The Murmuration
2019. It’s a Friday night, and we’re wiggling around in the final throes of soundcheck and setup, in a generously sized hall off of Union Square in New York City. The walls are red-orange, the warm wood floors are well worn from the feet and hands of thousands of yogis, there’s a sweet little Ganesha statue in the corner with all of its devotional adornments: votives, nag champa, marigolds.
The band sits on the floor, at eye level with the guests. The short microphone stands are angled just so: one toward Adam who is leading, two to me and Kallia, who are singing. One is pointed to the harmonium, one to the tablas, and one to Sean and his magic banjo (among the many stringed instruments he has in tow). Tonight there is a flute player, an ethereal bonus. Adam has arranged in front of him a faded photograph of his mother, who left her body long ago, and of his teacher Shyamdas, and the great teacher Maharaji. The room is already full. People sit on cushions, and blankets, the less mobile on chairs, the ones who know they will be the first ones dancing stand in the back. An expectant kinetic energy is in the air.
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Those of us on the “stage” drop into our still center, and become deeply quiet. We open up to listen, to receive the light and transmission. The silence passes wordlessly, to the first row and then the second and so on, until the entire space is also still.
Adam plays the first note, a middle C and drones a big deep resonant Om, the sound of Pranava, the primordial hum of creation. Big breaths all around, and all the assembled voices join in. With the first Om, you know that this is already an attuned group, present and ready to chant. We have arrived as separate bodies, but in the next couple of hours, we will lift up and out and off the earth, become one organism, a murmuration. The drums will come alive, the boundaries will blur between us, people will laugh and cry, some will dance a frenzied praise, some will drop to the floor and release. We will lose track of time. And then we will land again, together.
We will land again with Adam’s sweet quiet blessing prayers and reminders of how amazing it is to have this life in a body, no matter where it takes us. At the end, there will be scattered claps and groans and cries for more, and slowly we will break back out to our individual selves, return to our normal lives, more than a little high on breath and communion.
I already expect all of this to happen, as it’s what has happened every time I’ve joined in the call and response chanting of Kirtan, this collective practice of mantra. It’s happened every time we’ve brought the chants and mantras out to people, too, in Germany, Argentina, India- in Amherst, Massachusetts and in Saratoga Springs, New York. In hundreds of places around the world, yoga studios and festivals and living rooms. When Adam leads, he brings his heart and his intense musicality and leadership, and I, as a response singer, am sort of a fluffer, an uplifter for the room. Response singers play the role of giving people permission to allow their love and longing to be expressed through their voice without reservation. If I’m leading, in offering my voice, I am also entrained, enchanted, and opened to ecstasy.
Headbanging or utterly tender, kirtan takes us to all of these places that are taboo: out of control, surrendered, weeping, in wonder, awe and beauty. It is a predictable access point to joy. For me and many others, mantra forms a kind of spiritual scaffolding which increasingly holds us in an inner atmosphere of Love, Joy and Gratitude, where everything is seen as sacred and ensouled.
I didn’t start out in expressive traditions, nor did I have a potent voice. I learned this things. As a kid I was in the Catholic tradition, which involved dolorous ritual kneeling and standing; later, in the Presbyterian church, we kept a respectful stillness (the mainline protestant churches are sometimes called the “frozen chosen”). I remember a yearning for the gospel choir experience - the moving, dancing, shouting, joy of the black church. That somehow this was in my genetic or karmic memory, but had been utterly tamped down into the cultural frame of “good behavior”. There was a consistent message in the cultures I grew up in that a poised restraint was indicative of class and status; and there were the gender commands of how a good woman, a lady, should behave- which would not involve throwing your head back, filled with the light, crying out to the divine in love and gratitude.
That has all changed.
What is mantra, why does it work, how can you engage with it?
In this section, I’m going to talk about mantra, kirtan and devotional singing; about quantum sound (including vibration, resonance and frequency); about shaping energy with the breath and accessing the incredible energy reserve of maha kundalini; about channeling and focusing sound to heal the body-mind-spirit; about cultivating a devotional mood and the practice of bhakti yoga; about communities of practice.
About releasing the shackles of conditioning and becoming free to express through your voice and the instrument of your body.
This post is an excerpt from Pt. 2 of Mantra, Tantra, Ayahuasca: Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll in the Search for the Sacred
Links for this section: