This article was written by a Caplin News reporter living in Tulum, Mexico, and was first published in the Tulum Times.
At 5 p.m., a kirtan, a form of mantra meditation music, kicked off Tulum Yoga Music Fest, a week of yoga and music that ended this past Sunday.
It happened at Azulik, an oceanfront hotel in the hotel zone of Tulum, a city on the Yucatán peninsula. In a dome there, walls of woven wood strips rose on every side and met high overhead, glowing amber in the low light. Nearly 100 people filled the room, the biggest crowd of the festival’s opening day, founder and organizer Narayani Golden said. Performers and attendees sat cross-legged and barefoot in a wide circle, facing the center.
The festival opened on the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, observed each year on September 21, and one day after World Wellness Weekend, a global initiative that planned 20,000 free wellness experiences in 187 countries. For seven days, it put the town’s teachers, musicians, artists, and healers on a single calendar, and it closes this evening with a free celebration at the Tulum Municipal Palace.
Among the circle, musicians played handpan, harmonium, guitar, mridanga, and kartals. The mridanga is a two-headed drum, and kartals are small hand cymbals, both rooted in the kirtan tradition. They sang sacred mantras in call-and-response, and the circle answered back in harmony.
When the last mantra echoed, many lay back on the floor for savasana, yoga’s final resting pose. Nicolas Neduchal, a local musician, guided the room into a meditation through the gentle sounds of the handpan, a round steel instrument played with the fingertips. For a moment the dome fell still, bodies flat against the floor.
As the night drew to a close, the circle rose once more, singing and dancing to “Because I Love You So Much,” which Iván Baray, a singer-songwriter and sound healer, called one of the most beloved songs in Tulum’s medicine music community. Medicine music refers to devotional songs often shared in ceremonial circles.
It was the last song of opening night, sung by the whole room.
Golden said a festival like this is “bringing back high season energy” to Tulum.
“Wellness all day long at every venue,” she said. “People in their element.”
She led a reiki sound experience with musician Andros at 10 a.m. that Monday and described both that session and the evening kirtan at Azulik as powerful moments of the community coming together.
Organizers call Tulum “a world hub for yoga,” a reputation built over years of retreats and ceremonies, as The Tulum Times reported in its report on spiritual tourism in Tulum. Conference Week, which ran through Friday, offered classes, workshops, kirtans, and sound baths, according to the festival’s website. Events were spread across venues and partners from hotels to wellness centers, including Holistika, Kan, Azulik, and Ahau.
Azulik fits the spirit of the week. Roth Architecture, which designed the hotel, says it was raised off the ground to avoid disturbing the ecosystem below and built from materials native to the region, with views of the sea and the surrounding jungle.
The lineup lists more than 40 teachers and artists. Among them is Jayson Barniske, founder of Ashtanga Yoga Tulum, who has been teaching yoga for 20 years and is a student of Tim Miller, the first American certified by K. Pattabhi Jois to teach Ashtanga yoga. Baray, known as Shivan Dharma, is also on the program, along with meditation guide Emanuele Righes, who helped bring local facilitators together for the event. The festival’s press release also names yoga teachers Jay Hari, Yosef Zur, and José Troche, as well as musicians Red Monk and Skye Walker.
The week built to Festival Day on Saturday, September 26, at Oasis Tulum in the La Veleta neighborhood. The program ran from day into night with yoga, live music, DJs, healing arts, workshops, and a conscious market, according to the website. It also featured fire performances and talks by members of Tulum’s crypto community on solarpunk ideas, renewable energy, and the role of technology in a more sustainable future. Among the speakers was Tere Castagnino, co-founder of Like Management Group and an organizer of Tulum Crypto Fest.
