A Post about Miters and Sutras

It's best to chant in Sanskrit, for the first time, when you have the house all to yourself.

Husband at a meeting. Children in far-flung cities. Dog on the couch, keeping me company. Call and response, courtesy of my Ipod, into which I'd downloaded a sonorous, rhythmic, melodic version of the Sutras by T.K.S. Desikachar. A little bit Benedictine monk-like, a little bit hymns in temple on a Friday night. Listen to the chant. Pause the Ipod, and try to repeat it. In class in January, the teacher advised us that tone-deafness can be a stumbling block for a student who we are teaching to chant. "But what," I asked in complete seriousness, "should you do if you're tone-deaf?"

I've realized this week that desire to learn this stuff isn't going to get me there. It's all about the time you put in. Thus, I'm trying to give myself little homework assignments on my days off. Today, I finished reading through The Heart of Yoga, a book that I'd fallen across a few years ago in a bookstore. Turns out to be a central text for the program I'm enrolled in. The chanting seemed like a deserved reward. One of my favorite colleagues in the program talked to me about her love for chanting. She admitted that she'd always been shy, uncomfortable in social situations. But chanting has changed that, and from her ease in the midst of a potluck full of strangers and my sense of a calmness within her, I was ready to give it a try. Today, I listened and recited the first ten sutras. Over and over and over. I can't hear myself, but I'm guessing I'm what Randy, on American Idol, calls "a little pitchy." All the same, it was a hoot. And I had a moment where it felt right. It's been years since graduate school, but it was, very briefly, a feeling that my mind is making space for some good new stuff.

Choices, choices. I read, and thus, not much knitting has occurred. But lots of new colors from the yarn shop.Another subtle square.

Here, the evening sky on my way home from work yesterday.

And the second square finished, and most of the ends darned in on the way to the symphony last night.

Of that, I'll post tomorrow. How can I let twelve shofars, a green-haired bagpiper, and Yo Yo Ma go to waste?