Day 19 - Om

Chanting Om can be uncomfortable the first time.

A friend from church relayed how much she enjoyed yoga until they started "humming" and then she was weirded-out and never went back.

A college pal from Texas says:

"If they start humming or doing any shit like that.....any vocalization of any kind......I just get to giggling. Maybe I need somebody to EXPLAIN all this to me.

 Today’s Blog Posting promises to make all things Om clear!

Om, for musicians, is a love-it or hate-it proposition. The aforementioned giggling and weirded-out friends are musicians. Heightened sound sensitivity is not always useful.

I, however, love Om.

Scroll back to the summer of 1986. The first time I experienced Om, the yoga class was held in a Sunday School room at St. Mark’s Church. We practiced Hot Yoga in the make-shift studio. Pre-yoga paraphernalia marketing, nobody had mats. We just practiced on the carpeted floor. I wore a t-shirt and khaki shorts. We didn’t know we needed straps, blocks, bolsters, blankets and special music. We had little idea where we were headed, but we were enthusiastic.

Six searching students handed over their trust to the yoga teacher. Per her instruction, we sat up straight. We counted our breaths. We felt the sweat drip down our temples. And then it happened.

As I sat in silence, I heard wind pass over the vocal folds of a corpse. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

Our teacher chanted Om.

It was the Real McCoy. No fako wanna-be Om. This woman had swallowed the universe. She had swallowed God whole.

Or maybe it was just a cool parlor trick. Either way, I was in and set out to learn chanting.

Wikipedia wasn’t around then. If it had been, I would have known that Om means "Yes" or "Will be" or "To become". That Om has different pronunciations and can be written in different kinds of script. I would have known that it’s interpreted differently in various kinds of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikkism. I would have known that the Mandukya Upanishd is entirely devoted to the explanation of the syllable, Om.

But I still wouldn’t have known anything.

A pet peeve is teachers who have the class chant Om while recorded music is playing, which begs the question, should we chant on the tonic or the dominant? What if the background music modulates part way through the Om? What about the relationship of sound to silence. They’re creating noise upon noise. Eating a snack when they’re already full.

A certain teacher, Erin, didn’t explain Om, but she said that it could be translated according to one’s inclination - Allah, Alleluia, Amen or Mom. (Actually I just made that last one up, but it’s nice, don’t you think?)

Erin used to have the class chant a continuous Om for one minute. Students breathed when needed and filled the room with resounding vibration. I’d like to try that for five minutes.

Or longer.

How about Sunday night I’ll invite 40 close friends for an evening of Olives and Om. Starting at 7:00 pm we’ll whet our whistles, clear our throats and begin to chant Om. We’ll sing the sacred sound into the plaster and the woodwork. We’ll only stop sporadically as we get thirsty, and then continue on when we're fortified.  Pedestrians passing the house will say "What the f#!*!?" Especially the ones walking through the neighborhood with real estate agents.

House-hunting couples enjoying Washington, DC cherry blossoms will wake up and hear the music. "Honey" he will say. "Did you hear that?  The robins are chirping, the wind is rustling through the redbuds, and the neighbors chant Om when the sun sets.  Wouldn't you like to move to Veazey Street?""