brings to her music many years of experience as both a yoga teacher, healing practitioner, poet and musician.  As a youngster she gravitated toward folk music such as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Peter Paul & Mary, Pete Seeger and Joni Mitchell.  Megan started on violin at age 11, but was playing Baroque recorder in an ensemble when she was 14 (“which contributed to my life-long love of Baroque, Medieval and modal music such as the Aeolian scale.”).  Two years later she discovered the flute (“the instrument closest to my heart”).  During high school in Pennsylvania she studied with the principal flutist of the Pittsburgh Symphony.  Chaskey earned her BA Degree in Literature with a minor in Music at Bennington College in Vermont.  During those years she also studied choreography, music composition and jazz and classical flute.  She went on to earn her Masters Degree in Education at Lesley College in Massachusetts. 

She lived in England for eight years with her poet husband, Scott Chaskey, where she first learned about meditation, Tibetan chanting and throat singing.  After they returned to the US, Chaskey started Zen Meditation followed by  Naam Yoga and Universal Kabbalah.  She has taught Naam Yoga and Naam mantra meditation not only to adults, but also to junior and senior high students for nearly 30 years.  She now teaches privately and at workshops and retreats.

Chaskey's books of poetry - Voice, Heartwood and Birdsong Under the Wisdom Tree, Collected Poems - are available at her website www.meganchaskey.com
where she additionally offers one-on-one Universal Kabbalah readings and Harmonyum Healing treatments.

Her musical tastes have always embraced Irish folk, traditional world music and acoustic New Age musicians. Once she started on the path of Naam Yoga she found her spirit home in the spiritual musical teachings of the Sikh masters - traveling minstrel sages 600 years ago - who set their wisdom to music and sang their teachings as they traveled. They put to music verses of their own as well as Persian poets and other mystics. Following in this tradition, Chaskey has set the Sikh mantras to her own melodies that often arrive to her through meditation.

Chaskey’s form of meditation practice, singing Naam “opened me to my true voice.  I began singing at the end of my yoga classes, while people rested in deep relaxation, and their positive responses planted a new seed of creative expression which led me to capture and share this music by recording albums.” 

She met musician Steve Eaton who helped her create her first two albums -- Golden Bowl of Naam and Surrounded by Naam -- “sacred music based on the powerful mantras of Naam Yoga.”  Chaskey began to recognize the power of live percussion as the underlying foundation for the vibratory effects of sacred music.  This led her to enlist music therapist and innovative percussionist Mike Guglielmo to work with her on her following two recordings -- Light of Naam and Naam Radiance.  Guglielmo introduced Chaskey to award-winning multi-instrumentalist, arranger and recording engineer Scott Petito (Brubeck Brothers, Chick Corea, Stevie Wonder, The Band and numerous other major acts).  

“Although there are different varieties of yoga and chanting, these practices have become beneficial to many people,” explains Chaskey.  “The opening up to everyone of these once-elusive, sacred teachings that at one time were passed down only to the elect few in order to keep the traditions intact, has now allowed us access to ways to evolve spiritually by means of taking care of all levels of our being, physically and emotionally, in harmony with the universal laws of nature.  My purpose for creating the music on Naam Radiance is to inspire others in this beneficial personal journey that anyone can take.”