Reflections on Becoming the Vessel with Ayla Nereo

It’s been over a decade since I first shared this interview with the radiant artist Ayla Nereo.

Thirteen years ago, her music was a guiding thread during a formative time in my life—when I was just beginning to teach yoga, live in my tiny one-room cabin in Berkeley, and open my heart to love, mystery, and what felt like destiny unfolding.

This past weekend, I had the joy of watching Ayla perform again, this time with my daughter beside me... and hers in the audience, too. Two little girls, born of mothers who have followed their callings, got to meet this weekend while their mamas witnessed the beauty of this next generation. As mothers now, we are vessels, still, in a new way.

There’s something deeply humbling about watching someone you’ve known for so long keep going—not just as an artist, but as a soul who walks her talk. Ayla’s path has always felt aligned with the essence of what I teach women on the priestess path: to become a vessel for something greater. To let yourself be used, sung through, breathed by the Great Mystery.

Even now, Ayla’s words from that original interview echo in my heart:

“The most important part of the work I do is what I don’t do. It’s the things I can’t take credit for. It’s the way that life or spirit or soul... this higher good of all beings that can come through each of us... that feels like the most important part.”

This is the invitation ~ to open to become a vessel for something greater than ourselves.

To offer our will, to divine will, and to show up to the mystery of how we are guided and what moves through us.

It’s the dance of becoming so empty, so surrendered, that spirit can pour through us.

As I watched her on stage again, I saw a sister devoted to the vibration, to prayer, to life and to becoming the sacred vessel.

When I first heard Ayla’s voice, it was through a mixed CD gifted by a friend. At that time, I was just stepping into my own courage, just beginning to teach, to share my voice. And her music felt like an invitation to trust in what was moving through me.

She said back then:

“I have to continuously check what my relationship to the music and the world is—if I am feeling self-important about the music and wanting it to serve me, or if I’m remembering that I am serving it. It’s that difference.”

That difference is everything. In performance, in motherhood, in healing, in creating—why we do the thing matters as much as what we do.

I also remember her honesty about the path, the fear, the trembling that I also faced in showing up to a path of service:

“I think the biggest fear I have experienced is self-doubt... and the fear of being a powerful woman… But a simple way of undoing the fear is with prayer: ‘May I step out of the way. May I receive what wants to come through. May I stand in gratitude that I get to do this.’”

Years later, her words continue to offer guidance:

I learned the vibration I stand in when I perform the song is literally the vibration the song would go out on. If I am worried about what other people think or caught up in this or that fear, then that’s the vibration the music comes out on.  If I’m really grateful, happy, intentional, and surrendered, then that’s the vibration the music comes out on.

Now I don’t get nervous, it’s more about remembering what I am there to do, it is not about me, and when I remind myself that, the show is better.  If I treat it like it’s me, Ayla getting up on stage sharing with everyone, it’s a lot of pressure to try and create the best outcome for everyone from one human being.

If I let all of that go, and just remind myself that I’m not trying to do anything here, I’m just trying to receive as well as possible, then the best possible outcome that I can’t even create or conceive of by myself happens. 

To witness Ayla singing, surrendering, is to witness a living embodiment of courage, devotion, and consistency. An invitation to empty out, open up and allow spirit to move through us as the living vessel.

May we remember how far we can go when we say yes to the call…

May we keep choosing to show up amidst the initiations we are faced with.

May sisterhood, motherhood, artistry, and purpose continue to move us to our highest path of service.