Sometimes researching alternative spiritual communities feels less like drawing a family tree and more like untangling a spiderweb.
You start with one festival.
A familiar name appears.
That name leads to another event.
Another musician appears.
Then you discover that several of the same people have been creating music, ceremonies, retreats and gatherings together for years.
That is essentially what happened while I was looking into Bhakti Bliss Yoga & Music Festival.
One of the names that caught my attention was Eric Mandala.
Eric has connections to the Ontario Rainbow Family and also leads a musical project called Eric Mandala & The Rainbow Tribe. He has also repeatedly appeared at Bhakti Bliss.
That produced an obvious question:
Is Bhakti Bliss connected to the Rainbow Family?
The answer turns out to be more interesting than either a simple yes or a simple no.
There are connections.
There are several of them.
But we need to be very precise about what those connections actually establish.
Before Bhakti Bliss, There Was Bhakti in the Woods
Bhakti Bliss did not simply appear from nowhere.
Its predecessor was Bhakti in the Woods Yoga & Music Festival, an Ottawa-area festival that ran for approximately ten years. Rebecca White Raven, who was involved in organizing Bhakti in the Woods, later initiated Bhakti Bliss after the older festival ended. A current biography for Rebecca describes Bhakti Bliss as the not-for-profit organization that followed the end of Bhakti in the Woods’ ten-year run.
This establishes something important immediately:
There is direct community continuity between Bhakti in the Woods and Bhakti Bliss.
They should not be treated as two completely unrelated festivals that happened to have similar names.
We can also get a reasonably good picture of what Bhakti in the Woods was trying to create.
A description of the 2019 festival called it a gathering dedicated to wholeness, sacred sound, healing, community, sustainability and what it termed the “New Earth.” Programming included chants, healing songs and other spiritual and wellness activities intended to create a sense of community and connection with the natural world.
An earlier fundraiser for the 2018 festival went even further in describing its organizational character. Bhakti in the Woods called itself a small, grassroots, non-corporate festival and emphasized community, sound healing, networking with local businesses and yoga organizations, and artists supporting one another.
If you have spent time around Pagan festivals, Rainbow Gatherings, transformational festivals or other alternative spiritual communities, much of that language probably sounds familiar.
That similarity by itself proves absolutely nothing.
But it provides the cultural environment in which the later personal connections make considerably more sense.
Rebecca White Raven Is the Continuity Point
Rebecca is particularly important to understanding this story.
She wasn’t simply somebody who performed at both festivals.
Her biography states that she helped organize Bhakti in the Woods and subsequently initiated Bhakti Bliss when the earlier festival ended.
Rebecca has also been heavily involved in Ottawa’s broader alternative-spirituality scene, organizing chanting, sound healing and ecstatic-dance events.
And this is where our network begins to expand.
Archived social-media material places Rebecca White Raven, Eric Mandala, Kazandra Schellenger and Zu Zen together as hosts of events within that same Ottawa spiritual and musical community.
That is important.
We are no longer looking at:
Bhakti Bliss hires Eric Mandala to perform.
Instead, we can see that some of these relationships predate Bhakti Bliss itself.
Rebecca, Eric and Zu were already operating within overlapping musical and spiritual circles while Rebecca was associated with Bhakti in the Woods.
Enter Eric Mandala
Eric Mandala is probably the most visible connection because his Rainbow associations are unusually easy to document.
Public Ontario Rainbow Family material identifies Eric Mandala in that community, including an older Ontario Rainbow Family post where he is identified as an administrator while discussing plans for a Canadian Rainbow gathering.
The Ontario Rainbow Family’s public material also carries posts promoting music by Eric Mandala & The Rainbow Tribe.
Eric’s Rainbow Tribe project is itself extensively documented.
The 2021 album Warriors of Light Unite is credited to Eric Mandala & The Rainbow Tribe. Its collaborators include Zu Zen, JS “Snowlion” McPherson, Geneviève Grenier and several others. Eric’s own description of the project repeatedly emphasizes unity, peace, collective consciousness and the idea of humanity as one family.
Eric has meanwhile become a recurring Bhakti Bliss performer.
He appeared on the official 2025 Bhakti Bliss lineup, where he was presented as an ecstatic-dance music producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist.
And as of this weekend, August 7–9, 2026, Bhakti Bliss is again promoting Eric Mandala, this time for a kirtan performance built around sacred mantra, music and communal singing.
So Eric’s presence at Bhakti Bliss isn’t a single historical appearance.
It is recurring.
But “The Rainbow Tribe” and “The Rainbow Family” Are Not Automatically the Same Thing
This is where we have to resist an extremely tempting shortcut.
