Purely by chants: the next holistic activity in
Newburyport
By Dinah Cardin
Friday March 4, 2005
Printed with permission of
Community Newspaper Company
The mere invitation to Songfire is enough to stir the senses: Come lend your
being - body, breath and vibration - to a Songfire, where even the simplest
rhythms, sounds and syllables can, like a bonfire starting from sticks and
kindling, grow into roaring, soaring song.
And here's the best part: No prior singing experience required. Or as the
African proverb goes: "If you can talk, you can sing."
Songfire, at the New England Institute of Sacred Arts in Newbury, is one monthly
offering of chanting in the Newburyport area. Kirtan, offered periodically at
Stillness in Motion Studio for Yoga and Wellness on Prince Street, is another.
Both are aimed to still a speeding world, calm a racing mind and bring a moment
of clarity and wholeness among a group of people who otherwise would remain
forever strangers.
The experience of intense chanting is meant to open up your breathing, melt away
your stresses and shift energies, very much like yoga.
Holy men and women have been using Kirtan for centuries to focus their minds in
order to access the silence of "No thought."
"It's what gets me spiritually connected," says one Newburyport woman who often
travels to Boston, or to Kripalu Center for Yoga in Lenox, to participate in
Kirtan.
The woman, who prefers to remain anonymous, first frequented a yoga studio in
Newburyport when she saw a sign hanging in Fowle's newsstand, and she now has
high hopes that the increasing popularity of Kirtan will give her more
opportunities to stay closer to home.
There's no doubt the yoga craze has firmly taken hold. And some say chanting
could be the next yoga, or yoga with voice.
Or as one Kirtan leader put it: "Singing Kirtan is a shortcut to the higher
states of consciousness, quicker than meditation, easier than Hatha Yoga, and
healthier than drugs."
Newburyport resident Aura Valdes says when she hears drums and chanting, it's
like her feet are rooting into the Earth, grounding her to something more real.
"It's prayer. It's church to me," says the jewelry maker and poet, who also pens
her own chants. "It's something I can take with me everywhere I go."
A moment of peace
A warm and glowing evening of Kirtan held last month at Stillness in Motion
studio was attended by about a dozen and run by two musicians from the
Northampton area in the absence of the usual leader, Shubalananda (a.k.a. Larry
Kopp), who was under the weather.
The musicians were Durga, a brunette with a sincere, pure-sounding voice, and
her drummer John Sprague, part Jim Henson of the Muppets, part '60s throwback
with beard, white turtleneck and brown vest. As the only musical accompaniment,
he masterfully played Eastern flutes, chimes and various drums.
Jenny Lee, owner of the studio, sat drumming on her son's belly, while another
little boy kept time with sticks, bells and shakers. She is passionate about
sharing the meaningful practice of chanting because it helps us go deeper within
ourselves to reawaken the soul and spirit that lives within us all.
The songs start calm and then sometimes rise to an explosive intensity, so real
you expect whirling dervishes to bust into the room or the person next to you to
stand up from a cross-legged position on the floor and start passionately
performing a lusty belly dance. The intensity is meant to transport the chanter
into deep meditation and higher planes of consciousness.
Sitting among chanting children, husbands and wives - both first timers and
veterans - a "harmonious conversion" (as they would say in the '60s) tends to
take place, rendering the world peaceful, if for only a moment.
At her Newburyport holistic education center called HEAVEN, Amy Bacheller also
offers a Sound Healing workshop, where chanting and toning are meant to remove
energy blocks, balance and integrate the body on all levels.
"Our bodies are always looking for balance," says Bacheller. "It [chanting] also
energizes and strengthens systems of the body. It works down to the cellular
level."
The meditative practice has been embraced here, she says, because "Newburyport
is like a little vortex," open to holistic healing modalities.
Things usually more accepted on the West Coast are now coming to New England and
Newburyport is the entry point, Bacheller says. Though it may not take off like
yoga as a practice on its own, it is certainly incorporated more regularly into
other practices, she says.
Over to the unknown
At Songfire, chants are sung from many different traditions, while Kirtan is
part of the path of devotional yoga. The singing of Kirtan goes back thousands
of years in India. The ancient chants are sung in Hindu, done in
call-and-response style, and sometimes words sound familiar: Shiva, Krishna,
Ganesh.
But sometimes they seem to be sort of a string of silly-sounding words: Hara
Shiva Shankara Sheshanka Shekara Hara Bum Hara Bum Bum Bum Bolo Bhava Bhayankara
Girija Shankara Dimi Dimi Dimi Taka Natana Khelo.
But the translation is beautiful: Shiva, destroyer of evil, bestower of good; he
holds the crescent moon on his forehead; He who is Lord of Parvati. He who
destroys our bondage to worldly existence; hear his anklets and his drum as he
dances the dance that is the play of the universe.
These syllables were developed 5,000 years ago by "God-conscious beings," says
Shubalananda, to vibrate in our bodies and actually physically awaken the
spiritual energy residing in our spine.
By the third or fourth round, clearing the mind by the constant repetitive words
is healing alone. Then it becomes intoxicating, frenzied and powerful. The room
seems to get a little warmer and there is a sense of vibrating energy so strong
you wonder if it will shake the windows overlooking downtown Newburyport from
their frames.
But often the real magic happens in the silences in between, in those moments
when the downy hair on your arms is standing on end.
Following the 90-minute chant, participants express the intended feeling of
rejuvenation, the satiated calm after a hard workout.
"It centers you," says Lenny Willis, a yoga instructor from Hampton, N.H. "You
just feel good when you leave. It doesn't matter what faith you are. This
happens to be Hindu. But it doesn't matter."
"All paths lead to God," agrees Ross Varney, minister of Newburyport's
Belleville Church, who points out that chanting is a part of the Christian faith
too. "Music is the universal language. There is still a spiritual feeling
without understanding the words."
Varney, who has been studying yoga off and on for years, says he does make an
effort to know roughly what the text is about, so he won't "totally give over to
the unknown."
The presence of the divine
Durga says Kirtan has exploded since the late '90s. The blossoming practice
is documented in her teacher's online newsletter, reporting the mounting
interest all over the Northeast.
She has studied with Shubalananda for the past six years, and the two now find
themselves traveling to bring the practice of "singing to the Divine Mother" to
more and more communities across New England, Durga says.
Shubalananda, with his harmonium, has also appeared with Krishna Das (whose
vocals have backed up mega-yogi Sting), the chanting leader credited with
bringing the practice into the mainstream in Western culture.
"It brings peace to the mind and uplifts the heart," says Durga, offering an
explanation for its recent popularity. "It builds connection and community."
The Yogic Path, Durga says, can be explained as how to follow the path of the
heart toward the highest in every moment.
"We chant to honor the presence of the divine in all," he says.
Meanwhile, Michael O'Leary, leader of Songfire, explains his intentions like
this: "We explore the power of chant to hold us and heal us, breathe us and
blend us, inspire us and ignite us. We don't sing the chant so much as the chant
sings us, layering and arranging itself through our many tones and voices."
O'Leary is a full time spirit singer, chant creator/leader and shamanic
practitioner with a special interest in song-doctoring, the use of received-song
for healing.
The 50-year-old Gloucester resident inspires non-singers to participate simply
by sharing his biography. The South Dakota native didn't begin to sing until
well into his 30s.
He now weaves his passionate hobbies with earning a living as a spirit singer
and voice coach. He and his bodhran (Irish drum) are frequenters of Celtic
sessions throughout area pubs, and O'Leary is a member of the local group, The
Beggar Boys, and of another Celtic group that will spend St. Patrick's Day
sending off and welcoming those going through Logan Airport's Aer Lingus
terminal.
Great mystery
On a moonlit Friday night in Newbury's First Parish Church, O'Leary's small
gathering of chanters launches words of peace up through the brightly lit
steeple, out across the burial ground across the road and into nearby salt
marshes.
Participants come from as far away as Rockport and Lynn. A local woman who sang
in her church choir says the chanting experience has been simple and calming, so
she keeps coming back.
"I thought I would be nervous," says Julie McCullough. "But it's a secure
environment where you feel like you can sing whatever comes to mind."
A professional astrologer who has been singing with O'Leary for four years has
brought a woman with special needs, who insists at the end of every session that
the group sing "Let There Be Peace."
Arranged in a circle at the front of the 135-year-old church, O'Leary keeps time
on a big frame elk hide drum, providing the heartbeat. The group, all of them
women on this evening, follows his lead toward simple repetitive lines -
deviating, improvising or harmonizing as they feel necessary.
The idea, says O'Leary, is to teach the words and then let it go. Often, it
winds up sounding professionally arranged, says O'Leary, who studied with Robert
Gass, the chanting leader who wrote the 1999 book called "Chanting: Discovering
Spirit and Sound."
O'Leary also teaches a class called Soulsong, which includes more singing and
toning, in his Eastern Avenue studio in Gloucester. His voice is resonate and
pure. It's simple in a way and perfect for Celtic ballads and chants that praise
nature.
At one point, the group improvises a chant, each offering a line. "A boat on the
shore. Has come from afar. To bring peace. I look down. I look up. At the stars.
A boat on the shore."
The made-on-the-spot chant surprises the assembled by invoking powerful imagery
of a boat on the shore beneath a starry constellation of another boat.
Another one written by O'Leary centers on female energy in nature: "Moon is the
mother of the night. Sun's sister shining bright."
Valdes, who was born in Colombia, says she frequents drum circles and has
participated in Native American chants and other similar gatherings, but this is
the first time she has seen something as focused as Songfire. She hopes it will
catch on, gain more chanters and continue.
Her voice is angelic, and though she arrives late because she has had to walk to
the church on a cold night, the evening is obviously one she has anticipated.
When she sings, the 28-year-old closes her glitter-dusted eyes and tilts her
head to the side. Her hair is covered with a scarf and a small ring adorns her
nose above clear almond cheeks.
She offers a chant to share with the group that came to her in a dream.
"Oh Wolf, you visited in dream last night. Your eyes are mystery I cannot make
clear. My heart is open. Your spirit so bright. Your call a blessing from great
mystery."
"It's all about the sound and the energy," says Valdes. "It doesn't matter what
the language is. It's all going the same place."
Interested?
Shubalananda will be back to lead Kirtan at Jennie Lee's Stillness in Motion
Studio Friday, March 25, from 6-8 p.m., at 10 Prince St. in Newburyport. For
information, call 978-463-0804 or visit www.stillnessinmotion.info.
Songfire meets monthly, Fridays, March 18, April 15, May 20 and June 17, 7:30-9
p.m. at NEISA (New England Institute of Sacred Arts) at First Parish Church,
Route 1A, Newbury. Admission is $10 at the door. For information, call
978-270-8405 or visit www.neinstituteofsacredarts.org.
HEAVEN's Sound Healing is the second Friday of each month at its Newburyport
studio. The next will be March 11, from 7-9 p.m. Admission is $25. For
information, call 978-462-5454.
