Handwashed and Ironed

Reading from Wednesday, October 7, 2015 yoga class

From an article entitled "Quieting the Voice of Perfection" by Shannon Sexton on the Yoga International website

She begins the article talking about when she was 20 years old and attended a summer yoga program.  She had excelled in hatha yoga classes for a few years and thought that she had potential as a contortionist and was going to join Cirque du Soleil and be on her way to fame.  She was shocked when she arrived and found out that they were going to study yogic scriptures and learn meditation. She was there to chill out, eat vegetarian food and do poses for several hours a day.  She found out that the other students in attendance were closer to contortion-ism than she would ever be, but she was stubborn and kept pushing and injured herself so badly she couldn't do poses for a month.  SO... with nothing else to do she attended lectures she normally wouldn't have been interested in and decided to slow down and see what this spiritual place had to offer her.   And... she found kirtan!!!

And I quote:

"One of the most accessible techniques was kirtan, a simple form of sacred chanting.  I had been studying voice, so I was eager to explore a different kind of singing.  And kirtan, I soon learned, was the opposite of my classical training.  Instead of standing on stage and singing scripted music for an audience, kirtan is a casual call-and-response sing-along.  The kirtan leader begins the songs slowly, then gradually increases the speed and volume."

After she returned to school after the camp she reverted to her old ways, staying up late, eating badly, breathing badly, breaking hearts.  Then....

"I remembered that I could reap some of the benefits of meditation from chanting, so I decided to give it a try.  And since there weren't any live kirtans in my area, I settled for playing chanting CDs on my Walkman while trekking to class, and singing along to the stereo. I noticed that my breath began to open, my mind became more focused and my spirits lifted, and soon I was chanting whenever I had a chance.

I had studied voice for several years, but something had always been missing.  I was cursed with an infinite, inverse perfectionism complex.   When I forgot about technique and sang from the heart, I discovered a rich, deep soulfulness in my voice that I never knew I had.  Singing, for once, was effortless. Chanting also broadened my perspective.  Suddenly I remembered that my life was bigger than my latest breakup, bad mood, or bout of writer's block.  I was even bigger than my body, my ego, my mind.  As I sang the mantras, I was quieted and purified.  It was like taking a happy pill.

Today, I live at the Institute year-round and sing kirtan every week.  Some days when I join the circle of singers and the music begins, I'm crabby, irreverent, reluctant to sing.  I ask myself, Why am I here?  I hate yoga.  I am the worst kirtan leader on the planet.  I open my mouth expecting to growl, but within a few phrases I'm sweetened by the mantra and the melody and I'm singing from the heart. Although it usually takes some time for the whole group to get in sync, at some point everything clicks, the mood shifts, and the music flows forth like a river after a storm. We are swept up in the current and carried along.  Life is good.  I realize I came in feeling like a pair of crumpled pants, and now I've been handwashed and ironed and hung on a clothesline in the country.  I am swaying in a summer breeze--I feel smooth and fresh and light."