Eric Mandala & The Rainbow Tribe is a musical project.
The Rainbow Family of Living Light is a decentralized countercultural community associated with Rainbow Gatherings.
Those names overlap.
Eric himself overlaps.
Some people around him overlap.
But we cannot simply take everybody credited on a Rainbow Tribe recording and declare that person a member of the Rainbow Family.
That would be guilt by association dressed up as research.
For example, Eric’s recordings document recurring collaborators including Zu Zen, JS McPherson, Kristina Mira, Geneviève Grenier and others.
That proves that they participate in Eric’s musical network.
It does not automatically prove their participation in Rainbow Gatherings.
Those are different propositions and need different evidence.
Zu Zen Is Another Interesting Node
Zu Zen deserves attention because she appears repeatedly across the different networks we are examining.
She appears alongside Rebecca and Eric in older Ottawa event material.
She is one of the musicians credited on Eric Mandala & The Rainbow Tribe’s Warriors of Light Unite.
Her name also appears repeatedly in publicly indexed Ontario Rainbow Family discussions involving gathering locations and community activity.
Again, I want to be precise.
A Facebook search result is not a membership certificate, particularly when discussing a community such as the Rainbow Family that doesn’t really issue membership certificates in the first place.
What it does show is that Eric isn’t the only person whose social network crosses these spaces.
The Network Begins Looking Different
If Eric had appeared once at Bhakti Bliss, the reasonable explanation would be very simple:
A festival hired a musician who happens to have Rainbow Family connections.
Nothing particularly interesting about that.
But that isn’t quite what we have.
Instead, the documented network looks something like this:
Bhakti in the Woods
↓
Rebecca White Raven helps organize the festival
↓
Rebecca is part of a wider Ottawa chanting, ecstatic-dance and spiritual-music community
↓
Rebecca appears in events alongside Eric Mandala and Zu Zen
↓
Eric has a documented Ontario Rainbow Family presence
↓
Eric creates Eric Mandala & The Rainbow Tribe with collaborators including Zu Zen and JS McPherson
↓
Bhakti in the Woods ends after approximately ten years
↓
Rebecca initiates Bhakti Bliss
↓
Eric becomes a recurring Bhakti Bliss performer
That is considerably more substantial than one performer appearing on one festival poster.
Then Bhakti Bliss Moves to Raven’s Knoll
There is yet another layer to the story.
Bhakti Bliss is currently held at Raven’s Knoll near Eganville, Ontario.
The festival’s official material identifies Raven’s Knoll as the location for its August 7–9, 2026 gathering and advertises yoga, workshops, live music, kirtan, sacred sound, meditation, breathwork, dance, vendors and communal bonfires.
That obviously makes Bhakti Bliss particularly interesting to those of us who already follow Ontario Pagan festival culture.
But here again:
Venue is not ownership.
A festival occurring at Raven’s Knoll does not mean Raven’s Knoll created it.
Likewise, performers with Rainbow Family connections appearing at Bhakti Bliss do not mean the Rainbow Family controls it.
Those distinctions become important very quickly when small alternative-spirituality communities overlap as heavily as these ones do.
What Bhakti Bliss Says It Is
Bhakti Bliss describes itself as a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to promote unity and holistic well-being through the practice of Bhakti Yoga. Its festival centres around yoga, workshops, music, kirtan and community activities.
I have found no reliable public evidence showing that the Ontario Rainbow Family owns Bhakti Bliss, operates Bhakti Bliss, controls its committee or determines its programming.
That is an important negative finding.
If somebody asks:
“Is Bhakti Bliss a Rainbow Family festival?”
I don’t think the available evidence justifies answering yes.
But Is There Rainbow Family Influence?
That is a different question.
Influence is difficult to measure because ideas do not travel with ownership papers attached.
But we can talk about social-network overlap.
And there I think the evidence is much stronger.
The continuity between Bhakti in the Woods and Bhakti Bliss is documented through Rebecca.
Rebecca, Eric and Zu operated within overlapping Ottawa music and spiritual circles.
Eric has documented involvement in Ontario Rainbow Family spaces.
Eric’s Rainbow Tribe project includes several musicians from that broader alternative-spirituality scene.
And Eric continues to be featured by Bhakti Bliss.
That is enough for me to say:
Bhakti Bliss exists within a broader spiritual and musical community that significantly overlaps with people and networks associated with Ontario Rainbow culture.
That is different from saying:
Bhakti Bliss is operated by the Rainbow Family.
I currently cannot substantiate the second statement.
Why Does This Overlap Exist?
I don’t think we need a conspiracy theory to explain it.
