.centerforinterfaithrelations.org | www.festivaloffaiths.org
Facebook: facebook.com/festivaloffaiths
Instagram: instagram.com/festoffaiths/
TikTok: tiktok.com/@festoffaiths
X/Twitter: twitter.com/FestofFaiths
YouTube: youtube.com/FestofFaiths

“The value of religious pluralism is the thing that makes me most proud to be an American,” guest Guthrie Graves Fitzsimmons explains in our second episode as he responds to a segment from the Festival of Faiths that features Rev. Dr. Martin Marty from 2005.

As we near the 250th anniversary of our country breaking away from state religion, we look at what it means to celebrate religious freedom as a national community. How can we embrace the full integrity of our faith without seeing the “other” as a threat? How do we honor the particularities of other practices of faith rather than just focusing on our common ground?

We explore this and much more in this essential dialogue for the time in which we live!

Listen to the full session with Dr. Martin Marty from the 2005 Festival of Faiths that is referenced in this episode here.

The Reverend Dr. Martin E. Marty (1928-2025) was a renowned theologian, religious historian, and public intellectual known as a leading interpreter of American religion. An ordained Lutheran pastor, he was also a prolific author, a professor at the University of Chicago, and an influential civil rights activist and public theologian who examined religion's role in modern society. He is recognized for his extensive body of work, including the influential book Righteous Empire and his work on fundamentalism.

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons serves as the vice president of programs and strategy at Interfaith Alliance, where he directs the organization's integrated advocacy campaigns and movement building. He is also an MSNBC columnist and the author of Just Faith: Reclaiming Progressive Christianity. Guthrie is pursuing a Doctor of Ministry in Prophetic Leadership degree from Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado and lives with his husband in Washington, D.C.

The Center for Interfaith Relations celebrates the diversity of faith traditions, expresses gratitude for our unity, and strengthens the role of faith in society through common action. They host the nationally renowned Festival of Faiths and offer year-round programming that fosters compassion in our world. They are also committed to sharing the insights and inspiration rooted in the wisdom of faith traditions, and strive to cultivate communities that are true to the motto of “Many Faiths, One Heart, Common Action.”

Website: www.centerforinterfaithrelations.org | www.festivaloffaiths.org
Facebook: facebook.com/festivaloffaiths
Instagram: instagram.com/festoffaiths/
TikTok: tiktok.com/@festoffaiths
X/Twitter: twitter.com/FestofFaiths
YouTube: youtube.com/FestofFaiths