The Bhakti Women Summit is a free online three-day gathering devoted to Sacred Sound within the Bhakti tradition.
It brings together feminine wisdom-keepers, chant leaders, yoga teachers, musicians, storytellers, and practitioners, each holding a unique doorway into Bhakti, the path of devotion.
Our 2026 theme, Sacred Sound, honours the many expressions of chanting, mantra, rāga, rhythm, and voice woven throughout the Bhakti lineage. Each tradition carries its own flavour. Each teacher offers her lived experience of devotion, creating a rich tapestry of sound and spirit.
Dates & Details at a Glance
The Bhakti Women's Summitt is an ONLINE event
Registration opens: 1 March 2026
Summit dates: 25 – 27 March 2026
All sessions are held online and accessed via our private summit portal. Open globally. Welcoming yoga teachers, students, practitioners, musicians, meditators, and sincere seekers. .
Come as you are. Bring your voice and your longing to go deeper.
This is your invitation.
Who is this global online summit for?
The Sacred Sound Summit 2026 is for people who are drawn to devotional practice, deepening their embodied connection to sound, and expanding their role as leaders in spiritual community. This gathering is well-suited to:
Devotional Practitioners and Chant Lovers
If you’re passionate about mantra, kirtan (devotional chanting), sacred vibration, or the transformative power of voice and rhythm, this summit offers a supportive space to explore these practices more deeply. Participants will engage with diverse expressions of sacred sound rooted in bhakti traditions from across the world.
Yoga Teachers and Yoga Students Ready for Depth
Whether you teach movement, meditation, or sacred sound, this summit will refine your ability to integrate sound and chant into your classes, workshops, or retreats. It’s also ideal for serious yoga students who want to evolve beyond physical asana into devotional and contemplative practices.
Spiritual Creatives and Wisdom-Keepers
Musicians, storytellers, ritual facilitators, and creative practitioners who honour devotional expression will find rich connection, inspiration, and community. This event is designed to support embodied exploration, authentic voice work, and the sharing of experiential wisdom.
Women Seeking Relational, Embodied Devotion
Rooted in a lineage that recognises and uplifts women’s wisdom and leadership in spiritual spaces, the summit offers a nurturing environment where women’s voices, lived experiences, and devotional practices are central and celebrated.
Community-Oriented Seekers
If your intention is to belong to a supportive sangha (community) that honours shared learning, heartfelt connection, and collective devotion, this summit is an opportunity to grow alongside others invested in sacred, sonic practice.
In short, this summit is for people who want to experience sound as spiritual medicine, amplify their own devotional expression, and build meaningful connection within a community dedicated to the art of sacred sound.
What to expect across the 3 days of the Bhakti Women's Summit
The Bhakti Women Summit is an up-close and personal experience with a gifted range of women from all different traditions, a full spectrum of practices and viewpoints, curated to awaken curiosity, excitement, and love.
We begin with a live ceremony with Suzanne Sterling and your host, Rachel Nokes. Rachel will also hold live practice sessions on other days, a sacred space to arrive together, set an intention, and drop into the energy of the day. These are live and unrepeated, a true shared experience for everyone gathered in circle.
Throughout each day, you'll have access to sessions with our 20 global teachers, a mix of formats, deliberately and lovingly designed.
Conversations
Deep, unhurried interviews exploring each teacher's relationship to sacred sound, their lineage, and lived experience of devotion.
Experiential Sessions
You are guided, not just taught. Chant with Prema Love. Tone with Ruth Pirie. Drum with Jane Hardwicke Collings. Feel what sacred sound does in your body, not just your mind.
Research & Inquiry
Because bhakti is also an intellectual path, sessions like Dr Gemma Perry's exploration of chanting and the nervous system give us language and evidence to what you've always felt to be true
Teachers come from the UK, Australia, the United States, and beyond, bringing traditions as varied as Vedic chanting, kirtan, Sanskrit, shamanic drumming, harmonium, yoga therapy, āyurveda, and storytelling. This is not one lineage's version of sacred sound. It’s many doorways, held in one space.
Meet the Women
Behind the summit
The Bhakti Women Summit 2026 is hosted by Rachel Nokes. Rachel is a senior yoga teacher with over twenty years devoted to bhakti yoga, mantra, philosophy, and women's spiritual education. The summit exists to gather and uplift women in devotional practice by centring women’s voices, lived experience, and leadership within bhakti and yoga traditions. Rooted in bhakti as a relational, embodied path of devotion, the summit creates space for women from around the world to share wisdom, deepen practice, and learn through listening, chanting, inquiry, and community. Through collective gathering, the summit fosters connection, visibility, and belonging, honouring devotion as something cultivated together rather than in isolation.
