Ganesha Sharanam

Do you like to sing? Would you like to try Indian-style call-and-response devotional singing, or kirtan? Alicia Patrice and the Sacramento band Radiant Friend would be the ones to search out.

Alicia and another of the band gave us, the yoga teacher trainees, a taste of kirtan recently.  In no time we were immersed in singing, accompanied by harmonium and doumbek.

The chant rang out: "Ganesha Sharanam." We were singing the name of Ganesha -- for which we have no American cultural referent. Alicia read us a charming version of the mythological story of Ganesha, son of Parvati; how he acquired his elephant head; his place in the Hindu pantheon as the remover of obstacles.

So, we'd gotten a bit of orientation as to the meaning of the Sanskrit words. But for us, the meaning really lay in the energy of singing and the subtle, joyful effects it brought.

My first yoga teacher was a great kirtan singer, and obviously considered it to be a part of the curriculum. I had loved to sing in church choirs, being a little Methodist girl and all. More than the Methodist theology, I loved the energy of the hymns. Kirtan multiplied that energy wonderfully. I just felt such pure joy.

Gradually I learned some meanings to the phrases that we sang. Enough to remember that Ganesha Sharanam means "Ganesha, refuge."

Gradually I evolved a cross-cultural approach to kirtan. Certainly in life we all, at some times at least, understand the need for a refuge. Sometimes we literally, desperately need a specific refuge . . . Whether I sang in Sanskrit during a kirtan, or sang in English during a hymn sing, I came to understand that for me, the energy of the singing connects me to my deepest experiences of refuge, of Presence, of The One.

So, with enthusiasm, let the singing ring out, let the kirtan go on. Jai!

Who are your people?

"Who are your people?" was the question put to our trainee class to encourage us to consider who we would like to be teaching / sharing with.

"When you finish your yoga class are you going to open a studio?" asked a friend the other day.

Citing twin lacks, those of experience and of ambition, I told her that my interest is really to share with friends. I've had at least some connection with some aspect of yoga since 1972, so I've experienced for meself that yoga can be mighty positive. What I'm learning in this course gives me confidence that I do have something to share with others.

So, who are my people and who are those friends? Thinking of two groups . . .

For one, I spend a lot of time with my music buddies. We sit and practice both solo and together, we sit in cars driving to rehearsals and gigs, we sometimes lift heavy stuff setting up and taking down at those gigs, and then we sit more driving home. We use lots of repetitive motion playing our instruments. All that adds up to many things that yoga can help with: antidotes to the excessive sitting, to that repetitive motion, and to some under-stress breathing for starters.

I also spend a lot of time with another set of friends -- people that I used to call my students. They were my  students in late 2013 when I first met them as I began tutoring English as a Second Language in the Sacramento Library Literacy Program. And for sure they were beginners with English; all of them had arrived in California earlier that year.

A historical digression. When I first taught ESL, in the 1970s, most of my students were Hispanic, the majority from Mexico. When I next taught, in the 1980s, I specialized in ESL Literacy, because most of the students -- Hmong folks from Laos -- did not read or write in their first language.  Returning to now, my current group of learners (I didn't teach ESL for a couple of decades) arrived from Iraq with official refugee status. 

I used to call them my students; now I call them friends, and it's me that is the student. I'm learning what constitutes the mid East refugee experience. It's a potent mix of relief -- for having made it through the many barriers to settling in a new country -- and super stress -- in the tasks of raising children and finding livelihoods as strangers in a strange land. Adding to the stress are the residual effects of past traumas that began when houses shook as the bombing of Baghdad began on March 19, 2013. Plus the fact that "back home" is a simple cell phone call away -- with all the news of the continuing disintegration of Iraq and the attendant worry about safety of family.

I've starting sharing some yoga with my Iraqi friends,  and although I will probably never be qualified to list all the specific stressors that they are carrying,  I do know that yoga is a powerful stress lessener.

And, bottom line, hanging out with any friends, over a new tune, or over a cup of tea and an ESL textbook, or on a yoga mat -- is just plain fun.