GABRIELLE SILVA’S STORY
ONCE UPON A TIME I was born on Seattle’s Beacon Hill in the old Marine Hospital that is now the Amazon.com building. My Grandparents were farmers and I spent a lot of time on their farm in California.
Gabrielle and Grampa down on the farm
My father was an incredibly talented cartoonist, could do impressions, comedy, danced, and sang like Bing Crosby.
My mother was a compulsively creative artist and crafts designer who made dolls and teddy bears and just about anything else you can imagine.
We traveled extensively from Polynesia to New England and almost always had a dog.
Stan and Amelia
Holding up the ceiling while flying...I can't do this anymore.
RAGANANDA IS BORN!
I worked my first professional music gig at age 12, playing a suitcase pump organ for the chaplain performing the Christian services aboard the battleships of Pearl Harbor on Christmas morning.
I was lucky to be whisked up into the North Cascade Mountains at 18 to chop wood and carry water with my dog, Steve. I stayed there for 5 years until I made it to Colorado to sing in a country band, ‘Dusty Drapes and the Dusters’, no kidding. A few years of singing and playing guitar in jazz clubs followed with ‘Fly and the Zippers’, no kidding, and then I got my mission.
Promo picture in Brazil
My mom and I created the Earth’s first chakra doll in Skykomish, Washington on October 18, 1976. I held that doll and knew that my destiny was before me. Almost immediately I started getting the big picture of Ragananda’s mission on earth.
The musical tales started to come through and my life was dedicated to becoming proficient at the skills involved in modern storytelling. I worked in the film industry in Los Angeles, studied mythology through Joseph Campbell’s work, continued to write music and taught jazz theory and voice.
I took Ragananda to the Findhorn Community in northern Scotland in 1980 and performed ‘Ragananda’s Wish and a Rainbow’ puppet show with the children of Findhorn in their brand new Universal Hall.
THE ADVENTURE
I lived for a year in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. I sang in a little nightclub on the beach, taught English, and learned about the diversity of our many earth cultures.
I was a cook on a treasure ship in the Bahamas and the crew on a fishing boat going up the Inside Passage from Seattle to Alaska.
I wrote and published a spiritual adventure novel called ‘BLUE TREASURE’ set on the treasure ship and I studied Permaculture at the Permaculture Institute of North America on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound.
Always, I was pursuing a deeper, expanded awareness of the gift of Presence and Blessing; of life as an adventure in blessing.
After 25 years of making the dolls, I took a break for 3 years. I was a pet sitter and spent my time hiking with dogs and painting and requesting further acceleration of the life of blessing, with every breath, throughout the day and night.
My trusty helpers, Peaches and Luka
In the fall of 2003 I got the signal to get back into Ragananda. I pulled out the tubs of doll parts and the file drawers of stories and songs and shows and started orchestrating the ‘coming out’ of THE EARTH’S FIRST CHAKRA DOLL! It’s been a fantastic life’s journey getting to this point.
Ragananda is my life’s work, my greatest teacher, and it’s my greatest joy to be making her available to you through Ragananda.com.
Many blessings to all!
— Gabrielle Silva
