Kirtan: Another Way to Get High on Yoga

I accepted a friend's invitation to have tea and go chanting last night, despite my strong desire to stay home and get drunk with Iggy Pop.

It's really a sin that I've only been to Dobrá Tea a few times because it is agonizingly lovely. Asheville's resident tea house is a fantastic facilitator for the magic of a tea ritual; no matter what an asshole I feel like upon entering, a sense of peace takes me up in its overbearing arms and says "STFU, you're fine."  The three of us girls shared a pot of lavender & lemon balm, a pleasant fusion of relaxation and stimulation. Before we shoved off, two of us even convinced our sugar-wary friend to surrender to lavender cake. Resistance is futile.

Probably using this photo illegally. Sry. Namaste

Afterwards we headed to the River Arts District (barely beating the train! yuurrss) for the Sangita Devi kirtan hosted by Nourish & Flourish every Tuesday night.  I hadn't been chanting in a couple of months, and while my night could have easily gone another way, I just kept following the feet that led me exactly where I needed to be.

It was a pretty full house; the crowd seems to grow and diversify each time I attend (it's not just for hippies anymore).  I sat down and sank in.

The act of chanting is another form of yoga called bhakti, not unlike the very physical kind (hatha) we typically think of as yoga.  Bhakti is a means of uniting with our divine energy through the heart, through devotion, through the calling of the energies by their names. Like a hymn, but much more powerful (and fun) in my opinion. This practice is not just for nutty Hare Krishnas; while I don't believe in the personified story versions of the ancient gods, I do believe in the power of sound. And I believe in myself.

Just as we chant "Om" before and after a hatha yoga practice, we do this in bhakti in order to address the divine and say "yo, I'm here. Let's do this."  And if you call it, it will come. Chanting these sounds is like sending a text that always gets a response. In conjunction with breath and intention, the sounds themselves are codes that invite this divine energy to work its magic in your life. 

    

The point is to go beyond your mind and let the energy move through you. Meditation through sound and movement (cue the head bobbing and zany dancing, though I've seen crazier things at rock concerts). Each time I practice this kind of yoga, it's that much easier to plug in. There came a point about halfway through that my eyelids felt so light and effortlessly closed, as if they were actually open. It wasn't Katie singing anymore, it was the part of me that has no name. Actually, no, thousands of names.

At the end I felt electric. Not wired, but woozy, like there really was something moving through my body. Not to get too hooey here, but during closing prayers I surrendered to a vision of my heart connected to everyone else's in the room, a vague artery system. It didn't last long because the more conscious I was of it, the more I urged it to happen instead of letting it happen, and I woke up. Lame.

You never know until you try. Experience kirtan at Nourish & Flourish every Tuesday night, 7:30-9. 

347 Depot St. #201, 28801

xx

             

  

Yoga Drunk

Fuck, it's hot in here was naturally my first thought as I stepped into the Asheville Community Yoga studio, lined wall-to-wall with fellow yoga-goers. We were at capacity, 55 of us packed together for the Wednesday night Hot Vinyasa Flow with Michael.

Now I admit I have a habit of going on yoga kicks, like anything else; I keep it up for a few months and let it slide away in enthusiastic pursuit of other things i.e. alcohol, cigarettes, melancholy, internet TV. The usual.

But I always come back to yoga.  I used to think it was simply because it made my body feel good, as when I am not physically active on the regular, my body feels like shit and I slip easily into depression. Not to mention that in our media culture the "yoga bod" is the most important thing ever. If you don't have it, you're useless. You'd better at least have a great Twitter following.

But I am reminded, as I've been exploring yoga in community (I used to exclusively practice alone), that the point of yoga is not necessarily one extreme or the other. It's not purely a physical regimen ("otherwise we're all at Gold's Gym," said Michael), but neither need we approach it as an intimidating, restrictive spiritual pursuit that can only be appreciated in some future, nebulous context of "enlightenment."  In another life, even. Nah, enlightenment is right here, right now. And right here. And right now. Oh, there it is again.

As sweat poured off me (not quite as awkwardly as it once did), Michael emphasized over and over how little the actual poses have to do with our advancement as practitioners or "enlightenment" or whatever. He values the poses at about 5% and the breath at 95%. I'm thinking, Great, dude, I'm about to turn my mat into a slip-n-slide and it doesn't even matter. But I see truth to that. The physicality of it is not the ultimate goal; asanas are there as a tool to nudge us along, tools to help us practice the art of finding joy and righteousness in something as challenging as One Legged Crow or as simple as bending over. I compare it to taking a psychedelic. The drug itself is not the point of the experience, merely a shortcut to see what we might never know is really there. 

What's really there, what's beyond the veil, is appreciation and joy for, like, everything. Greater love for not only our families, careers, and mountains and things, but deep, guttural joy in listening to a great album. Sending a letter. Washing the dishes. There's even room for that former lover who was such a disappointment and really fucking hurt you and obviously has no heart at all. In that vein, we must be just as loving with ourselves, as our perception of a relationship says more about us than the other person.

This kind of love is accessed through intention and breath. It is the force that drives us to be there, to show up to the practice for the sake of being a better person. It's about finding that sweet spot, the unlimited reserve of sweet spots that allow us to feel how good everything around us really feels. We could twist ourselves into pretzels all day, but that's just empty muscle memory without awareness of the vital and sizzling molecules in and around our bodies as we do it. 

I've been going to these classes with clear intentions, which has been fun to play with. Mostly they revolve around a similar idea: to cultivate greater power over the things/people I let drain me and to check that power with the softness to meet every reality with compassion. Like finding a solid muscular stance in Warrior Two and then relaxing into alignment, out of strength comes softness. My experimentation with intention has helped me to realize that I really do practice yoga not only in service to myself but also to everyone else. What good am I to this world if I cannot give and receive love gracefully? And you?

Enlightenment is not for a select few. It's not something that exists in a far-off place. Heaven is a place on earth, and it's available to us any time we want to access it.  All we have to do is breathe it in.

www.ashevillecommunityyoga.com