The Water Poem

The Water Poem – Ram Dass & AWARÉ

The Water Poem is one of Ram Dass and AWARÉ‘s most-streamed compositions. This six-minute meditation on water as messenger and memory has become a cornerstone of contemporary healing music.

Wordless Vocals That Transcend Language

Created through improvisational co-creation, The Water Poem features wordless vocals—vocables that bypass language to express emotion in its purest form. These haunting, lyricless vocalizations flow like water itself, carrying feeling without the constraints of spoken words.

The vocals are not lyrics but vocables—spontaneous, non-lexical sounds that translate the depth of human experience beyond what language can articulate. This approach allows listeners to project their own emotions and experiences onto the music, making The Water Poem a deeply personal journey for each person who encounters it.

The Story Behind The Water Poem

Born at Niagara Falls during one of Ram Dass’s most profound moments—learning his unborn child might not survive—this composition channels raw emotion into sonic healing. Staring at the vastness of the falls, unable to process the wonder or hear the booming sounds, Ram Dass found himself confronting unimaginable grief while separated from his pregnant wife by an entire coast.

Water became both witness and teacher: carrying grief, offering solace, and reminding us that feelings, like water, need to flow freely to find their way. The Water Poem emerged from this experience as an ode to water’s power as a messenger and healer.

The Creative Process

Recorded live together with minimal planning, the heartbeat percussion, silken strings, and improvised vocals emerge organically as the music unfolds. Ram Dass describes the creative approach: “We tried to minimize how much we thought about the music intellectually, and instead leaned into the feelings that the music brought up for us.”

The musicians would sit down with a guitar riff, violin motif, or chord progression and simply start playing together, programming a beat with the drum sequencer and then tracking vocals, guitar, and violin live. This improvisational method is at the heart of what makes The Water Poem so powerful—it captures genuine emotion in real time.

A Global Healing Tool

The result is a masterwork of improvisational healing music. Listeners worldwide have embraced The Water Poem as a tool for meditation, grief processing, emotional release, and spiritual practice—making it one of the most powerful examples of wordless vocal music in contemporary healing arts.

From the EP And Now He Has Wings, The Water Poem invites us to turn our attention to the secrets of water, awakening messages and memories that live in the water that is part of us and part of every living being. Water is a carrier of life, the connection between everything that lives, the memories of all life on this planet, the power of feeling, the eternal wisdom, and her cleansing and purifying qualities.

 

Credits

Composed by: Ram Dass Khalsa, Bogdan Djukic, Matias Da Viá

Performers:

Ram Dass Khalsa: Nylon Guitar, Electric Guitar, Vocals, Drum Programming

Bogdan Djukic: Drum Programming, Violin, Vocals, Percussion

Matías Da Via: Vocals

Jared May: Bass

Production:

Recorded, Edited, and Mixed by Ram Dass Khalsa at Siddha Sound

Mastered by Piper Payne at Infrasonic Sound

From the Album: And Now He Has Wings – EP

Release Date: October 29, 2021

Duration: 6:02

Genre: Healing Music, Meditation Music, Improvisational Folk, Sacred Music