I had a beautiful opportunity to teach with Wah this past Tuesday evening. The combination of asana and chanting was exquisite. The evening began with Wah remembering what it was like when she started yoga. It was people exchanging secret messages to each other as if it were a drug deal. When she began yoga it was thought of as somewhat odd. She said,”my brother thought I had gone off the deep end.” I, too remember chanting long ago at Richard Freeman’s studio wondering how my family would view chanting, yoga and my strong desire to pursue Indian philosophy. Yoga has been popularized in this country so much I’m not sure if we should call some classes yoga. Some styles seem more like glorified aerobics. This is another story ,however.
Wah played the Anusara invocation and we all sat in silence for some time. We began asana with a story about Emma,my nine year old daughter. Emma had insisted at 6 AM that morning that I stay with her in bed,singing,”All You Need is Love” instead of meditating. I did as I was reminded of my teachers words, enlightenment is here,in our every day ordinary engagements. You don’t have to go to a cave to get enlightened. You just have to wake up to the everyday,the extraordinary hiding in plain site. We worked our way towards Anjaneyasana looking for the extraordinary everywhere. Our evening culminated in a chant to Rama. We all felt more connected and a peaceful wave of ecstatic love poured through us. We all wished that Wah could come every week to serenade us with her powerful voice. My longing to play my harmonium and chant is once again pulling on my heart. This is one of my hopes for my home studio,to play and chant and sing together on and off our mats. (More on my home studio to come)
As I head into my last weekend of immersion for this year, I feel a calm and peaceful presence that an evening of chanting and yoga asana has offered to me and many others. I look forward to more.
