'chanting is weird but it works'

a story about Newtown, Jivamukti and the raw food days

It’s Monday afternoon.

I’m home alone. The boys have been away for almost a week now. It’s the first time I’ve stayed here by myself.

I feel strange rattling around in this (relatively) huge house after years of solo living in tiny apartments. The space feels intoxicating. I wander aimlessly through the rooms and lie on the deck for what feels like hours staring up at the ever changing sky. Layers of clouds pass each other in a dream.

I’ve just completed the sixth weekend of teacher training. On teacher training days I get to the studio at 5am. Yesterday I didn’t leave until 9:30pm. I spent 16 hours teaching, singing, listening, learning and celebrating inside the studio, my soul home, the place I always feel most myself, the space that miraculously landed in my lap 6 years ago.

I’m usually in bed by 8pm but last night Rachel and I hosted an evening of chanting, storytelling and meditation inspired by the Indian festival of Navaratri.   If you’ve never been to a ‘Kirtan’ (devotional chanting usually with harmonium) you would be forgiven for thinking WTF. I get it.

The first time I was introduced to chanting was at Jivamukti in Newtown circa 2014. As yoga exploded onto the Sydney ‘scene’ Jivamukti was a breath of grungy, gritty air in a sea of beige. I’d just turn 30. I was fresh out of my first yoga teacher training. I was the typical bright eyed, bushy tailed, OBSESSED new yoga teacher determined to learn everything I possibly could about a practice and philosophy I’m only now 10 years later only just starting to scratch the surface of.

I spent any spare money I had on yoga teacher trainings, weekend immersions, sequencing courses, philosophy courses, handstand workshops, Ayurvedic workshops, Chinese Medicine 5 element themed workshops, literally anything I could get my hands on. I probably retained about 5% but it didn’t matter. I was having the time of my life. I was finally passionate about something. The dull, listless feeling that threatened to swallow me was easing. She only came out now very occasionally, usually on a Sunday mid-morning as I lay hungover in a bed that wasn’t mine praying I’d made different choices, better choices, any other choice than this.

In the early days, yoga kept the wolves at bay.

I had a Jyotish astrology reading recently and the first thing he said was ‘you’re here to work really hard. You always need to be growing something. If that energy isn’t channelled into something meaningful for you, you’ll self-destruct’. That was exactly how I felt ‘pre-yoga’. I knew I had skills. I knew I could be of benefit to the world. But I had absolutely no idea how to do that so I turned the energy to partying and increasingly wilder and wilder experiences that ultimately led me further and further away from what I actually wanted. To feel at peace.

In the story of Navaratri, one of the asura’s (in this context, Asura represents our egoic tendencies) has a special power. Every time a drop of his blood is spilled, it multiplies as its hits the earth. This Asura (Raktabija) represents self-serving desire. Every time I would fulfil a desire, bang it would multiply. In the story, the Warrior Goddess Kali is born from Durga’s third eye to lick up all the drops of blood before they can multiply. Thanks to Kali and her ability to cut through selfishness, the battle is won. The forces of light prevail.

Maybe this is why I love the story so much.

Anyway. There I was, baby faced and riddled with self-doubt, metaphorically clutching my 200 hour YTT certificate like a lifeline. I was on a mission to practice at every yoga studio in Sydney in the hope of getting teaching jobs. Everyone told me, thats how you get a job, you practice at the studio until they start to recognise your face. In Sydney at that time yoga studios were popping up quicker than the fireweeds in my garden so I had my work cut out.

My first stop were the popular studios, Body Mind Life and In Yoga in Surry Hills. I walked in and almost walked straight back out. Everything was scarily clean, white and sparse. It was the complete opposite of the grungy, brightly coloured Kali adorned studio I was used to. The students matched the decor. Beautiful, elegant, well-styled, perfect. I felt instantly self conscious. I looked down at my bitten nails and my cracked feet and my cotton yoga tights in garish colours that were falling apart at the scenes. I saw their Lululemon and scraped back ponytails. Even though everyone was friendly and welcoming, I felt like a fraud. I felt like I was dirtying up their floor with my unwashed feet.

me on King St Newtown 2014

One day I was eating raw food (a brief fad diet of mine) at Sadhana in Newtown when a friend mentioned Jivamukti. You HAVE to go there she drawled. And then leaned in to whisper ‘it’s real yoga’.  So, that same day I traipsed down King St and walked around the corner next to a brewery to a tiny little door with Sanskrit writing. Everything was multicoloured. There was no white to be seen. Your class is upstairs the girl at the desk said. I went into a little room with no air con and a grey concrete floor. At the front of the room were two very unfamiliar objects.

