A VILLAGE THAT SANG

Eighteen Summers at the Zenith Summer Camp
"Some places shape us so deeply that, even years later,
we still carry them within us. For eighteen summers,
...Zenith Camp was that place for me."

A village that appeared each summer


Every summer, high in the mountains of Ticino, something extraordinary happened.

Where cows had grazed only weeks before, hundreds of people came together to build an entire temporary village. One by one, giant white tents appeared like a mirage. Kitchens, meditation spaces, platforms and meeting places slowly emerged from the landscape until the mountains became home to a living community.

At the end of the summer, everything disappeared again. The tents came down, the platforms were dismantled, and the meadow quietly returned to the cows.
For a few weeks each year, however, another way of living became possible.

One candle, many paths


The camp was founded by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, son of the Indian Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan, whose vision of a Universal Worship deeply inspired its spirit.
Rather than asking people to follow one religion, the invitation was to discover the wisdom they shared.

In the Universal Worship ceremony, representatives of different spiritual traditions each lit a candle from one central flame—a simple gesture expressing that many paths can illuminate the same mystery.

As a young man, this made perfect sense to me.
Teachers from many traditions came to share their perspectives, while music, silence, meditation and service naturally intertwined throughout daily life.
Picture

Hazrat Inayat Khan & his son Pir Viliyat Khan

Learning to build community


Zenith wasn't simply a summer retreat. It was a village.
People cooked together, built together, sang together, worked together and cared for one another. Community wasn't discussed as an idea—it was practised every day.

It was also where I learned one of the simplest and most beautiful greetings I've ever known: placing our hearts together and breathing quietly for a few moments, allowing the hearts to greet each other before words arrived.


Every morning the river reminded us
we belonged to the mountain.

Singing the village awake


After several years I was invited to become ceremony leader for the daily gatherings. Three times a day, before breakfast, lunch and dinner, between eighty and one hundred and fifty people gathered in a great circle in the centre of the camp. Together we sang the village into being.

Those moments taught me that singing is much more than music. It synchronises breathing, attention and presence. Within a few minutes, strangers became a community. Years later, this understanding would become one of the foundations of Feeling Sound.

Building together


Zenith Camp taught me that beauty is something people create together.
Every summer we built a circular wooden platform almost twenty metres across, rising four metres above the hillside. It took weeks to build.

Every year, when the enormous white tent was finally raised, dozens of people stood around the edge, holding ropes, singing together while the great centre pole slowly lifted into place. It remains one of the most beautiful acts of collective creation I have ever experienced.

Passing it on


For several summers I also co-led the youth camp, discovering how naturally young people respond when they are trusted with responsibility, creativity and song. Watching teenagers become a community through shared work, music and play confirmed something I still believe today: people flourish when they are invited to contribute rather than simply participate.

The Village Within

After ten years I became one of the camp's co-directors, helping guide Zenith for another eight summers. Eventually I felt called to dedicate myself fully to music and to the path that would become Feeling Sound.
Yet much of what I do today was born there. especially the conviction that music can help people remember how to become a village.

One practice has accompanied me ever since: the Elemental Breaths. Breathing with Earth, Water, Fire and Air taught me to experience nature not as something outside myself, but as something I already belong to. I still begin many workshops with these simple but powerful breaths.