These communities naturally occupy similar cultural territory.
Bhakti in the Woods described itself using ideas of sacred sound, healing, sustainability, community and creating a new way of relating to one another and the Earth.
Eric’s Rainbow Tribe material talks about unity, peace, spiritual transformation, environmental and social consciousness and humanity becoming one family.
Bhakti Bliss currently promotes devotion, yoga, communal singing, meditation, movement, dance and community connection.
These aren’t identical spiritual systems.
But they provide plenty of common ground.
Musicians move between them.
Workshop facilitators move between them.
People attend several different festivals.
Friendships develop.
One community’s performer becomes another community’s organizer.
Someone who meets people at a Rainbow Gathering may later see them at ecstatic dance, kirtan, a Pagan festival or a yoga gathering.
In relatively small alternative-spirituality communities, that isn’t unusual.
And This Is Why Association Needs to Be Handled Carefully
There is another reason I wanted to write this article.
It demonstrates how easily research can go wrong.
We could find Eric Mandala at Bhakti Bliss.
We could find Eric in Ontario Rainbow Family material.
We could find the words “Rainbow Tribe.”
Then we could announce:
“Aha! Bhakti Bliss is Rainbow Family.”
Except we haven’t actually proved that.
What we have proved is much more nuanced and, frankly, more interesting.
We have found a network.
People.
Relationships.
Shared events.
Shared musicians.
Shared vocabulary.
Shared spiritual interests.
And continuity between one festival and another.
Networks matter.
But networks are not automatically organizations.
So What Can We Actually Say?
Based on the public evidence I have been able to locate, I think these statements are supportable:
Bhakti in the Woods and Bhakti Bliss are directly connected. Rebecca White Raven helped organize Bhakti in the Woods and subsequently initiated Bhakti Bliss after the former ended its approximately ten-year run.
Eric Mandala is not merely an isolated performer who appeared once. He is a recurring Bhakti Bliss participant and has established relationships with people in the wider community around its predecessor.
Eric has a documented relationship with the Ontario Rainbow Family. Publicly indexed Ontario Rainbow Family material identifies him as an administrator and shows his participation in gathering discussions and promotion of Rainbow Tribe projects.
Eric is not the only overlapping social node. Zu Zen appears in the older Rebecca/Eric community, Eric’s Rainbow Tribe music, and Ontario Rainbow Family material.
There is therefore meaningful social overlap between these communities.
But:
I have not found evidence establishing that Bhakti Bliss is owned, operated or controlled by the Rainbow Family.
And until such evidence appears, I don’t think we should say that it is.
The More Interesting Story Is the Ecosystem
Perhaps the mistake is trying to put hard organizational borders around communities that do not behave that way.
The alternative-spirituality world often operates through relationships rather than institutions.
Someone teaches yoga here.
Plays violin there.
Attends a Rainbow Gathering.
Performs at a Pagan festival.
Hosts ecstatic dance in Ottawa.
Leads kirtan somewhere else.
Then appears at another festival five years later.
Follow those relationships long enough and what emerges isn’t necessarily a secret organization.
It is an ecosystem.
Bhakti in the Woods was part of that ecosystem.
Bhakti Bliss appears to remain part of it.
Ontario Rainbow Family is another part of it.
Eric Mandala and his collaborators move through several parts of it.
And now Bhakti Bliss happens at Raven’s Knoll, placing yet another alternative-spirituality community within the same physical landscape.
That, to me, is the story worth watching.
Not because overlapping communities are inherently sinister.
They aren’t.
But because understanding the relationships between communities helps us understand how ideas, practices, people and influence actually move through modern Pagan and alternative-spirituality culture.
Sometimes the lines are organizational.
Sometimes they are spiritual.
Sometimes they are musical.
And sometimes they are simply friendships formed around a campfire many years ago.
The challenge is learning the difference.
References
Bhakti Bliss Yoga & Music Festival. (2025). 2025 lineup.
Bhakti Bliss Yoga & Music Festival. (2026). Bhakti Bliss Yoga & Music Festival.
Mandala, E., & The Rainbow Tribe. (2021). Warriors of Light Unite [Album]. Altar Records.
Mandala, E. (2023). You Are Perfect Just the Way You Are [Recording].
Mandala, E. (2025). May We Remember [Recording].
MountainGoat Yoga. (n.d.). Rebecca.
Ontario Rainbow Family. (2019–2026). Public community posts and gathering discussions.
Yogalaya. (2018). Chant-a-Thon: Bhakti in the Woods fundraiser.
Yogalaya. (2019). Bhakti in the Woods Yoga & Music Festival.