• An altar

• And a harmonium

I borrowed a mat and took my seat. The teacher was male and covered in tattoos. I looked around. The room started to fill up. The teacher started walking around handing everyone a wirebound book. WTF I thought to myself. I flicked through. I saw the word God about a hundred times. I wanted to leave but my curiosity made me stay. The teacher sat down in front of the strange wooden box and started to play it. The drone of the harmonium filled the little space and filled the space of my heart. It was haunting and strange and reminded me of somewhere I’d visited in a dream.

Page 78 he said. WTF WTF my brain said.

On the page were some strange words in Sanskrit with an English translation. The words were something like ‘we bow to the ever almighty three eyed goddess Om Tryambakam’

Repeat after me, he said.

I sat there with my mouth rebelliously closed. I will not pray I thought. What is this.

After the strange chanting stopped the asana practice began. Downward facing dog, he said. Inhale exhale one. Inhaaaale. Exhale 2. Inhaaaale exhale 3.

I looked around again. This was not what I was used to. Where was the beautiful language or soft invitations? Why was he speaking so strangely? Is this going to go on all class? After a while I gave up resisting and sank into the practice.

At the end of class I lay on the floor in a pool of my own sweat with the biggest grin on my face. Whatever this weird shit was, I wanted more.

As soon as I wiped down my mat I ran back to the front desk. An intro pass please! I beamed! I’ll be here every day. The girl looked at me like she’d seen it all before. Great, she said, with about 1% of my own enthusiasm. See you later!! I said and bounced out.

Over the next four years I practiced at Jivamukti almost every day, often twice a day. The studio moved from the grungy corner studio to a huge loft style space on the other end of King St. The walls were whiter but the harmonium and the altar always stayed.

At the start of every class the teacher would pass around the chant books and sing. They would then give a ‘dharma talk’, sort of like a spiritual motivational speech. The chanting and the talk quickly turned into my favourite part. I started singing. Louder and louder, until I could actually hear myself. My favourite chant was always ‘om sarve mangala mangalye’. Little did I know I’d learn another version years later and sing it to my students at my studio.

So, all this to say, if you hear chanting and think, no, I would encourage you to not knock it til you try it. When we sing together, something amazing happens.

So when my beautiful friend Rach floated into the studio last night I was eating chocolate and lying on the floor waving my legs around.

‘How do you feel?’ She laughed.

‘I’ve been here since 5am! I cried. But I feel amazing!!’

As we scattered rose petals on the ‘Prasad’ (blessed food) and played with some fancy lighting that we soon ditched because we couldn’t turn it off ‘disco’ setting, my energy started to grow. When we sat down to open the circle I felt hot, even though the night was relatively cool. I felt lit by the God within, EN-THEOS, enthusiasm pouring out of me.

We started to sing. At first the crowd sung quietly but slowly and surely the voices grew. The songs (mantras) we sing are repetitive and simple. Jai Ma, Shri Ma, a couple of words, repeated over and over again. Soon we were harmonising and the whole studio was transformed into a choir of angels.

After we closed the circle Rachel turned to me. ‘You are Durga incarnate! You’re shining!’ It was 930pm and I felt more energised than ever. If there was a club to go to I’d go out dancing now I told her. What a good thing Batemans Bay closes down at 8pm. As I arrived home to the house and the cats I felt a huge surge of love for everyone and everything.

I once heard a friend of mine talk about the love she has for her children.

‘After I had my first child I thought I’d never be able to love anyone or anything as much. I wanted to have another child, and I was almost worried that I wouldn’t have enough love. Then after my second child, the love simply expanded. I didn’t have any less love for my first child. The feeling just kept going and my capacity kept growing. It’s happened each time!’ She now has five children.

Sometimes I think that fear of being overwhelmed keeps us stuck, BUT when we’re doing what we truly love, our capacity grows. My love for the studio grows and grows. As my love grows, my capacity grows. There is a seemingly boundless, endless energy that pours from me when I’m truly connected to that love.

It’s not always easy, and I often forget, but I hope this inspires you to not let fear of doing too much stop you from doing what you’re here to do.

With love, and devotion.

Clare

Ways to work with me

• Weekend Retreat, A Spring Dream, Murrah, Far South Coast NSW  15-17 November

• Empower Mentor Retreat for Yoga Teachers, Bowral, NSW 7 - 9 March

• Dreaming Land & Sky, Yoga & Hiking in Kakadu National Park 1 - 8 June

• Daily classes and millions of workshops and events at my studio Soul Tribe in Batemans Bay, NSW