Even though the yoga world is shaped and sustained by many women elders, teachers, and guides, men still tend to hold greater visibility and platform. While women make up over half of the global population, gender imbalance continues to influence many areas of life, including spiritual and devotional spaces.
The Bhakti Women Summit is created as a space that centers women’s voices, lived experience, and leadership within bhakti and yoga traditions. Gender-specific spaces can offer greater freedom for expression, inquiry, and embodied exploration, allowing participants to listen deeply, speak honestly, and share wisdom in community.
.png)
Rachel Nokes
.png)
Katie Rose
Ruth Pirie
Alice Miyagawa
.png)
Laura Plumb
.png)
Mignon Mukti
.png)
Jane Hardwicke Collings
.png)
Shārada Devi
.png)
Dr. Gemma Perry
.jpg)
Jenny Ni Ruiséil
.png)
Prema Love
.png)
Anandra George
.png)
Harnini Chandrasekaran
.png)
Suzanne Sterling
.png)
Amy Landry
.png)
Sheela Shankar
.png)
Audrey Sarquilla
.png)
Sally Riddell
.png)
Florance Harry
.png)
Tara Mitra
.png)
Kaya Mindiln
What you'll receive...
→ Free access to 20 sessions over three days (March 25-27) with 18 international women leaders in sacred sound, chant, mantra, and devotional practice
→ A living library of teachings, conversations, experiential practices, and research-based sessions live across three days (March 25-27)
→ Live opening ceremony each day with Suzanne Sterling and live daily chant sessions with Rachel
→ Free registration closes on 27th March. Access to all sessions throughout the full summit window, free until 30th March
→ Option to upgrade and receive lifetime access to all recordings for just $47 AUD — rising to $197 after 30th March
Dates & Details at a Glance
Registration opens: 1 March 2026
Summit dates: 25 – 27 March 2026
Free access available: until 30th March 2026
Upgrade to Lifetime All-Access:
→ Early bird: $47 AUD — on registration, or any time before 30 March
→ After 30th March: $197 AUD
All sessions are held online and accessed via our private summit portal. Open globally. Welcoming yoga teachers, students, practitioners, musicians, meditators, and sincere seekers. Transgender, non-binary, and gender-fluid community members are warmly welcome.
Come as you are. Bring your voice and your longing to go deeper.
This is your invitation.
A note from Rachel,
your host...
I fell in "like" with chanting in 2006 at an ashram in Kerala. A hundred people chanting together at 4:30am to welcome the day — it was uplifting in a way I'd never experienced. The chants would repeat in my mind throughout the day.
When I came home in 2007 and started my first yoga teacher training, I fell even deeper. I was hooked on kīrtan, on chanting the Sūtras and Bhagavad Gītā. But I had those lingering childhood doubts: "I can't sing." "You aren't musical." I was happy to let my voice blend into the crowd.
One studio even told me my chanting was "too out there" and I needed to tone it down. But I bought my first harmonium anyway in 2008. I was determined to challenge those self-limiting beliefs. I found a local kīrtan group. I practiced. I kept going.
Twenty years later, chanting is still the major part of my personal practice. It's how I connect to my heart. It's how I fall in love with the divine names. Improving pronunciation and specificity is my life's work — I hold this practice in deep reverence.
This summit is the place I would have wanted when I was earlier on my path. It's also the place I still want now. A space where we can be students again, held by teachers who understand this path.
I'm honored to share it with you.
Love Rachel
Rachel Nokes, Host of the Online Bhakti Women Summit
After five beautiful years of stewardship, Katie Rose has entrusted the legacy of the Bhakti Women Summit to Rachel Nokes with deep trust and blessing. Katie cultivated a heartfelt community grounded in sincerity, study, and shared devotion.
Stepping into this role is an honour for Rachel, who carries the summit forward with gratitude and a clear commitment to protecting its spirit.
Rachel is a senior teacher and long-time practitioner devoted to mantra, Vedic studies, and women’s spiritual education. She founded The Becoming, a global yoga philosophy and chanting collective supporting teachers in building grounded, consistent practice. She also leads spiritual pilgrimages and study journeys that connect students to lineage and place in meaningful ways.
As the new host of the Bhakti Women Summit, Rachel brings steadiness, discernment, and a deep commitment to uplifting women’s voices in sacred sound and yoga.
